Menu plan Monday

Sunday farmer’s market buys. Just what we will eat this week plus an absolutely delicious glazed lemon blackberry scone that was eaten right away.

I’m trying to get back into dinner menu planning to better plan our grocery shopping including using what we buy if we go to the Sunday farmer’s market. Otherwise we shop on Tuesday (Grocery outlet) and Wednesday (Trader Joe’s). 

We always replace what we have used from our pantry and consumable basics that are always stocked. I did stock up on canned soup and Kleenex yesterday using a discount coupon from CVS. The soup is part of our emergency food supply and needs to get replaced when it is used for lunches.

Monday: Turkey burgers, broccoli, sliced tomato. instant mashed potatoes - leftovers or on hand

Tuesday: Salmon, cauliflower, green salad - on hand

Wednesday: Vegetarian chili, cornbread - leftover from Sunday

Thursday: Pasta salad, fruit, garlic bread - on hand

Friday: Chicken enchilada casserole, green salad - meat, sauce & cheese from freezer

Saturday: Omelet, fruit, toast OR frozen pizza with extra toppings added

Sunday: Chicken enchilada casserole leftovers

Healthy vegetarian or minimal meat/fish/eggs dinner ideas?

I came up with a list of ones we have eaten in the past and would really like to add others that aren’t too complicated or take a long time.

FYI, I don’t like chickpeas, hate olives, and am not that fond of tofu or quinoa although I will eat them. I like the taste of Asian and Indian foods but have to really watch my salt intake. Hubby is non-dairy except for cheese and yogurt.

I went through our recipe file, looked online, asked Hubby and searched my memory for these ideas.

• Eggplant Parmesan with rice or pasta
• Roasted eggplant ratatouille 
• Vegetable pizza
• Stuffed zucchini 
• Mexican stuffed peppers 
• Corn and black bean enchiladas
• Bean and cheese tostados 
• Vegetarian nachos
• Black beans, rice, peppers & onion skillet with shredded cheese - serve fajita style or with Spanish rice
• Tofu and veggie stir fry 
• Veggies (steamed or roasted) and cheese over brown rice
• Stuffed acorn squash
• Pasta primavera
• Goat cheese pasta with broccoli
• Pasta salad
• Bean salad
• Bruschetta 
• Minestrone
• Lentil and carrot soup
• Bob’s Red Mill Veggie soup mix

Minimal meat/fish/eggs

• Pesto and salmon pasta
• Chicken and bean tostados 
• Fish/shrimp and bean tacos
• Fajitas 
• Huevos rancheros
• Turkey and bean chili
• Beef, pork or shrimp stir fry
• Veggie frittata 
• Chicken noodle soup
• Tuna chef salad
• Spinach salad with strawberries, cheese, nuts and hard cooked eggs
• Potato salad with hard cooked eggs
• Nicoise salad

The Hawaii Plan had a recent post with a great list of dinner ideas with lots of recipe links. That will be very helpful too.

Dinners & the week ahead

Happy 42nd birthday to our younger son on this Monday. We will celebrate at the Easter gathering Sunday but we will take him out for a birthday lunch on the day of his choosing this week.

We are babysitting the toddle Tuesday afternoon. I may go to a talk at the city rec center on Wednesday.

Hoping to get the replacement cellular shade up this week and some more paperwork done!

What we ate for dinner -

Monday - Dinner out with cousins @ Five Tacos and Beer. I had a shrimp taco that was delicious plus plenty of chips and guacamole and a good beer. Then we went back to our house and had gelato bars that I had picked up at the little neighborhood market.

Tuesday - Turkey burgers, boiled small red potatoes, large salads

Wednesday - Trader Joe's potstickers, large salads

Thursday - Leftover turkey burgers & potatoes, green beans

Friday - Vegetarian sweet potato chili (https://cookieandkate.com/sweet-potato-chili-recipe/) with leftover beef broth and half a beer subbed for veggie broth. It was good but will not go in rotation. Lots of leftovers frozen.

Saturday - Leftover rice and green beans, potstickers and half a pear for me. Hubby out with a friend.

Sunday - Easter dinner at DIL's mother's house. We took hearty nibbles for earlier in the afternoon.

Dinners & the week ahead

I am quite excited about Monday as one of my favorite cousins and her husband who live on the East Coast are going to stop by for a visit as they head out on vacation. We haven’t seen each other since before the pandemic although we do stay in touch.

