What's For Dinner: This Week's Menu

First I want to say how touched I am by the response to my last post.  Thank you for the e-mails and the posts.  You all are great :).  And I tend to agree...my kids are adorable (but I am completely biased  in that opinion ;).

So, the menu got kind of screwy this week, but I'm not QUITE sure how.  I know looking at the schedule that I ended up moving the crepes to a later date because my husband wasn't home that night for dinner, but somehow days got shifted around, things still got eaten that were on the menu, I can't find anything unaccounted for and yet we ended up having minestrone tonight for dinner.  I'm kind of scratching my head on that one.  Mind you, I did have a lack of sleep going on this week, but still...I'll figure it out *laugh*.

I tried a new recipe last week for pork chops.  I ran out of time for the to defrost, so I typed in "Instant Pot Pork Chops" into the search engine and then decided I'd make the first decent sounding recipe.  Turned out it was the first one that popped up in Google, so I ended up making Instant Pot Honey Pork Chops.  I did make the recipe a bit less sweet, but otherwise kept the ingredients the same and it came out really good and I added 1 cup of chicken broth to the pot because my book says to have one cup AT LEAST of liquid in the pot to pressure cook, so I was going to follow the directions (cooking under pressure is nothing to play around with when it comes to procedure and I want my pressure cooker to last a long time).  The sauce that was left in the pot after the pork chops were done was REALLY good, so I thickened it up with a couple of tablespoons of corn starch mixed with an equal portion of cold water.  We poured the sauce over the pork chops with dinner.  Definitely going to put that one into the "can make this again" category :).

So, yeah, due to the not making crepes last week that one will show up again this week.  I am actually rather proud of myself.  Since I didn't get much sleep this week I had plenty of time to sit with my cookbooks and my Kindle and do a bunch of thinking on menu plans and managed to get the menu plan done till the end of February.  It will definitely come in handy to have it out that far, I think, as I already have my grocery lists on what I will need from week to week written on each week as I did the menu plan and things and so I can figure out my grocery budget better.  I am really loving the pre-printed menu plan with the incorporated grocery list and the little section mine came with for notes.  I can make notes on what bread items or other things I will need to make that week for the upcoming meals and then I can hopefully get it all done for the week on the weekend before and then I just flip through and write down what items I've put on there for meals on my grocery list and voila!  I'm ready for two weeks worth of menus (theoretically ;).

So, despite a day that somehow got lost in the echoing abyss that is my brain, let's get to this week's menu plan!

Wednesday:  Minestrone, buttered rolls or grilled cheese (daughter and I had rolls, husband had grilled cheese on the last of the sandwich bread...so making bread is on the list for tomorrow).  This was REALLY good!  I added a bit of leftover bacon from a bacon sandwich I made my husband for lunch and a can of canned beef I needed to use up (dropped it and made a MASSIVE dent in the side when trying to dig out a can of tomato sauce in the pantry) to keep the husband's need for meat satisfied.  I threw in a bag of shredded zucchini from the freezer for the zucchini she recommended and used turnip greens for the greens.  I then used another shape of pasta (don't have any shells), but we all really enjoyed it!  The husband even feels like he's fighting something off (hopefully not the flu) and said he actually felt better after eating it :). 

Thursday:  Crepes with triple berry fruit topping, ham (from freezer) 

Friday:  Pressure Cooker Mongolian Beef (use beef ribs and small little bits and pieces from freezer), broccoli, rice. 

Saturday:  Farmhouse Chicken Casserole.  Or it would have been.  I used to have a recipe I made from time to time from ages ago, found originally on a site I found through Money Saving Mom, but the son ate part of the paper it was on and then the site no longer exists *sniffle*, so I found this Recipe for Chicken and Stuffing Casserole and while it wasn't exactly what I was hoping to find, it is at least close, so I'm going to give it a shot. 

Sunday:  Asian style pork chops, Brussels sprouts (from freezer), rice 

Monday:  Chicken enchiladas, Spanish rice (use the rest of the Uncle Ben's rice mix from pantry), refried beans 

Tuesday:  Home made chicken fingers (use boneless skinless chicken thighs from freezer), french fries/tater tots, canned fruit or vegetable (daughter's choice)

Breakfasts:  Toast (make bread), oatmeal, yogurt with granola or jam on top, cereal, orange rolls (make Saturday), chocolate muffins (make six on Sunday for daughter breakfasts for next week).

And there you are folks.  Our menu for the week.  How about you?  What are you making?  I'd love to schedule the menu out even further down the road, so please share :).