Menu Planning Monday: My menu for the week of 6/21/09

I love finding new recipes and getting meal ideas from others, so if you do a weekly blog post with menu planning, please feel free to link up below and share! 🙂

Sunday:

BreakfastSausage Breakfast Casserole – I made breakfast for my husband for Father’s Day – this recipe is relatively easy and is also the one we use for Christmas morning (I substitute diced potatoes for the bread)

Lunch – leftovers

Dinner – dinner at my parent’s house – I am bringing dessert:

Philadelphia 3 step cheesecake
Ingredients:
2 packages (8 ounces each) Philadelphia Cream Cheese (I use the 1/3 less fat and it works fine)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 T fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp grated lemon peel
1 Honey Maid graham cracker pie crust

Beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. Stir in fresh lemon juice and grated lemon peel. Pour into crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool and refrigerate 3 hours (or overnight). I add a can of cherry pie filling on top.

MONDAY:

Breakfastcereal

Lunchlunch out with friends

Dinnerdinner out (it’s my anniversary!)

TUESDAY:

Breakfastwaffles

LunchGrilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup

DinnerCilantro Lime Chicken – I saw this recipe on my friend Melissa’s blog and it looked SO good that I decided to try it this week! (plus, I’ve got lots of free salsa from the Target deal last week, so this will help me put it to good use)

Ingredients:
2 T lime juice
2 T vegetable oil
1 T honey
4 chicken breasts
1 C finely crushed tortilla chips
16 oz. thick-n-chunky salsa
2 T minced fresh cilantro
1 C shredded Monterey Jack Cheese

Combine lime juice, honey, and oil. Dip chicken in lime juice mixture then coat with crushed chips. Place in ungreased 9 x 13 baking dish. Bake uncovered @ 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until juices run clear. Combine Salsa and Cilantro. Pour over and sprinkle with Cheese, bake for 20 more minutes or until the cheese melts. (they also added avocado to theirs which looked yummy, so I’m going to try that!)

WEDNESDAY:

BreakfastScrambled eggs

LunchTurkey cheese roll-ups

DinnerPizza rigatoni (slow cooker) – This is a Taste of Home recipe that sounded interesting, so I thought I’d try it out

Ingredients:
1-1/2 pounds bulk Italian sausage
3 cups uncooked rigatoni or large tube pasta
4 cups (16 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1 can (10-3/4 ounces) condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
1 small onion, chopped
2 cans (one 15 ounces, one 8 ounces) pizza sauce
1 package (3-1/2 ounces) sliced pepperoni
1 can (6 ounces) pitted ripe olives, drained and halved

Directions:
In a skillet, cook sausage until no longer pink; drain. Cook pasta according to package directions; drain.

In a 5-qt. slow cooker, layer half of the sausage, pasta, cheese, soup, onion, pizza sauce, pepperoni and olives. Repeat layers. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours. Yield: 6-8 servings.

THURSDAY:

BreakfastBaked Apple French Toast – I found this recipe on the Cooking for Your Family board on Babycenter.com. I’m not a big french toast fan, but this one sounded pretty good, so I thought we’d give it a try.

Baked Apple French Toast:
Julia (bcHOSTBeanSproutnLemon)

Ingredients:
1 16 oz. loaf of French bread
8 eggs
2 cups of milk
3/4 cup sugar (divided)
1 T vanilla extract
4 Granny Smith Apples
2 t cinnamon
3 T butter

Spray a 9 X 13 in. pan with cooking spray. Cut bread into 1 in. cubes. Pack bread into pan tightly. Beat eggs, and milk, vanilla and 1/4 cup sugar. Pour 1/2 of the egg mixture over bread. Peel and slice apples and place over the bread. Pour the rest of the egg mixture over the apples. Combine 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle over the top and dot with butter. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight. Remove from refrigerator 1/2 hour before baking.

Preheat oven to 350/180. Bake the French toast for 25 minutes (covered). Remove foil and bake for 20 minutes more (or until golden brown and knife inserted in center comes out clean). Cool 10 minutes before cutting. Serve with warm maple syrup.

Lunchshells & cheese

DinnerChops with gravy – This recipe also came from the Cooking for Your Family board on Babycenter. My family has been enjoying pork chops lately, and I’ve gotten some great deals on them at Target, so it works out!

Chops with Gravy
~*~Sandy~*~

4 pork chops (6 thin boneless pork loin chops)
1 T olive oil
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
1/4 tsp pepper
1 can (10.75 oz.) cream of potato soup

Place pork chops in a skillet with oil. Sprinkle with seasonings and brown both sides. Pour undiluted soup over pork chops; cover and cook over low heat 15 – 20 minutes until heated through.

Sandy’s notes: Use garlic powder instead to reduce sodium. Brown pork chops before adding soup. Coat the chops with the soup. When soup starts to bubble, mash the potato chunks and add a bit of water or milk to desired consistency.

FRIDAY:

BreakfastEggs florentine – I saw this recipe on Marci’s blog awhile ago, but we haven’t had a chance to try it yet…so, this wil be our chance!