Wednesday is Pilates before the instructor goes back on vacation for 2 more weeks after the prior 4. Hopefully I will actually go to the library mystery book club too. 

Nothing else planned yet but we need to figure out what we are taking for nibbles before an early Easter dinner and finish buying the grandgirls Easter gifts. The dress I ordered should arrive and hopefully will be a winner plus lots of shoes/sandals arriving to try on. 

I'd also like to make more progress on deep cleaning the kitchen and finishing Outstanding Annoying Tasks plus do something fun.

Dinners last week

Tuna chef salad

Tofu veggie stir fry, brown jasmine rice

BBQ chicken, boiled small red potatoes, carrots

Large dinner salad, leftover soup from freezer

Frittata with sweet Italian sausage, zucchini, cherry tomatoes and red pepper plus sourdough toast

Pasta salad over arugula

Pork chop, broccoli, leftover pasta salad

Dinners & the week ahead

The week ahead -

Hmmm - looks pretty empty on the calendar except for the final inspection of the insulation work on Tuesday then on Saturday both the Friends of the Library book sale and our 44th anniversary.

It will be a good week to focus on self care, projects and some things left on the OATS list.

What we had for dinner -

Monday - Turkey chili, coleslaw, garlic bread

Tuesday - Salmon, spinach, mashed potatoes

Wednesday - Tofu, broccoli & red pepper stir fry, white rice

Thursday - Leftover turkey chili, 

Friday - Roasted chicken, toasted thick bread crumbs and arugula & current salad (Barefoot Contessa recipe). Dinner cooked by our son after we babysat the older grandgirl half the day

Saturday - Fish tacos (  ).Dinner cooked together with son and grandgirls at our house while DIL was at an event.

Sunday - Trader Joe’s frozen roasted veg pizza with added veggies.

Dinners & the week ahead

Our mini-pie for Pi day. Isn’t the pi decoration a nice touch?

Did anyone else feel discombobulated all week from the change to Daylight Savings time? All of us including the dog certainly did.

We have this coming Wednesday and Thursday blocked for the attic insulation and air sealing but are hoping it doesn’t take the full two days as we will have to monitor the dog all the time they are here. He copes well but the coming and going of the workers means we have to make sure he is staying in the house. I may have to take him to our son's for a while and hang out quietly while they work.

Other than that, I have the library mystery book club and a haircut on my calendar. I’ve made good progress on clearing the desk and dining table of aging paperwork and hope to finish it all this week.

I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s day but it was my grandfather’s birthday and I have such fond memories of him so that makes it a special day to me. As to the first day of Spring, I can feel it in the air and have seen a few daffodils and tulips blooming along with lots of flowering trees and shrubs. Lots of birds calling and the crows making a ruckus as they proclaim their territory. However we have had 2 hailstorms!

Hoping to continue to enjoy our yard and longer walks if we have good weather. 

What we ate for dinner last week - it was an especially simple and easy dinner prep week

Monday - Tuna chef salad with cornbread from freezer

Tuesday - Black bean tostadas, roasted butternut squash

Wednesday - Trader Joe’s frozen dumplings, broccoli 

Thursday - Sautéed small potatoes, green pepper, onion and sausage with leftover butternut squash and broccoli 

Friday - Trader Joe’s roasted vegetable pizza, pie for Pi day

Saturday - Ground turkey pasta skillet, coleslaw (new turkey recipe; easier than chili but too bland)

Sunday - Round turkey & macaroni skillet, coleslaw

Dinners & the week ahead

I am determined that this week with lots of rainy days forecast that I will finally get through most of the paperwork that has been sitting around for months! The plan is to clear the dining room table and desk piles.

Other “big” plans are to try to pick out/order new glasses, stop at the farmers market, go to Pilates and try to figure out why my seeds haven’t sprouted. Exciting? 

I’d like to make a pie for Pi day and share it with the family although I may buy one from a food truck in front of a local nursery instead. Perhaps also go to a free activity or two during the week.

I didn’t menu plan for the past 2 weeks and noticed the lack of planning in our grocery list and in knowing ahead of time how to best use our food supply. I suspect we spent more too. I’ll have to make sure to do it for next week.

What's in mind for dinner this week? I'm considering veggie tostados, chicken stir fry, tuna chef salad, turkey chili, and salmon as main dishes.

