This week continues the late winter comfort food, served up in three hearty, stick-to-your-ribs, home-cooked square meals every day, but with a twist! This week, we begin a season of fasting in preparation for the joy of Easter, and you will see the austerity of the season reflected in the menus of the week. Step back in time with these mid-century menus for old-fashioned family dinners tailored for Lent in the shortest month of winter.
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Mid-Century Meal Plan for the 1st Week of Lent
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These are meals that I make for my own family.
I follow the 1886 Lenten fasting rules for my family, but I prefer to do the stricter fasting rules laid out by St. Thomas Aquinas, and followed by medieval Catholics. This means that my younger children do not fast at all or abstain, and my older children and husband, who are not Catholic, can choose whether to abstain. I make less food generally, and I don’t make meat for breakfast or lunch during Lent, and at family meals during Lent, I eat the side dishes and don’t eat meat.
Although I love to cook 1950s menus, I usually use 1940s and 1930s recipes because they use far fewer prepared foods and are mostly made from scratch.
Monday Menus
Breakfast
- Oatmeal with top milk
- Bacon muffins
- Sliced bananas with cream
- Coffee for adults, cocoa for children
Lunch
- Cream of tomato soup
- Grilled ham and cheese sandwiches
- Pineapple and cottage cheese salad
- Baked custard
- Tea for adults, milk for children
Dinner
- Celery curls
- Steak and kidney pie
- Mashed potatoes
- Roasted root vegetables
- Rose apple salad
- Parkerhouse rolls
- Butterscotch cream pie
- Coffee for adults, milk for children
Tuesday Menus (Shrove Tuesday)
Breakfast
- Cranberry juice
- Hot wheat cereal with top milk
- Pancakes
- Creamed ham
- Coffee for adults, cocoa for children
Lunch
- Chicken noodle soup
- Lettuce sandwiches [children]; liverwurst sandwiches [adults]
- Lettuce salad
- Peaches in gelatin
- Coffee for adults, milk for children
Dinner
- Mushroom soup
- Beef pot roast
- Buttered noodles
- Stuffed baked tomatoes
- Bread and butter
- Chinese cabbage salad
- Dobos torte
- Coffee for adults, milk for children
Wednesday Menus (Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday)
Breakfast
- Tomato juice
- Oatmeal with top milk
- Soft-cooked eggs
- Toast with butter
- Sliced bananas
- Coffee for adults, cocoa for children
Lunch
- Potato soup
- Hot rolls
- Sauerkraut
- Sliced oranges
- Coffee for adults, milk for children
Dinner
- Beet juice cocktail
- Broiled fish with lemon
- Parsleyed potatoes
- Peas and carrots in onion cups
- Toasted rolls
- Tomato aspic hearts
- Baked pears
- Coffee for adults; milk for children
Thursday Menu
Breakfast
- Grapefruit juice
- Oatmeal with top milk
- Shirred eggs
- Toast
- Coffee for adults, cocoa for children
Lunch
- Vegetable soup
- Bread and butter
- Green salad (for adults)
- Cherry gelatin
- Coffee for adults, milk for children
Dinner
- Bouillion
- Braised chicken cutlets and mushrooms with cream gravy
- Baked sweet potatoes
- Steamed Brussels sprouts
- Bread and butter
- Pear salad
- Berry tarts
- Coffee for adults, milk for children
Friday Menu (Fasting)
Breakfast
- Orange juice
- Oatmeal with top milk
- Scrambled eggs
- Toast with butter
- Coffee for adults, cocoa for children
Lunch
- Macaroni and cheese
- Bread and butter
- Raw vegetable sticks (for children); green salad (for adults)
- Tapioca pudding
- Coffee for adults, milk for children
Dinner
- Carrot soup
- Baked fish
- Cottage fried potatoes
- Green beans with pimentos
- Whole-wheat bread and butter
- Pickled beets
- Rhubarb compote with wafers
- Coffee for adults, milk for children
Saturday Menu
Breakfast
- Hot wheat cereal with top milk
- Shirred eggs
- Toast
- Coffee for adults; cocoa for children
Lunch
- Bean soup
- Tuna melts
- Potato chips
- Sliced tomatoes
- Milkshakes
Dinner
- Olives and cheese-stuffed celery
- Italian spaghetti with meatballs (we have this a lot during Lent — it’s easy to leave off the meatballs from mine)
- Marinated mushrooms
- Baked garlic bread
- Iceberg wedges with Italian dressing
- Tiramisu
- Coffee for adults, milk for children
Sunday Menu
Breakfast
- Fruit cups
- Dates in wheat cereal with top milk
- Sausage links
- French toast with syrup
- Coffee for adults, cocoa for children
Old-Fashioned Sunday Dinner
- Spiced tomato cocktail
- Crown roast of lamb
- Parslied potato balls
- Broccoli
- Cloverleaf rolls
- Guava jelly
- Cranberry salad
- Pistachio ice-cream cake
- Coffee for adults, milk for children
Sunday Supper
- Creamed lamb and mushrooms in patty cases
- Vegetable salad bowl
- Berry compote with custard sauce
- Cocoa for all
If you would like, you can check out the rest of my mid-century dinner menus. And if you make the menus, share a pic on Instagram and tag me! (Are you following me on Instagram? I share a lot of vintage homemaking quick wins over here!)
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