Are you in a cooking rut? Even though I am constantly creating new recipes for the blog and book, we too seem to eat the same meals over and over again. There are good parts and bad parts to this. On the one hand, it’s great to have a stash of go-to recipes that you know how to cook and your family will enjoy. On the other hand, we all need to mix it up a bit so we don’t get bored. When you get bored with your healthy eating lifestyle is when you tend to veer toward unhealthy choices.

Every couple of weeks, I’m going to give you my family’s weekly meal plan. Most of the recipes will be found on the blog. Some will be coming in the e-book and others are ones I’m working on and will show up in one of those places eventually – once I get them just right. I hope you find this a helpful way out of your cooking doldrums.

This was a not-so-typical week for us in that we had family in town and ate a couple meals together, which I did not prepare. We also had a zoo day and ate out afterward because who can muster up the energy to cook after traipsing through the zoo in 90 degree heat for 6 hours? Not me!

Take a gander at what the Heinze clan ate this week…

Tuesday: Super bowl meatballs served over sautéed squash for me and gluten free pasta for the family. Big side salad.

Wednesday: Zoo day! We went to our favorite sushi place for dinner. Everything here is gluten free except some of the sauces because their soy sauce is not guaranteed to be gluten free. This is my one big splurge. I eat the sushi straight up as they serve it and take a couple Gluten Flam when I get home. I’ve never been sick after this meal. We only go once every couple of months and all four of us thoroughly enjoy it.

Thursday: Spider dogs, roasted sweet potatoes, sautéed squash, onions and mushrooms and grilled asparagus. This dinner was supposed to be completely cooked on the grill, but my grill was not cooperating, so it was half grilled and half in the oven. I had something else planned, but simply did not have time. This is when it really pays off to have some easy protein in the freezer. Yes, hot dogs are not the best, but these are Applegate Grass Fed All Beef Dogs and I can feel good about feeding them to my family every once in a while.

Friday: I have to tell you what happened Friday. I was talking with a colleague about doing some live Facebook shows and before we could get to that, she asked if I would like to be the guest health expert on a radio show out of Honolulu – the next day! Of course, I said yes and the afternoon was spent busily getting all my ducks in a row for that interview. I will link to it here when it airs so you can all listen.

When I sit down and plan my meals for the week, I work around whatever events are happening that week, so I know when I have 30 minutes to cook, when I have two hours and when we just need to go out. I had planed two hours for this meal. Not because it will take that long to cook, but when I’m documenting and photographing each step, it takes way longer. Anyway, because of the interview craziness, I ended up with just one hour to throw this meal together. Thankfully, it turned out really well. Also, I started those green beans earlier in the day. These were “Grandma” green beans, meaning they are cooked for at least four hours.

Saturday: Dinner with the family – grilled burgers, salad, fruit, this pound cake with strawberries and cream cheese frosting I whipped up. The cake is a family tradition and I’m trying to get it paleo. No great success yet. I’ll post the recipe when I finally hit on perfection. It looks pretty though. It did taste good, but was a bit too dense.

Sunday: Mom and dad had us over for dinner. Learning to cook Paleo has been a little bit of a challenge, but they have really risen to it. They do use gluten free flours and mixes, but generally when they cook for us, it’s simple meats, vegetables and fruits and everything is just perfect for us. On this occasion, dad made fried chicken fingers using a gluten free flour blend, roasted vegetables (cauliflower, mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, carrots and sweet potatoes) and a big bowl of mixed fruit. Sorry I didn’t get a picture. I should have. My parents are both great cooks and everything looks as good as it tastes.

Monday: Dinner with the family again tonight. Boy, we really were spoiled this week! Tonight’s dinner was grilled chicken breasts, salad and fruit. Simple and delicious! My mother-in-law made a super flavorful berry pie with gluten free flour and it was a huge treat!

Tuesday: Back to reality and I have to cook. Tonight, I’m trying to recreate one of my Grandma’s recipes: Pizza Popover. It’s a hamburger mix, seasoned like pizza, topped with cheese, then you pour a popover batter over top and as it bakes, that batter rises up like a mountain range. It’s magical and delicious. As I type, this is not yet in the oven, so we’ll see how it turns out. This meal will not be paleo, but primal because of the addition of the cheese. And unlike Grandma’s version, I will most certainly be sneaking some vegetables into the mix.

Post dinner update: so this version didn’t make the “mountains” like Grandma’s did, but it was oh, so delicious! I put the cheese in the recipe, but I would totally leave it out next time. This dish is so flavorful, I don’t think the cheese brought anything to the ballgame. And nobody noticed the heaping cup of kale I snuck in. Shhh…

Snacks: 

I made a batch of beef jerky this week as pool days are upon us. Just because it’s summer and just because you’re rushing out the door to the pool with your big bag full of towels, goggles, water bottles and sunscreen, doesn’t mean you can’t take a little time to PLAN and PREPARE for healthy snacks. Yes, these can be packaged, like nuts and dried fruit, but it’s just as easy to throw in some apples as it is to throw in a bag of chips. And for staying power, beef jerky is an awesome choice. Doesn’t require refrigeration either!

I think I used delicious about 12 times in this post. Time to consult a thesaurus.

Thanks for checking in. I’m headed to the homeschool conference in a couple days so I’ll be busy preparing some food for my husband to serve while I’m away. He’s a good cook, but doesn’t get the chance very often and he isn’t very….shall we say….efficient in the kitchen. If I do some of the work for him, the kids might get dinner before midnight. 😉 Love ya, honey.