Menu Plan Monday: Getting Thrown Off

I've been succeeding in spending little money at the grocery store and pulling from my freezer and pantry stockpile lately. Sometimes, Big T is less than willing to eat the healthy food I make, so I try to make these recipes when he's working late. He's willing to snack on whatever if he doesn't want to try what I've made. But this week, I got sick. That meant I didn't want to do much of anything, much less cook. I lied on the floor most of the day with Little M crawling all over me. This is what I did the rest of the week:

The Plan:
Monday: Salmon burgers (from freezer) over salad
Tuesday: Sweet potato chili (from freezer) over rice
Wednesday: Kale soup
Thursday: Pepperoni pizza
Saturday: Chicken, collards, rice

The Reality:
Monday: Salmon burgers (from freezer) over salad
Tuesday: sick
Wednesday: Creamy kale soup
Thursday: Leftover soft tacos from last week
Saturday: America's Test Kitchen Chicago deep-dish pizza

The Method:
It's nice to have a meal plan and food in the freezer when you get sick and have to change things up. There was no way I was cooking on Tuesday, and Big T was able to find stuff to eat nonetheless. My pantry and fridge are starting to look emptier, which is great, because I'm splitting a quarter of a cow with my friends this week. That means beef in the freezer for who knows how long!


The creamy kale soup recipe from this week was amazing, and the salmon burgers tasted like crab cakes. A definite keeper for freezer recipes. And the deep-dish pizza? Delicious. It was more work than I would have preferred, and I had some major heartburn in the morning, but it was kind of worth it. (There is half a stick of butter in the dough. Nuff said.)

For more meal planning obsessiveness inspiration, check out orgjunkie.com!

MENU PLAN MONDAY: It's on!

After a few weeks of slacking off, I was back on track this week, and it felt great. Last Sunday, I scheduled most of my blog posts for the week and prepared my meals. I didn't cook all day. I just went into the kitchen when I could and got some stuff together. I had dinners for the entire week, and I barely had to cook on my weeknights. This is when menu planning is so incredibly worth it.

I can't remember what I spent on groceries this week, but it was less than $50. This is getting easier and easier!

The Plan:
Monday: Spring rolls with salad
Tuesday: Cheesy split pea casserole with sausage and pasta
Wednesday: Thai meatballs over rice with kale and cabbage
Thursday: Sausage and pepper sandwiches, tater tots
Friday: Eat at Mom-Mom's
Saturday: Soft tacos

The Reality:
Monday: Spring rolls with salad
Tuesday: Cheesy split pea casserole with sausage and pasta
Wednesday: Thai meatballs over rice with cabbage
Thursday: Sausage and pepper sandwiches, twice-baked potatoes (from freezer)
Friday: Soft tacos
Saturday: Meatball grinders, homemade french fries

The Method:
Sunday: I wanted to kill two birds with one stone, so I "ground" up some chicken breasts in the food processor and combined them with ground beef. I mixed it with Asian flavorings: fish sauce, soy sauce, ginger, sesame oil, garlic, and cilantro. I browned half of it to use in the spring rolls and made the other half into meatballs. Separately, I sauteed shredded red cabbage and carrots until they were soft. I mixed the veggies with the browned meat and stuffed it into egg rolls. I wrapped the egg rolls in wax paper and put them in a plastic bag, and I deep fried them on Monday. For the meatballs, after they were cooked, I threw them in a storage container and poured a can of coconut oil over them.

Last week I promised you I would do something creative with the split pea soup that I made but didn't love. I made a casserole with ziti and turned the split pea soup into a thick, cheesy sauce. (Recipe to come tomorrow). It was darn good. Even Big T loved it, and he was pretty icked out by the split pea soup. I prepared this on Sunday and even have one in the freezer to eat another day.

Monday: All I had to do today was remove the egg rolls from the fridge and fry them. They did get a little soggy in the wax paper. I've had better luck freezing them and frying them from frozen.

