Meal Planning Monday!

Last week's recap...

Monday - Stuffed Peppers

Tuesday - Italian Pasta Bake

Wednesday - Pizza Rolls

And for this week's plan...

Meal 1: Pizza Casserole

Meal 2: Spaghetti Squash Primavera

Meal 3: Potato Leek Soup

Meal Planning Monday!

  I am back with my attempt at weekly meal planning after a several month hiatus.  I am going to do things a little differently this time and only plan 3 meals a week on the blog.  That doesn't mean we will only eat 3 dinners a week at home but rather will allow time for leftovers and allow flexibility for meals out on the weekends with friends and such.  When you are cooking for two there are usually lots of leftovers.  So for now I will say that I am planning meals Monday through Wednesday nights and Thursday nights we typically eat at the bowling alley.  That leaves freedom on Friday, Saturday, & Sunday - also these are the days when Eric cooks most and he is more of a fly by the seat of his pants style cook.  He sees something on food network in the morning and that becomes or inspires dinner for the night.  For example, last Saturday the Pioneer Woman made breakfast potatoes and come dinner time that was our side dish. MONDAY   Stuffed Peppers
TUESDAY   Italian Pasta Bake
WEDNESDAY
Pizza Rolls

I'll recap next week with a new post!

Meal Planning Monday!

  I don't have a meal plan for this week.  We have so much stuff going on and a few meetings between when Eric gets home at 5:00 and I leave at 6:30 this week so there will be very little time for us to sit down and eat together.  Meals will likely amount to one of two things quick or frozen.  Then I am headed out Saturday morning for my vacation.  So what I have is a week in review.     Monday Plan: Baked Spaghetti    We made spaghetti on Sunday and made it baked spaghetti on Tuesday.  I forgot to take a picture after we added the cheese and baked it so it just looks like spaghetti here.  Eric made homemade sauce for the spaghetti and I shared the recipe here.

    Tuesday Plan: Smoky Corn Chowder We ate baked spaghetti again. I did end up making the chowder on Sunday for our football party and I will share the recipe this week.     Wednesday Plan: Drunken Noodles   This was a Schwan's meal that we had in our freezer.  We ate it along with some potstickers.  

    Thursday Plan: Bowling Alley Ate at the bowling alley.     Friday Plan: Charlottesville We headed down to Charlottesville when Eric got off of work to meet some of my college/sorority friends for dinner.  We got there earlier than they did so we headed to one of our favorite spots, Miller's, for drinks and appetizers before they arrived.   Then we met them at South Street Brewery for dinner.  These pictures are from Miller's.  I didn't take any at South Street...or with my friends...fail!  

    Saturday Plan: Zuppa Toscana Fail!  We went out to El Jaripeo with our friends Travis & Erika.  Who can pass up Mexican?     Sunday Plan: Football Party We had so much good food for our party.  I made crockpot chicken chili, smoky corn chowder with shrimp, pigs in a blanket, Mexican dip, and pumpkin dip.  We also had homemade salsa, bacon wrapped deer tenderloin, chips & dip and Reese's peanut butter rice krispies.   Click the links above to see the recipes.  I will share the dip & corn chowder recipes this week.  Of course, I forgot to take the picture before we started eating so this is all half eaten and no longer pretty.  

The half eaten spread

Crockpot Chicken Chili

"The Dip"

Smoky Corn Chowder with Shrimp

  I apologize if this week's menu seems a little boring.  I didn't have many recipes to share.  But as a bonus I made these Sea Salt Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies and we thought they were pretty amazing!

 

Meal Planning Monday!

  This week's meal plan might as well be called the week of soup.  Blame it on 5 straight rainy, dreary days I guess.  Sometimes soup is just so good plus a lot of times when we make soup we will freeze half of it so we have a quick meal at some point down the road.     Monday: Baked Spaghetti Eric made homemade tomato sauce with ground beef yesterday so we will use this to make baked spaghetti.  We have a meeting today at 4:00 and  I have to be at work at 7:00 so it doesn't leave us a whole lot of time to get anything together.     Tuesday: Smoky Corn Chowder with Shrimp     Wednesday: Drunken Noodles We have a frozen drunken noodles meal from Schwans so we will just whip that up for dinner since it's another work night for me.      Thursday: Bowling Alley     Friday:  Charlottesville? I am hoping we can get down to Charlottesville to meet a bunch of my college friends for dinner.     Saturday: Zuppa Toscana I planned to make this a few week's ago and it didn't happen.  Once again we are getting potatoes and kale in our CSA portion so that's already most of the things I need.     Sunday:  Football Party We are having friends over for a football party for the Redskins game.  It's a 1:00 game but we will probably be eating in the afternoon and not eating dinner.  I know chili is on the menu, probably also chips & dip or maybe pumpkin dip.  I'll share the exact menu in my recap next week.
 

