Menu Plan Monday (or thursday!)

Thursday is better than nothing, that's what I have to say :)

And I did actually cook dinner the last two days, I just didn't plan out my week, so it's not as bad as it could have been!!

Monday - doctor's appointments - take out from the local italian place

Tuesday - Pork Shoulder and Betty Crocker Scalloped Potatoes

Wednesday - Grilled Rib Steaks seasoned with shallots and garlic

Thursday - Leftovers

Friday - Pasta Alfredo

Saturday - Out for the day - going out to eat

Sunday - Picnic/Barbecue after church

Menu Plan Monday Aug 6th - it's been a while!

Well, it's been a while, but I'm actually gonna cook dinner this week!  My LO is 8 weeks old and I'm finally feeling ready to get back in the swing of "normal" life!  Maybe I'll actually get something done if I can quit staring at this sweet face :)

Here's my attempt at getting back in the saddle:

Monday - Returning from out of town - eat on the way home

Tuesday - Cheesy Cornbread Chili Casserole

Wednesday - Marinated Grilled Chicken and Crock-pot Mac 'n' Cheese

Thursday - Leftovers

Friday - Smoky Skillet Cacciatore

Saturday - Rotisserie Chicken, corn on the cob, and salad

Sunday - Leftovers again or out to eat with friends

Menu Plan Oct 17th-22

I've been home alone the last two weeks, so I haven't done much cooking. It's no fun cooking for yourself!! I've had lots of wonderful friends invite me over or go out somewhere with me, but the occasional night I've stayed in has consisted of really exciting dinners such as.... toasted english muffin with peanut butter!  Stunning!

This week I'm finally getting back in the swing of things. I am so happy to have my hubby back home. It's been very lonely without him, especially since I could rarely have any communication with him. I don't know how people do it with their husbands gone for months or years at a time. I was going crazy without having him around, and it was only 2.5 weeks!

Ok, on to the menu for this week!

Monday - Lemon-Garlic Chicken with Pasta and Quick & Easy Alfredo Sauce
 --I love this alfredo sauce! It's quick, it uses ingredients I almost always have around the house, and to me, it tastes amazing. It may not be *quite* as good as REAL alfredo sauce, but I love that it is so easy and pretty much fool-proof to throw together! I always add extra garlic... mmmm

Tuesday - Cheese Steak Sandwiches (crockpot)

Wednesday - Gumbo with Chicken & Italian Sausage  (crockpot)
--I looked for a while to find a good gumbo recipe, and kinda pulled several together to create this one. I think it's exactly what I was looking for! dont' forget to add the roux at the end... gives it that something extra special!

Thursday - leftovers

Friday - Argentinian Pork Tenderloin  (cooking the pork in the crockpot)

