I have been finding it more pleasurable to be spending time in the kitchen. I actually started decorating it a bit. Kinda. Our kitchen is pretty clean, but not really decorated. You won’t really find it on a house tour because as much as we like the openness of it, I don’t really like the color of our cabinets. I dream of white cabinets. One day, it will happen, if God allows of course.

Monday we ate Pasta Puttanesca with Oven Roasted Cauliflower with Garlic, Olive Oil, and Lemon Juice…

I followed the recipe exactly and it came out fantastic. Ben and I could have use more red pepper flakes in it, but the girls are eating it too, so we kind of have to go light on the kick. The recipe didn’t call for any protein, so we used shrimp.

The Oven Roasted Cauliflower was another yum. It was a variation of a normal vegetable dish we make, but this recipe called for lemon which was a good zing. The recipe says to put 1/4 cup olive oil, which I think is a bit much, so I put 2 tbsp and kinda stuck my hands in and rubbed it all around the florets. I think that worked just as fine. Will make this again.

Tuesday, we had Salmon Cakes BLT Burgers…

We actually made this on Sunday too and it was thanks to Jen from Our Happy Family leaving a comment on how to make it. Once I saw her comment, I knew I wanted to try it right away. I love crab cakes, so I thought this one sounded good and pretty healthy.

I used whole wheat panko bread crumbs along with two cans of salmon. I don’t like celery, so I didn’t use it. I used half an onion and four cloves are garlic. For seasoning, I used cayenne pepper (lots!) and cumin. Mixed in a bowl along with two eggs. Then, formed patties and placed on a pan and stuck it in the oven for 20 minutes, flipping after 10 minutes. Thanks Jen!

For the burger, I baked some soy bacon (tastes like the real thing to me!), mixed some siracha and eggless mayo together for a sauce. Toasted some whole wheat buns, added some greens, a dollop or two of sauce, the salmon cakes, 3 slices of soy bacon, and some avocado and we had ourselves a winning burger! For veggies, we had some canned beets.

Wednesday, we indulged in Chicken Cacciatore…

A pretty good dish, though Ben felt like it was missing something. I accidentally chopped the onions instead of slicing and I used shiitake mushrooms instead of white mushrooms. While we were eating it, Ben and I both added more red pepper flakes to our own plates because we love things spicy and felt it just needed something more. The girls seemed like big fans of this dish as they were all devouring it, so that’s a good sign.

Out of this week’s dishes, Monday was by far my favorite.

Monday: Scallion Meatballs with Soy-Ginger Glaze with Spiced Coconut Spinach

Tuesday: Ginger Soba Noodles

Wednesday: Ground Turkey Tacos (something I already know to do)

Thursday: leftovers

Friday: Pizza or something easy

I am in need of more vegetable dishes to accompany our meals. Ben is good at figuring those out on a whim. Me, not so much. Have any good quick veggie dishes to share! We have canned veggies ready to eat on hand, in case I don’t plan for it, but I would like to start planning for it more.

It feels to good to be meal planning. We have eaten less frozen food boxes from Trader Joe’s, in fact none at all during the week, though those are still nice in a pinch. Meal planning also helps save time in the evening because usually it takes us forever to figure out what to eat after Ben gets home and he is usually the one who would have been cooking it. Now, it is actually me cooking. I am not as good as Ben, but it works.

Wednesday started the new recipes for the week and I tried the Rice and Black Bean Pilaf…

It is a quick recipe, but I substituted celery with red bell peppers because I don’t like celery. Also, the recipe calls for parsley, which we used, but I think would have tasted better with cilantro. The flavors were pretty mild and if I were making it for just me and Ben, I would have sauteed the veggies with some chopped serrano peppers. A whole lot of them actually. Fresh slices of avocado is also good mixed in.

Thursday, I tried Korean Spicy Quick Braised Tofu that BFF and Jane recommended (those ladies know me well)…

Ben was completely loving this dish and said if it were at a restaurant, he would order it! My only change would be to double the sauce recipe, so that you would have more sauce to drizzle on! It was yummy and had a really nice kick! We love kick!!! We will make this again soon.

Knowing that our dish would be quite spicy, I made the girls Citrus Soy Tofu and Broccoli…

I used the leftover marinade from last week’s squid dish and let the tofu sit in that for a bit and then cooked that along with broccoli in a pan. When Brave saw the dish she said, “Ooh! I love tofu!!!” It was really cute. True ate all her broccoli and Brave ate her tofu, but I think if Brave weren’t so tired at the dinner table, she would have eaten more on her plate.

I have got my eye on some of the other tofu recipes you all shared. I can’t wait to try them out! If you have more recipes to share, keep them coming!

Week of 2/20 – 2/24:
Monday: Pasta Puttanesca and Roasted Cauliflower
Tuesday: Chicken Cacciatore and Brussel Sprouts
Wednesday: Monday’s leftovers
Thursday: Spaghetti and Meatballs (we have some church family coming over)
Friday: Pizza or something super easy

I haven’t made any salmon recipes yet, anyone have any good and healthy ones to share?

