Sunday, August 16, 2009

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.

4 comments:

  1. "Against his religion"...LOLOLOL!
    Great menu. Makes me hungry reading it.

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  2. I too laughed at the "against his religion" comment...my husband's like that about what he calls "southwestern flavors" (funnier if you've seen that episode of the Simpsons).

    Also love the term remix. We don't do that too often as leftover are a popular lunch for me and DH. That and when I make extra with the intention to "remix" DH seems to think that means he needs to eat more. LOL.

    Thanks for the Chicken Parm inspiration. I hadn't really even thought about that as an option, but I bet everyone would really like it.

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  3. I hope you will join me for Crock Pot Wednesdays this week at diningwithdebbie.blogspot.com. Thanks for posting.

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  4. Reusing the leftovers is fantastic and a great way to stretch your budget!

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