Menu Plan Monday

Well I'm not the first to have made a menu plan and I'm not the first to have written about it. In fact, Laura, the Organizing Junkie, hosts Menu Planning Monday and I have decided to participate. I will post links to the recipes once I have posted about them. Also I have left my menu plan in the car after grocery shopping and I can't for the life of me remember what I planned for Friday. I'll add that in when I go down to the car tomorrow.

Dinners
Sunday--> Spaghetti Bolganase with Garlic Bread
Monday--> Slow Cooker Pot Roast with Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Tuesday--> Some kind of Beef Stew with the left over pot roast
Wednesday--> Mac & Cheese w/ Chicken Nuggets
Thursday--> Thai Chicken Pasta (so good)
Friday --> I forgot
Saturday--> Appitizer Extravaganza (Pot Stickers, Spinich and Artichoke Dip, Potatoskins)

Breakfast and Snack
Fiber One cereal
Greek Yogurt (it was on sale!)
Fruit Salad (the fruit at the farmer's market was delicious this week)
Bagels and cream cheese
String Cheese
Girl Scout Cookies (I couldn't resist)

Check out what other people have planned for this week here.
Have Fun!

So This is Love

I'm sitting on the bed right now and The Boy is singing his narration of everything he is doing. It is quite amusing.
It goes something like this.
"Underarmor stink. Underarmor stink."
"I really need a belt."
"You're writing about me right now aren't you..."

Love is thinking this is the most endearing thing in the world.

Chicken Pot Pie

So I got the afternoon off from work one day this week and I decided that I would make something a little more work intensive than what I usually make. I found this recipe over on Rachel Ray's site and adapted it to my own use. Feel free to do her version or my version. It won't hurt my feelings.



Chicken Pot Pie with Biscuit Crust

Ingredients
4 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts
3 small onions, 2 cut in half, 1 chopped, divided
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons EVOO – Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 heads of broccoli broken into florets
1/2 bag baby carrots, cut into quarters
1/2 pound green beans cut into one inch peices
Salt and ground black pepper
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup milk
1 cup chicken stock
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 cup frozen peas
1 batch of biscuit dough (I made mine for bisquick but you could use the ones in the tube)

Make It
Place chicken, whole onion half and bay leaves in a large pot and cover with cold water. Place pot over medium-high heat and bring up to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until chicken has cooked through, about 20 minutes. Remove chicken from pot and let cool. Reserve about 1 cup (a mugful) of the cooking liquid and then discard the remaining.

While chicken cools, place a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat with 2 turns of the pan of EVOO, about 2 tablespoons. Add chopped veggies to the pan, season with salt and pepper, and cover. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 7-8 minutes. While the veggies are cooking, remove the chicken breast meat from the bones and shred.

When the veggies are tender, scoot them over to the side of the pan and add the butter to the center of the pot. Once butter has melted, add the flour and cook for about a minute. Whisk in white wine, milk, chicken stock and reserved poaching liquid. Bring up to a simmer then add the Dijon, peas and shredded chicken. Bring back up to a simmer, season with salt and pepper, and cook until the sauce has thickened, 2-3 minutes. Make the biscuit dough while the sauce thickens.

Transfer to a casserole dish and cover with the biscuit dough, I flattened biscuit size pieces and then placed then on top of the mixture.

Bake the pot pie until the filling is bubbling and the crust is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Serve.


Outcome
We loved this. I will be eating the leftovers all week.

Meat Ball Subs

This recipe is easy to put together ahead of time and let it sit in the crockpot all day and it will be ready when you get home! I made it on a Friday and both the boy and the male roomie loved it.



Meat Ball Subs

Ingredients
1 lb ground meat (I used turkey this time but sometimes I use beef or a mixture of beef and pork)
1 cup bread crumbs (the kind you buy in the store)
1 egg
1 T Itailan Seasoning
2 T basil
1/2 t Red Pepper Flake (optional)
1 jar tomato sauce
4 sub rolls

Make It
Preheat oven to 400. Combine meat, bread crumbs, egg, spices and 1/2 cup sauce) in a bowl. I usually mix with my hands because it comes together easier. Form into golfball size balls and place on grease baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes you just want to brown the outside so that they don't fall apart in the crockpot. While they are baking, pour the rest of the jar of sauce into the crockpot, fill the empty jar about halfway with water and shake it up, then add the water to the crockpot. Add the meatballs to the crockpot. Cook on low for 4-6 hours. Put 4-5 meatballs on each subroll. Serve with salad.