What we ate for dinner last week - A fairly uninspired week for meals. I did bake blueberry muffins for snacks as well as cornbread and again using flaxseed instead of place of eggs worked out well.

Monday - Turkey burgers, salad, cornbread

Tuesday- Chicken with BBQ sauce, large dinner salads

Wednesday- Cauliflower & cheese ravioli (Trader Joe’s) with Parmesan, broccoli 

Thursday - Really interesting and good takeout pizza and salad at son’s house after we helped cover a couple hours of 2 year old care. They had last minute schedule conflicts so we were glad to help and it was fun.

Friday - Leftover turkey burgers, cabbage and carrot slaw, boiled new potatoes

Saturday - Sautéed shrimp and red pepper, leftover coleslaw, mango - it felt like an island dinner 😁

Sunday - Pork chop, boiled potatoes, peas, applesauce

What’s was for dinner & week’s plans

I’ve decided to just list what we ate the previous week although I’m still going to make a tentative weekly dinner plan to help with shopping as it has really helped.

Plans for the week

Hmmm - taxes, farmers market, eye exam & probably new glasses, Pilates, and first two days of insulation work. It’s boring but necessary like most of what is scheduled/planned so far for March lol. Hopefully the lettuce seeds will sprout. Maybe something fun over the weekend.

Last week’s dinners

Monday - Balsamic glazed salmon, steamed zucchini, brown Basmati rice

Tuesday - Baked spaghetti with sausage, onion, & red pepper plus green beans

Wednesday - Leftover baked spaghetti & green bean plus dinner salad

Thursday - Roasted cauliflower and carrots & leftover brown Basmati rice and green beans 

Friday - Dinner out. We babysat the 8 year old for parents’ date night so we took her to the local bookstore to spend her own money and then out to a local place for dinner followed by locally made ice cream. Then home for Despicable Me 4 before our son picked her up. The 2 year old stayed late at nursery school for Kid’s Night Out which is a cute variation on Parent’s Night out.

Saturday - Pork chop, leftover roasted veggies, pinto beans

Sunday - Salmon, golden beets, Trader Joe’s harvest blend grains 

What’s for dinner & other plans

Plans for the week

Monday buy some seed starting mix and try with lettuce seeds, Wednesday is our pre insulation walk through planning contractor visit, Thursday is dog grooming appointment and possibly artist opening reception at City Hall, Friday we babysit 8 year old granddaughter for parents date night, Saturday is Farmer’s market and possible local small symphony concert. If I do all that plus exercising, home admin/chores and reading/walking I will be happy.

Dinner plans Monday thru Sunday 

- I also want to make pumpkin pecan muffins and blueberry pancakes for breakfasts

Pasta with sauce from freezer, peppers, sausage and zucchini 

Turkey chili x2 plus cornbread

Pork chop, butternut squash, apple salad

Tuna chef salad

Salmon, green beans, rice

Chicken, peas, carrots, mixed grains

What we ate for dinner last week

Our older son was still in town and pet sitting nearby so he ate dinner with us for the first two days.

Monday - pork chops, pinto beans, hearty dinner salads, mango

Tuesday - we treated our son to Greek food from a nearby restaurant (not planned)

Wednesday - Veggie soup and hearty salad

Thursday - Cheese and cauliflower ravioli and broccoli (not planned)

Friday - Chicken, sweet potato, leftover takeout rice

Saturday - Veggie soup, Caesar salad 

Sunday - Chicken tostados (meat & tortillas from freezer) with black beans, cooked carrots

What's for dinner & other plans

Plans for this week:

Not much on the calendar so will somewhat be catching up on tasks and plans for the month. Our older son will still be in town pet sitting nearby for 3 days although DIL had to return home earlier. He will be over each day and stay with us again Wednesday night before driving home.

Monday - Sunday dinner mains: Some are from last week and others are using what is in frig and freezer.

