Meal Plan Monday

Here’s a look at what was cooking in our kitchen last week.  Pictures, links and reviews have been provided, when applicable!

Sunday:  The Weekend Chef made Philly Cheesesteak Fries!  Recipe coming soon!

Monday:  I ended up doing the weekly grocery shopping with the kids after school Monday afternoon.  We needed a quick and easy dinner so I made 5-Ingredient Spinach Parmesan Pasta from blog Two Peas & Their Pod.  This was really easy to make and tasty.  It reminded me of Spaghetti Aglio E Olio with spinach.

Tuesday:  Taco Tuesday!  I made Slow Cooker Lentil Tacos.  This is one of the Weekend Chef’s favorite meatless meals that I make.  The original recipe came from blog Melanie Makes.  While I don’t repeat recipes very often, this is one that I have made several times that we all enjoy.  Plus, it’s made in the slow cooker so it’s quick and easy!

Wednesday: I made a breakfast casserole with some of the leftover ingredients from the Weekend Chef’s Philly Cheesesteak Fries recipe.  I loosely used this Breakfast Casserole II recipe from allrecipes.com as my starting point.  This was an alright meal and we had lots of leftovers for breakfasts during the week.  We’ve made and eaten better casseroles though.

Thursday:  The Weekend Chef went out to dinner with a friend Thursday night.  My mom came over for dinner and I made these Strawberry  Balsamic Grilled Chicken and Bacon Quesadillas from blog Closet Cooking.  These were REALLY good!  However, these required A LOT of prep work and dishes.  I had to cook the chicken, cook the bacon, saute the onions and then put together and cook the quesadillas.  While super tasty, this was not a quick and easy meal.  I served these with some veggies.

Friday: It was hot and I wasn’t really in the mood to cook.  But, I had already defrosted the chicken and ended up making the One Pot Italian Chicken and Rice from blog Café Delites that I had planned.  While this recipe needed a little prep work in the beginning, it then baked in the oven for 40 minutes, so I had a little time to relax.  However, this extra 40 minutes of cooking, plus the prep work may not make this meal suitable for those who are looking for something quick and easy.  I liked how everything was cooked in one pot, resulting in little clean-up!  This was tasty and we all enjoyed it.

Saturday:  Chinese take-out with my family who came over for dinner.

Here is what was cooking in our kitchen last week!

Sunday:  The Weekend Chef made some Asian Turkey Burgers.  We served the burgers with some fries and Kimchi Potato Salad from blog Two Red Bowls.  The potato salad was made last minute and the flavors didn’t have time to really meld together.  While it was good, I think it would have been better if we had made it earlier in the day.  The kids had a little bit.  While the kimchi we had bought was pretty spicy, it really didn’t taste as strong in the potato salad and the kids were able to try a bite or two without complaint of it being too hot.

Monday: We made Zucchini Boats adapted from blog Real Food By Dad and served these with a salad.  We didn’t have, and forgot to pick up, roasted peppers.  Overall, these were just okay and I think needed a bit more flavor.  The kids each ate a half of a zucchini though.  On a side note, the Weekend Chef did the grocery shopping.  I had put four zucchini on the list and he came home with four giant zucchini!   Needless to say, we had a bunch of leftovers, which unfortunately, did not reheat well.  These are much better eaten on the first night you make them.

Tuesday: We made Baked Sun Dried Tomato and Spinach Chicken Parmesan Meatballs from blog I Thee Cook.  We served these with pasta and sauce and a Caesar salad.  We thought these meatballs were tasty and flavorful!

Wednesday: We made Lemony Risotto with Mascarpone from Every Day with Rachael Ray and served it with some roasted broccoli.  This was one of our meatless meals for the week.  My son helped with the lemon zesting and stirring of this risotto.  I added spinach to the recipe since we had some leftover and extra veggies never hurt!  The kids ate this, although my son complained that it was “too lemony.”  He then proceeded to eat a lemonade Outshine bar for dessert after taking forever to finish his risotto….go figure!

Thursday: We made Peaches and Cream Pancakes (with Ginger Peach Compote) from blog Well Plated.  My daughter helped make the pancakes.  She loves to help cook pancakes by pouring the batter and flipping them in the skillet.  We had these with breakfast sausage and fresh-cut pineapple. We could have made the meal meatless by not serving the sausage.  Any breakfast for dinner meal is a winner, and this was no exception.  Next time I’d double the peaches since they were really tasty and we all wanted more!  I had never thought to put Greek yogurt on pancakes before and discovered a new tasty combination.

Friday:  We made Peach, Basil, Mozzarella & Balsamic Pizza adapted from blog Two Peas & Their Pod.   We had some ripe peaches that needed to be used.  We’ve made this in the past and it was really good!  I used my Blueberry Balsamic Vinegar from the Saratoga Olive Oil Co. gift basket that I had won awhile back.   My son saw the pizza and said, “Do I have to eat that?!”  I didn’t realize that I had no more tomato sauce to make a regular cheese pizza for the kids, so yes, he did have to eat it.  Well go figure, both kids LOVED this pizza!

This week is the first week that we thought we would share our meal plan with you. If you’re interested in seeing how we meal-plan, check out this post.   Instead of posting what we plan on making this week, we have decided to post what we made the previous week so we could share photos and reviews of the dishes.  Last week was my first week back at work after a two week recovery from surgery, so we didn’t go crazy with the menu.  It was all about simple and easy.

Sunday:  My sister and her family were visiting over the Memorial Day weekend.   We marinated London Broil which the Weekend Chef grilled, cooked up some corn-on-the-cob and made Pasta Aglio E Olio.  The Weekend Chef threw together an Asian-inspired marinade and my mom made the Aglio E Olio.  This was an easy to put-together, simple but tasty meal.

Monday:  The Weekend Chef made an Indian-inspired eggplant dish as well as Indian Curried Potatoes and rice.  Look for these recipes on the blog soon!

Tuesday:  We took a trip to Trader Joe’s over the weekend and picked up some Goat Cheese and Sun-Dried Tomato Ravioli which we cooked up and served with a salad and garlic bread.

Wednesday:  We made Crispy Oven Baked Honey Garlic Tofu Bites from i am a food blog.  Even the kids who do NOT like tofu ate this with no complaints!  We served this with some rice and pork dumplings and kimchi (for the adults) that we picked up from HMart over the weekend.

Thursday:  We made Breakfast Tacos inspired by these from blog Diethood.   Basically, I got the idea from the blog to make them but went off and did my own thing.  We used a can of refried beans, made scrambled eggs at the request of the kids, and served with cheese, tomatoes and avocado.  We served these with potatoes that I diced and sautéed with onions and taco seasoning.

Friday:  By Friday I was beat.  We ended up cooking up some Applegate Beef  hotdogs.  I made some hot dog onion sauce adapted from this recipe from food.com and served with some tater tots.

Saturday:  We had our monthly supper club.  This month’s theme was recipes from Ina Garten.  I made her Sagaponack Corn Pudding from cookbook Barefoot Contessa Family Style and the Weekend Chef made her Celery Salad, recipe found at POPSUGAR.  The Corn Pudding wasn’t bad.  It used a whole stick of butter, milk, half-and-half, ricotta cheese and cheddar cheese so it’s definitely not a “light” recipe.  I don’t like celery, so the celery salad wasn’t my fave.  The other dishes that we had at Supper Club were all kind of heavy though, so this salad was refreshing and light in comparison.  You really do need to like celery to fully enjoy.

What did you cook last week?  Have any recipe recommendations?!!!  Please share!