Menu Plan Monday

Welcome Back!!

It is a new week and time for a new plan. I need to be a little tight with budget this week, so I'm going to try and eat from the stockpile, but I also found a great new shrimp recipe I'd love to try, so if shrimp is reasonable when I go to the store this week I'll try it out too.

Monday - Lasagna, salad, rolls. I'm going to do 2 at the same time so I can stick one in my freezer for later. I'm sticking with my standby recipe, but I saw this cool recipe for a zucchini lasagna that you may want to try. :)

Tuesday - Chicken Pot Pie- chicken, cream of chicken soup, and veggies all warmed up in the oven, and then put refrigerator biscuits on top and cook for another 20 minutes or so at 350 degrees.

Wednesday - Church

Thursday - Tacos w/ lettuce, corn, and beans on the side, or in your taco.

Friday - Tortellini in a pumpkin cream sauce

Saturday - Family night

Sunday - shrimp (Maybe?) I think I will do grits if I get to make shrimp. Got to love shrimp and grits!! If I can't buy any shrimp or decide to just keep eating from my freezer I'll be doing Chicken Parmesan.

I am also going to be making carrot bread at the request of my toddler, and maybe some other baked goods. We'll have baked oatmeal, oatmeal, and of course cheerios for breakfast this week, and leftovers for lunch.

PS Last sunday we tried this macaroni, cheese, and chicken bake and it was great. It'll go on the family favorite list :)

Menu Plan

Sorry this is so late...I debated not putting it up at all, but that doesn't seem like a great way to start the year. :)

So...

Breakfasts for my toddler and I will be:
1) Cinnamon rolls
2) Pancakes - I have a favorite recipe. 1&1/2 c flour (I use Whole Wheat (spring wheat)), 3&1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspon salt, 1 Tablespoon sugar, 1&1/4 milk, 3 Tablespoons butter, and 1 egg. It is great!
3) Oatmeal
4) Cheerios

Lunches:
Leftovers

Dinners:
Monday - I grilled my first TriTip Steak yesterday and it was yummy! We just did a dry rub of Kosher Salt (2 T), fresh pepper(2T), and garlic powder (1/2 T) and grilled 8 -10 minutes on each side. It is pretty hard to mess this one up, so I recommend it, even for beginners. :) Use a meat thermometer to check doneness and let it sit under a foil tent for a few minutes so that all the juices can go back into the meat. I made some rice and green beans to go with it.
Tuesday - Broiled Chicken (From Mark Bitman's How to Cook Everything Essentials)
I'm using chicken breast. You can pound to a uniform thickness if needed
3T olive oil, 3 or 4 cloves of garlic slivered, salt, freshly ground pepper, and a lemon. I have a veggie medley to go with it, a salad, and maybe some bread or rice.
Directions: 1) Heat Broiler to Med Heat with rack 4 in from heat. 2)Put chicken in pan w/ oil and garlic and then add salt and pepper. You can cover and set aside this for up to an hour to let the flavor develop) 3) no more than 3 to 4 minutes on each side, turning only once. Sprinkle with lemon juice and serve.
Wednesday - Church :)
Thursday - I'm going to do a Balsamic Chicken from the South Beach book (you know, resolutions and all that!)
Friday - Family night!
Saturday - I will be doing something with beef. If the hubs sticks to his work out plan I may reward with hamburgers :)
Sunday -

For more great menu ideas check out orgjunkie.com

Smoked Turkey and Pasta

Another Leslie Sansone hit at our house!
We tried this pasta recipe and it was great. (Well, I tweaked it with what I had available)

First I roasted a pack of grape tomatoes and 1 vidalia onion in olive oil, salt and oregano at 450 for about 20 mins.

While that was cooking I boiled a pot of pasta and cut up a few ounces of Gouda cheese and some smoked turkey. I just went to the deli and had them cut a smoked turkey about a 1/4 lb in one thick slice and then there was no extra cooking. By the time the tomatoes and onions and pasta were all done I threw it all in one big pot and stirred it together until the gouda started to melt (YUM!) I added a little red wine vinegar, salt and pepper, and then a little bit more olive oil. It was great. My daughter loved it (of course on hers I covered her pasta in parmesan cheese) and so do my friend Mrs. Hazel (she's in her eighties) so I think I covered all age spans. Try it out! It was great.