Feels Like Wednesday

So remember how I told you that I love menu planning because I don't worry about what to cook or have to go grocery shopping all week. Yeah well this week I am wishing I had listened to myself.

Sunday I decided to go visit a friend who is visiting her mother in Orange County. I love a day at the beach and I don't think that I had seen this girl in over 4 years so I was all about visiting. I said I would leave around 12 thinking it would be an hour drive at most and I would have time to menu plan, and go to the Farmer's Market before I left. Well it turns out I'm lazy and The Boy convinced me that we didn't need to go to the Farmer's Market and we should sleep instead. And I listened. I had a great time at the beach but I have been kicking myself all week for not shopping.

Then I said, well I don't work until late on Monday, so I will grocery shop after I go to the library to pick out books for all my lessons this week. This did not go well. I had an upset stomuch the whole time I was at the library and I came home and laid in bed all pathetic like for an hour or so hoping the my stomach would calm down. It didn't. I got worse (I'll spare you the details) so I called The Boy hoping he would go get me some ginger ale and crackers. He ended up taking off work and making me go to the doctors. The doctor chastised me for not coming in sooner (it was a really bad case of sinusitis and being a person with a ton of allergies and lots of experience with sinus headaches I should have come in earlier. I just hate taking anti-biotics. I'd rather be sick.). Then Tuesday was packed with work stuff. So long story short I didn't get around to a meal plan until Wednesday. And it was stressing me out.

Anyway, I made the most amazing Indian Curry in the CrockPot last night. The Boy even ate it (after he picked out the vegetables. lesigh...). And I already told you about how I invented CrockPot Queso and Mac with Sausage (amaaaazing!). Tonight is leftovers. Probably will have that Saturday too. I'm making some delicious food for the SuperBowl on Sunday. And I don't plan on cooking until then because the fridge is packed with leftovers. Does anyone want to come help eat them?

Making It Up as I go...

So I have a habit of making up recipes as I go along.

Sometimes I look at a recipe and go "I could make that in the CrockPot" (actually, this happens a lot. My name is Jewely and I am addicted to my CrockPot).

Sometimes I think "If I added, this and this, this recipe would be even better."

And sometime I get a reeealll bad craving for queso dip. But I want a whole meal not just a delicious snack. So I said to myself "I could make Queso and Mac for dinner, that would be delicous!" But I didn't have a recipe for Mac and Queso, so I made one up. So I made my way over to my favorite CrockPot cooking blog and found a plain old Mac and Cheese recipe. I changed it up a bit so that I could leave it and wouldn't curdle. Then I added chili peppers, and sausage. It was delicious.

Mac and Queso with Sausage

What You Need:
--1 lb bulk sausage meat (if you only can get the links, just squeeze out the meat)
--1/2 pound uncooked macaroni or hearty pasta (I used penne)
--2 1/2 cups of milk (I used skim cow's)
--1 12oz. can of evaporated milk
--2 eggs
--2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
--2 cups shredded pepper jack cheese
--1/2 t kosher salt
--1/2 t black pepper
--1 small can of chilies

What To Do:
Brown and crumble the sausage meat in a pan.

Spray crock well with cooking spray (very important, makes clean up so much easier). In a mixing bowl, whip egg and milk together. Stir in chilies and salt and pepper.

Add cheese and noodles, and stir well to combine. Pour the mixture into the crockpot.

It will be very liquidy.

Cover and cook on low for 2-5 hours, or on high for 1-3. Mine took about 4 hours. Then I switched it to warm for a bit. It was not quite as sauc-y as I would have liked so next time I might cook it for a little less time.

What We Thought:
Both the boy and I both loved this. Like I said, I would have like a little more sauce, both other than that, it was awesome.