Boss- da plan! da plan!

I have bitched here before about microwave meals. I guess one can never bitch too much about them, so I might as well bitch some more.

Most microwave meals, whether "diet/low-fat" or not, are either pasta or rice based. I am not lying. The rest of them are things like meatloaf or salisbury steak, and those often taste like what I imagine dog food tastes like. And even the salisbury steak meals usually have a side of macaroni and cheese with them. For years, microwave meals were my supper almost every evening; the other evenings, my supper was fast food, because microwave meals are monotonous. They're cheap, though; I usually bought Stouffers (tm) (I'm not sure whether or not to use a comma, since on their own website, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't - http://www.stouffers.com/products.aspx) or Boston Market (tm), and they could be bought for $2.50 - $3.00.

So, I've backed off microwave meals significantly in the last couple of months. And I have been losing weight. However, I don't know if that's because of the sodium or whatever content in the meals, or because pasta and rice are just not conducive to losing weight, at least for me.

Today, I fell back on what has become a once-a-week-or-nine-days deal for me: chicken and rice with vegetables. Ever since my sister gave me Natalia's fool-proof method for making rice, it's just so easy. When using frozen vegetables, I nuke them for about half the recommended time, and throw them in with the rice just as I'm about to clamp a lid on the rice for 20 minutes. If I cooked the chicken the day before and refrigerated it, I throw the chicken in then, too, otherwise I just throw the chicken in the pot after the rice is done. Chicken and rice is so easy, and while I know the combo that works for me is 1 chicken breast + 2 cups veggies + 2/3 cup of uncooked rice, it still makes 3 or more bowls of the stuff, so I eat it over a couple of days --- or like today, when I didn't have breakfast, I had it for brunch and dinner plus Jeopardy! snack. I think it's a lot of rice. I hear Kiefer Sutherland, as David in The Lost Boys, saying, "What, you don't like rice? Tell me Michael, how could a billion Chinese people be wrong?" And I think, yeah, for me, rice or pasta can't happen more than once a week.

So this evening, since I have been contemplating sopes for about 2 weeks now but I don't have any lettuce, I thought that if I am going to the grocery tomorrow, I should plan some meals, for a week in advance. So what meals can I make? These:

1. Chicken and rice with vegetables
2. Parmesan chicken, aka crack chicken
3. chili
4. white chili
5. spaghetti
6. lasagna
7. halushki

Four out of those 7 contain rice or pasta. Actually, 1 contains rice and 3 contain pasta. I can't plan a week's worth of meals, since I can't cook a week's worth of meals. So my mission this week is to collect recipes of meals that sound good to me, but that do not contain rice or pasta. I have a feeling this will be quite a challenge.