Meal Plan Monday: Week 14

This week we are starting up coach pitch baseball so we are going back to the crazy schedule that demands dinner that can be eaten picnic style. I call this dinner in a box because we got containers at Ikea that we can add or remove spacers to create up to three separate spots in the box.

With summer starting (Ha! It is about 58 here and rainy) I have been wanting to do more on the grill so I am going to integrate that into the planning this week. We also brought home a ham-hock from our visit to the my husbands parents so I need to use that which means split pea soup.

Day 1: Split pea soup
Day 2: LO soup
Day 3: Dinner in a box, BBQ Chicken, Artichokes, nectarines
Day 4: Chicken salad with peaches and avocado (Dinner in a box) with this dressing
Day 5: Stuffed squash
Day 6: LO Stuffed Squash
Day 7: Fish curry

Stuffed Squash:

Three acorn quash or any other small squash halfed, seeded, and cooked until a fork can easily poke the flesh. (Cook in the oven open side down on a rimmed baking sheet with about 1 inch of water at 350f).
1 recipe of the filling for sloppy joes found here
Scoop the sloppy joes mix into the bowl of the squash sprinkle with cheese and place in the oven under the broiler to allow the cheese to melt
Serve with salad.

Chicken Salad:
Pull the chicken off of 3-4 left over peices of bbq chicken
3-4 hand fulls of lettuce or spinach
2 Fresh peaches cubed
1 avocado diced
1/2 dressing recipe

Meal Plan Monday: Week 6

Day 1: Ribs with mashed potatoes, asparagus, salad, and bread.
Day 2: Frittata: Frittata recipe maker on finecooking.com
Day 3: Left over ribs in a box (see day two, week one)
Day 4: Left over Frittata in a box
Day 5: Spaghetti and salad (see week two recipes for sauce recipe)
Day 6: Taco Salad
Day 7: Left over spaghetti and salad

Recipes:
If there is a link above it is the link to the recipe.

Mashed potatoes:

Ingredients:
2 pounds yukon gold potatoes cut into chunks
2 shallots thinly sliced
olive oil 
1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter
salt and pepper to taste

Place the shallots in a frying pan over medium-low heat with about 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Salt lightly and allow to cook, stirring occasionally, until carmel colored. Remove from pan and set aside.
Place the potatoes in a pan of cool salted water so that they are fully covered. Bring to a boil and allow to cook until they are just soft enough to easily poke a fork into them. Drain the water place into a the bowl/pan you want to mash them in (maybe a stand mixer, or handheld mixer, or potato masher is what you use, I use a mixer). Add the butter allowing it to melt. Add in half the shallots and the milk go easy on the milk start with half the milk and add more if you need it later. Mix until you have the texture that you like, salt and pepper to taste. Serve with the remaining shallots sprinkled on top.

A Note About the Ribs Glaze:

I love to double the amounts for this and use 1/3 for glazing the ribs and then simmer the remaining 2/3 to use as a drizzle on the ribs/mashed potatoes and as a dip for things later in the week or as a salad dressing.

A not about the spice in the glaze, if you really don't like spicy things you can try putting in half the amount of peppers but you can also try taking the seeds out of the inside of the pepper. These really are not very spicy at all but just in case you are really adverse to it you may want to try this. Also if you really like spice try the above method for all of the sauce and then use it as a glaze, that intensifies all the flavors some.

Taco Salad:

Ingredients:
Lettuce
ground beef/turkey
taco seasoning
corn
olives
onions
tomatoes
black beans
cheese (shredded)
salsa
corn chips
avocado, pit removed, diced
(I like the BBQ glaze from the ribs recipe as a "salad dressing")

Brown the meat adding the taco seasoning according the directions. I like to make sure to find an MSG free kind so I don't get a migraine. Clean and cut all the veggies, open cans, grate cheese and place all into their own bowls or on a serving platter creating a little salad bar that people can choose their own toppings for.  Some people use ranch dressing but I like to just use salsa.

Quesadilla:

Ingredients:
soft flour tortillas (whole wheat if possible, check for trans fats and beware even "trans fat free" may not really be trans fat free!)

grated mexican blend (or medium cheddar) cheese
the left over meat, beans, corn, onions, olives
any other left overs

Instructions:
place one tortilla in a lightly oiled pan over medium heat. Sprinkle with cheese and add small amounts of the meat, beans, onions, olives, corn, etc over the cheese. Place a second tortilla over the top. Allow to sit with a lid on the pan for about 2 minutes, check to see if the bottom of the tortilla is browned lightly. If it is flip it. Allow to cook until the cheese is melted and the tortilla is browned on the second side.

