Monday Meal Planning (on Tuesday!) 7.18.11

This is a weird week meal planning-wise, because we may be heading up north camping this weekend, but we won't know for sure until tomorrow (depends on the forecast, which currently shows rain for the entire weekend - BOO!), and if we are we have to be ready tomorrow night because we're leaving immediately after work on Thursday. Aaron asked me to meal plan for the trip, and so I've been doing some campfire cooking research and now I'm even more confused than ever. Also, like everywhere else right now, it's incredibly freaking hot, and so the meals this week can all be made without turning on the stove or oven (or even the grill because I would feel bad making Aaron stand outside in front of a hot grill with heat indexes around 102 degrees!). I'm including last night's meal here as well, because it was really good and simple.

Monday: Turkey Sandwiches on Pretzel Rolls, cut up vegetables (carrots, cucumbers, radishes), fruit salad, cheese puffs

We bought some mini pretzel baguettes at Whole Foods this past weekend, and for dinner last night we split them, topped them with sliced turkey, meunster (or monster, if you're Gabbie) cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and Swedish mustard. They were fantastic! We also gave in to Gabbie's request for Cheetos last night, but used them to help her with counting and math (we're doing some homeschool-style preschool in the evenings this summer). I asked her how many cheese puffs she wanted, and then we counted them out, and handed them to her one-by-one asking how many she had on her plate and then how many she had left, using some good-old finger math. Then she ate them all and was a very happy girl!

Tuesday: Italian Vegetable Hoagies, chips, fruit salad

Another no-cook meal, and this one is vegetarian to boot. I've been feeling like I've been eating too much meat lately, so I'm trying for at least 3 meat-free dishes a week if I can get away with it. Of course, you wouldn't be able to tell that by the meal that I have planned for...

Wednesday: BBQ pulled pork, cole slaw

We're having a "southern food" lunch potluck for book club tomorrow, so I'm making crockpot pulled pork. Left-overs will become dinner, and I don't even mind that I'll be eating the same thing all day, because it's easy and I have little to no motivation to do anything extra when it's this hot out.

Thursday: Dinner at my parents' house

No idea what we'll have, but I'm guessing it will come straight out of their garden, and I can't wait!

Friday through Sunday: Campfire food!

Here's where the research I've been doing comes in. My favorite thing growing up and going camping was grilled cheese made in a pie iron, and this post has some great ideas for using the pie iron to make slightly fancier meals. About.com has some great camping recipes too, and I've been having fun perusing these. I'm not sure what all we'll be eating, except we will be using the pie iron for at least one meal, we'll be having hot dogs over the fire at least once, and I cannot wait to make s'mores using a peanut butter cup in place of the normal chocolate bar. YUM!