• Pork chops
• Chicken tostados (chicken leftover from dinner out)
• Homemade soup or chili x 2
• Pasta with marinara, peppers & sausage
• Lemon chicken
• Salmon

What we ate last week: 

Monday - Spaghetti with sauce, mushrooms, red pepper & crumbled leftover meatloaf plus zucchini

Tuesday - Chicken breast, broccoli & rice

Wednesday- Salmon, veggies & leftover rice

Thursday - Homemade minestrone & garlic bread

Friday - Family Valentines dinner at Mexican restaurant (last minute plan)

Saturday - Leftover minestrone & green salad

Sunday - Hearty snacks at birthday party & last of minestrone 

What's for dinner & other plans

Let’s start with my favorite January buys which were replacements for 2 small kitchen items both of which were damaged by the dishwasher over time. I bought OXO Good Grips swivel vegetable peeler and coarse grater with orange trim. Both are increasing our “happiness” with doing those tasks and not going in the dishwasher!

My plans for Monday thru Sunday:

On the calendar this week are signing the contract for attic and crawl space air sealing and insulation, helping with 2nd birthday party prep and going to the party, prepping for older son and DIL to stay one night before they go to their pet sitting house (they are coming for the bday party), babysitting birthday girl on Friday. And all the usual including Pilates. Because of party prep I won’t make it to the local history talk at the rec center but still hope to go to one at the library. 

This coming week’s dinner main dish plan: We have quite a bit of veggies and fruit to use up so those will appear.

• Chicken & veggies

• Pork chop, pinto beans & salad
• Salmon, broccoli & rice
• Spaghetti with mushrooms, red pepper & chicken sausage plus zucchini & garlic bread
• Minestrone soup (homemade)
• ? on birthday party day

What we ate for dinner last week - all but one was what was planned

• Shrimp cocktails & large salad with leftovers added including black beans

• Salmon, small red potatoes & cooked spinach

• Trader Joe's frozen roasted vegetable pizza with chicken sausage. tiny tomatoes, garlic and basil added

• Turkey meatloaf, coleslaw & carrots and peas

• Sautéed cooked chicken from the freezer, mushrooms, grape tomatoes & red pepper over pasta with shredded Parmesan (sub for chicken tostados)

• Turkey meatloaf, microwaved sweet potatoes & leftover coleslaw
• Tuna chef salad with blueberry muffins

What’s for dinner & other plans - Feb 3, 2025

I plan for Monday through Sunday.

Not much on the calendar again this week which will hopefully lead to getting a lot done! The return of rainy days should help with indoor projects but not with dog walks or taking pup on an outing for his 3rd birthday if it is still rainy on Friday.  I have a new patient appointment with my Kaiser Dr., Pilates once and hope to go to a free talk about Native American history in this location.

What’s are your plans for the week?

This coming week’s dinner main dish plan - it's not much of a plan! We do need to use up some veggies/salad greens and have quite a bit of frozen protein so that will be a start. 

• Shrimp cocktails & large salad
• Chicken tostados
• Tuna chef salad
• Turkey burgers
• Veggies over rice
• Frozen pizza with added veggies
• Salmon

What we ate for dinner last week -

Despite my lazy planning, we mostly ate what I planned.

• Balsamic glazed salmon with leftover black beans and steamed butternut squash
• Turkey chili with pear slices and garlic bread
• Turkey chili and cabbage carrot slaw
• Pan fried chicken breast, broccoli and boiled new potatoes (substituted for going out)
• Pork chop plus leftover broccoli, potatoes & slaw
• Huevos rancheros and black beans
• Chicken Shu Mai (Trader Joe’s frozen entree), green beans and rice (unplanned)

What's for dinner & other plans: Jan 27, 2025

I’m changing to planning for Monday through Sunday despite grocery shopping on Wednesday.

Not much on the calendar this week: just Pilates once and GrandFriends Day at the 8 year old’s school. My intention is to focus on finishing big tasks like transitioning to Kaiser for our health provider, finishing tasks for our office glow up and reorganization, etc. on top of the usual stuff. I do want to catch up with a neighbor who had a potentially really bad diagnosis but I haven’t talked to her since she spoke to the specialist.

What’s are your plans for the week?

This coming week’s dinner main dish plan reflects both what is on hand and my lack of decisiveness this morning!

• Chicken chef salad or tostados
• Huevos rancheros or an omelette 
• Turkey chili x 2
• Salmon
• Pork chop or shrimp
• Dinner out/takeout/leftovers

What we ate for dinner the last 6 days (not on order):

No particular favorites however I would not buy the cheese tortellini again as they were basically tasteless. We did have to throw out some leftover tilapia as neither of us grabbed it for lunch. 

