This week I wanted to make several new items, especially since I have plenty of time to cook. Here is the menu for this upcoming week (I might not make all of the main dishes if we have quite a bit of leftovers):
I know that I got a little bit behind in posting last week, but we mainly just had leftovers.
Previous Weeks:
Turkey Day
Of course I went all out for Turkey Day, but it was pretty simple since I cooked our turkey breast in the slow cooker. I have used the same recipe for quite awhile in just cut all of the ingredients in half (see previous post for the link). I made smashed sweet potatoes, and just put in a little bit of butter and brown sugar, just enough for a little extra sweet taste but not overpowering. I made the veggie herb dish (I froze the leftovers for a meal later on), which is just cut up vegetables with a little bit of olive oil and quite a bit of basil. Of course I always have to include rolls with a Turkey dinner. I also made a cheesecake type brownie dessert. Everything came out good, except we were disappointed in the dessert.
Past Week:
This past week we had leftovers of soups, sandwiches, etc., so nothing that I really made from scratch except for the Roasted Red Bell Pepper Basil Soup (which I have previously made and shown on other posts). This time though I added some mozzarella cheese to it, and it made the soup even better. The soup is better after allowing it to marinade for several hours or until the next day. It has much more of a roasted red pepper taste to it.
This Week:
This week our meals will be easy and quick to make, as it will be a hectic week. Plus, with the weather who knows if the electricity will go out (which happened yesterday for several hours, and then went off and on), and I don't want to be cooking a huge meal if that occurs. We have quite a bit of leftovers from the roasted red bell pepper basil soup, so we had enough for about 3 meals. We will have smoked sausage sandwiches with just some chips. I have frozen leftovers of the veggie herb dish, enough to make its own healthy meal with rolls. Macaroni and cheese with some frozen green beans. Then another meal is pasta with pesto sauce. Perhaps tomorrow I will get to the grocery store if the storm lets up with the ice and snow.
Next week though, I want to try a few new recipes, including soups and using the slow cooker. After all, it is no doubt weather for a hearty soup to keep warm and slow cooker weather to have a easy meal yet delicious without a lot of work.
Queso Blanco Velveeta Macaroni and Cheese with Green Beans
None of these meals are new to us, and I do make the meatloaf about once a month or so. The vegetables I used was butternut squash, parsnips and carrots with a little bit of rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper. Enjoy the pictures!
This Week:
Everything this week I am making, except for the herbed vegetable dish or turkey sandwich, will be new recipes for me. The herbed potato pancakes and Sausage Sandwich I do not have any recipes, but think I should be fine without them. I haven't decided yet if the sausage sandwich will either be Italian or another type.
I have a few ideas on how to use leftovers for the meatballs and herbed vegetable dish next week. Please share any recipes or what you will be eating this week by using Mister Linky below.
As you can tell I didn't post yesterday, so far this week has been busy, and will be so until about Thursday. So we tried a few new items last week, some winners and some not.
Last Week
Unfortunately, I forgot to take a lot of pictures, but I do have at least some. I didn't make the Rosemary-Dijon Chicken or the new Herbed Veggie Skillet, those will end up being part of this weeks menu.
Reviews:
Spiced Chicken: This was not a keeper by any means, it was way too sweet, and did not taste good at all. I only took about two or three bites, although my husband did eat about half of a chicken breast.
Rustic Italian Tomato Soup: Have you ever started making a recipe, everything starts to go wrong in the process, and you end up making your own version or at least something completely different? That is what happened with this recipe. Our grocery store didn't have just a frozen bag mixed bell peppers, so I ended up getting one that was just roasted red bell peppers. I put the required ingredients in our food processor, when it started leaking, so much so that it barely had any of the chicken broth or sauce from the can of diced tomato. I apparently had filled it too much. As I wasn't sure how much of the chicken broth was actually left over from the leak, I ended up just guessing when I put everything into the pot. I ended up putting to much basil into the soup, as I used dried instead of fresh, however it was REALLY GOOD. However, did it taste like a Tomato Soup? No, more like Roasted Red Pepper Basil Soup, because of the ingredients I used instead. It was even better a day or two later, as the roasted red pepper taste was more flavorful. This is a very easy soup to make (make sure you don't overfill your food processor like I did!) and would be great to freeze. I do like recipes though, that with just a few changes you have another type of meal. Eventually, I will need to try just the original recipe, if I can find just frozen bag of mixed bell peppers. I ate over half of my soup before I remembered to take a picture.
Shepherd's Pie Pictures (From Mama's Table to Mine cookbook)
I made this last night and the few times I have made it is always good. I know it looks like it is mostly just mashed potatoes, but it does have ground turkey, carrots, rosemary, etc.
This Week:
As this week is really busy, I am relying on a few quick meals.We still have some leftovers of the Shepherd's Pie, and frozen leftovers from Potato-Lentil Stew. I didn't make a few meals from my list the previous week or two, as we had quite a bit of leftovers, so I will make them this week. They will be:
Queso Blanco Velveeta Macaroni and Cheese with Green Beans
The Goulash was ok, I couldn't find the recipe that I used last time. So next time I will just change it a little bit.
The Chicken Tikka Masala was good, but the sauce I purchased was a little spicy. I plan on adding some vegetables next time.