Tuesday: Today, I just made rice and heated up the meatballs and coconut oil together, then threw it over the rice. I don't know why I thought having kale on the side would be good. I did have steamed red cabbage on the side. Yum. If you have never tried that, do it soon. Steamed or sauteed red cabbage is sweet and mild and delicious.

Wednesday: Dinner tonight was simple: I threw the cheesy split-pea casserole in the oven. And ate it.

Thursday: I did have to do a little bit of cooking tonight, but it just entailed pan-frying the sausage, peppers, and onions and throwing them on some sub rolls. I also sauteed kale with garlic for myself.

Friday: Tonight, Mom Mom came over our house, so I cooked again. It was one of my go-to meals: soft tacos. Cut up chicken and pan-fried it, roasted some fingerling sweet potatoes from Downeast Connect with some zucchini and onions, and served it in flour tortillas with salsa, cheese, and sour cream.

Saturday: I still had some sub rolls left over from our sausage sandwiches, so I made some meatballs, covered them with tomato sauce, and spooned them into the rolls. We always keep potatoes on hand, so I made some homemade french fries. It was simple and satisfying!

For more meal planning obsessiveness inspiration, check out orgjunkie.com!

Menu Plan Monday: Off the Wagon Again

Last week was not the best for my menu plan. But I didn't go to the store either, so I didn't spend any money on groceries.We had an incident with my car pouring smoke out of the hood, which would have ruined dinner on Monday if I hadn't prepared it earlier in the day. Big T was working late most of the week, so I didn't have to worry about providing dinner for him. And we had a birthday party to go to on Saturday, which meant I didn't really need to plan dinner for that day either. So I planned out Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and forgot about the rest of the week. Oops.

The Plan:
Monday: Cheesy chicken and rice bake
Tuesday: Split pea soup with bacon
Wednesday: Bacon quesadillas

The Reality:
Monday: Chicken and rice ranch casserole
Tuesday: Chik Fil-A
Wednesday: Split pea soup with bacon
Thursday: Apple with peanut butter
Friday: Eat at the in-laws'
Saturday: Pizza


The Method (not that there was much of one this week):
Monday: I started dinner early today, since the kids were with me all day. I knew I didn't want to be rushing toward the end of the day. (It was a good thing, too, since my afternoon ended up crazy and rushed when my car broke down.) In the morning, I cooked 2 chicken breasts by spreading mayo on them, then cutting an onion into rings and laying that on top of the chicken. I then baked them in a 365 degree oven for about 45 minutes. They ended up soooo moist and juicy. I reserved the liquid that had seeped out of the breasts for my casserole. While the chicken cooked, I made some Lundburg Wehani rice (my new favorite). To make the casserole, I diced the chicken and mixed it with the rice, the cauliflower I had cooked up last week, and frozen soybeans. I poured this mixture into a casserole dish. I mixed half a packet of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing with the liquid left over from cooking the chicken and poured it over the casserole. At dinnertime, I had planned on baking the casserole in the oven to heat it through, but since all the ingredients were pre-cooked, I ended up microwaving separate portions. This was a delicious casserole. The leftovers were even better, and I'll definitely make it again.
Tuesday: Since I had to take my car to the shop today, I had to drive Big T to work. This meant I had to pick him up in the evening, too. Since I knew the kids would be getting home late because of this, we had to eat dinner out on the road, somewhere between picking up Baby T from daycare and picking up Big T from work. We ended up at Chik Fil-A, where Little M ate 4 entire chicken nuggets, and Baby T picked at one and ate some fruit while trying to stay as far away as possible from the clown that was there for kid's night.
Wednesday: I had gotten a bag of split peas the week before, and wanted to try my hand at split pea soup. I used a veggie broth I had cooked in my crock pot the night before, and threw that in with some bacon, sauteed onions, split peas, potatoes and thyme in the crock pot for 6 hours on low. At the end of the day, I pureed the soup (in tiny batches in my knock-off Magic Bullet, ugh). I threw some shredded cheese in at the end. It was better when eaten off the end of the bread I dipped in it than eaten off a spoon. I realized I don't love split pea soup, although it probably would have been tastier with some carrots and celery thrown in. I'm going to try to work it into a pasta and sausage casserole next week. Stay tuned.
Thursday: This was one of those days that I didn't have a menu planned. I was going to eat leftover soup, but I ended up eating the crusts off of Baby T's peanut butter sandwich and had an apple with peanut butter.
Saturday: Party. And pizza. Yum.

