Pumpkin Month has arrived, so get ready with all your pumpkin-flavored drinks, desserts, snacks, carved pumpkins, and other orange stuff—and then we can put up the Halloween decorations.

Walmart has been selling Halloween and Christmas decorations for the past month! Seriously, some supermarkets are too quick to start selling merchandise for various holidays, and some holidays I don’t even know about—anything to persuade customers to buy shit they don’t need.

I’m proud to share that our oldest daughter has matured recently and has become an even more amazing woman since moving to Florida (again).

She has even started meal-prepping like her old man and realizes how much better it is for her budget and eating healthier food. At times, I receive pictures from her showing off the meals she has made or the food she has bought for good money.

It is a positive move in the right direction. She has also started to comment on how much people spend on take-out and fast food, even for school and work lunches.

Week Forty Meals

I should’ve checked the school calendar before I planned school lunches, as the kids are off Thursday and Friday due to the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah. We are not Jewish, but many schools observe important holidays for several religions and will close for the day(s).

I started my weekend by baking Amish bread and delicious hoagie buns. The bread experiment succeeded, and the hoagie buns were for the kids’ school lunches.

Once it had cooled, the bread was placed in the freezer. The good (or bad) thing about homemade bread and fresh food is that they do not last as long as they are stored. This makes you wonder what they add to bread and other processed food to make it last weeks or months.

Speaking about healthy food!

It was good to see and hear that our elected officials are starting to debate all the additives and other mess added to processed food. These contribute to the overall health concerns of the US population and are a disaster for our kids. All the additives and other chemicals cause long-term illnesses, which will, in turn, impact the health system and health insurance. We must deal with this now!

School Lunches

It is hard to plan for bread, but I made some delicious hoagie buns for the kids. I also made a large batch of pizza dough and added toppings like spicy chicken, pineapple, pepperoni, tomato, and smoked Mozerealla. I’ll freeze leftover slices for next week.

In addition, I roasted a large beef roast to make roast beef. While it is tastier, it is not as healthy as I would’ve liked, as I’m sure the meat is pumped with antibiotics, pesticides, and other strange chemicals.

Then I made the batter for Bang Bang Chicken, including the dipping sauce, and deep-fried the chicken pieces. Amazing!

Lastly, I chopped some cold cuts, including my homemade roast beef, lettuce, peppers, and black olives, for an Italian hoagie sub.

Dinner Time

I selected a recipe that contains Ale, so I used Guinness instead. The good thing about cooking with beer or wine is that I can sip a little alcohol.

I braised a couple of sirloin steaks that I cut into 1-inch pieces and made a delicious steak and mushroom soup. It was fantastic!

While the soup was simmering, I began mixing and preparing the Sicilian meatloaf. It is simply a large ground beef roulade stuffed with vegetables, slices of ham, and cheese. I roasted it for 45-50 minutes on the Traeger (of course).

Lastly, I prepared the chicken for the Greek sheet pan dish on the Traeger (of course). I will grill the vegetables on Wednesday evening as I don’t like them already grilled. They get soft and lose flavor.

Meal Plan

	Lunch	Dinner
Monday	Homemade Hawaiian Pizza	Scilian loaded meatloaf
Tuesday	Bang Bang Chicken Fingers	Steak and Guinness Soup with Mushroom
Wednesday	Chopped Italian Hoagie	Greek Vegetable Sheet Pan with Chicken
Thursday	Roastbeef Hoagie	Leftovers … licking the plates
Friday	Loaded Chicken Quesadilla	Friday night over-the-fire cooking

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.

Meal Prep Party Pictures

Here are a few mood pictures from the previous week since I did not prepare dishes this week.

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