Menu Plan for the End of February/Beginning of March

Nature can't seem to decide if it's winter or spring.
The native plum is in bloom, but I woke up to snow.
Later in the day we had hail, graupel, then large heavy snowflakes.

Last week's menu went close to plan. We did swap out a couple of side dishes for items that we needed to use soon. But the mains were all as planned. So, in reality, successful menu planning requires some flexibility in its execution.

Here's our menu plan for this coming week.

Monday (one daughter)

Green vegetable frittata, using frozen garden greens and onions in the egg dish

Brown rice

Apple wedges

Tuesday

Beef braised in a tomato sauce (I have some leftover pizza sauce to use up) 

Mashed potatoes (the instant variety -- not my favorite, but it is what we have)

Carrots added to the beef braising sauce

Creamed frozen garden greens

The cut of beef is called a heel roast. I’d never heard of this cut before, so I googled how best to prepare it. Braising it is!

Wednesday (other daughter)

Cabbage patch soup

Toasted cheese sandwiches

Apple, garden-fresh kale and cranberry salad

Thursday

Taco bowls using leftover beef from Tuesday, green pepper, tomatoes, avocado, garden watercress, cucumber slices, cheese, and tortilla chips

Mixed fruit crisp (using frozen apple chunks, frozen blackberries, and frozen rhubarb dices)

Friday

Pepperoni, green pepper, mushroom, and olive pizza

Steamed garden-fresh Brussel sprout greens with onions

Carrot-raisin salad

Weekend dinners:

One night of mostly leftovers from the fridge. The other night will likely be a meatless meal, using dried beans (black-eyed peas).

Lunches:

We're experiencing a brief return to winter this week. After a couple of weeks of slightly warmer days, we've now had snow and hail in the last 24 hours. I'm thinking hot soup and egg salad, toasted cheese or peanut butter sandwiches plus apples and a batch of slaw will be welcomed by all for lunches. I'm baking 3 loaves of whole wheat bread today and will make some cookies tomorrow to add to our lunches.

Breakfasts:

I made a large batch of raisin bran muffins over the weekend that we're still working on. In addition, breakfasts will consist of eggs, toasted homemade bread with homemade jams (gotta use those up before spring and summer inspire me to make lots more), juice, homemade granola, and a breakfast casserole. Kris's mention of lots of leftover breakfast casserole from an event at church made me hungry for some myself. I have some cooked sausage in the freezer that I can use in a strata-type casserole, adding some chopped green pepper, onion, eggs, cheese to cubed bread and diced cooked sausage.

We're at an interesting place in the season. On the one hand, I'm trying to use up the frozen garden produce from last season. While at the same time our warmer early February has brought the spring return of some of our hardier garden greens. 

What's on your menu for this next week?