Saturday - leftovers again, or out to dinner with friends!


~~~~~~~

Menu Plan Monday

This is one of those weeks were I feel like meal planning is HARD! I'm struggling for motivation. I know that when I do plan meals, everything is way way easier throughout the week, but I still have a hard time encouraging myself to do it!

So... here we go...

Monday - Hamburgers on the grill

Tuesday - Leftovers

Wednesday - Crockpot Baked Ziti - going to brown some italian sausage instead of ground beef, and add some chopped spinach or zucchini or whatever veggies I have laying around.

Thursday - Garlic Lime Chicken - serving with black beans and sweet corn

Friday - Jamaican Salmon

Saturday - Leftovers or dinner out!

PS Coffee buttercream frosting is amazing!!! I made some ghiardelli brownie cupcakes last night for a co-worker's birthday and frosted them with coffee flavored buttercream. YUM I am drooling just remembering them.

I still have a bowl full of the coffee frosting in the fridge... what else can I put it on? or should I just give in to my taste buds and have a few spoonfuls by itself? ;)










Have a great week!

Menu Plan Monday - Aug 29th

Well now, how about that hurricane! We got hit pretty hard in our area. At my house, we had a window blow in, and just barely managed to keep the basement from flooding. We actually never lost power, and I am so thankful for that! Turns out we got to help out some family who didn't have power too, so all in all, not too bad of an experience with the hurricane! My thoughts go out to all those who had far worse damage than me!

Anyway, on to my meals for the week...

Monday - Spaghetti and homemade meat sauce, with fresh veggies from the farmers market

Tuesday - Brats with grilled peppers and onions (and maybe some mashed potatoes)

Wednesday - Leftovers

Thursday - Steak tacos - I will cook a beef roast in the crockpot all day for this

Friday - Peanut butter chicken (another crock pot one)

Saturday - Leftovers or eat out!

Happy *almost* September!!

Menu plan August 8-12

Menu Plan Monday (on Wednesday!)

Ok, first of all... how did it get to be August?? It's less than 5 months until Christmas! Hope you're getting ready! I still have garland up over my fireplace cuz it's such a pain to take down! Guess at this point I might as well leave it until December... and yes, I do realize how sad that is! LOL!

Lets see, food for the week...

Monday - French Dip sandwiches (Crockpot) - YUM one of my most favorite meals EVER!
I make a few tweaks to the recipe that's linked - usually only make half the amount it calls for unless we're having company, and the seasonings I use are as follows: 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 Worcestershire sauce, 1 cup beef broth, 2 cups water, ~3 cloves garlic, 1.5 tsp dried rosemary, 1/2 t dried thyme, 1 t dried onion flakes, & approx 2 bay leaves. Double this juice & seasonings if you're making the full recipe amount.

Tuesday - leftovers

Wednesday - Home made pizza

Thursday - Indian Butter Chicken (Crockpot) - this one is an experiment! I am excited!

Friday - leftovers again...

Saturday - Ziti with Sausage and Zucchini (also found this recipe - I may end up combining the two...)

Last minute summer veggie ideas

Today is one of those days when I am running out of time to figure out what's for dinner, and all the meat we have is still in the freezer. (Those days happen a lot in my house!)

I have a bunch of veggies we picked up at the farmer's market this weekend so here's what I'm thinking...

Indian Summer Vegetable Stew
I don't have any eggplant so I will just leave that out and add some extra zucchini in it's place. Or perhaps just leave it out and halve all the spices and such. I think I already have the rest of the ingredients at the house. I will probably also leave out the cilantro, since I don't think I have any growing any longer.

Also...might save these for another day if the above idea works but if we need something more...
I saw this recipe for Zucchini-Riccotta fritters in a magazine yesterday but I don't think we have any ricotta cheese, and I wasn't planning on going to the store. So here's my plan B:

Zucchini fritters - I will probably add some corn kernels as well as the zucchini, since I had an extra cob of corn that was cooked yesterday.

Neither one of these should take too long, other than the chopping of the veggies.

Wish me luck! :)

April 25th thru 30th

Well this is all I got so I might as well go ahead and post it!


Monday & Tuesday - hubby's got stuff going on and I need to finish up some leftovers


Wednesday - Black Bean and Veggie Quesadillas


Thursday - dinner at a friend's & making brownies :)


Friday - Indian Butter Chicken (Crock pot)
---except I can't find any garam masala so I guess we'll see if this actually happens!


Saturday - French Dip Beef Sandwiches au jus (Crock pot)
AND I might even be ambitious and make my own french bread rolls! HAH we will see :)

5 ingredient recipes! - Chicken in Garlic Lime Sauce

Another Vocalpoint recipe that I am planning on trying...

Chicken in Garlic Lime Sauce
