What IS on the Menu?

Having been somewhat more silent in the past week, I've had time to think about quite a few things, such as

• Changing the way we eat
• Changing up the daily lunches my beloved so faithfully consumes
• Changing how I do things with this here corner of the Internets
• Changing me.  

Change. A lot of it.  

Some things will take quite a while to accomplish, like improving on this blog or changing me. Other things, like changing the lunch menu and changing how we eat.....those things start changing today.  

I love Fall. Yes FALL, rather than "Autumn" which just sounds way too politically and socially correct for the likes of me. Fall, to me, means MAKING stuff....Spring means DOING stuff, but Fall means, there's nothing else to DO (like, outdoors), so now it's time to MAKE.  Winter gets here, it's time for dreaming and PLANNING all those things we'll do when Spring makes its appearance again in 2014. 

One thing I need and want to start focusing on is making meal plans.  Not a very arduous task when it involves only two people but still, planning is required.  Planning not only saves you money, it also saves a tremendous amount of time and stress over what to eat.  Planning helps you know exactly what you need to buy for the week, right down to how many and which color bananas (gently) throw in the cart.  

For well over a year, this has been my beloved's lunch: 

• 1 Coke
• 2 Waters (1 frozen, 1 cold)
• 1 bowl of oatmeal with raisins and cinnamon
• 3 Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches (with natural peanut butter and typically, Polaner All Fruit jellies)
• 1 banana
• 1 salad with a few grape tomatoes, maybe some cukes, croutons and his fave 1000 Island dressing
• 3-4 cookies
• Chips (Popcorners, Stacy's Pita Chips, plain Cantina-style tortilla chips) 
• 2 deli turkey or chicken sandwiches with a bit of mayo on buns.
• Occasional addition of some leftovers or 2-3 clementines, when we have them

He works ALL day and by all day, I do mean ALL DAY.  He leaves here in the morning and gets back some 13-14 hours later, so this is his food supply for the entire day. He is way more well behaved than I am...limits himself to 1 pop a day and eats his vegetables (salad) and fruits.  However, with the passage of almost 1.5 years of eating the same thing every day, he really is getting bored with the selection. and also noted that we need to get back to eliminating more of the unhealthy stuff and adding more vegetarian things.  (See here for why we would be mentioning anything vegetarian-related)

Which brings us back to PLANNING.  For the near, near future, anyway, we are still eating meat-stuffs.  Turkey, chicken and very little pork...and TRYING to cut out the red meat consumption.  After today.  After this:  

What we came up with is replacing the deli meats with leftovers and turkey burgers, which he adores. He's grilling up a bunch of those today, so I can just throw them together throughout the week. And, with the creation of the afore-pictured chuck roast, there will either be a few potroast sandwiches or just left-over roast  and veggies. 

In addition to all that, I've got my mind set towards making that spinach lasagna today, and if he likes it, he can eat that too....if not, more for me...to freeze.  Also, I stocked up on chicken boobs, so we'll be having some variation of this: 

and this (because I remembered to get the broccoli and the fish sauce yesterday!) 

Therefore, there will be NO shortage of different foods for him to consume during the workday.  Nor will I have any excuse for not eating anything during the day (out of sheer and unadulterated laziness). This, to me, seems like a tremendous amount of food, as in too MUCH food, but I often forget that he likes to have a little something at night when he gets home as well, and having healthier things like the chicken dishes will be better for him than junk. 

What's on your menu for the week?