Weekend meal planning

So, here it is, another Sunday night...that means tomorrow morning it's "rise and shine" and right back at it.  It was a great weekend!  The sun was shining (relatively unusual for an April weekend in the beautiful Pac NW), the temperatures were mild and most everyone seemed pretty happy about it!

In our household weekends mean soccer games, boot camp, errands galore, running one kid or the other hither and yon...and it also means meal planning.  We are all so busy in the evenings during the week that we need to have a dinnertime plan of attack or everything would collapse into fast food chaos.  Meal planning is an additional challenge in our house due to the fact that Miss B is a mostly-vegetarian (plus fish/seafood) and I eat a primal/paleo diet (no grains, legumes, sugars, processed foods...high protein/healthy fats, low carbs).  Dan mostly eats whatever I'm eating but he'll throw in some carbs (bread, pasta, rice etc.) here and there when we've made them for the kids.

The planning usually begins in one of two ways: either I cruise the interwebs looking for recipes that jump out at me or I hit the store and see what's on sale at the meat counter and produce department and build my menu from there.  This week was a combined approach.  I looked over the New Season's weekly ad flyer on line and then searched the net for recipes that featured those items.  I also knew that I wanted to include a slow cooker meal for one night this week AND that a trip to the farmer's market and Asian market were planned so I could leave the plan a little loose and fill in.

Here's what we are looking at for this week:
Sunday - Dan's fabulous homemade pizza/  "Meatza" for me and a big pot of kale/cabbage/broccoli/romanesque greens from our garden.
Monday - Coconut-lemongrass chicken legs (coconut-lemongrass tofu for Miss B) and long beans with garlic and oyster sauce.
Tuesday - New Season's bratwurst (Quorn patty) and braised cabbage with celery root puree.
Wednesday - Hula+soccer practice = dinner free-for-all
Thursday -  Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic and asparagus (haven't figured out Miss B's entree yet...maybe ravioli??).
Friday - Squid lu'au

So, as listed above, meatza was on the menu for tonight.  I haven't eaten pizza since I went paleo in January.  I don't really miss it too much but Dan makes such wonderful homemade crust and the kids really enjoy it, I wanted to find a way to share in the fun and not deprive the rest of the non-paleo household.

Meatza is not my own invention but as with everything else I tend to cook, I try to make it my own.  This was easy as it's relatively free-form.

I started by taking a pound of natural 90/10 ground beef and kneading an egg into it.  Then I seasoned the meat with plenty of minced garlic, salt, oregano, basil and a little thyme.  I kneaded the meat again until the spices were thoroughly incorporated.

Then I pressed about half of the meat mixture into a thin layer in a foil lined pie plate and baked it in a 425 degree oven for about 10 minutes.  (It's just me eating it, didn't feel like I needed a WHOLE pound of meat.  The remainder is destined for meatballs or maybe burgers ...)

Once the meat "crust" is cooked, it pulls away from the sides of the pie plate.  I poured off the excess oil that surrounded the crust and blotted the top with a paper towel.  Then it was time to add the toppings.  We're kinda pizza sauce purists in our house.  Dan always just uses straight tomato paste on his pizzas then sprinkles on herbs and olive oil.  Since I had the herbs incorporated into my crust, I just spread on the tomato paste and piled on the toppings.

Tonight's toppings were mushrooms and green olives with provolone cheese.  I don't eat cheese very often but, COME ON! it's pizza...it just needs cheese. A quick trip back into the oven under the broiler and there you have it...

I always try to make enough food so that I will have leftovers to take for lunch.  That way I don't get stuck having to find something in a restaurant that complies with my dietary sensibilities.  I ate half of this for dinner with a huge serving of garden fresh greens and I've got the other half packed up for lunch.

Overall, I was pretty satisfied with this culinary adventure.  It's not EXACTLY the same as pizza but it's pretty darn good!