• Turkey burger, pinto beans, steamed zucchini 
• Tilapia & salad
• Cheese tortellini, broccoli, zucchini
• Leftover beef stew, cornbread
• Turkey burgers, black beans, butternut squash
• Pick your own leftovers

What’s for Dinner & Other Plans - Jan 21-27

I plan for Tuesday through Monday. I have a fairly busy but not very social week and I want to work on finishing my office “glow up” project as well as other things.

What’s on the calendar? Dentist checkup, energy audit, Pilates, new internet provider hook up (Sonic vs Comcast now) plus Lunar New Year outing with DIL, her Mom and the grandgirls

This coming week’s dinner main dishes plan:

• Beef stew from freezer
• Turkey burgers x 2
• Tilapia tostadas 
• Veggies over mixed grains
• Chicken chef salad
• Huevos rancheros

What we ate for dinner last week: 

My favorites were the nachos and homemade chicken noodle soup as they were different from our usuals. We still have enough chicken frozen for another meal.

• Instead of bean tostados - Nachos (tortilla chips, black beans, salsa, cheese, tomatoes, avocado) 
• Shrimp sir fry (frozen cooked shrimp, red pepper, broccoli)
• Chicken (store rotisserie chicken), sautéed zucchini & onions, and cornbread
• Pasta (with chicken sausage, mushrooms, peppers and sauce) & Caesar salad 
• Chicken noodle soup (homemade with fusilli, carrots, green beans, celery, onions) & cornbread x 2
• Pork chop, sweet potato, zucchini 

Menu Monday on Tuesday

The grocery list is done just in time and here is what we have planned.

- Shrimp stir fry

- Bean & cheese tostados

- Pasta with sausage, mushrooms and peppers

- Pork chop, sweet potato, beans, mushrooms and onions

- Purchased cooked whole chicken: chicken and veggies

- Chicken noodle soup made with leftover chicken and homemade broth

Last week's menu plan worked well although we did not go out to eat as planned. Instead I thawed a thin slicked chicken breast piece and we had that with veggies that needed to be used up (cauliflower and spinach). 

Monday - menus and plans for the week

Today started out very foggy which was an interesting change for my early morning dog walk. We ran into a dog friend right away which always makes the pup happy.

Our joint planning of dinners worked out well last week so we did it again this morning. Our son passed on a jar of gifted Balsamic glaze that they don’t want so it is making an appearance in the menu.

Dinners for week - in no particular order:

• Balsamic glazed salmon plus veggies 
• Chicken Shu Mai (Trader Joe’s frozen) plus rice
• Turkey chili (2 meals)
• Pizza (Trader Joe’s frozen) doctored up
• Steamed veggies over rice
• Dinner out or takeout

Last week seemed to be potato week so this week is rice 😉. We did end up with future dinners of beef stew and vegetable soup in the freezer. This week should add a meal of chili to the freezer. We do love leftovers and easy nights of cooking.

Plans for the week include researching the energy audit and fixes offered by 2 highly rated companies, getting ready/confident about getting rid of desktop and removing it from the desk, paying 2nd half of property taxes and continuing to read and exercise. 

Healthier eating as we age - what to choose?

We have been looking again at our diet as we try to balance nutrition and food sensitivities, gout and different metabolisms. Just talking to others about what they are doing to be as healthy as possible makes the head spin a bit. One couple is doing Paleo and have lost weight and seen cholesterol levels drop dramatically. Another person is on a macrobiotic diet while going through chemo. Then there is the wine, beer, butter, meat and lots of good vegetables couple.

Our diet had evolved to limited dairy items (Greek yogurt and some cheese), soy milk, chicken/fish/pork, lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grains. Due to my husband's gout we have eliminated beer and have white wine only when out to eat. Still we can improve. Too much coffee and breads although they are whole grain. An increase in vegetable quantity wouldn't hurt. We are not going to go to extremes but I need to get back some excitement around planning and cooking meals. I do see why my Mom was plain sick of meal preparation late in life!

I'm back to trying to include more vegetarian dinners in the rotation. Tonight it is kale and roasted vegetable soup from the Simply Recipes blog with fruit salad and cornbread. Tomorrow we are back to meat with a turkey meatloaf with sweet potato and at least one other vegetable dish.

Are you doing anything specific with your diet to maximize your health as you age?

