Menu Plan Monday

I took a break from MPM last week; life was upside down. We were post-Thanksgiving chaotic and still had extended family in the house. Then there was that little detail of my new job, which started last Monday. We literally white-knuckled it through the week, meal-wise (fish sticks, anyone?)

Thanksgiving: The brined-turkey-on-the-indirect-grill was fantastic! I'll never do turkey any other way. The brining, aside from lending a nice seasoned flavor, actually made the texture of the turkey itself so tender. I may omit the wood chips next time as the smoke made the turkey look more done than it actually was. The skin was quite... dark!

So - back at it for the week of December 8th. We're a little chicken-heavy this week. Hopefully no one will notice.

Monday - Baked Mac & Cheese, salad

Tuesday - Chicken & biscuits

Wednesday - Crock pot sesame pork chops

Thursday - Chicken stroganoff

Friday - Leftovers

Saturday - Take in/eat out (craving Chinese!)

Sunday - Chicken burritos, rice

Menu Plan Monday

Looking at a totally nutty week here. We're hosting 9-10 family members (six of whom will sleep here as well!) all arriving sometime Wednesday and most likely staying through the weekend. I can't wait for the chaos - should be fun, in the most terrifying of ways!

By Friday, I'm hoping someone will just bring back some take out and or we can all go out to dinner. I'll be d.o.n.e with the kitchen by then.

I'm trying the turkey on the grill this year, indirect method with maybe some grapevines in the smoker box. I'm also going to try brining for the first time and that too - may prove daunting. I'll report back here with the good, bad and the ugly. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Monday - Leftovers

Tuesday - Quesadillas, tomato soup

Wednesday - Shredded Barbecue Beef, tater tots (for the arriving masses)

Thursday - TURKEY DAY!

Friday - Leftovers

Saturday - Take in/eat out

Sunday - Baked mac n' cheese (recipe forthcoming) + leftover sides from Thanksgiving

Menu Plan Monday

I can't believe it is Monday again already! I have an already busy week filled with doctor appointments, a Thanksgiving fest at the kid's school - made busier by the fact that I'm a single mom this week with Chad traveling. What does that mean for meals this week? Mac-n-cheese and chicken nuggets all around, woo hoo!

Just kidding. Sort of.

First a few notes/reviews from last week. The bean burritos were excellent, with a few tweaks. I found the bean mixture to be really very bland. Could be in part because I forgot the jalapeno, but really it just felt like the entire thing needed oomph. I salted the dickens out of it, then resorted to adding (gasp) taco seasoning mix. Helped immensely. Everyone scarfed them.

The pork chop potato casserole was an enormous hit - like out of the park. I cringed when I read it as it clearly does not look healthy at all, but thought I'd give it a try and cut back/modify with low fat where possible. Would you believe there was nothing left!? Not even a speck to call a leftover. The kids especially loved it. It will definitely make a repeat appearance in this house.

The shepherd pie? Notsomuch. Can't pinpoint it exactly but it just wasn't very good. Again I tried to up the nutrition by using ground turkey and frozen/fresh veggies - so that may be where it all went awry - but this version just did not do it for us.

This week I plan to clean out my freezer a bit in anticipation of the looming holidays. Kind of feels like cheating on the menu-planning front, but I guess that is the point of make-ahead meals: whip them out when you can't/don't want to cook.

Monday - simple quesadillas

Tuesday - Rigatoni and meat sauce (a make-ahead that has been sitting in my freezer - just defrost while at work, add cheese and bake!), garlic bread, salad

Wednesday - Ham/cheese bake (another make-ahead - but sadly cannot find original recipe link!), salad

Thursday - Chuck E. Cheese with the kiddos. Hope I survive.

Friday - leftovers - Chad gets home!

Saturday - Honey chicken skewers, tater tots(!), sugar snap peas

Sunday - Pot Roast, noodles, salad

Menu Planning Monday

My friend Trista made the bean burritos (Friday) last week and raved about them. Seems like I can wrap anything in a tortilla and the boys will scarf it down, so I'm hoping they will agree.

Monday - leftovers

Tuesday - if you can find it, you can eat it - momma's goin' out! (girls night out)

Wednesday - bratwurst on hard rolls and German potato salad (not my Omi's - which is sacrilege, but I was craving warm and bacon-y instead)

Thursday - shepherd pie, salad

Friday - bean burritos

Saturday - Pork chop potato casserole, salad

Sunday - more leftovers

Menu Plan Monday

We were once again all over the map with our meal plan last week. I think I have figured out that the portions I'm a cooking leave us with a lot of leftovers. I cannot stand to throw food away, so we've lately been doing more leftovers than usual. It is also all relative: the more I cook, the more leftovers we have. I think I need to scale back my menu planning to allow for two leftover nights instead of one - spaced out throughout the week. We also ended up going out to dinner on Friday, which was a nice treat.

The grilled shrimp from last week was a hit and most everyone loved the grilled goat cheese quesadillas that accompanied them, but the four year old notsomuch. Yay - more goat cheese for momma! We did not do mom's chili but we did make the Red Lobster-esque biscuits, which were very, very, very good.

