Welcome to the Mindful Menus - A Menu Planning Blog Roll to inspire health through real food! 
 
It is my hope that this blog roll will inspire others to health through menu planning and to introduce you to the joys of menu planning.  Yes, there are joys!  If you are new to menu planning, I am more than happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Don't forget to keep checking back as menu plans are added. 

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Happy Valentine's Day!!!  I hope you had the sweetest day EVER.

Can hardly believe everything that has happened since I last posted... Here is the run-down of our CrAzY week:

The Saints won the Super Bowl which totally rocked because we are NOT Colts fans. 

On Monday, while packing and patting ourselves on the back for being ahead of our self-imposed moving schedule, our neighbor caught his garage on fire - which was a big problem since we shared a duplex.  We were incredibly thankful that it wasn't worse and we got away with just minor smoke damage and major inconvenience. 

We were forced to evacuate and stayed the rest of the week at a local hotel.  We had no electricity - no heat, hot water, no toilet during our move.  On Tuesday, Salvation Army brought us a generator so we had lights to see while packing.  We had many friends help us in a myriad of ways.  We felt so very blessed with all the amazing help. 

The movers came on Wednesday.  And despite the set-back, we were able to move as planned on Thursday and arrived in Maryland on Friday.  The drive was uneventful and quite frankly, I loved just "vegging out" on the trip.  Today, we went to my brother's house and hung out.  We had great food and great laughs.  It is AWESOME being back!  Surreal almost.  I am psyched to explore the area again.

Here is what we are eating this week:   

Monday - LOL.  We didn't get to this dish last week because of the fire and we didn't get to it the week before or the week before that.  I brought the ingredients with us on our move so it is Spinach Chickpea Curry - vegetarian - tonight.  For sure.  This curry boasts fragrant spices like cardamom, cinnamon and ginger, chickpeas, canned tomatoes - which I am fine with this time of year, spinach, fresh cilantro and coconut milk - It makes the house smell soooooo yummy... brown basmati rice. 
 
Tuesday -  Balsamic Glazed Lamb Meatloaf - new recipe from Real Simple 2/2010... smashed potatoes... sautéed greens in olive oil, garlic and squeeze of lemon juice.

Wednesday - Lentil and Bean Soup - Vegetarian - another new recipe... artisan bread... mixed green salad.

Thursday -  Sautéed Chicken Breasts with citrus quinoa... green beans with shallots. 

Friday - It's Friday... you know what that means - POW (Pizza of the Week) Night!!!  Tonight it will be local takeout - LOVE East Coast pizza - it's THE BEST!!!    
    
Until next time... Eat REAL, Eat WELL- Cheers!  

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Menu Planners: Please join me by linking your healthy menu plan via Mr. Linky on Sunday evenings.  I usually have my menu plan up by 9pm...  If you're not ready until Monday evening... No worries, just please do it!

A few "rules" for joining in Mindful Menus...

*Please post only menu plans that are healthy and focused on REAL food.

*You must link back to the blog roll so that everyone can explore all the menu plans available.  This is such a great way to get new menu ideas, new recipes and meet other like-minded people.  To link back, please grab a Mindful Menus button (in the sidebar on the right) for your post. 

*If you link up and are on Twitter, please let me know by comment with your twitter name or tweet to me @chivetalker.  I would love to tweet a thanks to you for joining in and I want to add you to my Menu Planners List.

Thanks again... I LOVE having you!!!