Meal Plans 9/26-10/2

 

Here are the meals I plan to make this week! I must admit sometimes I change the sides around depending on how I feel for example; if I have rice as I side one day and potatoes as another, sometimes I will switch the sides around depending on how we feel. Hopefully soon I hope to add more recipes and figure out how to make that simple for you all to get to them. Enjoy.
Meals week 9/26-10/2
Mon.- Baked chicken legs, mashed potatoes and green beans.
Tues.-Veggie spaghetti (no meat or ground turkey, just sauce with mushrooms, olives, etc)
Weds- Breakfast for dinner
Thurs- Roasted chicken, rice and corn
Friday- Taco's ( I make homemade refried beans, recipe below)
Sat. Leftover chicken pot pie
Sun. Salmon, rice and zucchini grilled with olive oil and salt and pepper.

My Homemade Refried Beans
This is my very simple and easy recipe for homemade refried beans. One side note, I like trying to homemake as much as I can to control sodium and what goes in it. I dont have exact measurements because I go buy taste and what my family likes so have fun and experiment with it. Start out adding a little spice and work your way up to what you like.

1 can pinto beans (I have dried pinto beans to try but haven't had time yet to soak and cook them)
olive oil
chili powder
garlic powder
cumin

Drain pinto beans and add to food processer, I shake about a teaspoon of chili powder and garlic powder on them. Then I probably use about a tablespoon of cumin. I'm guessing on my teaspoon and tablespooon amounts, I usually just sprinkle it in but I do add more cumin than the chili or garlic powder. Then I pour Olive Oil in to wet the beans. Let the food processer do the work and keep using olive oil (or a little water if you dont want strong olive oil taste) to get the consistancy you like. I always taste and add a little more cumin as needed. I then to make it simple microwave them for about 2mins or depending on if I feel like doing another pan will heat them in a small saucepan on the stove.  When I make them on Friday I will try to get more accurate measurements and update this post to give you a better idea. Sorry if its confusing, enjoy! 

Meal Plans 9/19-9/25

So I am behind this week on getting my meals for the week posted as well. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I want to include the recipes but for now I will post them below. I usually dont like to do 2 cassoroles back to back on Sat. and Sun. but this week they just happened to turn out that way.

Meals week 9/19-9/25
Mon.- Hamburger Tarts
Tues.-Spaghetti
Weds- Homemade pancakes
Thurs- Baked chicken, rice, green beans
Friday- Homemade pizza night
Sat. Leftover chicken cassorole made with chicken, stuffing and broccoli
Sun. Tuna cassorole

Recipe for Hamburger tarts
Here is a recipe for the Hamburger tarts we made on Monday night. Of course, with any recipe I use it as a guide and just use what I have on hand. The recipe says it makes 18 I only got 12 tarts out of it.
(link where I found recipe http://cooking-out-loud.com/guest-post-hamburger-tarts )

18 slices of bread with crust cut off- (I only got 12 from recipe & used wheat bread)
1/4cup of margarine (as needed, I used my "I can't believe its not butter, olive oil spray")
1lb ground beef (I used ground turkey)
1/4cup bread crumbs
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
2 large eggs
1/2c diced onion (I didn't have any)
1 tsp minced garlic (Garlic lover here! I just sprinkled garlic powder over the mixture)
1 cup grated cheese of choice (I just grated what I needed and sprinkled on top of them)
BBQ or Ketchup for topping.

Preheat oven to 350. I browned my ground turkey and drained, then I mixed in all other ingrediants except for the cheese and ketchup. I pressed the bread in the muffin pan that I sprayed with my olive oil spray butter. Then I scooped spoonfuls into each slice of bread in the pan and topped with cheese. I only baked mine for 35mins. We then put a little kethup on top. They freeze well so you can pop them in the microwave for a quick lunch or snack. I served them with macaroni cheese and corn.



Hamburger tarts



Meal Plans 9/12-9/18

A while ago I decided to start meal planning as a way to stick to a grocery budget, make dinner time easier by knowing each night what we were having and making sure we had the items to cook those meals.  Each week I hope to share with you my dinner meals for the week. I usually don't plan breakfast or lunch simply because breakfast usually consist of cereal, eggs, toast, etc. and our lunches usually consist of leftovers, peanut butter & jelly, frozen nuggets etc. We also dont eat a lot of red meat because of past history of high cholestrol levels. Below you will find this weeks meals.
The main structure for my meal plans are:
1 pasta/spaghetti meal
3 chicken meals
1 breakfast or leftover night.
1 fish
1 taco or pizza night we rotate on Fridays
(I use ground turkey in the place of ground beef for all meals. Also sometimes instead of doing breakfast, leftover or fish I will do another meal using ground turkey for example;  meatloaf, hamburgers, sloppy joe's etc.)

Meals Week 12th-18th
Mon. Baked chicken, rice and corn
Tues. Breakfast for dinner (either homemade pancakes or omelettes)
Wed. grilled chicken, pasta salad, and green beans
Thurs. Tuna cakes, macaroni & cheese and corn
Fri. Taco Night
Sat. having bday party for youngest daughter so will have party leftovers
Sun. Roasted whole chicken, au graten potatoes, mixed veggies