Things to Eat - Vignarola (a Roman Stew for Spring) & Our 4 Week Meal Plan

A spring stew sounded amazing to me this month, but then I couldn't find fresh fava beans or artichokes, so I'm not sure spring had much to do with this recipe. Luckily, it still came together pretty well.

Vignarola (a Roman Stew for Spring) - based on this recipe.

Ingredients:

* 2 cans of artichoke hearts
* 1 pound of frozen fava beans, defrosted (you can buy these at Trader Joe's)
* 1/2 package of prosciutto
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 1 head Romaine lettuce, shredded
* 1 handful of torn mint
* salt and pepper to taste

1. In a skillet large enough to hold all the vegetables, cook the prosciutto in olive oil over medium-low heat. After about 5 minutes, remove it from the pan. Add the canned artichokes and the fava beans. Cook for about 5 minutes

2. Add the lettuce to the pan. If there isn't much liquid in the pan (from the canned artichokes), add about 1/2 a cup of water and stir for 2-4 minutes, until the lettuce has wilted.

3. Remove from heat. Add the prosciutto back to the pan. Season to taste with salt and pepper and add the mint.

WEEK 1

Monday - Seared flank steak with tomato and blue cheese salad (via Cooking Light). This was fantastic with kids. They ignored the tomatoes and blue cheese (i.e. my favorite part) and ate lots of steak. Lots.

Tuesday - Taco Tuesday (just ground beef tacos and refried beans). F could live on refried beans.

Wednesday - Tomato and lentil salad (via IT'S ALL GOOD: Delicious, Easy Recipes That Will Make You Look Good and Feel Great); the kids have spaghetti.

Thursday - Sausage, cannellini bean, and tomato ragout with polenta (via Cooking Light). This was really good. Even the kids liked it.

WEEK 2

Monday - Arugula/tomato quinoa salad (my recipe, click here for similar formula, just substitute the cucumbers for arugula). The kids ate hot dogs and kale chips.

Tuesday - Arroz con pollo (Dinner: A Love Story cookbook). Everyone loves this; it has become one of our regular dishes.

Wednesday - Grilled polenta with tomatoes and white beans (via Cooking Light) with chicken sausage on the side. F keeps asking for polenta almost every night, so I'm trying to find variations. This looked perfect for spring. The kids didn't eat much of the tomato mixture, but loved the sausage and polenta.

Thursday - Chickpea and kale shakshouka (via Clean Eating magazine). I'm making this a lot lately. The kids don't love it, so I made them a pizza.

WEEK 3

Monday - Leftovers from Sunday night (lamb chops and risotto from Date Night In: More than 120 Recipes to Nourish Your Relationship, my newest cookbook obsession.)

Tuesday - Taco Tuesday (Goop's zucchini tacos for me; ground beef and refried beans for Dan and the kids).

Wednesday - Arugula/tomato/quinoa salad (based loosely on this recipe) with hamburgers/hotdogs on the grill (Dan's home early!! Yay!!!)

Thursday - Leftovers again (Dan barbequed A LOT of meat on Wednesday)

WEEK 4

Monday - Frozen pizza because I felt super lazy.

Tuesday - Chicken tinga tacos for Cinquo De Mayo (via The Splendid Table). Personally, I thought these were a little overrated considering the recipe was somewhat complicated, but Dan thought the tacos tasted great. And the kids liked them well enough.

Wednesday - Vignarola (a Roman Stew for Spring) (via Food 52). So this was SO YUMMY!! I could almost live on it. But the kids called the dish "bitter" and just picked at their plates (I blame the artichokes). Luckily, I defrosted plenty of edamame and bread as an "appetizer", which seemed to fill them up.

Thursday - Chicken with bacon and brussels sprouts (via Dinner: A Love Story). Dan loves this. The girls love this. Even T ate most of his chicken. A sure thing.