For more meal planning obsessiveness inspiration, check out orgjunkie.com!

Menu Plan Monday - Pizza, Pasta, Leftovers, and Homemade Tater Tots

I actually stuck to my menu this week! It was relatively simple. I didn't have to buy anything. Since I'm trying to go through what I have in my pantry, I'm trying not to spend much at the store. I got the staples--eggs, milk, bread. But everything else I already had. I didn't do much cooking ahead of time. I'm going to try to do more of that this week to free up my evenings. This is what I made:

The Plan:
Monday: Homemade Pizza
Tuesday: Pasta with Sausage and Cannelini Beans
Wednesday: Chicken, veggies with cream sauce, rice
Thursday: Leftovers
Saturday: Steak, Homemade Tater Tots

The Method: 
Monday: I still had pizza dough and homemade sauce leftover from a couple of weeks ago. It was borderline...it was 2 weeks old. But I made it anyway. And nobody died.
Tuesday: I had bought sausage the week before and never did anything with it. So I decided to throw it in with some rotini pasta, cannelini beans, and a can of diced tomatoes. I added a couple of ladlefuls of the pasta water back into the pot, and the pasta soaked it up so it wasn't too dry. It was a delicious, easy dinner.
Wednesday: I had visions of making a cheesy chicken and rice dish, so I roasted some cauliflower (bought the week before and never used), cooked some rice, and pan-fried some chicken thighs. By the time I was done, I picked at the veggies, chicken and rice so much that I wasn't hungry for a real dinner.
Saturday: I had a steak in the freezer, which I defrosted and grilled. Easy enough. I also had 3 potatoes that were starting to sprout aliens out of their eyes, so I had to do something with them. My recent copy of Cook's Country magazine had an article for homemade tater tots in it. I'm a sucker for anything with potatoes, and tater tots are awesome. I even like the frozen ones. Not anymore, though! Holy cow. Homemade tater tots are delicious.

Update: Here is the Homemade Tater Tots recipe with a printable recipe card!


For more meal planning obsessiveness inspiration, check out orgjunkie.com!

Pork and Beef: Chops with Mustard Sauce and Philly Cheese Steak Egg Rolls

I posted in yesterday's menu plan about making some fabulous pork chops with mustard sauce and artichokes and philly cheese steak egg rolls. Even Baby T liked the pork chops--that's how you know they are good! Here are the recipes.

Print out the recipes for Philly Cheese Steak Egg Rolls and Pork Chops with Mustard Sauce and Artichokes by clicking on the images below.

Philly Cheese Steak Egg Rolls Pork Chops with Mustard Sauce and Artichokes

For more delicious recipes, check out:

Menu Plan Monday: Go with the Flow

The past two weeks, I've been having a little bit of trouble sticking to my meal plan. Maybe I need to start making the plan before Monday, so I can have my groceries ready to go for the week. In fact, when I cooked in bulk that first Sunday that I started menu planning, it was much easier to stick to the menu because the meals were already prepared. This week, I spent $27 at the grocery store at the beginning of the week on pork chops, sausages, apples, bread, and a few other things. But then at the end of the week, Big T decided he wanted Philly cheese steak egg rolls to eat while he watched the game, so I spent another $60 on fixings for that, lunch meat, and who knows what else... Can you believe I have no idea where $60 went to? Oh, right. Beer. Beer and lunch meat were about $36 right there. Is it bad that that makes me feel a little better?