   
Last week's recap...  

Monday Plan: BLTs & chips
BLTs & dill pickle chips it was.  We used Schwan's pepper bacon.  It's really good!

 

Tuesday Plan: Chicken & Sweet Potatoes
We marinaded some chicken with a garlic & herb marinade and grilled it.  It was served alongside baked sweet potatoes.  I forgot to take a picture.


Wednesday Plan: Chicken Stir Fry
Eric made this chicken stir fry and I shared the recipe Thursday.

Thursday Plan: Bowling Alley
I ate at the bowling alley but Eric actually ate more of the leftover stir fry.


Friday Plan: Slow Cooker Beef Sliders with Pickled Peppers

Saturday Plan: Leftover Beef Sliders
We had the leftovers for lunch then went out to The Cattle Co., a local BBQ restaurant, with a big group of friends for dinner since we had friends visiting from Richmond.

Sunday Plan:  Taste of Culpeper
It was rainy and gross & we hadn't pre-purchased our tickets so instead we stayed home and did a lot of cooking.  We had hot ham & cheese sandwiches for lunch.  Then, Eric made homemade tomato sauce and  I made Sea Salt Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Then we made breaded & pan fried chicken breasts with potatoes & onions from our CSA portion for dinner.

And just for a bonus, I made these Peanut Butter Double Fudge Brownie Cookies on Sunday.

  

  We did pretty well at sticking to our plan for the week.  As always there were a few change ups for the weekend.  We ate a meal out when we had planned to eat at home but then we ate a meal at home when we had planned to eat out so it all balanced out.      

Meal Planning Monday!

 

In this weekly post I share our meal plan for the week and recap to the previous week's plan and recipes if available.

This week's plan...

Monday: BLTs & chips, nothing fancy

Tuesday: Grilled Marinaded Chicken & baked sweet potatoes (from our CSA)

Wednesday: Chicken Stir Fry

Thursday: Bowling Alley

Friday:  Slow Cooker Beef Sliders with Pickled Peppers + CSA Veggies

This is a recipe I saw on Southern Living.  Doesn't it look so good?

VIA

Saturday: Leftover Beef Sliders

Sunday: We are going to Taste of Culpeper so we will be having wine and food at the little festival.

Last week's recap...

Monday Plan: Salad with Grilled Flank Steak & Luscious Lemon Cake

Eric's mom came over for dinner for her birthday.  We had a big salad with grilled flank steak and I made a Luscious Lemon Cake.   This salad is so good, if you haven't noticed we've eaten it the last 3 weeks.  We marinate the flank steak in Shenandoah Spice Company's Spicy Adobo Rub.  This is a local company but you can buy their products online if you are not local.

Tuesday Plan: Salad with Grilled Flank Steak

More of the same!

Wednesday Plan: Leftover Sausage & Peppers on Sandwiches with chips

We had sausage & peppers leftover from Sunday night and ate it on sandwiches with some chips we already had on hand.

Thursday Plan: Bowling Alley
I ate at the bowling alley and Eric ate sausage & peppers again.

Friday Plan: Zuppa Toscana
Failure...we went to try a new restaurant in town instead - Davis Street Pier Seafood.  Eric doesn't love seafood but I thought it was good.  I had a shrimp po boy which tasted great but could have had a bit more shrimp & Eric tried the fried shrimp which were huge!

Saturday Plan: Go to a restaurant
We had dinner plans with friends for tonight.  We went to a new Mexican restaurant we have in town called El Jaripeo and it was soooo good!

Sunday Plan:  Grilled Pizza
Ha!  We really failed this weekend.  We ended up going to the bar to watch football with our friends and ate a late lunch so we just skipped eating a real dinner.

Overall we stuck to our plan through the week but we went out 3x this weekend.  Oops!

Meal Planning Monday!

Today I will share our menu for the week and review last week's plan and how we did with it.  

Monday: Salad with Grilled Flank Steak & Luscious Lemon Cake

Eric's mom's birthday was Friday and we had her over for dinner tonight to celebrate since I worked all weekend.  Check back tomorrow for the Luscious Lemon Cake recipe...

Tuesday: Steak Salad Take 2
We have leftovers and the flank steak is so good so we are going to eat it again.

Wednesday: Sausage & Pepper Sandwiches
With the leftover sausage & peppers from Sunday.

Thursday: Bowling Alley

Friday: Zuppa Toscana
I am going to attempt to copycat the Olive Garden recipe.

Saturday:  Going out to dinner!  May switch with Friday.

Sunday: Grilled Pizza
Not sure what flavor yet, probably either BBQ Chicken or Buffalo Chicken

  Last week in review...  