Serve with avocado, salsa, sour cream/plain yogurt.

Meal Plan Monday: Week 5

This week we needed a couple of good dinners that can be eaten picnic style because we are planning on going to the tulip fields and my son is starting up T-ball which has practices right at our dinner time so we need to have dinner with us to eat after practice. Although I could go the box route and probably will on some nights in the future I am a bit tired of that mix so I decided to work on something a little different.

Day 1: Soy-Mirin Marinated Chicken with onions and asparagus (recipe below).
Day 2: Chinese Chicken Salad (recipe below)
Day 3: Shrimp Fajitas click for recipe
Day 4: Left overs
Day 5: Lemon Crusted Cod with steamed green beans, click link for recipe
Day 6: BBQ Turkey Burgers served with salsa and guacamole
Day 7: Earth Day, Grilled Veggie Pita Wraps with garlic tapanade

Recipes:

Soy-Mirin Marinated Chicken:

Marinade:
1/3 cup Mirin
1/3 cup soy sauce
Dash of sesame oil

Skewers:
Chicken in 1 inch chunks (or whole pieces)
onion cut into large bite size pieces kept in tact so you can skewer them
mushrooms cleaned

Make the marinade and put the ingredients for the skewers into this marinade for at least 30 minutes before cooking time. After marinating put the chicken, onion, and mushrooms onto skewers alternating ingredients. Cook on the barbeque until the meat is cooked through.

Asparagus:
About a pound of asparagus washed and trimmed. Toss with olive oil and salt and pepper or add to the marinade. Place in a pan made from aluminum foil and cook watching closely, you just want it to get cooked enough to still have some crunch left probably only about 3 minutes.

You can serve this with brown rice or not. We are going to pack it up and eat it picnic style.

Chinese Chicken Salad:

Ingredients:
2 Chicken breasts, cooked and chopped
1 head of savoy cabbage or regular cabbage, chopped
3 green onions (scallions), sliced thinly
3/4 cup sliced almonds and 1 package ramon noodles, broken, tossed with 3 tablespoons butter, tossed with seasoned salt (1 teaspoon) and  garlic powder (1 teaspoon) (or the seasoning packet in the ramon) and baked at 250 degrees stirred often and watched closely for browning to begin.

Dressing:
1/2 cups salad dressing oil
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Add the ingredients to a bowl and just before serving toss with salad dressing to taste.

Turkey Burgers:

Ingredients:

1 pound ground turkey
2 cloves chopped garlic
salt and pepper
Hamburger buns
cheese to melt on the burger patty
fixings to serve with the burger (use what you like, I like salsa and guacamole, lettuce, and onions but you could use ketchup, mustard, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickles)

Directions:
Mix the ground turkey with the garlic and season with salt and pepper. Form four patties and grill on medium heat until cooked through (Use an instant read meat thermometer to tell).  During the last minute or so add the cheese to melt on the burger and toast the buns if you wish to.

Serve with potato wedge fries and green salad.

Grilled Veggie Sandwiches with Mozzarella:

Tapenade:

1 medium clove garlic, chopped
1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olives, chopped
1 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
1-1/2 tsp. red wine vinegar

Mix together and use as a spread on the sandwich. 

Grilled Veggies (make ahead while grilling on day 6):
1 zucchini
1 egg plant
1 red bell pepper
olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
salt pepper

Thick slice long ways the zucchini, thick slice egg plant (1/4 inch thick), slice the red pepper into about 4 pieces the long way (from stem to the bottom of the pepper). Toss the veggies with olive oil and vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Grill over medium-high heat for about 3 minutes per side.  


Assemble the Sandwich:
Place slices of the grilled veggie onto a baguette type sandwich bread, spread a bit of the tapanade onto one side of the bread. Top with fresh mozzarella and toss into the broiler to melt the cheese. Serve with cucumber salad. 


Cucumber Salad:
1-1/2 cups seeded and finely diced English cucumber (about 1/2 medium)
1-1/4 cups seeded and finely diced Roma tomatoes (about 3 medium)
3/4 cup crumbled feta 
1/2 cup finely sliced red onion
  2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbs. red wine vinegar
1 tsp. dried oregano
Freshly ground black pepper


Mix together in a bowl.

