Menu Plan Monday

We stuck to our menu plan last week- kinda... there was pizza on the menu for Friday night because I really wanted to try making my own crust, but then, little man T was up til midnight Thursday not feeling good and didn't nap on Friday (still not feeling good). So, I had pizza for dinner- from DiGorno, from a box in the freezer. Hubs had ravioli, also from the freezer. As a native New Yorker, it is against his religion to eat frozen pizza from the grocery store.

I had left over grilled chicken breast that I knew I was going to remix (my new term for jazzing up leftovers) into some sort of pasta dish, but I wasn't sure exactly what. I took insperation from this post for Chicken and Bowtie Pasta at $5 Dinners and got rave reviews! Basically, I threw a little garlic in with some grape tomatoes and frozen spinach, added my cooked chicken (just to heat it through) and some Italian seasonings, then tossed the "sauce" with cooked penne. I added some parmesian cheese too- I actually wanted to add some mozarella, but it was frozen and I did not take it out in time to thaw. Hubs liked this and I actually ate it the next day for lunch. I needed something I could pack and take with, so I just added some Italian dressing and ate it as a pasta salad. VERY yummy and VERY frugal since it was made from leftovers. I will be adding this to my regular rotation as long as I can get cheap tomatoes.

So this week- here goes:

Monday: Herb Sirloin Tip Roast- I will be modifying recipe to cook in the crock pot. We will eat 1/2 for dinner and freeze the other half for later use. I also got ready made mashed potatoes BOGO at Publix since I can't ever seem to get my act together to peel potatoes and make them myself. Ah well.

Tuesday: Chicken Pot Pie using leftover grilled chicken. I am going to try to do grilled chicken on Sunday nights for dinner, then remix the leftovers on Tuesdays. I don't have any puff pastry for crust this week, though, so I'm going to have to come up with something there...

Wednesday: Ground Beef and Mac and Cheese Casserole, based around this Ground Beef Casserole recipe (found via Once A Month Mom). I bought several Mac and Cheese boxes when they were cheap at CVS and part of the Full Cup Rebate from Kraft, so this lets me turn those into a meal. We will probably eat with a salad.

Thursday: Chicken Parm- nothing fancy, I just fry up chicken cutlets and serve with spaghetti and sauce from a jar.

Friday: Burito Bowls (loosely based on this recipe) using ground chicken (nobody tell hubs it's not beef, okay??) I picked up a package of pre-seasoned Taco Ground Chicken at Super Target. It was marked down to $1.99 because its use by date was close. I just threw it in the freezer and it will now make a great meal! I'll cook black beans with it too. LOVE when I can find inexpensive proteins!

For more meal ideas, visit OrgJunkie.