Menu Plan Monday

It's time to get back into routine. Routine is the joy of my life. :) Now, if you know me well, you know I can be a little scatterbrained. Believe it or not, family, people who don't know me well think that I'm very organized. Really, my brain is going a hundred different directions at once. I just play an organized person on TV. By the way, I just deleted a whole paragraph that tried to explain this phenomenon, but really only served to illustrate the point by it's randomness.

To that end, I'm back to menu planning because I went to the grocery store 4 times last week. One of those times I went to get milk and bread, and came out with $20 worth of stuff, none of which was milk or bread.

Here's my plan for this week. I've abandoned labelling them by day because, let's face it, the meal that I planned for the day rarely gets cooked and eaten on that day. Also, I'm still on a low-carb diet (35 pounds and counting) but my new low-carb cookbooks are still in transit, so I'm resorting to a couple old favorites and a couple new ones from a website I found recently.

Meals: Taco Salad
White Chicken Chili
Bacon Cheeseburger Quiche
No Noodle Lasagna
Snack: Bacon Cheese Ball

By bacon, I mean turkey bacon, because *sigh* we can't get bacon here.

I plan to make these simple cheese "crackers" to eat with the cheese ball, as well as cut up veggies.

Cheese "Crackers"
Line a pan with wax/parchment paper. Spray with Pam. Spread a thin layer of shredded cheddar over the pan. Bake in a 400 degree oven until melted, about 5-10 minutes. Leave on pan to cool. When cool, break into small pieces to use as crackers or chips.

I haven't experimented much with this yet, but I suppose you could try other cheeses, or a mixtures of cheeses, as well as adding spices if desired. Also, an alternative is to melt the cheese in a skillet and then, while it is still warm, place it over an upside down bowl. When it hardens, it will work as a "tortilla" bowl for taco salad, which I think we might try this week also. :)