This has been an exciting week, Asher turned 2!!! I cannot believe that I have been a mom for 2 years, it is pretty wild. On Asher’s birthday morning Kyle came into the bedroom and said, “Happy ‘you birthday a nine pound baby’ day!”. You know what it was Asher’s day, but yeah happy “birth” day to me too😂. As a parent I think birthday’s are about more than celebrating getting older. It’s about celebrating everything it took to bring the child into the world, celebrating keeping them alive another year, and celebrating all the highs and lows in between. So happy birthday Asher, can’t wait to see what this next year brings.
A quick recap on how this meal plan works. There will be 1 meal prepped lunch for grown ups, 3 dinners with leftovers every other night. One of the dinners will be vegetarian/ vegan. This is a tiny step we are taking to try and lower our impact on the planet.
What’s on the menu…..
- Moroccan Couscous Salad (lunch)
- Sheet Pan Mediterranean Herb Chicken
- Vegetarian Bibimbap
- Grilled Pizza
Shopping list…..
Bellow you will find a complete shopping list for everything on the menu. I have separated everything by recipe, so there are a few duplicates of pantry staples.
Moroccan Couscous Salad
10 Lunches https://www.glowingblush.com/moroccan-couscous-salad-with-chickpeas/
The recipe for this salad says it only makes 2 servings so I, 4X the recipe which ended up easily making 10 lunches. You’ll notice I left off a few things including the lentils. I mostly just didn’t want to cook them. The salad was plenty filling without them. I chose to mix the dressing in with the couscous so that the spinach didn’t get soggy. If you like your salads to be a bit more saucy I’d up the dressing recipe a bit. Neither Kyle or I are big fans of raisins so I swapped them for dried blueberries, which was delicious. They made for a nice sweet bite. You could substitute them for any dried fruit, apricots, craisins, mango, whatever you might like.
Sheet Pan Mediterranean Herb Chicken
4 adult dinners, 2 toddler dinners https://www.all-thats-jas.com/sheet-pan-chicken-and-potatoes/
This meal might not look like much, but it packs a refreshing lemony punch! It recommends quartering the potatoes, but I would definitely cut them smaller. If you don’t, you run the risk of the chicken over cooking while the potatoes undercook. I also made the “tzatziki” sauce they recommended somewhere in the post. It was just ok. I would make a more traditional tzatziki in the future.
Vegetarian Bibimbap
3 adult dinners, 2 toddler dinners https://iheartumami.com/vegetarian-bibimbap-recipe/
Calling this a bibimbap is a bit of a stretch, but it was good. When I think of bibimbap, I think of the really crispy rice at the bottom of the bowl, which you don’t get with this. This is more of a giant veggie bowl. That being said it was good. They want you to cool the veggies after you cook them, which I didn’t do because it sounded better to be all hot. I definitely recommend adding an egg to make it more sustainable. The date based sauce is sweet and a little savory. I served it on the side for Asher to let him try it and decide if he wanted to add it or not. I find giving him the choice makes meal times a bit more fun. He loves to dip and it gives him a little “control” over his dinner.
Grilled Pizza
Make as many as you want! https://turtlelion.com/2021/04/30/grilled-pizza/
I asked Asher what he wanted for his birthday dinner and he said, “PIZZA!” So we made these super easy grilled pizza’s. They are fully customizable and fun for the whole family to get involved in. For leftovers I find it is tastiest to cut up all the toppings the first night and store them. Since they take 15 minutes or less to cook, I grill fresh pizza’s each night. They do make fine leftovers if you want to do them all one night though, I just prefer to do it this way.
I hope you find something to celebrate over with this weeks meal plan. If you try it out I’d love to hear from you. Please like, share, and enjoy!
Turtlelion 