The Plan:
Monday: Chicken Korma (freezer) with rice
Tuesday: Sweet Potato Chili (freezer) with bread
Wednesday: Pork chops, Twice Baked Potatoes (freezer), green beans
Thursday: Steak, Roasted Cauliflower with Kalamata Olive Vinaigrette, Sweet Potato Fries
Friday: Eat at Mom Mom's
Saturday: Rice and beans with sausage, Homemade bread

The Reality:
Monday: Chicken Tikka Masala with rice
Tuesday: Chicken Tikka Masala with rice
Wednesday: Pork chops with mustard sauce and artichoke hearts, Twice baked potatoes, green beans
Thursday: Fend for yourself day
Friday: French onion soup at Mom Mom's
Saturday: Philly cheese steak egg rolls

The Method:
Monday and Tuesday: The beginning of the week was easy. I thawed out some chicken tikka masala from the freezer and made some rice. I didn't account for the fact that there would be leftovers, though, so I ended up eating this two nights in a row. Not bad--less cooking for me.
Wednesday: On Wednesday, I made the best pork chops ever. They were simple to make and delicious. The sauce tasted great on both the chops and the green beans, and twice-baked potatoes from the freezer rounded out the meal. And this time, I didn't cook the crap out of the potatoes, so they were moist and delicious.
Thursday: On Thursday, I was exhausted. Big T was working late, Baby T ate a peanut butter sandwich, and I ate some bread for dinner.
Friday: Since I had actually promised Big T that I would make him French Onion soup on Thursday (which was veering from the plan anyway) but didn't deliver, I decided to make it for my meal at the in-laws' on Friday so I could bring home the leftovers to Big T. I made it with broth from my freezer stash, and it was delicious.
Saturday: We prepped the meal before the kids went to bed, then ate and enjoyed it after they were asleep.

I'll be adding the recipes for this menu plan tomorrow, so stay tuned!

For more meal planning obsessiveness inspiration, check out orgjunkie.com!

Menu Plan Monday: Oops.

Scroll to the end of the post for new, printable recipe cards! 

 
Ok, so last week wasn't a total bomb, but I was a little lazy when it came to meal planning. I didn't sit down to plan my menu until well into Monday afternoon. Then, Big T told me he wanted pizza and totally threw me off. And we spent 5 hours in the ER with Little M on Monday night. That didn't help. But Big T was off from work from Monday to Wednesday, so he helped out a lot when it came to dinners.

The Plan:
Monday: Order pizza
Tuesday: Taco Salad Cups
Wednesday: Hamburger Helper
Thursday: Chicken with stuffing and mashed potatoes
Saturday: ?? (I couldn't put it together and think this far ahead.)

The Reality:
Monday: We forgot about dinner (see below)
Tuesday: Homemade Pizza
Wednesday: Soft tacos
Thursday: Salmon burgers with mashed potato croquettes (basically mashed potato finger food)
Friday: Hamburger helper
Saturday: Chicken with kale, beets, and salad

The Method:
Monday: This was a bad decision-making day for me, apparently. I couldn't decide what to have for dinner, and when Big T suggested pizza, he totally threw me off. There aren't any good pizza places near us, and I didn't really feel like making it. We finally decided to order pizza. I was on the computer, about to order online when Big T picked up Little M by the wrists, just to move him away from the bedroom door so he could close it. Little M started whimpering and didn't stop. Not even while nursing. We knew something was wrong. He wasn't moving his arm, and if we touched it, he would whimper. We spent 5 hours in the ER, just to have a doctor re-set his dislocated elbow in about 2 seconds. Little M is completely fine--he had "nursemaid's elbow," which is pretty common if you pick up your child by the wrists and not under the armpits. Luckily, he wasn't screaming in pain and he slept in the Ergo most of the time at the ER. So obviously, we weren't concerned with dinner by the time we arrived home at 1:30 A.M.

Tuesday: Today, we were going for our pizza. We picked up fresh dough from the deli at our local grocery store and got pepperoni and mozzarella cheese. We made 2 different kinds of pizza: pan pizza in the dutch oven with ham and pineapple (leftover) and a regular-crust pizza on the pizza stone.

