Meal Plan Mondays?

[bennieangel]

So this is a thing on a lot of other boards...are we interested? I can try to start it each week. 

The idea - sharing meal plans & recipes with each other  

[zandeela]

I think this is a great idea. I have no clue what to feed LO

Tonight- left over chicken green enchilada casserole with peaches for dessert

[nattybumppo]

Ugh. Yes. I would love to get better about meal planning. I'm a day or two at a time kind of planner and I'd like to get better about doing a week at a time but I haven't had the mental energy as of late. Tonight is leftovers from Saturday. Tomorrow may be this meal I put together from frozen things from Trader Joe's....it depends if I get to the store or not. But I have a short list of things I've been rotating through lately and I'd love some more ideas!!

[meggsm]

Ooo I'm in. I am so out of ideas for meals.

Tonight is spicy pork chops, rice and probably broccoli.

[g33kyg1rly]

I like this idea as well I would also love some more lunch ideas, since I always seem to end up with either PB&J, scrambled eggs, or grilled cheese.

[yalllow]

[bebeski]

Sounds good to me too! Nothing sounds good to me anymore as I feel like I make the same thing over and over.

I made vegetarian mushroom stroganoff tonight and yesterday we had ravioli. Probably have veggie burgers tomorrow. Blah.

[wildhoney4508]

I'm in! Great idea bennieangel alls I have to say is Pinterest, Pinterest, Pinterest lol

[maganonymous]

I was JUST thinking about this!! Love it...I would participate.

[ntdane]

I would love something like this. I do most of my grocery shopping on Tuesdays so the timing would be great .

[linzerd]

I think this sounds good! I'm working at home now for 3 days a week, but I still have to do work after I pick A up from DC and bring her home. Then I can't make dinner and then this week have just decided that I am going to try to do crockpot meals for those 3 days so we aren't buying take out each night (MH doesn't get home until 7-8 usually).

[human1]

I'm in. At least, when I'm cooking.
Sun- beef tacos. Made a ton of extra meat for later
Mon- work late, my H is in charge. Frozen pizza
tues- crock pot Cuban pork
Wed- beef enchiladas with the extra meat from Sunday. With refried black beans and rice.
thurs - whole chicken roasted with veggies and baby red potatoes. Will use drippings to make a sauce/light gravy
Fri- some kind of casserole with leftover chicken
Sat - eat out / date night

[nattybumppo]

How do you all actually do your meal planning? What day do you do your planning? How long does it take? Do you have a set of recipes that you usually pull from or are you more creative and try out new stuff fairly often? It doesn't help that some nights DH has to work late (meetings) and I don't get that much notice and some nights around here even getting 15 minutes to put dinner together is a struggle. On rough nights I plop DD1 in front of the TV and just listen to DD2 scream at me from the PnP....so I would love to add some easy, quick recipes to my repertoire!

[g33kyg1rly]

This is one recipe I use/made-up for when I don't have a lot of time. DH & I call it a "No-Bake Pasta Bake" :-P

Ingredients:
1 lb pasta (usually use something like rigatoni or ziti but you can use whatever)
1 lb sweet Italian sausage
2 cups shredded cheese (usually use mozzarella and/or parmesan)
big jar of pasta sauce (I just use the big 45oz jars of Ragu but you can use more or less)

1. Cook pasta according to directions
2. While the pasta is cooking, pour the sauce into a large saucepan and simmer over low heat
3. Also while the pasta is cooking, cut the sausage into chunks and saute
4. After pasta is done cooking, drain, and add in sausage, sauce, and cheese. Mix until cheese is melted (about a minute).

You can mix things up by switching up the type of pasta, sauce, cheese, or meat, or even adding some veggies.

This also makes a ton of food so we have leftovers for a few days

[human1]

I typically grocery shop on weekends so I do my meal planning then. That consists of asking H/kids if there's anything in particular they'd like that week, and perusing my recipes to make a plan. I really like to make stuff where the primary ingredients can be stretched into a few meals - cook up a bunch of taco meat, make tacos, enchiladas, taco salad. Roast a chicken and veggies, make a casserole or two and chicken soup.