The potato Lentil Soup was good. The picture is of leftovers that I ended up freezing. This Week:
Last week I didn't end up making the Veggie Bean Casserole or the Mac and Cheese, we either had leftovers or delivered pizza.
This week I want to try a few dishes I have never made before, either as a main meal or side. So I hope they taste good! You will just need to wait until next week to find out, what we thought of them. I have made the Shepherds Pie quite a few times from the past couple of months, and it is really good. Also, from the same cookbook I make a healthy Turkey Meatloaf that rarely is there ever any leftovers, it is that good.
I am so excited to be starting this weekly Monday blog post, and I hope that lots of people will share what they eat in the week for dinner. FYI this is a long post. In case you did not see my post from last week, here is a little recap; every Monday I will post what we ate last week plus what I plan on making this coming week as well. I hope to include pics, reviews, recipe links when available, etc. Now if you just want to talk about what you made without pictures or links, short post, long post, only want to post once a month etc that is fine.Whatever you want, just as long as you have fun! I thought also it would be a great way to find new recipes, if people share theirs when posting on their own blogs. At the end of this post will be Mister Linky so that you can link up to your own post to share with all of us.
The roasted veggies were potatoes, sweet potatoes, and onions with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, rosemary, thyme, and pepper. It was pretty good, as you can see I left out a few ingredients that is in the recipe, which I either didn't have or didn't want to use. Unfortunately, the baked chicken got a little dry (I didn't put enough sauce on it) but otherwise was good.
Wednesday: Smashed Potatoes with Turkey Chipotle Taco Seasoning and roasted veggies (recipe different from Tuesday's roasted veggies)
I remembered a quick meal my mom used to make as a kid but I changed it a little bit. My mom would always use baked potatoes with hamburger meat that just used regular taco seasoning. I didn't have big enough potatoes and really needed to use the leftovers from the day before (I had had them for awhile). So I just peeled and boiled the potatoes (you will need more than normal as you don't add milk, etc), drained, smashed them and put them on a plate with turkey meat with chipotle taco seasoning (I also put on top some cheese). As the chipotle taco seasoning was a little salty, so with the smashed potatoes didn't need anything else. Besides that I used the rest of the potatoes, leftover sweet potato from the night before, 2 parsnips, 2 carrots, olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme for some nice roasted veggies. As you can tell I usually change some things on recipes that I make. I only used enough veggies to cover half of a baking sheet, so it was just enough for one meal. We both really liked this dish, so I will make it in the future. Here is a picture of the leftover Smashed Potatoes with the turkey chipotle taco meat.
I had made this recipe only once before. The changes I made were; I used more pumpkin, chose to use the vegetable broth, added nutmeg, added cumin, and used more evaporated milk, salt, and pepper. I just added a little bit at a time until I liked the desired taste. It was good and I plan on making it more during the coming winter. It takes little time to make as well.
I have never had this before as never tasted some of the beans used in this recipe. I love to use slow cookers/crockpots and that I just need to put in the ingredients and it cooks by itself. I added more brown sugar than what was called for in the recipe, as for me it was a little tangy. So, in the future when I make this I might just put in a little less Italian dressing. There was quite a bit of leftovers, so I decided to freeze some of it.
Saturday: Leftovers
It is just a smorgasbord of leftovers that were from several previous nights meals from Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Sunday: Leftovers
We still had some soup and bean medley left over so we had that. We added some smoked turkey sausage to the bean medley. Meals This Week: Monday: Leftovers
We don't have very much leftovers and I will be at an event tonight. So what doesn't get eaten tonight will be thrown out.
I have made this a few times and it is pretty good. I usually cut down on the amount of chili powder used. It makes quite a bit, so I freeze some of the leftovers.
Wednesday: Velveeta Queso Blanco Mac and Cheese with green beans
Velveeta has a creamy version of mac and cheese that is really good. Even if your not normally a fan of Velveeta, try it. I usually get two packages so we have leftovers. They have the regular mac and cheese but also a queso blanco version too.
Thursday: Leftovers
We will have the leftovers of the potato lentil soup and mac and cheese.
Friday: Chicken Tika Masala over rice
I just use a store bought version of the Tika Masala Curry sauce and follow the instructions.
Saturday: (American)Goulash with Veggie Dish
I know lots of different people have names for this dish; hodge podge, American chop suey, goulash, etc., and all put a variety of somewhat different ingredients in it. My family just put in the hamburger (although I will substitute that with ground turkey), sauce, macaroni, and we usually added corn. I will also be making a veggie dish that consists of; frozen French cut green beans (although regular frozen green beans can be used), frozen corn, onion, sweet red bell pepper, olive oil, and dried basil (I just add it until I like the taste) until cooked through. The veggie dish is quick to make and freezes great.
So starting next Monday, I plan on posting what dinner meals I will be making for the week. I will include recipe links (when available), pictures, reviews, did we like the food or will we revise it, did we freeze the leftovers, etc. I have found that it helps immensely if I have meals already scheduled, even if they are just leftovers. Otherwise it is really hectic and we eat really late. I thought a regular blog post on every Monday, would be beneficial to me to ensure that I always know what meals we will be eating, and perhaps others will share on their own blog, thus getting even more ideas for meals. On Monday I will post what we ate this week and upcoming meals as well. Included in my post will be Mister Linky, so that anyone who wants to post about their own meals can. So, will you join me next Monday?
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