weekly menu

On the docket for this week are:

Creamy Quinoa Primavera

Thai Chicken Pizza

As well as Costa Rican Rice and Pesto Pasta Salad and maybe a Mexican Pizza thrown in there.

meals, meals, meals

Really I should say dishes because meals implies more than an entree. If I ever make more than one dish for a "meal" it is Sunday or a special occasion. Here are some dishes I am eying to make in the next month.

Quinoa and grilled pepper salad- I have been trying out various quinoa dishes since buying a Costco sized bag of it. So far the only failure has been my own creation.

Chicken and Lemon- Broccoli Alfredo- I have chicken and broccoli and I am trying to clean out the freezer and food storage. This meets my requirements.

Honey Lime Enchiladas- I had honey mixed in some herbal tea right before getting a mean bout of the flu a couple of years ago. It has kind of ruined honey for me. I am hoping this recipe will help me get past that memory.

menu planning

Monthly meal planning isn't doing it for me any more. I am trying my hand at weekly meal planning. It worked pretty well last week, the question at the end of the month will be whether r not it is more cost efficient.

photos via Dana Made and Simply Recipes
This coming week my plan includes:
Chicken Fajitas from Dana Made It
Tortilla Soup from Recipe Picnic
Meatball Subs
Chicken Broccoli Casserole
Greek Black-Eyed Pea Salad

meal planning- month one results

via Google

Of my planned meals I only made two of the five. Partially because I underestimated on a hamburger buns- a key component to several of the meals. I used several of the clear the pantry options and made a couple other meals. Here is what I actually made:

Black bean burgers- I loved the Food Network recipe. I didn't read it closely and added the olive oil to the patties when I was only supposed to use it to cook the patties.
Chicken Philly's- I love how easy these are. Chicken, onion, bell peppers, garlic salt and provolone cheese.

Hamburgers
Sloppy Joes- This is a specialty of my husband's. They were perfect for school nights.
Homemade Pizza- We made BBQ chicken pizza, it was great!

Homemade Nachos Supreme- We ran out of tortillas so we made the filling and put it on top of chips. The lime juice and cilantro made them incredibly delicious.

Overall I would deem this a mild success. I still went over on grocery's but only by a few dollars. Goal for October: stay on budget. This will be slightly more tricky since I have to add Chili and bread sticks for up to 60 people...

October Meal Plan:
Gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce
Chili and breadsticks
Parmigiano Pumpkin Soup
Meal in a pumpkin
Chicken Tortilla Soup

Pantry clearing meals:
Burritos
Sloppy Joe's
Calzones
Black bean burgers
Costa Rican Rice

planning meals, again...

via cooking light
I have been trying out different methods of meal planning. I started with monthly menus, then I went to weekly menus, more recently I have been trying the clear the pantry method. I am moving on to a hybrid option of the monthly planning and the clear the pantry method. Here is my first attempt at the hybrid plan.

September Planned:
BBQ Chicken sandwiches
I have been wanting to try a homemade BBQ sauce but friends tell me homemade can't touch the store bought stuff. Any thoughts on homemade vs. store bought?
Black bean burgers
Chicken Philly's
Empanadas
Falafel

General clear the pantry options:
Costa Rican rice
Burritos
Hamburgers
Pesto Pasta
Quesadillas
Homemade pizza

review: january dinners

Here is how the dinners turned out- click here for a refresher

Prosciutto and Arugula Pizza- Very good, I highly recommend it!

Orange Marinated Chicken- Definitely not an Asian orange chicken like I thought. It was okay. Personally, I probably won't make it again.

Baked Brie- So good! A couple of tips, a round brie would have been better, make sure you have lots of people to help eat it, have apples or crackers to eat it with and make sure you cook it long enough so the pastry dough isn't doughy. Delicious.

Homemade Falafel- So much better than from the box falafel! So much better, a world of difference. I just need to figure out how to serve it. Any suggestions?

Roasted garlic and sundried tomato pizza (pictured)- Amazing, probably my favorite of the month. The pizzas took the cake this month they were both so good. This is one of my new favorite recipes though, it was divine.

Empanadas- I ended up making chicken empanadas not beef, but they were very good too! I added some feta to the chicken mixture, which I really liked.

january dinners

Pizza with Arugula and Prosciutto

Orange Marinated Chicken

Baked Brie

Camilla, I thought of you when I saw this and so in honor of the brie you melted for me I am going to try this. Maybe not as a dinner, more of a dessert.

My favorite falafel

Last month I tried making falafel from a box. Not so good, if you have a choice between buying falafel from the restaurant and making it from the box, go with the restaurant. The box is mediocre at best, at least the one I tried. This month I am trying falafel from scratch, we will see if this makes a difference. I found this recipe from More than Burnt Toast, which also currently has Marinated Caprese sticks posted, they look delicious.

Roasted Garlic Sun-Dried Tomato Pizza with Roasted Onions, Red Peppers and Feta

Kind of a lot of pizza for one month, but my husband does want to start a tradition of making pizza every Friday night. We will start small with two pizzas this month.

Empanadas

I'll use a recipe similar to this one but minus the chorizo, ground beef instead of veal, probably skip the saffron and black olives vs. green. The ones I like to make are a more traditional empanada, but this recipe is very similar.

december dinners

potato gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce

Falafel

I am going to make this from a box but if that goes well maybe I will try it from scratch. I am going to have it with hummus, pita, spinach and tomatoes.

Chicken Greek a Tikka Salad Wraps

Philly Cheese Steak

(from what I hear you need to put some cheese whiz on it it make it authentic, it is just what I have been told!)

Chicken Peanut Thai Noodles

monthly dinners

I try to plan out about 10 meals to cook for the month. For me this helps me to do less impulse grocery shopping. So here are four of the meals I plan to cook this month.

Gourmet Mac and Cheese

Wild Rice Salad ( I think I might add some avocado to this)

Creamy Cilantro dressing (if this picture does not make you crave a Cafe Rio salad then you must live in close proximity to a Cafe Rio. I on the other hand will be dreaming of Cafe Rio tonight.)

Spicy Asian Lettuce Wraps

Any other suggestions?