Meal Plan Monday: Week 4

I hope that you had a great weekend! We sure had a busy one and I don't feel like I got enough time at home but it was sure good to see many great people throughout the weekend. We ate Easter dinner at a friends house which is a bit of a tradition for us at this point and we always really enjoy it. We came home with a bunch of left overs too which is great! However I will assume that most of you all did not have Greek food for dinner on Easter Sunday and will supply a recipe for using ham instead.

Day 1: Split Pea and Ham Soup with dinner bread (Freeze left overs or use for lunches).
Day 2: Boxes: Hummus and turkey wraps. Carrots/snap peas. A few good quality Mediterranean olives. Dates and cashews.
Day 3: Cobb Salad
Day 4: Grilled Salmon and bok choy
Day 5: Cuban Picadillo, corn bread, salad
Day 6: Left over Salmon in cream sauce with asparagus and pasta
Day 7: Left over Picadillo, corn bread, salad

(Click on the links to get recipes or look below for recipes that do not have links above).

Recipes:

Cobb Salad (serves about 4 people):
1/4 head of Lettuce
4 Hard Boiled eggs diced or quartered
4 slices Bacon, cooked, broken into small pieces
1 Avocado, diced
6 total slices Turkey/ Ham in small pieces (deli meat okay)
1/2 cup Cheese: Blue cheese or cheddar suggested
2 Green Onions (scallions) sliced
Vinaigrette Salad Dressing

Wash and tear lettuce into bite size pieces. Top with Hard boiled eggs, bacon, avocado, turkey and or ham, cheese and onions. Serve with salad dressing. 

 Cuban Picadillo:

1 tabspn oil (olive oil)
1 medium onion chopped
1 1/2 lb ground beef
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tbspn chili powder
3/4 teaspn cinnamon
1/2 teaspn all spice
1 can diced tomatoes with juice
1 3/4 c Beef Broth
2/3 cup Raisins
2 tabspn Tomato paste
1/4 c red wine vinegar
Salt and Pepper to taste

Cook the meat and the onion over medium-high heat until the meat is browned about 8 minutes. Drain the excess fat. Stir in the spices and garlic and stir for 1 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients bringing the sauce to a simmer. Turn the heat to medium and cook uncovered until it has become more stew like. About 10 minutes. Serve with steamed rice and cornbread or tortillas and green salad.

If you like this recipe it was adapted from the cookbook Food Made Fast by Williams-Sonoma.
                                                               


Salmon and Bak Choy:
4 servings of fresh Salmon (about a pound (1 1/2 pounds, try and make enough for left overs in the pasta later in the week)
Bok Choy: 2-3 head cut in half
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup honey
4 cloves garlic

Make the marinade: mix the soy sauce, honey, and chopped garlic.
In a shallow dish place the salmon and cover with the marinade. Flip the fish around every few minutes allowing it to marinate for about 10 minutes or up to two days covered and refrigerated.
Warm up the grill. Create a "pan" out of tin foil. Set the fish on this "pan". Place the bok choy into the marinade and turn to coat. Cook both the fish and the bok choy on the grill about 3-4  minutes and then turn and brush them with the marinade. Cook until the fish is just cooked throughout and the bok choy is tender about 3-4 more minutes.

Reserve left overs for another meal this week (pasta).


Shopping List:

Ham Hock
1 1/2 pounds fresh Salmon
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
Bacon
Deli turkey/ham (12-14 slices total)
half a dozen eggs
Either blue or cheddar cheese (1/2 cup)
Parmesan cheese
2 cups heavy cream
sweet butter (non-salted)
1 bag split peas
Hummus
Cashews
Dates
raisins
2 onions
1 head garlic
1 head lettuce
Scallions
Fresh dill
6 carrots
2 ribs celery
1 package snap peas
4 bok choy
1/2 pound asparagus
1 avocado
1 lb spinach linguine
ground nutmeg
ground cinnamon
chili powder
all spice
1 can diced tomatoes in juice
1 can tomato paste
soy sauce
honey
beef broth
Chicken stock (2 quarts, or water)
balsamic vinegar
red wine vinegar
olive oil
corn bread mix
tortillas
Dinner bread (like French Bread)
Rice (3 cups)
1/4 cup Mediterranean olives