A lot of our menu planning is about ease, flavor, and repeatability.
Does this meal take a while to make? If so, I'll make it on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday
Is it good? Would I eat this over and over? If so, yeah, that'll be on the rotation.
I ALWAYS follow the recipe the first time (the only thing I'll tweek is maybe a little less chili powder and less oils).
We also only pick out 5 meals at a time so our veggies don't go bad. I mean, let's be honest, sometimes you just want to go out to eat or you make plans with friends... And that's ok! Real life, people!
Here's a few of our favorites that we're not above eating over and over:
One Pan Healthy Sausage, Chick Peas and Veggies
One Pan Roasted Garlic Parmesan Chicken and Veggies (oh... my... god. this stuff is SO good)
Copycat Panera Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup - I haven't seen this soup back at Panera in a couple of years and it's my FAVORITE. I use a whole rotisserie chicken in this
Sausage and Veggie Hash - When I make this again I'm not going to use russet potatoes - they're just too mushy for my taste.
Spicy Shrimp Tacos with Avocado Salsa and Sour Cream Cilantro Sauce
Sweet Potato Hash - Oh man this is one of our favorites!! For the breakfast sausage I use the this turkey sausage (for you Fargoans, I get it at Hornbacher's) - UGH! SO GOOD!!!
Turkey Meatloaf with Zucchini and Feta - Holy moly, this is my favorite. And I don't like meatloaf. I half this so we only get 4 servings, but you can make the whole recipe if you've got a bigger household.
One Pan Healthy Chicken and Veggies - I feel like this is a given, but when you make these one pan dishes use fresh veggies. You don't want the mush that comes along with canned or frozen veg.
One Pan Chili Lime Chicken and Rice
Mango Chicken with Coconut Rice - for this I just buy two mangos and I basically take one and smoosh it up to make my own "nectar"
Lime Cilantro Chicken with Mixed Rice and Black Beans
Herb and Citrus Oven Roasted Chicken - oh man, this stuff is SO good
Honey Lime Chicken with Pineapple Salsa
Honey Lime Chicken with Cowboy Caviar
Shredded Chicken Verde
Creamy White Chili Recipe
Crock-Pot White Chicken Chili - again, I never use my crock pot, but you sure can!!!
Cilantro Lime Baked Shrimp
Chipotle Lime Grilled Chicken
Chili Lime Steak Fajitas
Blackened Fish Tacos with Pineapple Cucumber Slaw - This is one of our absolute favorites!
Avocado Salmon Rice Bowl - We use tilapia and cod with this, too
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Dinners for January 28 - Feb 3
So, I feel bad that I really haven't blogged much lately.
All I really do is just fine recipes online (with Brent's help, because let's be honest, he eats the food, too) and then I make them.
Lately we are just doing a lot of one pan dishes that make 4 servings each (leftovers are key).
When I make out my menu I don't do it in any particular order, I just put them all down and we'll pick out what we want to eat that night as we go.
So, I'll just write down our meal options and then write down the ingredients I need to purchase on the side and bring this along with me to the store. I've always got my spices and proteins on hand so I never have to put those on my list. Once every couple of weeks we'll make a run to Costco and get our fish and chicken. I know that spices can get old but honestly - I think it take a while and as long as you keep them in a dark, cool, dry place you're fine. Once I'm finished I'll hang it up in the kitchen so we can keep track of our week.
So this week we're going to make:
Chicken Power Bowls - with this recipe I actually don't make the dressing (it adds extra calories that I don't feel are necessary, I just use Kraft's Lite Raspberry Vinaigrette.
Tacos - extra lean ground turkey, Ortega taco seasoning, shredded lettuce, tomato, sour cream, shells, cheese... You know. Tacos. ;)
One Pan Healthy Italian Sausage and Veggies - we have been using this page SOOOO much lately but everything has been amazing so it's hard not to! I'm using Johnsonville's Three Cheese Italian Style Chicken Sausage Links for this.
Pioneer Woman's Chipotle Chicken Chili - it's no lie that I LOVE Ree Drummond and I LOVE this chili recipe. I could eat it every other week. For the beer I use a bottle of Kona's Longboard Lager or just Leinenkugel's Original Brew. And instead of buying a big ass bag of masa harina (corn flour) I cheat and buy a bag of Fritos and grind those up. Kind of 'hood but it's reaaaally good.
Chicken Quesadilla Soup - I'm not going to make it in a Crock Pot. I'm weird and don't like coming home to my house smelling like food. If I come home and my house smells like baking then I'm all about it. I haven't made this before but it seemed like a great idea seeing as we'll have some left over flour tortillas so I can make the cute mini cheese quesadillas for the toppings on this stuff.
All of our recipes make left overs so that will cover our lunches for the following days, too. I use MyFitnessPal to help figure out nutritional information on these recipes, however Chelsea's Messy Apron usually includes the nutritional values but a lot of times I cut back on oils and other items so I just prefer to figure out my own nutritional stuff on MyFitnessPal.
There we go! Dinner (and lunches) for the next week!
All I really do is just fine recipes online (with Brent's help, because let's be honest, he eats the food, too) and then I make them.
Lately we are just doing a lot of one pan dishes that make 4 servings each (leftovers are key).
When I make out my menu I don't do it in any particular order, I just put them all down and we'll pick out what we want to eat that night as we go.
So, I'll just write down our meal options and then write down the ingredients I need to purchase on the side and bring this along with me to the store. I've always got my spices and proteins on hand so I never have to put those on my list. Once every couple of weeks we'll make a run to Costco and get our fish and chicken. I know that spices can get old but honestly - I think it take a while and as long as you keep them in a dark, cool, dry place you're fine. Once I'm finished I'll hang it up in the kitchen so we can keep track of our week.
So this week we're going to make:
Chicken Power Bowls - with this recipe I actually don't make the dressing (it adds extra calories that I don't feel are necessary, I just use Kraft's Lite Raspberry Vinaigrette.
Tacos - extra lean ground turkey, Ortega taco seasoning, shredded lettuce, tomato, sour cream, shells, cheese... You know. Tacos. ;)
One Pan Healthy Italian Sausage and Veggies - we have been using this page SOOOO much lately but everything has been amazing so it's hard not to! I'm using Johnsonville's Three Cheese Italian Style Chicken Sausage Links for this.
Pioneer Woman's Chipotle Chicken Chili - it's no lie that I LOVE Ree Drummond and I LOVE this chili recipe. I could eat it every other week. For the beer I use a bottle of Kona's Longboard Lager or just Leinenkugel's Original Brew. And instead of buying a big ass bag of masa harina (corn flour) I cheat and buy a bag of Fritos and grind those up. Kind of 'hood but it's reaaaally good.
Chicken Quesadilla Soup - I'm not going to make it in a Crock Pot. I'm weird and don't like coming home to my house smelling like food. If I come home and my house smells like baking then I'm all about it. I haven't made this before but it seemed like a great idea seeing as we'll have some left over flour tortillas so I can make the cute mini cheese quesadillas for the toppings on this stuff.
All of our recipes make left overs so that will cover our lunches for the following days, too. I use MyFitnessPal to help figure out nutritional information on these recipes, however Chelsea's Messy Apron usually includes the nutritional values but a lot of times I cut back on oils and other items so I just prefer to figure out my own nutritional stuff on MyFitnessPal.
There we go! Dinner (and lunches) for the next week!
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