Tortellini in a pumpkin cream sauce w/ toasted walnuts and dried cranberries

This was a recipe we got out of Leslie Sansone's EAT SMART, WALK STRONG book and I loved it. Now the rest of the house could have gone either way, and I would say that it meets the "fru-fru" food test at our house. It isn't something that we normally see and it doesn't have meat, therefor my husband classifies it as "girl food" or "fru-fru" food. It was really filling and I never missed the meat, but you could do it with a chicken tortellini or ravioli if you wanted it.
Here are the basics -

Cook your tortellini or pasta (about a pound)
Toast your Walnuts (1/2 cup) at 400 degrees for around 3 minutes (until you hear it sizzling) and set aside.
Meanwhile, melt 1 Tbsp Butter in a skillet on medium heat
Once it's melted add minced garlic (I think the recipe said 2 T but whatever you like is probably fine) and saute about 1 min.
Then add a bit of sage (2 t dry or 2 T fresh) and saute for another 30 seconds or so.
Once you can smell all of that cooking add 1 can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie!) and about 1/2 cup of milk and heat until it is bubbling.
At this point add milk until it is your desired consistency and salt and pepper to taste.

Combine pasta and sauce and sprinkle with the walnuts and dried cranberries.

I served my two year old with everything separate and told her that the sauce was dip. Works for us. :)

Menu update

Here's how my menu is going so far this week.

Sunday - Stuck to the plan and ate lasagna.

Monday - We tried the Chicken Broccoli casserole, and I didn't love it. It was good, but I don't know that we will make it again. It was still pretty though :) Tuesday - I planned on Shrimp Alfredo, but the in-laws called and had Sonny's at their house, so off we went to their house.
I have had a chance to work on some of my kitchen extras, check out my pound cake.

Today's Wednesday, I'll update the rest as I go. :)
Wednesday we ate at church.
Thursday we had our family night with extended family.
Friday I was too tired to function, and Hubs was working, so Chick-fil-a with my toddler. :)
Saturday I was ready to go back to eating at home, but just as I was pulling stuff out of the fridge my MIL called to say they had extra burgers and fajitas, and did we want to help them finish them? So, again we ran from the house and enjoyed dinner with them.
Sunday I finally got to make shrimp alfredo. I cooked the shrimp for just a few minutes in balsamic vinagrette w/ 2 cloves of garlic (minced) and then did half of this alfredo recipe. We all enjoyed the dinner. I highly recommend it.

Yum - Baked Oatmeal with Apples.

My daughter and I love oatmeal in the mornings, especially baked oatmeal. When I saw this version I had to try it. We both loved it the first morning, and I was able to eat it for a few in a row, even after she had tired of it. I'll post my picture later, but here is the link.

French Dip: A Resounding Success!

We made the french dip from our meal plan on monday and had a few people over for dinner. It was great! My husband doesn't love the sandwhich idea, so we just sliced some roast for him, and the rest of us had french dips w/ aus jus (Did I spell that right?). This definitely goes in the recipe keep pile! Yum!

Recipe Review - Penne Rustica

Our freezer day was pretty much a bust, we just didn't have time to do much of what we planned. We did manage to get the pesto done, and it seemed to freeze really well in the muffin tins. We didn't do the freezer day, but today I made one batch of the Penne Rustica and it was AWESOME! I loved it. I will definitely do it again. I put what we had left over into 1 person servings and froze it for lunches or small dinners later on.

Will My Family Starve This Week (Another Failed Recipe attempt)?

Ugh! I want to love $5 dinners, but nothing I have made has tasted great. We tried again tonight, but another night, another failed recipe. This was a vegetarian meal, so I didn’t even try it out on my husband, but my daughter was sobbing throughout the meal (so NOT like her at all). Ever time she took a bite she would look at me and start crying again. I eventually gave up and gave her leftovers from lunch (and of course cakeJ ). I ate my portion, and I guess I’ll be eating it again for lunch, because I can’t stand waste, but I am not looking forward to lunch tomorrow. This meal was the gnocchi meal, and it wasn’t awful, it just didn’t have a whole lot of taste. Maybe if I added something to it it would pass, but I don’t plan on making it again. Sorry guys. I’ll let you know if I find a winner.

Recipe Review- Bacon wrapped Apple Chicken

Have to say that I am disapointed with how dinner turned out tonight. :( I made the recipe from $5 dinners and it was so dry! I have been having that problem lately with crock pot dinners, so I am wondering if my crockpot may be cooking a little bit too high? I put the chicken in for the allotted time, but alas! My husband was not pleased with the sauce either, so for 0 for 2. I knew I had him on the sweet potatoes, how can you resist all the brown sugar! Those he liked. :) Well, better luck next time...one of these $5 dinners will taste great, right?