Here is a new favorite.  This is from the French Women don’t get fat Cookbook.  It’s great for breakfast/lunch or a filling snack.  It’s called Magical Breakfast Cream.  If you substitute this for your regular breakfast for 3-5 days, you may lose 3-5 lbs.  It weirded me out slightly the first time I ate it, but now I really like it.  Here is my variation.

1/2 cup plain whole milk yogurt (or Greek)

1 tsp flax oil (I use coconut oil instead since I hate the taste of flax)

1 Tbls toasted, sliced almonds (any nuts will do)

1 tsp honey

2 Tbls finely ground oats

Juice and pulp of 2 clementines (or Meyer lemon juice is nice)

This is Chicken Stew with bacon (officially, Creamy Chicken Stew).  We passed around a nasty flu for the last couple of weeks and I made this since the boys in the house don’t appreciate broth soups.  It was very good.  I think I also added peas and pearl onions to the recipe because I had them in the freezer and I almost doubled most of the ingredients (because I usually do with most recipes).   It was very good.  The leftovers would have made lovely Chicken Hand Pies (with just a little more flour to thicken), but we ate it too quickly.

I am trying to get back on track with planning menus (menus that involve new recipes) again.  I find I am great at creative menu planning  for a little while and then I get lazy for a while.  But I have found that I enjoy cooking so much more when I am trying new recipes instead of just doing the same old things that don’t require recipes ( ie. American dinner stand-bys like hamburgers and spaghetti).

I started a Pinterest board for food (finally!).  **Look at my side bar to see my latest pins on pinterest!!!**  That made me feel inspired to plan the meals this week.  I printed out all recipes I will need for the week and stuck them on the fridge next to my menu.

Here is what we are eating this week.  I planned one meat dinner (chicken on salad), one fish (shrimp) and the rest are vegetarian.  I usually try to plan at least one or two nights a week where we eat eggs for dinner.   This week is omlettes and Huevvos Rancheros.  Sunday is a busy day for me (laundry and cleaning for the week ahead) so my goal is to do crock pot meals that also provide plenty of leftovers.  The Ratatouille I can have for lunch next week and the leftover brown rice I will use for Monday’s curry spiced veggie burgers.

Do you sometimes run out of dinner inspiration?  What are you cooking these days?  I am loving these dinners right now…

1.  Nigella’s deconstructed pesto pasta

2.  Smoked salmon bagels (Trader Joes has a really good smoked Alaskan Sockeye salmon that isn’t terribly expensive) with tomato, red onion, capers and cream cheese.

3.  Flank steak (with my olive oil, soy sauce, honey and garlic marinade).   Although, tonight we are trying a new recipe from the new Everyday Food magazine (I LOVE this magazine!!!!!  I LoVe getting magazines in the mail!) called steak au poivre with roasted potatoes (it has a wine, cream, mustard sauce).

4.  Curried chicken anything (last  night I used a green curry paste by Thai Kitchen to make Nigella’s curry in a hurry.  And did you realize you can buy really good quality/organic chicken thighs for next to nothing?  I bought 3 packs for like $6 total!!!!)

5.  Mussels in white wine and garlic (2 bags ($12 total) feed our family of 5 and everyone loves them, even Mila!) I serve them with French bread with butter and sauteed spinach.

Did you see Nester’s post on planning dinners?  It was inspirational.  The funny thing is that they are all tricks I have tried before but she put them all together.  I will sum up:   She plans dinner for 3 nights M, T and W.  TH they have leftovers (or I will make it egg night if there are no leftovers).  F is pizza night (she also uses the 5 min bread dough for her pizza dough, it is by far the best pizza crust we have made at home).  Sat is soup night (I can do it in the am in the crockpot so it feels like I won’t have to cook on Sat (and then she has lunch for herself for most of the week).  Sun they call cheese night (have you tried grilled cheese with bacon, tomatoes, onion and basil?  It may be the best panini I have ever made).  And she tries to do one big salad on the weekend so she can eat it for lunch for a couple days.  I think I love this because I LOVE to cook but I often am overwhelmed planning 7 meals for the week.  This method takes a lot of the pressure off.  I can be really creative 3 nights a week and the rest are easy, standy-by type recipes.  It takes the pressure out of grocery day too, because throwing together pizza, soup, salad or grilled cheese doesn’t require specific ingredients, you just use what you have (mostly).  By the end of the week I frequently run out a few ingredients (like the boys eat something I needed for dinner meals) and I end up feeling frustrated.  This is my fist week using Nester’s menu method and I love it.  Don’t you love it?  It simplifies things so much.  That Nester is a smart lady.  “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful” is her motto.  I like her.