Planned Leftovers

I love good, homemade traditional Latin American cooking, including Mexican food. If it's prepared properly, it's nourishing, and it tastes fantastic, like someone slaved over it all day. That's because someone did. Traditional cuisine can be a boatload of work. It's a load of work when I cook this way, and I have the benefit of a food processor, which most Latin American cooks don't use. I have lived and traveled in Latin America quite a bit, and I have noticed that in Latin America, someone, usually Mama or Abuela or Tia, is in the kitchen all day.

One way I have learned to handle the workload, when I decide to prepare these more labor-intensive meals, is that instead of one day of Mexican dinner, and then back-to-our-regularly-scheduled-program, I plan several Mexican meals in a row, and strategically plan for leftovers. That's how I'm starting this week. We'll see how it goes.

This week's Menu Plan:

Monday:  Wet burritos (I had never had these until I got married and got the recipe from my MIL.  It's a burrito with sauce on top that is eaten with a knife and fork.)   Today I am doing the bulk of the food prep for the next three days - refried beans for today's burritoes and as a side for the tamales, poached chicken for the tamales, and as a by-product of the poaching, chicken stock which will be used in the masa for the tamales.  Oh, and also homemade salsa, which will be used for today and the next three meals.

Tuesday:  Tamales, refried beans, Mexican rice

Wednesday:  It's ballet night, so no cooking - leftover tamales, refried beans, and Mexican rice

Thursday:  Albondigas (Mexican meatball soup), tortilla chips, and salsa.  And that will be the end of our Mexican extravaganza for the week.

Friday:  Dandelion green fritters, Greek-ish salad with feta and carrots, yogurt dressing

Saturday:  Soft polenta with pesto shrimp (pesto frozen from last summer)

Sunday:  Creamy polenta and spinach soup, white bean bruschetta, and stuffed mushrooms.  Cake with strawberries and yogurt for dessert.

We'll see how it goes!  I'm going to try to post about a few of these meals this week, as long as life cooperates!

This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie.