Week 5 already, wow ❤️ Thanks to all my followers and supporters this first month, I do hope you’re enjoying my posts. I know I’m enjoying sharing my prep plans and the completed meals throughout the week because I love food and feeling inspired to recreate delicious “eats” and “treats” 👍

People keep asking me what’s my secret to the beautiful dishes I’m posting? It’s nothing fancy, just simple planning and preparation. I like getting ahead of my work week and feeling inspired by what I have available to avoid waste.

However, this week is a little different because this weekend’s planning is focused on my husband’s birthday 🎂 and a work St Patty’s party ☘️.

My husband requested Traditional Scotch Pie with chips and beans. I’m up for the challenge with a meat pie, but the chips (i.e. french fries) and beans (i.e. Heinz Baked Beans) will be store bought.

I love cooking, but typically stay away from baking because the science scares me a bit. Cooking is my forte and just in case you didn’t realize after one month, the “treat” in Jackie’s Eats and Treats is adult beverages or delicious bites of guilty food 😋. So, creating the pie crust will stretch my limits in the kitchen 😂. But it’s a warm dough, which intrigues me. I’ll need ground lamb and lard (i.e. rendered pig fat) for this dish. I need about 4oz of lard for the crust and you can substitute with butter, so we’ll see which way I go. I’ll plan to post this experience later this weekend.

Now onto the work St Patty’s party. I love a great Reuben sandwich and I consider myself a Reuben connoisseur and love creating yummy bites with those same flavors. For work, I’ll be creating Reuben Wonton Bites(get ready work crew 👍).

This weekend, I’ll grab a Corned Beef, onion and an orange in preparation for creating instant pot magic later in the week. My brother mentioned the orange addition recently and it really cuts the saltiness of the Corned Beef.

Since I’ll only need 1/2 the Corned Beef for work, homemade Reuben Pizza and Hash and Eggs (I have potatoes and onions) for David! I’ll need to grab a pizza crust and I’ll plan to create my own Thousand Islands Dressing (I have all these ingredients in my pantry) and Sauerkraut (I have cabbage on hand) this weekend in preparation for my Reuben deliciousness this week.

The plan is set and the Buy Me a Pie list seems rather small this week 👍. I need a few pantry items and salad goodies for my work lunches.

• Sunday 🎂 Meal – Scotch Pie with chips and beans. The Scotch Pie recipe will be posted later this weekend.
• Meal 2 – Salad with lentils I have in my pantry. The mid-week salad will make me feel less guilty about this week’s plan 😉
• Meal 3 – Corned Beef Hash and Eggs. I’ll post my Instant Pot Corned Beef later in the week in preparation for St Patty’s day ☘️.
• Meal 4 – Reuben Pizza, all those flavors packed into a pizza!
• Meal 5 – Reuben Wonton Bites. The work colleagues get the 5th spot this week, but that’s okay since we’ll likely have some 🎂 celebrations 🎈 this week.