Good morning or afternoon y’all. It is a beautiful Monday with some frost in the air and ground. The sun rose slowly, spreading its golden rays across our little mountain. It sucks getting up at 5.30 am, but only for the first 2-3 minutes until I smell the aroma of the Black Rifle Coffee dripping through the Keurig.
My son gets picked up by the school bus at 6:29 am, ready for a new dawn and day. We listened to AC/DC and Motley Crue while we waited. He loves a bit of rock to kick-start his day!
Yesterday morning, I made him a simple omelet with red peppers and green onions. He’s up early with me daily and enjoys hanging out while I prepare the kitchen for the weekend meal plan project.
Nothing beats a proper breakfast to start the day!
Thanksgiving Dinner
Since moving to the US, we have embraced the Thanksgiving dinner – mainly because of the excessive amount of food and the fantastic dessert.
Over the years, we have perfected our Thanksgiving dinner. We dive into the main course, side dishes, and desserts in no particular order.
- Farm-raised turkey in a secret brine for 24-36 hours.
- Smoke the Turkey on the Traeger for a few hours.
- Boil and mash sweet potatoes and cover with melted marshmallows.
- Roast Brussels sprouts with garlic.
- Boil and glaze a few carrots.
We will wrap up the dinner with a fabulous smoked pecan bourbon pie. It is to die for. We will likely consume the whole pie within a few hours.
A Thankful Week
Because of Thanksgiving, this is a short school and work week. The kids are only in school on Monday and Tuesday, and I’ve also taken a few days off to spend time with the family. I know we are not going anywhere, but the fact that we can spend some time together is valuable.
It also means that I will not make many dinners or school lunches this week, as we have the big turkey feast lined up for Thursday.
Lunches are relatively straightforward, starting with melted cheese croissants. No, I did not make and bake croissants from scratch. I cheated and bought a box of already-made croissants. I stuffed them with ham and cheese and grilled them in the panini maker.
Before we indulge and overeat on delicious turkey, it is essential to have a light lunch, such as a salad with avocado, grilled chicken thighs, corn, and tomato.
I decided to make two fabulous dishes for dinner: Vietnamese and Danish soul food. The third dinner, before Thanksgiving, is a leftover from last week.
Pho is my absolute favorite dish, especially when I use homemade broth for the soup; add some Momofuku noodles, some beansprouts, fresh red chili, and mint leaves. It’s excellent for the colder evenings and boosts the immune system.
Danish soul food is frikadeller, a.k .a. pork meatballs. My mum made these at least two to three times a month or more when I was a kid and served them boiled potatoes and gravy. Delicious!
And we would often get leftover meatballs sliced on Danish rye bread for school lunch.
Frikadeller is a simple dish that combines ground pork, onions, flour, milk, eggs, black pepper, and dried thyme. The meatballs are then fried in butter in a medium-warm pan.
Meal Plan
| Lunch | Dinner | |
| Monday | Melted cheese and ham croissants | Vietnamese Pho with shaved beef, and homemade beef broth |
| Tuesday | Salad with tomato, avocado, boiled eggs, and grilled chicken | Danish Soul Food – frikadeller (pork meatballs) with spuds and gravy |
| Wednesday | No School – No Food 🙂 | Creamy Gnocchi Soup with Bacon |
| Thursday | Turkey Fiesta – eat all day! | Thanksgiving Dinner; Turkey and stuff |
| Friday | No School – No Food 🙂 | Turkey left over |
One Day, I might get so organized that I will link the meals below to my recipes. We can only live in hope!
Have a fantastic week, my friends. I hope you enjoy these meal plans. It is much easier to make food in advance, although you must invest several hours preparing meals during the weekend.
Stay in touch with me through social media!