Lunchmini pizzas – top English Muffins with sauce, cheese, and toppings of choice

DinnerCrockpot chicken and rice

Ingredients:
2-3 frozen chicken breasts
1 pkg McCormick Zesty Herb chicken seasoning blend
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 c. hot cooked rice
Grated cheese
Tomatoes
Celery
Bell peppers

Place frozen chicken breasts in the bottom of the crockpot. Mix ingredients for McCormick seasoning according to directions on the packet and pour over the top of chicken. Cook on low for five hours. Shred chicken in crock pot using a knife and fork. Add cream of chicken soup. Let cook for one more hour. Service over rice with additional toppings as desired (we add cheese, celery, tomatoes, bell peppers, etc. depending on what we have on hand).

SATURDAY:

BreakfastPancakes

Lunchquesadillas

DinnerBeef tenderloin with mushroom gravy – I also found this recipe on the Babycenter Cooking for Your Family board

Beef Tenderloin with Mushroom Gravy
Amy – amyls
From Cooking Light

Cooking spray
4 (4-ounce) beef tenderloin steaks, trimmed (1/2 inch thick)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup presliced mushrooms
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 teaspoon bottled minced garlic
1/2 cup low-salt beef broth
1/3 cup fat-free sour cream
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Heat a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat. Sprinkle steaks with pepper and salt. Add steaks to pan; cook 3 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness. Remove from pan.
Add mushrooms, onion, and garlic to pan; sauté 5 minutes. Stir in broth; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 3 minutes. Place sour cream in a medium bowl. Gradually add mushroom mixture to sour cream, stirring constantly with a whisk. Stir in minced parsley. Serve gravy with steak.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 steak and 1/4 cup gravy)

CALORIES 210 (33% from fat); FAT 7.8g (sat 2.9g,mono 2.9g,poly 0.4g); PROTEIN 26.2g; CHOLESTEROL 75mg; CALCIUM 45mg; SODIUM 237mg; FIBER 0.7g; IRON 3.6mg; CARBOHYDRATE 6.7g

Cooking Light, NOVEMBER 2002

My $40 weekly grocery budget shopping trip

Between being out of town, being sick, and having sick kids, I have not been good about posting my weekly grocery trip pictures. This week, I actually had to talk myself into going to the grocery store. There wasn’t anything I really “needed” but I finally convinced myself to go out last night knowing that this would be a hectic week with no time for grocery trips.

When I got to Randalls, I decided to just peek in the water aisle and saw that the Aqua Pod water was fully stocked! I have been trying to do this deal for a couple of weeks now and every time I went to the store, the shelves were empty. I called my husband and made him get on HCW to see if people were reporting that the catalina deal was still working and people were still reporting that it is! So, I did three back to back transactions (at the self check-out).

Here’s the breakdown of my transactions:

#1: Bought 10 AquaPod waters (used $1/2 coupon and got the $5 off instantly for the Mix and Match promo….sadly, I didn’t have my card and had to use my parent’s phone # since I don’t have my phone # registered to my card, so I didn’t get my 10% off) – paid $14 OOP (received 5 $2 off OYNO catalinas)

#2: Bought 3 Digiorno pizzas, 2 Dreyers ice cream (they were BOGO free), 1 Ore Ida Steam & Mash (I normally wouldn’t buy all of this stuff without coupons, but it’s stuff we like/use, and I used the $10 in catalinas from transaction #1) – paid $15.32 OOP (received $10 Chill out at Home catalina)

#3: Bought canned pineapple, cider vinegar, 2 cans 98% FF cream of mushroom soup, 2 cans 98% FF cream of chicken soup (I used to buy the Kroger brand of these, but recently discovered that Randalls is cheaper!), Sara Lee bread, Hormel turkey, beef stew meat (I paid $1.75 for the package because it was marked down!), bananas, green peppers, carrots – used .55/1 Hormel lunch meat coupon and the $10 Chill Out at Home catalina, paid $5.21 OOP

You can find more details on the Randalls (Safeway if you have it) promotion here and here. These deals should be active through 3/31.

Not pictured: We had a coupon for a free rental at Hollywood Video, so I had my husband stop at get some grapes at Kroger when he went to get our free movie. Total OOP = $2.16

My total OOP for the week was $36.69. I plan to go buy 4 boxes of the Quaker cereal at Kroger (on sale 4/$6 through 3/31 at my stores) and use three .50/1 coupons for Quaker oatmeal squares(which will double) and one $1/1 Life Coupon, so I will pay $2 OOP for 4 boxes of cereal and still come in $1.31 under my budget for the week.

Please vote on my poll in the upper right hand corner of the blog to help me decide what to do about my $40 weekly grocery budget and my freezer swap group. I have been doing the freezer swap for the past two months. Typically, I end up spending about $45-50 out of pocket and I get 8 meals. I’m trying to decide how to figure that into my budget. Here are my choices:

*Cut my grocery budget to $30/week and use the extra $10 to pay for the freezer swap
*Skip out on grocery shopping one week and use that money to pay for the freezer swap
*Skip out on the freezer swap

Be sure to vote!