This is an easy weeknight dish that can be marinated the night before and baked for a nutritious and tasty meal. You can also use the marinade with tofu or tempeh if you’d like a vegetarian option.

Serves 4

5 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (or 4 chicken breasts)
1 fresh lime, zest and juice
1 cup chicken stock
2 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp minced garlic (about 2 cloves)

1. Marinate the chicken thighs in a plastic freezer bag with half of the lime zest and juice, and half of the garlic for 2 to 4 hours. If you need more liquid to cover the chicken, add ½ cup of water.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour the remaining marinade into a small saucepan and add the chicken stock, cornstarch, the rest of the lime zest and juice, and garlic. Whisk vigorously until smooth.

3. Heat the saucepan over medium heat until it reaches a boil, stirring frequently. Spray a 2-quart baking dish with a nonstick spray and arrange the chicken pieces, then pour the sauce over the chicken thighs.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes until chicken is cooked through. Spoon the sauce over the chicken when serving. Serve with rice or mashed potatoes.

5 ingredient recipe! - Italian Quesadillas

Found this recipe at Vocalpoint and thought it sounded worth trying!

Italian Quesadillas
Change up your regular quesadillas with some Mediterranean flavors. Eggplant can be substituted for the pancetta or pepperoni for a vegetarian version. Lightly salt sliced rounds of eggplant, let stand for a few minutes, then pat off the moisture and salt with a paper towel.

Serves 4

8 large soft tortilla wraps
12 slices provolone cheese
12 thin slices pancetta, pepperoni, or thinly-sliced eggplant rounds
2 tomatoes, finely diced
2 tsp dried basil (or 1/3 cup chopped fresh basil)

1. Assemble each of the filler ingredients above on four tortilla shells, using 1/4 of each ingredient per tortilla. Gently press a second tortilla on top of the ingredients.

2. Heat a large dry skillet over medium-high heat. Carefully transfer one quesadilla at a time to the skillet and press down firmly with the back of a spatula. When cheese begins to melt and the bottom browns, gently flip the quesadilla to brown the other side. Remove from skillet and prepare the rest of the quesadillas the same way.

3. Cut quesadillas into six pieces and serve with sour cream or marinara sauce.

Nutritional info per serving: 762 calories, 37.2 g fat, 42.5 g carbohydrates, 55.6 g protein, 1.6 g sodium, 74.8% daily value of calcium.

Irish Stew!

Let me start this off by saying I am not Irish, and I don't really think I know any one who is, either. But I really wanted to figure out an Irish Stew that I could enjoy. So here it is...


It's based of of this one here from AllRecipes, and I read through a bunch of the reviews and made modifications from the suggestions of people who reviewed it.

Beef and Irish Stout Stew

Prep Time: 30 Minutes
Cook Time: 8 Hours
Ready In: 8 Hours 30 Minutes
Servings: 6

Ingredients:
1-2 pounds beef roast
2 medium potatoes, diced
2 large onions, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic
6 oz tomato paste
1 t celery salt
1/2 t dried thyme
2 bay leaves
1/2 t paprika
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 T Worchestershire sauce
1 1/2 cups Irish stout beer (such as
Guinness®)
2 cups chopped carrot (optional)
3 cups beef broth

Add everything to the crockpot and cook on low for 8-10 hours. Serve with Irish Soda Bread.

Menu Plan Monday March 7th

Monday - hubby has class tonight so we'll be eating at seperate times ... have to see what leftovers we have in the fridge.


Tuesday - HMO (Hamburger and Macaroni)


Wednesday - Spaghetti (and amazing delicious chocolate cake for my mom's bday!)


Thursday - Irish Stew in the crock pot


Friday - Homemade pizza! (w/ homemade dough and sauce)


Saturday - Lasagne with family :)

Sigh...no fun being sick

Ugh, so the dreaded flu finally caught up with me this year. I've managed to avoid it for several years but couldn't avoid it any longer apparently. Never got around to making a meal plan this week, and haven't felt up to eating anything other than pretzels and a plain english muffin until today! Thankfully I made a big batch of chili on Monday so my hubby hasn't been going too hungry with me out of commission :)

Anyways, looking for ideas now for the rest of the week. Still feeling a little on the cautious side, so I'm not planning anything too crazy. I'd be happy with plain pasta lol!



Tonight (Thursday) I'm thinking some kind of mac n cheese... maybe this one?

Friday, I think I will try this Easy Garlic Broiled Chicken


Saturday maybe I will feel more like eating and we'll have Irish Stew!

Valentine's Week!

Gotta get back on track! I basically took last week off from making dinners since my hubby was out of town the whole week on a business trip. Now that he's back home, it's time to get on the ball again!


Monday - Valentine's day... Steaks & baked potatoes with the works!

Tuesday - dinner with friends - don't need to plan anything

