November 28, 2020

WEEKLY MENU 11.29.20

We’re hitting December and the holidays hard during the Weekly Menu 11.29.20 – join us!

Our Weekly Menu 11.29.20 is full of easy, tasty meals that are either easy to make and forget (hellooo Lasagna…) or take very little time and prep so you’ve got plenty of opportunity to work on the holidays or whatever needs doing.

Check out our Epic 50+ Gift Guide for easy presents and great ideas for everyone on your list.

We’re decorating simply this year.

Maybe not QUITE as minimalistic as the house in the post pic, but close. We’ll add lights and a big hit of color with our Christmas Trees. We always put one in the family room, and a more glamourous one in the living room. The family room tree is full of all the ornaments that we’ve collected over the years.

There is always plenty of laughter and easy-going jabs while we’re decorating that one.

Baby Boy gifted us with plenty of ornaments that included his school pictures over the years, and they are darling. But he does get a bit of ribbing from his brothers. Then there is the competition for best placement of college ornaments. D gave us a Loyola ornament very early into his college career. His brothers caught up, but it took a while.

The Christmas Cards are a little up in the air. Normally we send out a picture card with a snap of all of us together. We’re either visiting a cool locale or having a family dinner out. Since we’ve done very little of either this year (who else is looking forward to January and the end of 2020?), we’re in a bit of a pickle.

If ever there was a better year to keep in touch, though, I don’t know when it could be. We’ll figure out something.

We covered the big roasted turkey spread last week, so we’re going a completely different direction this week with an Italian Night for sunday dinner. The nice thing about lasagna (besides the obvious deliciousness) is that it’s done in advance and bakes for a while. So we can nosh a bit on a mini-antipasto spread and have a glass of wine while it cooks.

What is a mini-antipasto spread? It’s one that is pared WAY back. It’ll have some Italian breadsticks, a few olives, some salami and pepperoni and a bit of stinky provolone cheese. Enough to take the edge off, but not enough to ruin dinner.

We’re still eating leftovers.

I refuse to make any more dessert until we finish up all the pies that we have in the house. Pecan (there isn’t much of that left), pumpkin, and apple make up the trifecta. I saw a Pumpkin Flan recipe by Ina Garten that looked like fun, so I made that for Thanksgiving too. (It was absolutely delish, BTB.) So that’s on the menu for Sunday too.

I love the sheet pan trend – everything cooks on one sheet pan and the flavors meld together. Plus cleanup is a breeze. We all love sweet potatoes, but I like them savory, so they work great this way.

Bert bought frozen fish sticks last week.

There were 110 of them in the bag, and they’re delicious, so we’re having them again. Don’t tell the food police. I like to make a homemade tartar sauce with mayo and sweet pickle relish. The boys don’t like pickles, but they LOVE tartar sauce. Go figure.