And so yet again, some carry over from last week on this week's menu. The upside? Not much grocery shopping needed as we already have a lot of staples in the house from prior weeks' menus. Although I do need to make a Halloween candy run...

Monday - leftovers

Tuesday - enchiladas (recipe forthcoming), Spanish rice

Wednesday - date night - anniversary!

Thursday - baked fish, brussels sprouts, rice

Friday - quick chicken strips, broccoli & mac/cheese (to get out the door for trick-or-treating)

Saturday - Voodoo pasta, salad

Sunday - Greek-grilled chicken, herbed lemon orzo, salad

Menu Plan Monday

We did pretty well sticking to last week's plan, but fell off the map slightly when family came to town Friday (pizza delivery) and a specific craving took over for Sat (burgers on the grill). I've shifted a couple of meals we did not get to last week into this weeks plan as a result.

The rosemary chicken with artichokes & white beans was not such a big hit with the fam'. It hit all my happy places (salty olives, Mediterranean slant), but Karl only grudgingly ate the chicken and only after it had been completely scraped clean of everything else. And with ketchup on the side. Sigh. Jack in turn, had a complete meltdown about the meal experience in general. Surprising as this kid will eat almost anything. Ended up with a full blown toddler 90-second time out in his crib (only the second time we've ever had to do that). Ultimately I think it had more to do with his 2-in-training age than about the meal itself, since he continued to eat off my plate when I had to finish my meal upstairs with him, post-meltdown. Try eating while reading 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See'.

Another note about the rosemary chicken - the flavors were good, but I would emphasize getting a nice golden crust on the chicken in the pan before you add the beans/tomatoes/artichokes. I didn't get them quite as brown as they should have been and the liquid nature of those additions made the chicken sort of 'poached' looking at the end. I also served this with brown rice via my rice cooker and figured out the secret to tender, tasty brown rice: use 100% chicken stock for your liquid and double (yes double) the amount of liquid you would use for long grain rice. Cooks longer, but much more tender rice. Not sure if this translates to stove-top rice cooking, but it worked well in my rice cooker.

Here are this week's diner menus"

Monday - Leftovers

Tuesday - Grill nite! Cilantro-lime grilled shrimp. Black bean & goat cheese quesadillas

Wednesday - Chicken & biscuits. Salad.

Thursday - Baked fish. Stuffing. Green beans

Friday - Voodoo pasta. Salad (I sub whole wheat penne for the linguini in the recipe - the kids SCARF this!)

Saturday - Steak. Baked potatoes. Salad

Sunday - Mom's chili for a crowd & Red Lobster rip off cheddar bay biscuits.

Menu Planning Monday

A couple of weeks ago I shared my dirty little secret with Adrienne. Not everyone would get it - but Adrienne would, and would not judge. It has taken me six months to come out into the open with it, to accept that it is part of my life and that I am a shadow of a person without it.

Meal planning!

Actually, make that Extreme Meal Planning, with cross-referenced MS Word meal grid and corresponding grocery list. Whoa. I just knew that Adrienne, coming from an accounting and audit background, would go all warm fuzzy on me if I shared anything with that level of anal-retentiveness with her.

I happened upon a site months ago, following a search for a recipe, that made reference to the Organizing Junkie site. I happened to stumble upon it during Menu Planning Monday, where literally hundreds of readers submit their menus for the week via their own sites. A couple thousand clicks later among all the submitted menus (and a serious time-suck at work) and I was blown away. There were recipes, time saving tips, calorie/fat/sodium/diabetic conscious submissions and most important to me, ways to stretch a dollar that would not have ever crossed my mind. And all of it reader-generated. This was an amazing network of people with proven ideas for putting healthy meals on the table for their families without busting their budget. I was hooked.

So I lurked. Creating my own menu-planning routine (more on that later) with the help of Organizing Junkie & Friends and enjoying the lack of chaos that used to surround the question "what's for dinner?". But never would I have thought of *gasp* posting my own menu! That would require exposure, risk, being part of a community and um.... actually posting, which as you recall, I took a little break from for a while.

So without further ado, my dinner menu for the week below. I'm sensing a comfort-food theme here..

Monday: Leftovers (we indulged this weekend - my birthday!)

Tuesday: baked ziti + garlic bread + salad

Wednesday: meatloaf + green beans + scalloped potatoes

Thursday: chicken and biscuits + salad

Friday: quesadillas + soup

Saturday: steak + baked potatoes + salad

Sunday: rosemary chicken with white beans & artichokes + brown rice (scroll down the linked page)

Conundrum

Fact: Craving sushi right now, even with the understanding that I’ll have to settle for a boring old california roll.

Fact: Also incredibly puffy today, despite the GALLONS of water I’m consuming.

Fact: I cannot eat sushi without soy

Fact: Soy (even the light soy that I opt for) would definitely not help said puffiness.

Right now I’m erring towards sated, but puffy….

Simple Request

Forget flowers. Would someone please whip up a batch of these and deliver them to the postpartum recovery floor after Baby2 arrives?

(via Not Martha)