New format!

I am only going to do in-depth posts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I will have much shorter posts on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

Okay here is my menu for the week:

Meatless Monday: Black Bean nachos, made with refried black beans, shredded cheese, shredded romaine lettuce, and mild salsa fresco.

Tuesday: French farmhouse style baked chicken breasts, sauteed green beans, brown rice, glazed carrot coins.

Wild, weird or wacky Wednesday: Individual meatloaf "cupcakes", steamed broccoli and cauliflower, macaroni and cheese.

Thursday: chicken and sausage couscous with vegetables

Fish Friday: Probably yellow tail snapper (gotta call my fish guy), steamed snow pea pods and Asian peanut-sauce broccoli slaw.

Saturday: Homemade Pizza and salad

Sunday: Roast beast with potatoes, onions and carrots

Tonight's dinner was GREAT. I made some black beans a few weeks ago and had extra, so I froze them. Today I popped them out of the plastic container and reheated/defrosted them in a pan on the stove-top with a little olive oil. When I cook my beans they are very lightly seasoned so I can use them in a variety of dishes or ways. To these beans I added some cumin and adobo seasoning and when they were nice and bubbly I mashed them with a potato masher; making essentially refried black beans. I put some corn chips on a cookie sheet and spread the black beans over the top and then added a couple generous handfuls of grated cheese. I baked them in the oven at 425 degrees for maybe 5 minutes (long enough for the cheese to melt and everything else to crisp. I cut the nachos into small wedges with a large kitchen knife and put them on plates. I topped each serving with some lettuce, some defrosted corn kernels and some salsa fresca. A good serving of vegetables, lots of nice lean protein, and some whole grain chips made this a tasty and pretty nutritionally sound meal. If your family likes you could also add some cubed avocado or guacamole to the proceedings and get a pretty nice essential fatty acid serving as well.

Mondays are still a hard night for us because of our older daughter's dance class, so this would be a great quick meal for any busy evening. You can even "re-fry" canned black beans. Simply get some sort of fat sizzling in a pan, add your beans and a little of the water they came in, stir, season and mash. These are much better for you than canned refried beans which are very high in fat and sodium and they go together almost as quickly.