Weekly Menu January 18-22

Italian Stir Fry Ingredients

I am into my third week of full time Culinary School (check out the blog page if you want to experience culinary school vicariously) so the home cooking isn’t really home cooking anymore! It is more like meal planning and assembly. The challenge of cooking healthy meals, like life, is ever changing in circumstances. I can totally understand how people just give up and resort to prepackaged, processed food when life gets crazy. It has been a long time since I worked all day and had to get dinner on the table after getting home at 5:30. I am having to be more efficient with time management and way more diligent with planning meals. This is good for me. It makes me a lot more sympathetic to just how hard it is to cook healthy meals on a tight schedule but I am taking it on full force and bringing it to you. The key is spending a few precious hours of your weekend preparing and planning. The Weekly Menu January 18-22 is my first full week of getting home at 5:30 or 6:00 and getting a healthy meal on the table. I so do not want to cook another meal after spending all day in the kitchen at Culinary School. This week’s menu is full of recipes that you can prep on Sunday over a glass of wine and a little jazz. The recipes require very little cleanup and leave more time in the evenings to decompress and enjoy having that precious downtime. I put a list up on the Fridge with the menu and instructions i.e. “put rice in the rice cooker” or “put trays in oven at 400” so whoever comes home first can get dinner started. In the fridge are bags labeled with all the ingredients needed for the evening’s menu. It worked well the first week! Enjoy!