The Plan That Went Awry

I make a meal plan weekly, generally based on what I have in the freezer. Last week was no exception and I pretty much followed the plan until Wednesday when the freezer started misbehaving. After that I was in salvage mode and had to use foods that had thawed. This week I will still be using a lot of the food that had thawed (which has been cooked and waiting  their turns to become dinner) Does it matter if it is what we want to eat or not? Not really. I am just using inventory.

I had run out of fresh produce and did have to make a run to the store to restock the crisper, but other than that everything is coming from storage, and hopefully by Wednesday everything   thawed that was salvageable will be gone.

This was planned:

1. Fajita chicken casserole, rice or caulirice, mixed greens or coleslaw, keto cornbread

2. Soup and salad (no idea yet what kind__depends on what I find lingering)

3. Grilled tuna or steak, asparagus, mashed potatoes or caulimash, rolls or keto rolls

4. Spinach, artichoke chicken over mashed potatoes or caulimash, green beans

5. Rack of lamb, basmati rice (or caulirice), asparagus, rolls or keto rolls, some lame keto dessert.

6. Moroccan chicken over couscous (or more of that damned caulirice) tossed salad

7. Take out

And this happened: 

Monday: Chicken fajita casserole, green beans

Tuesday : Grilled porterhouse, smashed potatoes or caulimash, asparagus spears

Wednesday: Hamburger, fries, chocolate milk shake. (If I post it in tiny font did it even really happen)

Thursday: Salvage meal #1. Tuna steaks with red chili sauce, green beans, mashed potatoes, Waldorf salad.

Friday: We had some running around to do and we were out a bit later than expected. We both decided it was too late to come home and cook so we phoned in a take out order , ran by the house to put up the groceries, the ran back to La Fiesta to grab our dinner.

Chili Poblano

Saturday Salvage meal #2 Spring greens with tomato, olives, cucumbers and grilled chicken breast

Sunday: Salvage meal #3 Spaghetti with meat sauce, mixed greens and cucumbers

Used: from storage

From the freezer:

1 pack chicken

2 packs green beans

1 porterhouse steak

3 tuna steaks (one became tuna salad for lunch)

1 pack mashed potatoes

1 pack grilled Italian seasoned chicken breasts

1 pack spaghetti sauce

1 pack chopped ham (Easter Sunday omelet)

1 pack carnitas (lunches)

1 pack pepper jack cheese

10 or so packs of mixed berries (they became 3 pints of mixed berry jam)

From the fridge:

red pepper

yellow pepper

bell pepper

cream cheese

condiments

cauliflower

asparagus

butter

heavy cream

eggs

apples

celery

From the pantry

onion

herbs and spices

new potatoes

coffee

tea

mixed nuts

coconut flour

1 bag keto "cheese puffs"

walnuts

And the new plan:

1. Salvage meal, Sausage, sautéed cabbage, augratin potatoes, rosemary garlic biscuits

2. Salvage meal, Philly cheesesteak casserole,  brussels sprouts,salad

3. Salvage meal, taco salad

4. Grilled burgers, fixings, caulitato salad

5. Salvage dinner, peas, okra, mac and cheese, coleslaw

6. Moroccan chicken, rice or caulirice, broccoli, salad, 

7. Takeout

Since I am still salvaging foods that were thawed or near thawed this week is going to have some pretty uninteresting meals and most of them are not what I want to eat. But__it is food and eating things that do not sound interesting is a first world problem that I am very grateful to have. I am just guessing but I think I lost less than 10 percent of what I had in the freezer and most of the loss was frozen meals or entrees that were on the top shelf. I only had to throw out one pack of ground beef. The rest of the chicken, meats or seafood were still ice cold or icy (they became the salvage meals) or frozen solid (they are still at my sister's) I feel so lucky that I lost so little.

You will mostly notice that keto and I are not married to each other until I get through the salvaging process.