thoroughly enjoyed reading Allison, though I confess I am envious of the grill. My family don't like it ( I LOVE it) Honestly they have alien tastebuds.

anyway I love planning menus and things, I do it once a week because then I don't have to think all week, For me the dilemma of, what shall we have tonight? is too exhausting, so I write it in my journal and then I can see clear what to get out of the freezer for next day/or shop for I'm adaptable with it though

Turkish kebab from the local shop - very fresh and lovely, treat night

sunday roast beef, yorkshire pud etc

cold beef and I shall have baked salmon as I'm not keen on cold beef/ non meat Monday spaghetti with green olive and feta for the DD

chicken leg joints baked with lemon wedges and rosemary

meatballs (GF sausage, lamb mince, leek, mint egg, fried, + passata) and Greek salad/pitta

cobb salad

steak/

well you can see we are carnivores ...... well omnivores I suppose and sometimes we join in with non meat Mondays which has me running to my favourite BBC Good Food pages for inspiration

standard house browns are potato wedges, brown pasta, pitta bread, new potato, sometimes cous cous, rice. I stay with my best browns, gram flatbread, bhaji, beans, lot of roasted vegetables and vegetable noodles and I llike shredded buttered cabbage too

for convenience I do a lot of salads to live in the fridge. theres a small window of summerness going on here.... potato, 3 bean, coleslaw, cold roasted vegetable, and they keep for a few days so that's easy and its so refreshing, also I dice cucumber and peppers

I think that's a great idea on the weekend cooking. We had a tweak about a year ago as dinner in the week had to be an hour later, new routine. I thought that might take some adaptation but by luck we were in a position to adjust breakfast and lunch later too so it worked really well !

when we go abroad I have to be careful if theres a 2 hour time change, but for just an hour, most of Europe, I just don't change my watch and my body stays on GMT

I wish we had access to bison. I saw ostrich in the butchers the other day but was a bit scared to try it !

: *a female Mourning Dove sitting on a
: nest on our fire escape at work
: *watching our dogs play

: We have fallen into a bit of a rut
: with food at my house. Meat cooked
: on the grill, brown rice or sweet
: potato, and vegetable for dinner.
: It's functional food, but not very
: exciting. I've been trying to
: improve meal timing on weekends.
: My husband is the one who grills
: meat, and he and I are not on the
: same page on meal timings, so
: weekend dinners are often later.
: So I've been planning weekend
: dinners that I cook, so the food
: will be ready when I need it, and
: he can eat when he is ready. That
: has led to thinking about more
: creative meals in general.

: Last weekend I made pasta with meat
: sauce, and bison chili. Last night
: I made chicken stir fry. I also
: have a meal in mind using Indian
: seasonings for tonight or tomorrow
: night. Thinking about more
: creative food has started some
: energy flowing. Yesterday I went
: to the grocery store on my lunch
: break and bought lots of veggies.
: I bought a bunch of beets and I am
: looking forward to eating the
: greens as well. I also bought 2
: artichokes that were reduced for
: quick sale. I doubt my husband
: will go for those, but I enjoy
: them. I used to buy them a lot
: when I lived in Massachusetts
: because there was a wonderful
: produce place near where I lived
: that had very reasonably priced
: fruits and veggies. I used to buy
: all sorts of produce.

: Maybe this weekend I will even open
: one of my cookbooks and find
: something new to make. I was
: thinking that I don't have the
: time or energy to do more cooking,
: but I think maybe this is one of
: those situations where making that
: first step of doing something I
: didn't feel that I have time or
: energy for may create the energy.
: We will see.
: Allison