Evenings are pretty crunched for time. Basically from when I get home from work is a clusterfuck of cook, eat, clean up, play, baths, bed. With a lot of screaming thrown in. I really like the crockpot for the ease of getting home and food is ready. I also prep ingredients the day before, after girls are in bed - chop veggies, etc.

[zandeela]

I love crockpot meals and casseroles. Before I gave birth I made 42 casseroles for the freezer and 25 crockpot frozen meals. The crock pot meals are all the ingredients thrown together and frozen so all you do is pull one out, dump in crockpot still frozen, turn on low and leave all day. Its awesome!!! Will have to find my philly cheese steak casserole, not really philly but it taste damn good.

Favorite pasta: Fettuccini with ham and peas

package of pasta
1 can LeSueur very young peas - drained
1.5 # thick sliced ham cut into strips - I like a maple ham for this but have used peppered
1/4C sour cream
2 C parmesan cheese
2 garlic cloves
1tbsp butter

Cook pasta
melt butter and sauté ham add garlic until ham is browned
Add peas to ham mixture and heat

in separate large bowl mix cheese with sour cream, toss ham mixture
drain pasta and toss with cheese/ham mixture. serve immediately

Not very healthy but is one of my favorite recipes. Freezes well!!

[bennieangel]

zandeela can you share your frozen crock pot successes? Recipes?

[zandeela]

I will pull a few favorite one out tonight

[nattybumppo]

Also, does anyone have any easy fool proof meat recipes? I'm always intimidated by big chunks of meat (*insert some 8th grade joke here*), but I'm trying to eat more protein.

[human1]

Feb 26, 2015 15:15:10 GMT -5 nattybumppo said:

Also, does anyone have any easy fool proof meat recipes? I'm always intimidated by big chunks of meat (*insert some 8th grade joke here*), but I'm trying to eat more protein.

Get a chunk of pork shoulder or butt. Cut off big grisly pieces and throw it in the crock pot. You can use a variety of things for cooking liquid- BBQ sauce, coke, root beer, a spice rub and stock. Cook on low 8+ hours. Get a moist, tender, shredded pork.

[RandomName]

I will def follow this thread weekly. I always have the best intentions with meal plans. Sometimes I even make one for the week. I just never follow them. I need to work on it.

[younglove316]

I did meal planning for a couple of weeks and it worked out good, I need to start doing it again so I'm in

[bennieangel]

Yay! I'm glad everyone is interested. I usually do my meal planning (well it's pretty lazy lately so we can call it meal arranging) on weekends so I will probably reference each Mondays post on the next weekend

We try to do one crock pot meal every week & one freezer meal most weeks too (I just tried let's dish & stocked the freezer)

[wildhoney4508]

Are you going to post every Monday, then? Sorry...I'm so tired I'm not comprehending well tonight...

[Deleted]

OMG OMG OMG

I'm gonna be so good at this because I totes have all my meals planned out for the next MONTH!

woot!

[bennieangel]

Feb 28, 2015 22:38:30 GMT -5 wildhoney4508 said:

Are you going to post every Monday, then? Sorry...I'm so tired I'm not comprehending well tonight...

I'm going to try! But if you don't see it (or anyone) someone please fill in for me!

[babycaps]

I have one recipe I can share off the top of my head. DH and I LOVE spicy food and LO not so much yet. So we have a harder time making him a variety of meals lately.

But this is delicious:

You'll need:
4 cans of tuna packed in Olive Oil
3-4 bell peppers (variety of colors), chopped
1 cup Giardinera relish to your desired spicy level (we mix hot and mild to make it medium spicy)
1 small red onion, chopped
1 glove garlic
1lbs Orecchiette pasta
Parmesan Cheese

in medium-lg sauce pan, sauté the onion and garlic in a little bit of olive oil from the tuna cans.
Add in the bell peppers and sauté for approximately 5-7min
DRAIN the olive oil from tuna cans and add tuna and relish to the sauce pan. Mix all together and let it cook on low heat for additional 10 min.

Serve the tuna mix over the Orecchiette pasta with parmesan cheese