Weekly Meal Plan

Earlier this week I was putting together our grocery list/weekly meal plan and let me tell you, I was really struggling to come up with meal ideas.  If my husband had things his way, we'd eat fried pork chops and french fries every night of the week.  When I first met him, he would put the entire pork chop in the fry daddy, cook it until done and dig in!  Needless to say, that cooking method was nipped in the bud a long time ago.

I've been toying with elimination diets lately.  I was gently reminded earlier this summer that yes, I am lactose intolerant.  I'd prefer to think that I'm not, but my stomach definately says otherwise.  Once I cut out foods high in lactose, my stomach started to feel 10x better.  However, my stupid sinuses were still horrible.  I'm congested on a daily basis so I end up developing sinus infections that antibiotics just can't fight.  After being run through the gamut of allergy testing, we found I was not allergic to anything in the air.  I started to suspect a food allergy/intolerance and I think I have found it.  WHEAT.  Not gluten, but wheat.  My mom is intolerant to wheat and my great-aunt has celiac (I was tested for it a long time ago but thankfully it came back negative!).  A few months ago I cut out wheat for several weeks, ate pizza for lunch and broke out in a rash before the meal was even over.  Earlier this week, I hadn't had wheat for several days when I ate a sandwich and almost immediately, my sinuses went from empty to overloaded and throbbing.  There ya have it, folks!

So when I say I was having a hard time making a grocery list, do you understand why?  I have to please a soul-food, grease-laden loving husband while making sure the food is relatively healthy, wheat-free and low in lactose.  That's easy to do, right?!

I eventually came up with some meals to get us through the week and realized that I'm probably not the only person out there who has this problem.  It's easy to get in a rut and eat the same thing week after week.  Thus, I decided to share our weekly meal plans for as long as my attention span allows!  If you see a meal that you want to incorporate into your own rotation, go for it!  And if you want the recipe for anything, just let me know.  The cool thing about the blogosphere is that we can all learn and be inspired by each other :-)  The only word of caution--I have only included our evening meal (supper, dinner, whatever ya call it!) as we don't cook lunch during the week and weekend breakfasts...well, they usually turn into lunch if we're home!

So...what did we eat this week?!

 Monday:  Southwestern Shepherd's Pie + green salad
Tuesday:  Pork Pot Roast in Au Jus + saffron rice + steamed edemame
Wednesday:  LEFT-OVER Night!
Thursday:  Roasted Corn Enchiladas from The Merc's deli + black beans
Friday: Paula Deen's Chicken & Rice casserole + green beans
Saturday: Pioneer Woman's Grilled Pork Chops + loaded baked potato + brocolli & cheese
Sunday:  Chicken Milanese + couscous + Green Giant 'sauced' frozen veggies