Next Month's Meals (October 2011)

These are the meals I plan to make for dinner next month.  Because our girls are still young, many of the meals I prepare make enough for us to eat for at least two or three days.  Also, we eat dinner at church at least one night per week.  So, I only plan to prepare 2 or 3 meals per week.  Unless something great comes to mind when I plan the main course, I usually wait to decide on side dishes until I see what's on sale and what is fresh when I do my grocery shopping.

Here's what's planned for dinner next month:

• Healthy Baked Chicken Nuggets with a veggie side
• Crock Pot Ministrone Soup with turkey meatballs added while cooking
• Filipino Adobo Chicken w/ brown basmati rice & veggie side
• My friend, Angie's Oven Baked Fish Sticks recipe with a veggie side (maybe oven baked sweet potato fries)
• Slow Cooker Chicken Tikki Masala over rice
• Slow Cooker Cheesy Potato Soup
• Mom's Oh-So-Good Tilapia with a veggie side (maybe steamed broccoli)
• Slow Cooker White Chili
• Autumn Penne Pasta with Sauteed Brussels Sprouts in a Light Ragu

You can see that I'm hoping for cooler weather!  Mommy's ready for yummy hot soup!

What is your family planning to eat next month?

This Month's Meals (September 2011)

These are the recipes I remember making during this whirldwind of a month:

• BBQ Chicken Sloppy Joes with green beans.  I use ground turkey to make these & use 1 tsp or less of Tabasco & that's plenty of hot sauce for our family.  I serve them on WhiteWheat buns so the family gets a little more fiber, and won't turn up their noses at whole wheat buns.  I know, we eat whole wheat bread & lots of other whole wheat items, but they just don't want the whole wheat buns.  I don't make the cheesy waffle fries listed with the recipe, as we had waffle fries with these sloppy joes once & it was too much to eat.  They would probably work well for a big family with lots of growing teenage boys, or for a slumber party with lots of girls!  :-)
• Slow Cooker Pulled Pork on rolls with egg-free potato salad.  This is also very good w/ coleslaw.  When I make this recipe, I add the entire can of tomato paste, since I don't want to waste what's left in a typically-sized can.  I also use 2 pinches of cayenne pepper & still find it's not too spicy.
• Crock Pot Girls' Bacon Ranch Chicken over baked poatoes with fresh cut carrot sticks.  I found this to be very salty, so I will probably use lower sodium ingredients the next time I make this recipe.  I used 5 chicken breasts, since that's how many came in the pack & shredded them after cooking to soak in the sauce.  This also made it easier to top the potatoes with the chicken.  My family inhaled this recipe!  They loved it! 
• Moo Shu Pork with flour torillas.  I found these to be missing the sweetness from the plum sauce that I'm used to in restaurants, so I added some all-fruit jelly to them when I reheated them. Yum!
• Slow Cooker Tex-Mex Steak & Rice (see post from September 26, 2011 for the changes I made to the recipe).  Served with Target's refried black beans w/ lime juice, boiled corn-on-the-cob, and lime wedges (and other fresh veggie sides when we ran out of beans & corn).

I'll post more if I can remember them!

What yummy recipes did your family eat this month?

Monday, September 26, 2011 & Meal Plan

Breakfast:
Leftover homemade oatmeal with milk to drink (coffee for me!).  Made the oatmeal on Sunday morning with vanilla extract, brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, and a diced apple leftover from last week's trip to the fresh veggie/fruit market. When I make oatmeal, I use milk for half of the liquid & water for half.

Lunch:
Kiddos had wheat crackers with cheddar cheese blocks, red & orange bell pepper strips (leftover from making dinner), apple slices & 100% apple juice in their Thermoses.  I had cheese & crackers.  I was also blessed to sample a friend's yummy Orzo with Garlicky White Beans and Chicken Sausage.  The garlic breath was totally worth it!  :-)
Afternoon Snack:
Gogurts (Target ran out of Simply Gogurts & I had a coupon to use, so I settled for additives & dyes...this time only!) & No Bake Energy Bites.

Dinner:
Slow Cooker Tex-Mex Steak & Rice, Target's refried black beans with lime juice, buttered corn-on-the-cob for the girlies & me, and leftover cucumber & tomato salad for the hubby, who is allergic to corn.  Everyone had a wedge of lime to sqeeze on the steak & rice (or whatever part of their meal they felt like covering in lime juice). 
*When I made the steak & rice, I made some healtheir changes to the ingredients.  I used 1 C of Swanson's 100% natural beef broth (reserving the remainder for reheating leftovers in the microwave), cut up half a red onion, half of a red pepper, and half of an orange bell pepper & threw those in before cooking, instead of adding defrosted frozen veggies at the end.  I also used instant brown rice instead of white rice.  This meal received a HUGE thumbs-up from the fam, so it will be a redo for sure!


Meals for the rest of the week:
Breakfasts:

Oatmeal leftovers, whole wheat waffles (Van's egg-free whole wheat waffles for my egg-allergy sweetie) w/ pure maple syrup, or Cheerios with milk to drink.

 Lunches:
Girls will have natural turkey sandwiches on 100% whole wheat bread, fresh veggies (cucumber, bell peppers, or broccoli), satsumas & apple juice to drink.  I bought Smart Ones with a coupon today, so I'll be having those this week.

Dinners:
Tues:  Last night of steak & rice with green leaf lettuce salad w/ leftover cut-up fresh veggies (cauliflower, broccoli & cucumber).

Wed: Dinner at church.

Thurs-Sat:  Thawing out gumbo a friend brought over after my surgery (Thanks, Wendy!!). Will make rice & we'll have green salad, and I'm going to try this Oven Roasted Cauliflower recipe to use the cauliflower I found on sale & had a coupon for this week.


Next week:
Healthy Baked Chicken Nuggets (Not sure of the sides yet.)
Crock Pot Ministrone Soup (Going to add some ground turkey meatballs to make the hubs happy!)


What did your family eat today?

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Happy New Year!

Breakfast:
One kiddo had Cheerios mixed with vanilla yogurt, the other had Kix mixed with the same yogurt, and I had a Special K Meal Bar (great protein and fills me up pretty well).  On such a cold morning, I was thankful for a hot mug of coffee with some vanilla caramel creamer.

Morning Snack:
Pretzels and cookies at school for the youngest and me - not sure what the oldest had in her class.

Lunch:
The girls and I had peanut butter and all-fruit jelly on whole wheat and clementines.  The girls also had whole grain Goldfish crackers.

Afternoon Snack:
The girls and I had baggies of a snack I threw together in a hurry: whole grain Goldfish, peanuts, and raisins, and the girls had a juice box in the van on the way to dance. 

Dinner:
The hubby and kiddos had leftover thin cut top sirloin steaks that I cooked on the stove in butter and olive oil.  I seasoned them with TexJoy Steak Seasoning and salt and pepper.  Lesson learned: thin cuts of meat require much less seasoning than thick cuts.  :-)  I micro-steamed broccoli and cauliflower and added just a touch of butter and salt and pepper so the girlies would devour them.  This was all in service of using up the remainder of the Mexican Rice I made last week to go with our tacos and black refried beans.

What did your family eat today?