Luckily, grocery shopping worked in my favor this week, so I can change things up a little bit and then I'm going to get creative with some leftovers to see about changing the menu plan up from "meh" to "more exciting". For a good portion of the week, too, I need recipes that are decently easy to make as with our schedule right now with appointments and such it's somewhat hectic around here.
Menu Plan for Week of 5/9/16
Monday: Pork Steaks, flavored rice, saladTo bake: Bread (weekend), desserts
Tuesday: Eggs Benedict (pull English muffins from freezer and use left over ham from Sunday), pear slices (use up ripe pear in fridge)
Wednesday: Puffed pancake, peaches, sausage patties (pull sausage from freezer)
Thursday: Crab salad tarts (this should be an interesting concoction if it turns out *fingers crossed*. Use canned crab from pantry) on lettuce.
Friday: Ham salad with boiled eggs, garlic toast
Saturday: Pan fried chicken, potato salad, spinach salad
Sunday: Beef roast with roasted veggies, leftovers or Poor Man's Casserole (a recipe a blog reader sent in that I want to try :).
Desserts: Cookie bars (make Tuesday night hopefully), custard (Thursday)
How about you? Making anything good this week (I'm ALWAYS looking for ideas *laugh*).
Lately we've been making chicken baked smothered in cheddar cheese soup (I buy a generic brand that's only $1/can). You can use any flavour of cream soup you want thought, such as mushroom or broccoli. Whatever you have handy in the pantry will do. Just take the thawed chicken (whatever type you have), place it in a shallow casserole dish or square cake pan, spoon the undiluted soup over the chicken, then bake on 350-375F until chicken is cooked. It would probably work in a crock pot too, but I've never tried it. The soup makes the chicken nice and tender with an inexpensive sauce for more flavour.
ReplyDeleteI like to serve it with white rice and veggies which my family likes to drizzle the extra "sauce" over. The cheddar cheese soup is like a cheese sauce, so I often make broccoli or cauliflower which tastes great with "cheese sauce". Sometimes I add a tiny bit of milk and grated cheese to the soup for a little added flavour and to stretch the sauce further.
My family also likes hot chicken sandwiches (diced or shredded cooked chicken on bread slice topped with gravy) which are pretty easy to make. I pair this with homemade baked herb potato chunks (to use up some of your fresh potatoes) or mashed potatoes, plus a veggie like corn or carrots. Gravy makes everything taste great!
I use the same trick with the hot sandwiches with meatloaf. When I was growing up in Maine one of our school lunches that I LOVED was open faced meatloaf sandwiches with gravy on top and mashed potatoes and steamed veggies on the side. Yum!!!
DeleteGood idea with the cream of cheddar soup. I never have bought it because I was like, "What would you use that for?" Now I have some ideas :). I use cream of chicken soup and mix shredded cheese in all the time...you would have thought I would have made that connection. But, nope, brain synapses didn't fire on that one I guess *laugh*.
Here's a recipe I often use when I need to use up potatoes. I use link sausage, but you could probably do chunks of patties (or chicken or whatever meat you'd like). Plus, it cooks in the crockpot so good for busy days.
ReplyDeletehttp://southernfood.about.com/od/crockpotsausagerecipes/r/r80722a.htm
Huh. Neat. Thanks for the recipe. I'm off to pin that one :).
DeleteAnd here's my menu plan for the week:
ReplyDelete5/9: Steak, baked sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli
5/10: Steak fajitas using leftover steak. It was great because I got to use up an avocado that was getting too ripe, finish off some shredded cheese that had been in the fridge forever, chopped onions that also had been in the fridge for awhile, and long lingering, almost empty containers of salsa and sour cream. Yay me!
5/11: Sausage & Potatoes (the recipe I just posted). I'll throw in the rest of the lingering onion, some wilted celery chunks, and some leftover peas.
5/12: Kale & Bacon Quiche, Salad
(I also make this recipe with spinach or broccoli). It's great because you can get away with only using like 6 slices of bacon for the whole thing.
5/13: Chicken Cordon Bleu, Sauteed yellow squash & zucchini
5/14: We'll be eating dinner at a friend's birthday party, so I'm off the hook!
5/15: Leftovers if there are any, otherwise Swedish Meatballs and some sort of frozen veggie. If we eat leftovers, this meal will be pushed to Monday.
I rarely serve dessert (typically just for special occasions) and don't always serve a starch with the meal (for example, I don't plan one for the chicken cordon bleu meal because they're huge and very filling). I almost always serve a veggie of some sort.
Crab salad tarts sound yummy!
ReplyDeletePlease share Poor Man's casserole if it turns out well. (Or did I misunderstand - is it in the comments of a certain post?)
We had tacos tonight with green beans. Last night was chicken, boiled potatoes, broccoli and a small salad. Tomorrow will be turkey burgers, peas and potato chips. That's as far as I know at this point. I do have a white bean and kale soup recipe I want to try soon (on a cooler day).
No, you didn't misunderstand. One of the blog readers e-mailed me with the recipe and it seems easy and intriguing, so I thought I'd give it a shot :). You just take a box of Au Gratin potatoes (you could do home made too I'm sure) and then throw in some kielbasa/polish sausage and then whatever veggies are hanging around in your freezer and cook to the package directions for the au gratin potatoes (if using home made I would just bake as normal for the home made recipe). It seems cheap and filling to me and different, so I wanted to give it a shot and see how it tastes considering we have that sausage my husband's friend's dad gave him for helping with his garage :).
DeleteSome ultra cheap but tasty ones I do are, sliced thin hillshire type sausage and onion cooked in a skillet, adding sweet baby rays bbq sauce towards the end, thinned with water to make a thinner sauce and served over top white rice.
ReplyDeleteAnother are sweet potatoes and apples sliced thinly in a cassarolle dish tossed with a little flour, butter and cinnamon and sugar, with a half lb if cooked ground sausage on top, cooked at 350 tIL soft. The other half lb if sausage I turn into biscuits and gravy another night
All your menu plans beat mine all to pieces this week! Let's see.....we got pizza Monday night, using a gift card I've been saving. We fed the leftovers to the crew who was painting our fence yesterday (long story--deal breaker for the loan for the people who are buying because it had peeling paint on it--so silly- and almost $1000) and had McDonald's. I did make some noodles with a sauce on it for the rest who weren't at McD's.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what the rest of the week will hold. I'm in the mind-numbing part of moving, where we are just hammering it, trying to get done. At least the friends who are coming Friday to help are bringing lunch!!!
I really should go make a plan.....I'm just not sure if I have the energy to follow through with it. Thankfully, we still have Subway (lots), McD, Red Robin (but there's none near us), Applebees (same story) and a couple of other gift cards left. They have been given to us over the past few months by various people/4h club, etc. and I've been hoarding them. I'm so thankful I've got them.
Becky, there are places you can sell gift cards you can't use. You don't get face value but you would get something. I would also wonder if there isn't a way to trade them for ones you can use.
DeleteI was able to use the Red Robin one tonight, when Rob and I went to another town for our date while waiting for the girls to finish dance rehearsal. I will find a way to use them all. We go all over the place so sooner or later we will end up at a place where we can use them.
ReplyDelete