Weekly Meal Plans

Menu 3/27/2011

1. Steak Diane w/ Potatoes Aurore
2. Leftover Night
3. Divine Pasta Casserole
4. Ginger Glazed Mahi Mahi w/ rice w/ suger snaps
5. Leftover Night
6. Teriyaki Grilled Chicken w/ Garlic Noodles (with added snow peas or other veg) Postponed.
7. Beef Stroganoff #2 w/ egg noodles
Lunch: Chickpea Sausage Salad

I don’t know what happened last week, but I ended up only cooking three nights and the remainder were filled with leftovers and delicious tex-mex.  Sometimes dinners do not always go as planned!  What this means for this week is that meals 1 and 3 are holdovers from last week. 

This week also begins the month of two leftover nights a week.  Why?  Because I’ve joined a second choir and they overlap for a month.  We’ve found that it’s just easier to do leftovers when I’m rushing around to get out the door for choir practice, so the guys have kindly agreed to tolerate two nights of leftovers a week during April.  I hope to generate those leftovers by making a few large casserole-type dishes every week (meals 3 and 7) plus a specific lunch recipe (Chickpea Sausage Salad). 

This is also a pretty cow-heavy week, but we’ve only got 4-5 more months to deplete our freezer stores!  (We actually might have longer than that since we might be getting our second half cow from the farm we got our half pig from, and I believe they’re got a different slaughtering schedule.) 

Here’s hoping that I’m able to stick to the meal plan this week!

Menu 3/20/2011

1. Ginger and ShallotGreen Onion Beef with Broccoli w/ noodles
2. Stuffed Salmon with Sriracha Cream Sauce w/ rice
3. Grilled Chicken Rigatoni Florentine
4. Divine Pasta Casserole Out
5. Leftover night
6. Steak Diane w/ Potatoes Aurore Out
7. TBD Out

Yet another fairly straightforward week.  I could get used to these!  This week has a fish night, a big casserole night, and a few nights of cow to keep making a dent in our freezer stash. 

I’ve left meal 7 blank at the moment because I’m not sure yet about our plans for the weekend as far as eating at home goes.  I’ll fill in the meal once I have a better idea. 

Again, it’s all new (recipes this week thanks to the magic of delicious.  Next week I hope to get back to meal planning with cookbooks.

Update: This week did not go at all as planned as evidenced by three nights of eating out.  Oh well.  Sometimes life throws us curve balls.

Menu 3/13/2011

1. Out!
2. Pan Seared Salmon with Sauteed Spinach and Crème Fraiche w/ rice
3. Cajun Chicken Pasta
4. Chicken Korma w/ rice
5. White Chicken Enchiladas with Green Chile Sour Cream Sauce w/ Mexican Rice
6. Farfalle Pasta with Sausage, Tomatoes, and Cream
7. grilled hamburgers w/ Crispy Potato Stack
Lunches: Falafel and Tzatziki Salad

This will be a great week in cooking!  Why?  Because it’s Spring Break!  Of course, the only thing this really means is that I don’t have choir so there’s no need for a leftover night this week.  This sort of makes up for eating out on Sunday, right? 

I decided that I should make a dent in my delicious (recipes this week, so all of the new (recipes are from my bookmarks.  And they’re pretty much all new (recipes…

Menu 3/6/2011

1. Appetizer: Buffalo Chicken Dip Dinner: Smoked Pork w/ Pineapple BBQ Sauce w/ Cornbread w/ garlic sautéed green beans 
2. Chicken Tetrazzini
3. Chicken Broccoli Divan
4. Out!
5. Leftover night
6-7. Gwen – gone

This is a very strange week for cooking since I don’t need to do much of it!  We’re having company on Sunday so I’m finally going to get to try out a recipe for Buffalo Chicken Dip, this is exciting.  Then Art will be smoking some pork. 

On Wednesday we’re going out to dinner to celebrate both tax filing and my upcoming birthday.  I’m hoping that the new Chevy’s will be open in time, because I love tex mex food and we don’t have a tex mex place in town at the moment. 

Then, since I’ll be away for the weekend, I’m cooking (recipes that I can easily double (or more) for the two nights I am cooking dinner so that the guys will have lots of leftovers in the fridge and freezer to keep them happy.  I will be keeping myself happy with delicious Philly suburb hoagies - the best hoagies in the world.

Menu 2/27/2011

1. Roast Top Round with Yorkshire Pudding w/ salad
2. Oven-Fried Coconut Chicken and Rice
3. Beef Taco Bake
4. Chicken Sancoche
5. Leftover Night
6. Pasta with Chicken and Mushrooms, Risotto Style
7. Out to Ruth’s Chris

Meal planning totally snuck up on me this week!  I only had to plan four meals this week.  Meal 1 is a holdover from last week since I ended up not cooking one night, meal 5 is weekly leftover night due to choir and meal 7 is a rare dinner out at Ruth’s Chris to spend a gift card that Art got for his birthday a few weeks ago. 

I’m filling out the rest of the week with repeats of (recipes I haven’t made in a while that I’d like to revisit since they are delicious.  I’m also hoping to double a few of them to increase our leftover stores, we ran out of them last week for lunches and ended up eating quite a few egg sandwiches!  I’m looking forward to revisiting these (recipes, since they’re all super tasty.

