in the thicket

Dinner this week...

Ahhh! I feel like it's hard to plan because I'm not entirely sure of my schedule, and how many nights I will be cooking...

Sunday (tonight)- pizza

Monday- Spaghetti (that's a fixture)

Tuesday or Thursday: Beef Stew before the weather gets too hot

Wednesday- supper at my friends' church *I think* need to verify with other friend...

Meal possibilities waiting in the wings, so to speak: Angela's Poppy Chicken, Salmon with Orange Sauce, or Roast chicken.

Saturday- Want to convince J to grill something, hopefully get together with family.

Menu Plan Monday! :)

So, I planned this week! I'm slowly coming out of my cooking rut, and I'm hoping to both try some new dishes and add some "regulars" to our menu. There's a fine balance between comfortably predictable and boring do-we-have-to-eat-that again.

Monday night- Spaghetti night (set in "stone" for us!)

Tuesday- Grilled Pork chops, steamed veggies, and rice

Wednesday- Super Easy Crockpot Fajitas (new recipe for me)

Thursday- Barbeque Chicken in crockpot (chicken breasts with dh's favorite BBQ sauce), corn, broccoli & chicken-flavored rice

Friday- Homemade pizza night (store-bought crusts and favorite family toppings)

As I said above, generally speaking we always have Spaghetti monday night... a friend recommended Ragu and since I found it is made without corn-syrup we have happily switched to that. (Though if anyone is looking to unload some homemade sauce, I'm happy to take it! :)) I am also trying stop eating out Friday nights, because then our girls are getting to bed too late and everything is thrown off, so I'm starting Pizza night on Friday, and I hope that will be a fun tradition for us to build on as the girls get older. And I'm really trying to use my crockpot more, ideally I would like to eat crock-pot meals 1-3 times a week, it's just such a help and so nice to get the prep done before the 5 o'clock "witching hour"!

Menu Plan Monday May 12th Edition

I'm going to try to make a habit of this, so I really need to grab a graphic from Laura! (note to self). I apologize for the wonky fonts, I cut & pasted and typepad is not making it easy for me to fix formatting...

Random thoughts, not my menu: I had a realization this weekend... I am a better cook than most restaurant cooks where we can afford to eat, lol. Because it was Mother's Day weekend we ate out a bit more than I prefer... we had Starbuck's pastry offerings Sunday morning, and they just weren't as good as I remember. *scratching head* It's been a while since I ate food from there, I wonder what changed. And then for dinner Sunday night we went to a local barbeque restaurant, and honestly I could barely eat the barbeque because it was too spicy for me! It's usually not, so that was unusual. In contrast, Saturday we had a delicious dinner of pork chops on the grill, rice, corn, grilled zuchinni and broccoli. We grilled 3 pork chops and the girls just loved it and ate it all up! I think we need to grill four chops next time!

So, here's my menu for this week... I'm noting lunch ideas for myself here. It will be challenging because we have a busy week, which makes eating at home hard, but I'm going to try. Some of my ideas are portable- it sounds terrible but the girls are OK with cold cheese quesedilla's in particular...

Lunch Ideas: (served with fruit of choice)

TurkeySandwiches

Mac & Cheese

Cheese Quesadilla

Beans & Rice

Scrambled eggs w/ toast

Buttered Noodles

Dinner Menu

Monday- Spaghetti

Tuesday- Baked Chicken Teriyaki with rice and broccoli (new recipe I think I found posted last week?)

Wednesday- Vietnam Fried Rice from More With Less- with leftover chicken or chicken breast from freezer

Thursday- Easy Beef Stroganoff (PCHEF, see below) & green beans

Friday- Pizza from Costco (dad recommends, I still haven’t mastered pizza dough)

Saturday- Grill something yummy

Sunday- Crock pot chicken- still seeking best recipe

Recipe note for Easy Beef Stroganoff: This is a Pampered Chef recipe I got at a demonstration. I use "Make AHead Ground Beef" which I make up with lean ground beef I buy from Costco... I double the following recipe and freeze:

3 lbs 90% lean ground beef

3 medium onions (I only use one large, personal taste)

3 cloves of garlic

Chop onions. Brown everything in a large skillet, make sure you combine it well. Divide into equal portions and freeze.

The sheet I have provides six different recipes- I've tried them all, they are pretty good!

Here's the Easy Beef Stroganoff recipe...

To 1 portion Make-Ahead Beef, add:

8 oz sliced mushrooms

1 can Cream of Mushroom soup (I'm trying the recipe in the More with Less cookbook)

1/4 cup of water

1 tsp ground paprika (I omitted last time b/c I didn't have it)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper (I actually just use Jane's Crazy Mixed up Salt in any recipe calling for salt & pepper)

Combine all ingredients in skillet and bring to a simmer over medium heat.

Stir 8 oz sour cream into beef mixture.

Cook 1 lb egg noodles- serve stroganoff over noodles. :)

I thought this was really yummy & easy! I'm looking forward to it again. :)