Wednesday - Mexican Chicken Corn Chowder

Thursday - leftovers

Friday - Hamburger & Macaroni

Also, we are having a Cupcake War at work on Monday for Valentine's day... I am thinking I will make Caramel Mocha cupcakes, so you might get to see that mess as well :)

almost February...

Still missed making one of the meals last week since we ended up getting pizza with my brother and sister-in-law wednesday instead of just eating leftovers, so one meal has to move to this week...

Here's this week's plan:

Monday - Moroccan Stew (crockpot)

Tuesday - leftovers

Wednesday - lime grilled chicken... have a packet of this seasoning mix to use... will probably make some rice to go with it.

Thursday - Hamburger & Macaroni

Friday - leftovers

Saturday - Mexican Chicken Corn Chowder

change of strategy...

So... I've been picking out 5 meals for each week, figuring that if I skip a day during the week to eat leftovers, then we'll push everything a day later and have saturday and/or sunday already covered. But what I've been finding is we still have way too many leftovers, because it's just me and my hubby, and even when we take leftovers for lunches and eat them for dinner a day or two, we still have some left, and I hate seeing yummy food go bad!

So for a couple weeks, I'm only going to pick out 4 meals, and see how that goes.

Here's my plan for the week...

Monday - Chicken Cheez-it

Tuesday - chimichangas (cook the meat in the crockpot)

Wednesday - leftovers

Thursday - minestrone (gonna cook this in the crockpot - probably will add chicken or mild italian sausage)

Friday - Moroccan Stew (another crockpot - one of my favorites!!)

Happy New Year!

I've never been one for New Years Resolutions... maybe because I know for a fact that I won't keep them up, so why even pretend? :)

If I did make resolutions, though, one of them would be to really get good at making meal planning a habit!

So lets start the year off right... Here's my plan for the week:

Monday - Spaghetti w/ homemade sauce (my favorite!)

Tuesday - Black Bean Soup (this is a test - never tried this recipe before so we will see how it goes) this came out pretty well. I used 2 cans of black beans, pureed one of them, added 2 chicken breasts, and cooked it all in the crockpot on low all day. I will save the recipe, cuz it was good, but I am also planning on trying other recipes.

Wednesday - Oatmeal-crusted chicken tenders

Thursday - Steaks mmmm these were super good!

Friday - Baked Chicken in Tomato Feta Sauce

Meals for thanksgiving week

Missed a couple meals last week due to things coming up and being overwhelmed with leftovers. So two meals from last week are getting moved to this week, and then of course we have thanksgiving on Thursday which will likely create enough leftovers for another whole week... so here we go...


Monday - Grilled Chicken with Peach Salsa

made the salsa last night... I was a little skeptical on the quality of the peaches I got, so we shall see how this turns out. The chicken is soaking in the spices today and we will grill it on the George Foreman when we get home.

Tuesday - Roast (Crockpot) and potatoes

I am thinking that I will have two crockpots going and put the potatoes in the second one. I haven't decided yet if I should wrap them in foil or just put them in.

Wednesday - thanksgiving gatherings begin! Salsa chicken and black bean soup

Thursday - Thanksgiving! I am responsible for mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes

Friday - Leftovers leftovers and more leftovers.......

Meals this week (Nov 14-20)

Monday - Penne Pasta with Roasted Garlic Cream Sauce
I actually did this a bit different. Instead of roasting the garlic, I sauteed it, and instead of roasting the tomatoes, I used a can of tomatoes, and put them (along with the seasonings they would have roasted with) in the pot with the garlic and cream. Toasted pecans instead of pine nuts since I forgot to look for pine nuts at the store. This was very yummy, though it turned out to be a sort of funny color of orange. Adding the tomatoes to the sauce makes more sauce than otherwise, so it could have covered more than 1 pound of pasta.

Tuesday - Chicken and Italian Sauage Gumbo (Crockpot)
yum! :)

Wednesday - Chickpea and Lentil Soup (Crockpot)
this was pretty good but I don't think I'm going to put it in my regular rotation.

Thursday - Roast (Crockpot) and potatoes
moved this to next week...

Friday - Grilled Chicken with Peach Salsa
moved this to next week...

Saturday - Thanksgiving get-together with friends - candied sweet potatoes

Meals for this week

I'm actually ahead of the game for once this week! Got my meal ideas ready yesterday. I am trying to get back in the habit of planning!! Sure saves a lot of arguments and headache if I do!


I may switch around the order of these a bit, but this is probably how it will go - The three linked ones will be in the crockpot:


Monday - Lemon Dill Chicken with wild rice

Tuesday - Cream Cheese Chicken with pasta

Wednesday - Gumbo! (I am super excited for this - I've only made it once before and it was so good!!)

Thursday - tacos

Friday - leftovers