Every month, I plan to share a weekly meal plan that we’ve made recently, along with thoughts on how everything went. Here’s the first one, a summery Mediterranean feast!

Meal Plan

Since it’s summer reading season in our household (R & I are both children’s librarians) it’s also the time of year when I’m the busiest and shortest on time and energy. I tried to focus on finding recipes that are quick and easy and embraced storebought shortcuts.

I like to pick one of my cookbooks to try a couple of recipes from every month. This month, it’s Smitten Kitchen Keepers, so you’ll see several different recipes from that in my notes!

Breakfast / snacks

When I’m planning meals for the week, I usually combine breakfast and snacks into one category, since the same recipes will often do double duty for me, depending on the day.

cinnamon raspberry almond flour muffins (heavily adapted from this recipe)

recipe notes

Cinnamon almond flour raspberry muffins

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups almond flour (280g)
• ¼ cup flaxseed (22g)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder 
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 4t allulose (36g)
• 2 eggs
• 2/3c kefir
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2t almond extract
• zest of ½ lemon
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• ½ c raspberries (~60g)

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a muffin tin with parchment liners.
• Whisk the almond flour, flax, allulose, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a medium sized mixing bowl.
• Add in the eggs, kefir, oil, and extracts, and lemon zest and stir until a batter is formed.
• Gently mix raspberries into the batter.
• Scoop the batter into your lined muffin tin.
• Bake for 17-20 minutes (my oven runs low, so definitely check these as you go!)

cherry chocolate & orange trail mix (The Complete Diabetes Cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen)

gouda cheese cubes

savory yogurt & egg breakfast salad (molly yeh)

tomatoes with cottage cheese & bagel seeds (Smitten Kitchen Keepers)

Overall, this was a pretty successful batch of recipes. We both liked the muffins a lot and I could easily see making them again with other flavor combinations (cardamom! blueberries!).

Surprisingly, I didn’t love the tomatoes with cottage cheese, although I might try again with different onion seasoning. I used the rest of the cottage cheese to make the savory egg breakfast salad, which I really enjoyed. A lot of interesting flavors (especially with a bunch of fresh herbs) and a light, fresh breakfast for summer!

lunches

R and I typically do our own thing for work lunches. I try to make one recipe that will last for most of the work week, with some options to take leftovers or eat out.

Mediterranean Chicken Thighs from the Better Homes & Gardens Biggest Book of Slow Cooker Recipes, Vol. 2. I roughly followed the recipe as written, although I left out the olives and used 1c canned tomatoes in place of the broth + fresh tomato combo the recipe called for.

This was a decent recipe, and very adaptable to different types of vegetables if you’re so inclined. It wasn’t outstanding, though, and I found myself adding extra salt. I think if I make it in the future, I’ll make sure I have some more robust sides to go with it. But for a busy week, it got the job done.

dinners

This is where my plan somewhat fell apart over the course of the week. I’d forgotten about R being out one night, he ended up making dinner a different night, etc. I usually plan a main dish for each weeknight I cook with several sides that will last for a few days.

Monday: snacky dinner

Snacky dinner is our family term for a charcuterie type meal. In this case, I had a mix of storebought and homemade options:

• salami
• leftover cooked chicken
• leftover marinated eggplant with capers
• baked feta with oregano (based on Smitten Kitchen Keepers)
• kalamata olives
• marinated artichokes
• hummus
• quick marinated mozzarella with herbs
• panfried asparagus with lemon
• quick salad with celery, cucumber, & red onion, drizzled with lemon & olive oil

The one downside to this particular meal is the amount of sodium. If that’s something you’re watching, definitely keep an eye on the totals! I didn’t have recipes for anything except the baked feta, but made the mozzarella, asparagus, and salad last minute.

Wednesday: vegetables, cheese, falafel

I couldn’t find halloumi at a price that I was currently willing to pay, so I adapted a recipe from Smitten Kitchen Every Day to use a block of feta instead.

I also made some falafels from Smitten Kitchen Keepers, although (sadly) they fell apart when I fried them, so we ended up with falafel crumbs instead. I panfried a little salmon for myself to go with everything.

Finally, I made the big gem salad from Smitten Kitchen Keepers, which was good! Neither of us liked the whole lettuce leaves that much, so next time I’ll just tear them into pieces, like I usually would.

We also reprised the asparagus and hummus from Monday.

Thursday: build your own bowl

This was an evening where I didn’t do much actual cooking, just assembled the leftovers from the past few days and added some fresh salad greens. I love a “build your own” situation, since they’re great at catering to individual tastes and dietary needs! We both enjoyed this one a lot.

Thoughts

There were several highlights in this week’s meal plan, especially the cinnamon almond flour muffins! I had a couple of recipes saved that I ended up not making this time, but I set them aside to try again soon.