Meal Plan Monday - September 19

Man. I stink at this! I only made three out of seven planned meals. That's terrible! In fact, I was able to plug NINE meals that I had planned into the meal plan for the next two weeks. Ugh. I suppose that is 50% more than I did last week though, right?

Here is this week's plan:

Monday - Lemon Garlic Spaghetti with Grilled Chicken

Recipe from Pinterest

I've made this before. While the recipe is intended to be meatless, that many carbs on their own just make me feel bloated and leave me feeling unsatisfied. I can eat less pasta and feel better after the meal if I add a little grilled chicken. Last time I made it, I used chopped walnuts instead of pine nuts because that's what I had, and doubled the garlic because that's how I roll. I will probably keep using walnuts because they taste good, I almost always have them on hand, and pine nuts are flipping expensive.

Tuesday - Turkey Burgers with "Fried" Zucchini Rounds and Corn on the Cob

Recipe from Pinterest

I can tell summer is winding down because the price of zucchini is going back up, and the size is going down. Seriously, some of those specimens they had on the shelf at my grocery store could have used another day or two on the plants. I will make this with ground turkey because it was buy one, get one free for the extra lean Jennie-O that I like so I bought a bunch. :)

Wednesday - Beef and Potato Salad

Recipe from Pinterest

Thursday - Leftovers!!! Either that or something that I was supposed to make but skipped.

Friday - Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas with Mexican Tomato Rice and Tortillas

Recipe for Pork Carnitas from Pinterest, Tomato rice from my blog, Tortillas from my blog

I just finally got around to locating the adobo seasoning (yay Penzey's!) for this a few days ago! I'll serve the pork on the tortillas with chopped onion and fresh cilantro. YUM.

Saturday - Lemon Brown Sugar Chicken and Pasta with Vegetables

Chicken recipe from Pinterest, Pasta my own creation

I've made this chicken before and it's really good! For the pasta I just cook 1/3 lb of small pasta (I like the Barilla Piccolini Farfalle or teeny stars) in salted water (no oil), toss in a half bag of frozen mixed vegetables (I like the SteamFresh ones with the carrots, corn, and asparagus tips) when there's a minute left to cook , drain them together, then toss with butter, grated parmigiano reggiano, salt, and pepper. So tasty and easy!

Last week's meal report:

Curry Spiced Shrimp and Rice - this was really good and plenty easy to make. It was a bit spicy for my taste, however. My husband thought it was great so I think I'll try it again with only a teaspoon and a half of curry powder instead of two.

Italian Sausage and Marinara over Orecchiette - Holy YUM. We both loved this and I even called dibs on the leftovers for lunch! Luckily I ate this on the days that I had a lot of activity becacuse this was not a low calorie meal. I thought I doubled the recipe, but I didn't really do the math on the ounce difference between cans of tomatoes from the store and the jars I canned myself. As a result, I doubled everything BUT the tomatoes. This just means my sauce has extra veggies! HA! I did end up with six 2-cup bags of sauce to freeze after we were done with this meal. Not too shabby!

Crockpot Jambalaya - I should have known this would be a bad idea. It was super bland. Also, after I added the rice the directions said to cook it for another 30 minutes. Well, I did, but the rice was still crunchy. I left it on so that the rice could cook some more but then started trying to balance my freaking checkbook like an idiot while I waited. Have I ever mentioned that I have trouble adding?

Yeah. That rice totally overcooked into mush. So it was bland mush. Lame.

Hopefully this week goes better, and the sandwiches we had for dinner instead of what I was supposed to make aren't an indicator of what is to come!