Menu Planning Monday

It's that time again! Here's what we had for dinner last week:

Monday: Beef, Bean and Corn Tacos

This is one of those quick/easy meals that always hits the spot. Lately, I've been adding extra goodies to the tacos to make them more filling; this week we added in corn and black beans, as well as lots of onion and salsa verde. 

Tuesday: Orange Chicken, Green Beans and Rice

This was another pretty easy meal; A while ago, we bought a bottle of Orange Chicken Sauce (the Panda Express brand). It's sweet but tasty (though I generally go pretty light on the sauce and then add some soy sauce so that it's not overpoweringly sweet). Just a quick saute of onion and bell pepper and then added the chicken. The sauce went on at the very end. 

Wednesday: Linguini with Tomato Sauce

Ed offered to make dinner tonight, and we decided to go with this easy choice. Unfortunately, my understanding of pasta to sauce ratio was really off, and I convinced Ed to cook the whole pound of pasta, thinking it would work perfectly with one bottle of pasta sauce (I wanted leftovers for school lunches, plus Ed eats a lot :) ). Being the wonderful husband he is, Ed followed my instructions despite his doubt. So, we ended up with very lightly sauced pasta. The fresh parmesean that we had on hand went a long way to making this tasty, but it was a little too dry for my tastes (and totally my own fault on this one). 

Thursday: Pepperoni and Arugula Calzones

After telling Ed about having these calzones (made from TJ's Pizza Dough) at my sister, Ashley's, home, Ed was excited about us trying our hands at them. I think I let the dough rise a bit too long, as they were a bit harder to form into circles (the dough was maybe too warm?), but they still turned out delicious. Ed said he liked this better than making normal pizza!

Friday: Green Chile Chili

This is such an easy chili recipe that I decided to make it again. I doubled the batch but, if it's any indication of how much we like the chili (and how much Ed eats), we're almost out of it already. I had hoped to freeze half of it for a later meal, but I didn't remember until too late. We ended up not only having it for Friday dinner, but Saturday lunch, Sunday lunch (for Ed), and my lunch today. 

Saturday: Out (Cheesecake Factory)
Since I already talked about our dinner out, I thought I would share our breakfast instead.

Ed and I have come up with a really nice system for making pancakes. Ed likes to make the batter (we make the good old fashioned kind, straight out of Ed's "Better Homes Cookbook.") and then I cook them. Even though I grew up making pancakes with bisquik, Ed and I don't seem to eat them enough to warrent a separate purchase. Plus it's pretty easy (and probably cheaper) to just make it with normal ingredients. 

I'm not sure what was different this time (perhaps letting the batter sit for a little), but the pancakes came up thicker and fluffier than they have in a long time. Ed also had eggs and canadian bacon to fill out the meal, and it was a lovely way to start a Saturday. 

During breakfast, Ed and I talked about breakfast traditions growing up. I was remembering that we were pretty self sufficient with breakfast for the most part - as a kid I often made myself pancakes and french toast (which is possibly why I'm a little better cooking pancakes than Ed; I used to make them probably once a week!). We generally didn't have a habit of all sitting down together to eat breakfast, and, if we did all eat together, it always either was a special occassion, or just felt special (like when my dad would make "Daddy Waffles" - Bisquick waffles on the waffle iron).  

Ed, in contrast, usually had weekend breakfasts together with his family. His mom usually did all the cooking, and Ed felt like his family did more special breakfasts together than other meals. On the downside, Ed didn't get as much experience cooking his own breakfasts. However, on the other, his family shared breakfasts together more often. 

I think as a married couple, Ed and I do a bit of a mix, but we've started to have at least one weekend day where we have a nice breakfast together, sitting at the table without any distractions (no paper, books, tv, etc.). It always feels like a special time (and it makes it easier to clean up right after the meal)., especially since during the week we never have breakfast together, since our schedules are pretty different. I'm hoping that a nice weekend breakfast is a tradition we'll continue!

Sunday: Shrimp and Fettucini, with Tomato Sauce; Green Beans, Artichoke

Tonight's dinner was designed to use up things we had on hand. I still had one artichoke from last week (good to know that these keep, cooked for that long) and green beans from Tuesday that hadn't been cooked. Ed was awesome and made dinner again and this time we didn't overdo it on pasta. The sauce ended up a little thin because of the water that melted from the shrimp, so we added some tomato paste to thicken it up. 

Menu Planning Monday

Monday - Lentil Chili Curry with Rice and a Cucumber, Onion, Yogurt Raita
This is frozen leftovers from three weeks ago. It's been just long enough that we're no longer feeling tired of this dish and are really looking forward to it! Plus, its so lovely to just have to defrost and reheat a meal (and cook up some rice to go with it).


Tuesday - Five Spice Pork

This turned out really well! It was another recipe from my new cookbook, and required the purchase of "five spice" - an apparently well known mixture of chinese spices. Though I wasn't sure about it based on the smell, but it tasted great on the pork. The sauce asked for honey, but we were out so I substituted a bit of sugar and it turned out right. This was the first time I've put spinach in Chinese food, and it was tasty! I also enjoyed using snap peas. We served this on brown rice.


Wednesday - Chipotle 
Ed is officially gone for the next week in New Orleans (lucky duck!), so I was lazy and got Chipotle. (Side note - since I've started doing these posts, I've noticed how much I eat Chipotle! Perhaps we should cut back).


