The Steam Oven Meal Plan for real people #12

This week I’m striving for a good balance of meat and non-meat dinners; fast dishes and slower or pre-prepared ones. There’s beef and pork and lamb and chicken, plus eggplants and pears and citrus fruit. All of it together is making me feel pretty good about the week ahead.

In the interests of further balance, and because my husband is working a lot of hours this week, I’m attempting to prep more ahead of time. I’ll portion, trim and freeze my meat, pre-chop some vegetables and make and freeze hummus. And if I’m really organized, I’ll make and freeze the meatballs for next weekend’s soup to speed that up too.

Happy cooking, see you here again soon.

It’s a long weekend here, so the kids are home, hungry and bored. They’ve decided to juice the huge abundance of lemons and oranges we’ve got to make a lemonade stand, and I’m going to contribute as well. I’m baking a lemon cream cheese pound cake with extra orange and mandarin zest, and some melting moments cookies with citrus filling.

Dinner is amazing slow cooked beef cheek tacos; I couldn’t find beef cheeks so I’m doing them this time with chuck steak. They’ll be every bit as good, if not quite as sticky and collagen-rich.

Pretty indulgent for a Tuesday, but my littlest kiddo continually asks to have sausages for dinner, and the biggest would eat bacon every day if I let him. Bacon wrapped sausages are the dream for them! I’ll be filling out our plates with loads of steamed vegetables to make things a little more balanced.

Bacon Wrapped Sausages

Salty and meaty and a little treaty, bacon wrapped sausages are a carnivore's delight. Although this recipe was written as a festive season side dish, we've had it for dinner 'out of season' more than once, and no one is sorry.

Check out this recipe

I feel like many of you will groan at the idea of making bagels, from scratch, for a midweek meal. But hear me out: you can have these on the table, warm and fresh, in an hour. And if you have willing (or even unwilling) hands to help, you’ll knock them out even faster.

I’ll be serving these with a little spread of different things. Smoked salmon, cream cheese and capers for my husband, cheese slices and salad for the kids, and a fried egg and hummus with chili sauce for me.

I love eggplant, and combi steam does amazing things to the texture of this vegetable, making it silky and soft and comforting. I’m making a big batch of stuffed eggplant and even if the kids hate it, hubby and I will happily munch through all the leftovers for lunch over the coming days. It reheats beautifully so I recommend you do the same.

Stuffed Eggplant with Lentils, Lamb and Middle Eastern Spices

You can omit the lamb from this recipe if you'd prefer a vegetarian version, or go all in and make it as written for a rich and super comforting meal.

Check out this recipe

Maple, lime and ginger chicken for dinner with friends; the kids love it as much as the adults so it’s a great Friday night winner.

And even though this will be the third weekend running I’ve made it, the delight of a steam oven chocolate pudding may never wear off for my kids and their friends.

I’m planning meatball soup for dinner on Saturday. It’s close enough to pasta with meatballs that I think the kids might not notice I’m trying to feed them soup. Ha.