Wednesday: I was going to make taco salad in cute little homemade tortilla cups, but I didn't do any prep work and I had a rough day. So while I went to pick Baby T up from daycare, Big T sauteed some chicken, peppers and onion in a cast iron pan with taco seasoning and wrapped them in soft flour tortillas. I also had a few small corn tortillas, which I fried in some oil until crisp to make open-faced tacos.

Thursday: I have a ton of canned salmon that I get from WIC, and I picked up a recipe card for salmon burgers the last time I was in the office. They were easy to make and I had all of the ingredients. We had also brought home leftover mashed potatoes from Mom-Mom's the Sunday before, so I transformed them into potato croquettes. Amazing. They were like mozzarella sticks, but creamier and not as rubbery. They were a huge hit.

Friday: Little M had another incident today when I was holding him and tripped over the dog. Little M hit the floor hard and bit his tongue. He also hit his head on the corner of a wall, and his head and ear were cut. Thankfully, my in-laws live in town, or I would have lost it when I noticed the blood. Mom-mom came over and checked him out, and we figured he was ok. Once Little M started dancing to the "Curious George" music, we knew for sure he was fine. By the time Big T came home from work, the kids were fine but my nerves were shot. I cooked up some breakfast sausage that I had in my freezer, added it to the hamburger helper, and called it a day.

Saturday: Can I just say that the first week of 2012 sucked? As Big T was trying to clean the kitchen before he left for work, the sink stopped draining, then proceeded to leak out of the pipe all over the kitchen. By the time Big T left, the pipes under the sink were undone, there was a bucket of murky water under the sink, and there were sopping wet towels all over the floor. (Add two cranky kids and a very cranky mom to that equation). We were saved by the in-laws once again! Plumber Joe (disguised as Pop Pop) came over and thankfully fixed it while Mom Mom helped me distract the boys.

Also quite thankfully, one of my friends replied to my pleas for company and came over for an impromptu barbecue that afternoon. Dinner was easy. We grilled chicken, sauteed some kale and beets (I used to hate beets until I had them the way my friend makes them--sauteed with olive oil, maple syrup, and balsamic vinegar...a delicious beet recipe!), and had fresh salad from the garden.

The week is over. Thankfully. It can only get better from here, right?

Print out the recipes for Easy Homemade Pizza and Salmon Burgers (with homemade sauce) by clicking on the images below.

Easy Homemade Pizza Salmon Burgers

For more meal planning obsessiveness inspiration, check out orgjunkie.com!

Menu Plan Monday: Easy Holidays

Last week was an easy one for me when it came to making dinner. We only ate at home on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I decided it was time to clean out the freezer a little bit, so we ate freezer meals every night. I'm still bad at remembering to remove the meal from the freezer, so they tend to stay frozen in the middle, but I'm getting better at it.

The Meals:
(These were all from the freezer)
Tuesday: Thai chicken patties with brussels sprouts stir-fry over noodles
Wednesday: Veggie/quinoa casserole
Thursday: Flank steak and twice-baked potatoes, hush puppies

The Method:
Monday: I was really in the mood for pasta on Tuesday, so I broke up the Thai chicken patties and sauteed them in a pan while I cooked the noodles. I was supposed to stir-fry the brussels sprouts as well, but I completely forgot. They ended up getting thrown out yesterday because they were a soggy mess in the fridge. In a bowl, I combined some brown sugar, tahini, garlic, soy sauce, and sriracha (hot chili sauce). After draining the pasta, I tossed it in the bowl with the sauce. It needed to be a little saucier, so I added a few spoonfuls of the coconut squash soup I had made the week before. It was actually really delicious!

Tuesday: I forgot to take the casserole out of the freezer, so I defrosted the flank steak today. I had some hush puppy mix in the fridge that had been there for years quite some time. So I made hush puppies. They were awesome. I have to say, you have to be careful cooking the twice-baked potatoes. They can get very dry. When making them for the freezer, it would help to make the filling extra wet.

Wednesday: I actually remembered to take the casserole out of the freezer today. It was just as delicious the second time around. This one is definitely a keeper.

For more meal planning obsessiveness inspiration as well as a giveaway, check out orgjunkie.com!