Thursday - Steak and Snow Pea Wraps

This was my "stretch" recipe - I wasn't sure how it would turn out, so I decided to test it out on a night Ed was gone. I bought those transparent rice wraps to try with it

(seemed like they would go better than a tortilla, which was what was recommended - turned out I should have gone with a tortilla). To make this, I grilled a flank steak on the grill pan (4 minutes each side), and then cut it against the grain. I put the strips in a marinade (mainly soy sauce, ginger, sesame oil), and then wrapped a few strips of meat with red pepper, snow peas, mint and green onion.

Then, I dipped my wraps in extra sauce!

While it sounded perfect, about halfway through, the wrap fell apart. Holes formed where the meat touched it, and I had to eat the second half with a fork. Still, it was very tasty. I would definitely buy this meat again, and use it for fajitas or stir fry - it was very tender!


Friday- Burger and Sweet Potato Fries

I was planning ot have leftovers from last night, but I ended up eating the rest for lunch, so I had to come up with something that I could pick up from the store, but that wouldn't result in leftovers. We already had burger buns from last week, so I bought a set of two beef patties and one sweet potato (to make my own batch of healthy fries. I simply grilled up one patty and froze the other. I cut the sweet potato into small strips and cooked them at 450 for about 16 minutes. It was a very "heavy" meal, but tasty and satisfying (though I missed having some sort of veggie with dinner, I did have a massive salad for lunch, so I didn't miss it too much).

Saturday - Calzones

For this meal, my sister, Ashley, taught me how to use Trader Joe's pizza dough to make a tasty calzone. This was a great way to cook pizza, and made the perfect portion. I filled mine with mozzerella, spinach, pepperoni, and bell pepper. After a quick 9 minutes, It was crispy and hot, and I dipped bites in tomato sauce spiced with red pepper flakes. Quite the treat!

Sunday - Calzones Again
It was so tasty last night, we decided to have it again :)

Menu Planning Monday

I'm borrowing this idea from a blog I read, where you post what you ate the past week on Mondays. I like this for the main reason that I'm always trying to figure out what to choose for nightly dinners and can never think of what we should have. Having a record will hopefully make this process easier!

So, without further adeiu,

Monday: Fettucini Alfredo with Lemon and Asparagus
This is a really easy meal I first made for actual Valentine's Day this year. Fettucini with Ragu's light alfredo sauce (only 60 calories a serving, which is a bargain where white sauces are concerned). Then, I add the zest of one lemon, the juice of the lemon, salt, pepper, and chopped up asparagus I've roasted in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper. I use the whole box of pasta and the whole jar, so there are plenty of leftovers (though it would probably be better to use two bunches of asparagus for this; the asparagus always seems a bit short). We ate this with really good pugelise artisan bread.

Tuesday: Chicken and Apple Sausage with baked potatoes (Ed was in the mood for potatoes this week)
I was very tired today, so Ed decided to take on this dish. While he was originally going to just cook the sausage "normally" (in the oven to warm it up), he got inspired by the recipe on the back of the packaging, and ended up cooking the sausage in slices with apple slices, onion and apple juice. It came out great, with lots of extra flavor.


Wednesday: Steak Fajitas with corn tortillas
This is a pretty simple dish; cook up fajita steak meat with onions and bell pepper, then put it on warmed tortillas. We (re)learned an important lesson, though - the self proclaimed "fajita" meat isn't very good. We need to stick with our normal meat choice, which is thinly sliced strips of steak that I then cut against the grain for fajitas - much better quality (for around the same price). It's worth the slightly more effort. We did have some avocados around after a great sale (40 cents each!), so we had guacamole to go with the tacos, as well as some grated cheese, sour cream and salsa.

Thursday: Pork Tenderloin with roasted purple potatoes, carrots, and onions

This was great! I made a "marinade" (in quotes because I didn't have time to actually marinade it), using a quarter cup of olive oil, 2 teaspoons of dried rosemary, salt and pepper. then I put in my meat, chopped onions, carrots, and potatoes. The potatoes got their own roasting dish and the tenderloin went in the other, surrounded by the carrots and potatoes. It cooked for 20 minutes at 400 and then another 5 broiling. The veggies came out well cooked and the carrots and onions slightly carmelized. The meat probably could have been cooked a little less - I'm always worried about it being underdone (I did use the thermometer, but missed the window of perfectly cooked meat). Nonetheless, it was a great and easy meal to add to the rotation.

Tenderloins were on sale at Costco this week, so I think this meal might make it into this week's rotation as well.


Friday: Fending for Ourselves (I was at knitting night and Ed was working late)
I was treated to chicken cooked in cream with tarragon, blueberries and apples, over pasta; carrot, parsnip and potato soup; and frozen strawberry meringue. Ed had Jack in the Box.

Saturday: Originially we were going to go out on a date, but I got tired after a marathon house clean, so we decided to stay home and enjoy the clean house. We got take out from Rangoli, our favorite local indian place. It was a delicious meal of rice, samosa, naan, and chicken tikka masala.

Sunday: Breakfast was fiber one blueberry muffins. Theses are delicious! Have to be careful not to eat too many at once :)

Salmon (always on the list the week we go to Costco) for dinner. We poached it in a foil pouch with white wine, olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon slices. I used to cook it like this all the time, but hadn't done it in ages, since we got our grill pan. It was good - moist and flavorful!

We did roast zucchini with it but, possibly because it's not in season, our last few attempts haven't been very succesful. The zucchini ends up mushy and not very tasty. We might need a zucchini break, or just go back to the old way of cooking it. In any event, we made a salad, too, which was good, and had some white rice left over from Saturday. All in all, a good Sunday meal.