Eat for $4 a day - what a great resource to try no matter what your budget

I happened upon The Salt, NPR's food blog, and a link to this cookbook that was created by Leanne Brown in fulfillment of a final project for a master's degree in food studies at NYU. She has made it available as a free download and raised money through Kickstarter to print and distribute copies to SNAP recipients.

You hear about people taking as a challenge trying to live on a SNAP budget and complaining about the food they have to eat. Well she has created recipes that any one of us would be happy to cook and eat. I love the ideas for varying oatmeal and plain yogurt as well as other ones.

Take a look and tell me what you would cook first! Then try it out and report back.

A SNAP Cookbook: Good and Cheap

Other people recommend this additional resource: The Stone Soup

 

 

Menu plan for multiple dietary challenges: Week 1

I found the cutest free menu planner printable at ollibird and more for other purposes at Apartment Therapy .

Now to the hard stuff. I managed to feed us dinner this first week of our additional requirement of "gout prevention" dietary challenge (along with no milk, low cholesterol, low salt, low sugar) and discovered some new and delicious main dishes. You'll see it was all very heavy on veggies and light on protein. For example, when we had turkey burgers we each had one half of a burger. When you are limited to 4 to 6 oz. of meat/fish/cheese per day that isn't much. Nuts, yogurt, tofu and soy milk don't seem to need to be counted in that - hope I'm correct about that.

For the first time we coordinated planning what Hubby made for his lunch and what we had for dinner. He is having less pain in his foot but who knows if diet is making any difference. He is not on any medication except ibuprofen as needed so perhaps it is. The whole point of this is to lower his uric acid level enough so that his body will reabsorb the crystals deposited in his toe joint.

So what did we eat?

Monday – Ate out: Thai restaurant - hubby had veggies with tofu and rice

Tuesday– Healthified seared tilapia with lemon tarragon sauce (delicious), pasta, zucchini, peaches

Wednesday –veggie salad w goat cheese and pecans, watermelon/peach/kiwi salad

Thursday – turkey burgers, roasted new potatoes, steamed carrots & snap peas, sliced tomatoes

Friday – steamed mixed veggies (carrots, snap peas, summer squash, broccoli), sautéed Savoy cabbage & red pepper, brown rice, cucumber & radish salad, orange slices

Saturday – pasta sauce (leftover turkey burger, bell peppers & tomatoes), fruit salad, marinated golden beets

Sunday – chef salad (heavy on chopped veggies & light on chicken), fruit salad

What do you eat when you have lots of dietary restrictions?

When you need to eat low salt, low cholesterol, low sugar, low purine (for gout) and non-dairy. Be sure to add in to the challenges that one of us needs to lose a bit of weight and one gain weight!

I have found some new recipes online and this site looks good as it labels recipes low sodium, low sugar, gluten free, etc. and you can search that way too (Live Better America). It doesn't have the purine levels but I've made a spread sheet and other cheat sheets based on research based dietary advice that actually showed the purine levels of food as well as providing general guidance.

It is a conundrum as some food that are healthy in other ways (spinach, broccoli, prunes, etc.) are high in purines. In the end diet only has a small effect on gout flares anyway but it is worth trying.


Here's what we figured out. Note total protein is to be below 100g per day from all sources.

IN	OUT
Water, coffee, tea, cherry juice, white wine (on occasion)	Beer, fruit juices except cherry
Rice, barley, quinoa Whole wheat pasta, cereal & bread (limited) Limited oatmeal	Beans, lentils, split peas
4-6oz per day of skinless chicken breasts, some fish, reduced fat cheese, eggs and occasionally very lean boneless & skinless turkey, beef or pork Nuts & peanut butter	Any more than that!
Non or low-fat soy milk and Greek yogurt (2 servings per day)	Any more than that!
All fresh fruit	Dried fruit
Most vegetables especially salad items, carrots, cabbage, beets, potatoes and more	Very limited broccoli, peas, spinach, etc.

Has anyone else figured out the gout dietary issues?

By the way, we won't be making this dish I found on a recipe card in my Mom's old recipe box! Not appealing for so many reasons but it must have been a post WWII item. I know she never fed it to me.

Open-Faced Sandwiches

1 can Spam
1 small onion
6 T. catsup
1/8 lb. butter or margarine
1/2 lb. cheese

Grind Spam and onion. Melt cheese and butter in double boiler. Mix together and add catsup. Spread on half of hamburger buns and put under broiler until hot and bubbly.