Monday Plan: Baked Ziti

We had baked ziti Monday night.  I made this recipe up myself and it doesn't use ricotta since Eric doesn't like it.  It has chicken sausage and spinach in it and is so flavorful.  I made it in 2 pans and delivered one frozen to friends who just had a baby.  We had some garlic breadsticks with this dinner too.

Tuesday Plan: Scwhan's Chicken Enchiladas

This was a frozen dinner that had been in our freezer for a little bit.  Just popped it in the oven about an hour.  It's no homemade enchiladas but not bad at all.

Wednesday: Leftover Baked Ziti 

Thursday: Dinner at the bowling alley

Friday Plan:  Gnocchi
The plan was gnocchi but we had Chipotle instead.  With it being Eric's mom's birthday, we wanted to stop by and bring her her birthday present before I had to go to work which doesn't leave much time for cooking. 

Saturday Plan:  Mom & Dad's

My Gramma was in town so we went to my parent's house to visit before I had to head to work.  We had BBQ, tortellini salad, etc.  I made this Pumpkin Dip which was so good.  I also made a Tortellini Salad which I will post a recipe for down the road sometime.

Sunday Plan: Banh Mi
We didn't have Banh Mi.  Nunnie, a family friend of Eric's makes the best sausage & peppers we have both ever eaten.  Well she was kind enough to share her recipe with us - although it's her secret so I won't be sharing it on this blog.  But I promise you it is amazing.  Eric made this Saturday while I was sleeping and then on Sunday he cooked the gnocchi and we had gnocchi with sausage & peppers.  He also made his own tomato sauce and I will try to come back and share that recipe later this week as he took pictures of his cooking process & wrote his recipe down as he went for me!

Overall we didn't do too badly this week.  We made one substitution of the sausage & pepper gnocchi for the banh mi and we ate out once when we planned a meal for home. 

 

Meal Planning Monday!

  There is no meal plan to review for last week since we were on vacation.  But this is the plan for the upcoming week.  It is subject to change as always.  I'll post a review next week.

Monday: Baked Ziti with Chicken Sausage & Spinach

This has been one of my most viewed recipes on the blog and one of the first recipes I ever posted.  I am making it today in 2 square pans instead of a large rectangle one so I can freeze half for my friend's C&T who had a baby last night

Tuesday: Scwhan's Chicken Enchiladas

We have had this enchilada meal from Schwan's in our freezer for a while so we are going to cook it for dinner tonight.  And by cook it I mean heat it up.  Easy peasy!

Wednesday: Leftover Baked Ziti 

Thursday: Dinner at the bowling alley

Friday:  Gnocchi
With homemade noodles/gnocchi.

Saturday:  Mom & Dad's

My Gramma is in town from Florida for one day only so my parents are having people over Saturday afternoon to visit.  I have to work but we are going to try to head over there for a little bit before and we will eat while we are there.

Sunday: Banh Mi
I couldn't begin to tell you how to make this but we had Banh Mi from a food truck back in July and it was so good.  Eric immediately researched multiple recipes for making it.  He made one a couple months back with pork tenderloin and now he said he has a recipe with ground pork that he wants to try.  If you live in Charlottesville check out the Hanu Food Truck.  Soooo good!

 

Meal Planning Monday!

  We are in the OBX so there is no meal plan for this week (hopefully we will be eating a bunch of steamed shrimp & maybe some crab legs).  This is just a recap of last week's meals with recipes, etc.  Hopefully we can jump right back on board with our meal planning next week when we return!  

Monday: Grilled Buffalo Chicken Pizza

We made this Monday night and it was great.  We just can't get enough of these grilled pizzas.

Tuesday: Crockpot Orange Chicken, White Rice
This was a quick & easy crockpot recipe.  Only 4 ingredients!

Wednesday: Hamburgers, Potatoes & Onions
I picked up potatoes and onions along with several other things from our CSA portion this week.  Eric whipped them up with some burgers while I got ready for work on Wednesday night.

Thursday: Dinner at the bowling alley
BLTs for both of us!

Friday: Grilled Flank Steak Salad
We grilled flank steak rubbed with Shenandoah Spice Company's Spicy Adobo spice mix and ate it over a salad with the lettuce, tomatoes & onions from our CSA.  This steak turned out perfect.

Saturday: Pizza Rolls

We were invited to a cookout Saturday night for our friend Terra's birthday.  So we made the pizza rolls at lunch time.

pizza rolls on the left

We managed to follow our meal plan exactly last week! It may seem like sometimes we have way too much food for one meal as we don't typically eat the same thing multiple nights in a row.  I hate to eat the same thing over and over so Eric usually takes our leftovers to work for lunch.  Sometimes I will also take leftovers for "lunch" which usually falls around 3:00-4:00 AM for me.  If we do eat leftovers for dinner we try to eat it a different way instead of eating the exact same meal again.