Menu 2/20/2011

1. Appetizer: Marinated Goat Cheese with Herbs and Lemon w/ baguette.  Dinner: burgers w/ Sweet Potato Fries w/ Aioli
2. Salmon Croquettes w/ salad
3. Gingery Pork Meatballs with Noodles
4. Roast Top Round with Yorkshire Pudding w/ salad Ordered pizza
5. Leftover Night
6. Cheeseburger Pasta
7. Herb Breaded Chicken w/ Bacon and Mushroom Risotto with Baby Spinach
Gwen’s Lunches: Creamy Bacon Tomato and Avocado Pasta Salad

This week is another straightforward week.  We’re all home when we should be and our best friend is coming over again over the weekend.  I didn’t want to do anything complicated for Brian’s visit, since we smoked a turkey last week, so we’re going to do burgers with sweet potato fries. 

Meals 2, 3, and 7 are all from the 2011 Cooking Light Annual.  The rest of the new (recipes are from my delicious bookmarks. 

Beyond that we’ve got a night of fish, three nights of cow to continue making a dent in the freezer stash, and a pasta dish to supplement leftovers for my lunches.

Menu 2/13/2011

1. Appetizer: Sausage Balls Dinner: Smoked Turkey w/ Slow Cooker Creamed Corn w/ Loaded Smashed Potatoes w/ salad
2. Slow Cooker Lemon and Dill Salmon with Spinach w/ pasta
3. Spicy Asian Marinated Flank Steak w/ rice w/ stir-fried veg
4. Mom’s Chicken w/ Seashell Salad with Buttermilk Chive Dressing
5. Leftover Night
6. Sausage, Arugula, and Tomato Fettuccine
7. Pineapple Chicken Burritos
Art’s Lunches: Egg Pesto Pasta

This week is a pretty straightforward week.  Our best friend is coming over on Sunday and Art has grand plans to smoke the backup turkey we got for Thanksgiving.  Assuming the turkey is fully thawed by then, it should be a good experiment! We might inject it with extra tastiness, but we haven’t made any firm plans yet.  I’ll be making Sausage Balls as a lunchtime munching type of food to tide us over until the turkey is ready. 

Meal 2, fish night, was planned so I can update the photograph for the recipe.  It will also be a quick and easy meal for a day when I have my voice lesson – I can start it before I leave and have dinner ready when I get home. 

Meals 3, 4, and 6 use (recipes from the 2011 Cooking Light Annual.  Meal 7 is from my delicious bookmarks.  I will also be making Egg Pesto Pasta at Art’s request and that will supplement leftovers for lunches. 

I’ve caught up quite a bit with posting in the past few days.  I’ve still got a few (recipes and those restaurant reviews, but the end is in sight.  Of course, the end is never truly in sight because I keep cooking new things!

Menu 2/6/2011

1. Manti w/ Tzatziki
2. Roast Chicken with Balsamic Bell Peppers w/ Mascarpone Mashed Potatoes
3. Bacon, Ranch, and Chicken Mac and Cheese
4. Indian-Spiced Salmon with Basmati Rice
5. Leftovers for choir
6. Roast Pork Loin with Bacon and Brown Sugar Glaze w/ Pommes Chef Anne
7. grilled steaks w/ Garlic Butter w/ salad w/ bread
Mock Tuna Salad (for lunches)

I know it’s only Thursday, but I had to fill out the rest of last week’s menu so I could buy more food and decided I might as well go ahead and do next week’s menu at the same time.  I’m feeling a little bit better as you might be able to tell by some more exciting meals planned for the week. 

I’m actually pretty excited about some of the meals I’ve got planned.  I turned to the 2011 Cooking Light Annual for meals 2, 3, and 4.  Meals 1 and 6 come from my delicious bookmarks. 

Here’s to a happier and healthier week!  I may even get some (recipes posted and that Woodfire Grill review finished up.

Menu 1/30/2011

1. Beef Stroganoff Hamburger Dinner in a Skillet
2. Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken w/ Zataran’s Spanish rice
3. Sloppy Joes w/ rolls
4. Taco Salad
5. G-out for choir, L&A-Leftovers
6. TBA Ordered pizza
7. Cassoulet

I’m sick but I still feel like I’ve got to post a menu.  As you can see, I’ve only planned meals for the first part of the week.  I’m doubling everything with the hope that, by the time we run out of food, I’ll feel well enough to plan the rest of the week and go shopping.  That’s a good plan, right?  I’m really also only cooking for the guys.  If left to my own devices I’d be living on premade Safeway-brand soups.

Menu 1/23/2011

1. L&G – Out, A – Leftovers
2. All – Out
3. Mom’s Chicken w/ Amatriciana
4. A&G – out, L – Sloppy Joes w/ rolls Changed to Chinese take away.
5. G – Out for Choir, L&A – Mexican Rice Casserole
6-7. L&G – Out, A – Leftovers

This week’s meal plan is late due to the weekend’s travel.  It’s also not the most exciting meal plan ever due to next weekend’s travel and scheduling excitement going on this week.  I’m also sick which means I’ve already deviated from the meal plan by having the guys order Chinese food so I could skip cooking tonight…

So, yeah, this week isn’t a super awesome cooking week.  Next week will be better.