Meal Planning Monday 4/19

Monday: Baked Shrimp in lemon garlic sauce, zucchini squash
Tuesday: Rolled chicken parmesan, green beans
Wednesday: Chicken enchiladas with red sauce, rice
Thursday: eating @ church with our fellow pre-married class leaders (check it out here!)
Friday: Pepper Jack Macaroni and cheese and crab cakes
Saturday breakfast: cinnamon rolls in the bread machine
Saturday lunch: soup and homemade bread
Saturday dinner: out to eat!
Sunday breakfast: cereal
Sunday lunch: leftovers
Sunday dinner: fried rice, this time with chicken, and fruit salad

Have a wonderful week!

Sunday Shopping

Before I post our Meal Plan tomorrow, I thought I'd give the blog world a peek at my grocery shopping today. This picture includes a trip to Sprouts and Kroger. I took a side trip to Tom Thumb, but all of that got put away before I got the camera out. Here are the details:

Sprouts (left section of photo):
Stacy's Pita Chips
bulk spices (chili powder, minced onion, bay leaves)
fresh green beans
apples
green pepper
zucchini squash
Total: $5.34
all were sale items, no coupons used!

Kroger:
Lays BBQ chips (new with all natural ingredients) *$1
Progresso soup - chicken gumbo, italian style meatball
corn tortillas *.75
elbow macaroni
Fiber plus granola bars
minced garlic
Granny Smith apple chips *mgr special
Red Delicious apple chips *mgr special
Barilla whole grain penne *.55
6 Yoplait yogurts *.40 (doubled to .80)
petite diced tomatoes
tomato paste
butter
parsley
milk
eggs
bananas
Kraft pepper jack cheese *$1/2
Kraft colby cheese *
Total: $30.68
*s represents items with coupons

Tom Thumb (not pictured):
1 lb snow crab meat *mgr special
1 lb jumbo gulf shrimp *on sale $4.99/lb
6 Smart Ones entrees *on sale for $1.50 each, *buy 5, get 1 free
Total $15.48

We enjoyed half the crab meat tonight for dinner, and are saving the other half to make crab cakes! Its so much more fun to eat crab when you don't have to do all the work yourself :) I'll update with the crab cake recipe and let you know how it went later in the week. Stay tuned tomorrow to see what we are doing with all these groceries!

Meal Planning Monday

Here's what we're having this week:

Monday: homemade meatballs subs, chips, veggies
Tuesday: Tilapia in parchment paper, rice, veggies
Wednesday: out to eat with our supper club at Babe's
Thursday: cheeseburgers with turkey bacon, fruit
Friday: Beatles Rock Band/basketball watching party with our small group!
Saturday breakfast: Eggs, bacon and cinnamon toast
Saturday lunch: helping my sister and brother-in-law move (closer to us!)
Saturday dinner: taco soup, cornbread
Sunday breakfast: cereal
Sunday lunch: grilled cheese sandwiches and soup
Sunday dinner: out to eat for a family birthday at Hard 8

Hope you all have a great week!

King Ranch Chicken

I'm surprised I haven't posted about this already - its one of our favorite chicken dishes! I just made it tonight with a little twist, so I'll tell you about two variations.

Ingredients:
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can Rotel
1.5 cups chicken broth
12 tortillas, cut into quarters (pizza cutter works great for this!)
1/2 to 1 onion, chopped (amount to taste)
3 cups cooked, chopped chicken
1-2 cups shredded cheese (amount to taste)

To do:
-Mix soups, Rotel and chicken broth in large saucepan (a skillet might be too small, I use this piece and it works great).
-Add chicken and onion and cook for 10 minutes, covered.
-Spray a 9x13 or other baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
-Layer tortillas, 1/3 of soup mixture and 1/3 cheese. Repeat layers 2 more times.
-Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

Please, no comments on our lack of vegetables. I'm pretty sure Rotel counts. :)

Tips:
-I sometimes use 2 cream of chicken soups rather than 1 mushroom/1 chicken. I had one batch of King Ranch turn out very mushroom-y which was not too good (but no prob if you like mushrooms!)
-Tonight, I substituted crushed tortilla chips for the tortillas, and barely noticed a difference.
-This reheats GREAT! Almost better than the first time, which, if you know me well, is a big claim for me to make. I'm usually anti-leftovers :)

Let me know if you try it and like it!

Cinnamon Rolls

Recently, I was in San Diego visiting my sister and her adorable kids while my brother-in-law was on a trip. We decided to make the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls, which was a two person job for sure (especially since there was also a 2 year old 'helper' and a 6 month old 'observer'). These cinnamon rolls were absolutely divine, but time consuming and far from healthy! :)

Yesterday afternoon, I decided I would try Money Saving Mom's Bread Machine cinnamon rolls, since I knew that the bread machine would make it much speedier. We served them to our small group this morning, and they definitely got a thumbs up all the way around! This is definitely a recipe I will be making again, as the product was great and the work minimal. One recipe's worth made two full cake pans and one loaf pan...I think it was 14 rolls? I doubled the filling as the recipe suggested. Next time, I might do 1 1/2 rather than 2 times the filling just to make it a tad healthier! Overall, these seemed like a fairly good recipe, health wise (as healthy as you could make a cinnamon roll!). Next time, I'll try subbing applesauce for the oil and possibly half wheat flour. You should definitely try these! If you don't have a bread machine, I believe there is some discussion on how to make them without one in the comments section.

Photo credit Moneysavingmom.com

Valentine's Day update...a little late

Well, its been a month since Valentine's day, so I'm a little behind on my blogging! Life has been crazy. Our power went out Valentine's weekend, so my big plans to create a great multi-course meal went out the window. Monday night, I did end up making Pioneer Woman's Penne a la Betsy.

It was, of course, fabulous! I was sad our original plans fell through, but to be honest we probably didn't need the remaining 8-9 slices of a peanut butter chocolate cake around the house :) (that was my planned dessert)

Hope you all had a great Valentine's day, and a great March too! Since its almost over, that is.

Meal Planning (Tuesday)

So, I know its Tuesday. Busy Monday! Here's what we are having this week:

Monday: Super Bowl leftovers
Tuesday: Chicken francais, garlic rice pilaf
Wednesday: Baked potato soup, homemade bread
Thursday: Tilapia in parchment paper, rice
Friday: Crockpot chicken tacos, chips and queso
Saturday: Chicken, bacon, mozzarella paninis, homemade chips
Sunday: Valentine's day meal - I'm going to do a separate post about this later in the week!

Hope everyone is having a great week so far!