Meal Planning: Week of Feb. 10

Today’s lesson: a blizzard makes meal planning for the upcoming week a little tricky.

I didn’t get to make my usual grocery store run, and when we finally emerged today after about 48 hours of being housebound, the stores were not exactly overflowing with tons of fresh produce or even yogurt. Yes, apparently in the Boston area, the newest blizzard staple is yogurt, because the dairy section was completely emptied out on Thursday afternoon when I stopped in to grab a few emergency supplies, and it was even worse this morning.

So with that being said, this week’s meal planning is going to be an exercise in resourcefulness – e.g. coming up with meals based on ingredients we already have, be they fresh, canned or frozen.

A few notes about the menu: I am excited to make tonight’s mac and cheese. I was sent a package of delicious cheeses from Smith’s Country Cheeses, a local cheesemaker based about 40 minutes from us here in Massachusetts. Dr. G. and I are total cheese junkies and my kids are totally obsessed with mac and cheese, so tonight’s dinner will be a slam dunk. I’ll report back on it.

This week’s New Food Monday is an interesting one. It’s one of my favorite Moosewood recipes and it includes a lot of ingredients Buddy likes, but as the name implies, it’s all mixed together. So we’ll see if he rejects it simply for the fact that (gasp!) all the ingredients are touching each other!

And for the lentil salad, I’m honestly playing this one by ear, but I’ve made similar salads before and I know these flavors work really well together. Plus, we have soooo many lentils here and I was able to grab one of the last bags of baby spinach.

The blizzard also impacted my workouts this weekend. Since I’ve basically spent the last 48 hrs sitting on my behind and eating junk food (and believe me, it was worth it), and plan on making chocolate-covered strawberries with Buddy, I am anxious to get back into the exercise groove this week. I also realized I need to start increasing my weekly mileage – and getting back into my #plankaday groove. I’ve been caught a few times this week by the @plankpolice. Oooops!

Sunday: 45 minute elliptical workout in basement

Monday: Body Pump

Tuesday: 4 mile speed intervals

Wednesday: Body Pump

Thursday: Rest (I have a conference in Boston and need to take an early train)

Friday: Boot camp

Saturday: Body Pump