We have got four weeks of meal planning under our belts. Well, I only really cook two meals a week and the rest are leftovers from those meals or something really easy that I already know how to do, so that helps take off some pressure. We kinda of just wing weekend meals and Friday nights are usually for pizza. There was still a lot of recuperating from the wedding last weekend, so I only tried one new recipe this week.

Tuesday, I made Oven Baked Taquitos and Fresh Guacamole…

There are only a hand full of things that I know how to make well and from my own memory and oven baked taquitos is one them. Ben and the girls love it! I use chicken breast, which I boil until half cooked, then I shred and saute in a pan with taco seasoning. I warm up some tortillas, place some chicken in the middle, roll them up and lay them on a pan side by side. Once I roll them all up, I lightly spray them with oil and cook it in the oven at about 400°F for about 20 minutes and they get nice and crispy. A good healthy substitute to the normally fried taquitos.

Wednesday was for Citrus Soy Squid on Angel Hair Pasta….

I have never cooked squid and it isn’t so bad. They cook really fast! The recipe said to cut in 1” pieces and grill, but if we were to grill it, our pieces would have fallen through. Thus, I put half the batch in the oven and sauteed the rest in a pan. I like how the ones in the pan turned out better. I served it with lemon wedges and Mexican green onions like the recipe suggested. We needed some starch and I originally wanted buckwheat noodles, but we didn’t have any, so angel hair pasta was the next best thing.

Brave devoured her entire plate, squid and all, but True just ate the pasta. She seem to like the sauce though. The flavors were a bit mild for us though all the pieces went well together, so Ben and I just added chili oil to our plates. We like our food with kick! It was such a light meal that we got hungry real quick after.

I want to try cooking a dish with tofu. Anyone have any good tofu recipes to share? Preferably something spicy!

This week was pretty good as far as meal planning because we didn’t have to buy anything extra for the recipes. It was all stuff we were already stocked with, so it made everything much more perfect!

Monday we indulged in Chicken Piccata…

It is a healthy recipe, but it did not lack in flavor at all! In fact, Ben loved it so much he was licking the spoon that was in the pan, since the sauce went by fast. I paired ours with whole wheat spaghetti and it really made a nice dish. Ben said this was his favorite by far. I didn’t know what chicken scaloppini was so I just used our chicken breast and cut them in half, so they would be thinner pieces. Ben comes home and informs me that scaloppini was chicken pounded thin. I will be sure to try that next time.

Tuesday was for Apple-Honey Chicken…

I used some drumsticks for the girls, but used mostly chicken breasts. If you like sweet and sour type foods, you will like this recipe. It definitely has tang and zing! The frustrating part, which thankfully one of you warned me about, was that the sauce never really went syrupy. I had to add about 2 tbsp of flour to about a 1/4 cup of apple juice and then mixed that in the sauce while it was simmering and that helped a lot. It took me about 30 minutes to get the sauce to thicken. I liked this dish, but it won’t go on the must-make-again-soon list.

Meals have taken about 30-40 minutes to cook and I cook enough to have leftovers on Wednesdays and Thursdays. We haven’t been able to plan for our vegetable dishes that well, but we do have canned beets, canned artichokes, and other canned veggies on hand to eat along our meals. We try to make sure our meals include some veggies. When the craziness of my sister’s wedding is done, we will get better at including planned veggie dishes. I noticed that the girls have been really enjoying the meals. They pretty much devour their food on the plate. I am glad they are really liking the meals too!

Next week we will be recuperating from my sister’s wedding and will have family in town, so not sure what our dinners will look like as we will likely be meeting up with family. We will go super simple on our meals and I am just going to try out one new dish and cook one of the new recipes we just tried.

Wednesday: Citrus Soy Squid on Buckwheat Noodles (Ben bought some frozen squid on sale, so I thought this might be a good time to try it.)
Thursday: Chicken Piccata (since Ben loved this so much)
Friday: Pizza or something super easy

If you are joining along, how is your meal planning going? Also, please share with me your favorite recipes. I would love to possibly try them!

Week two almost done. Whew! I about threw in the towel with this meal planning thing because Ben and I had some miscommunication issues on what we needed for the meals. Totally still learning how to work with getting groceries ahead of time for the meals planned and so our planned meals started later this week. Though, I did cook an oven baked chicken on Monday, but didn’t use a recipe and just went off what I learned from my mom once. Tuesday was for finishing Monday’s leftovers.

Alas, Wednesday was Pork Chops with Apples and Garlic Mashed Potatoes…

Cooking pork chops can be tricky because it can dry out quickly. I really like how simple the whole process for this meal was. All was done within 40 minutes and that sage rub on the pork chop really gave it a nice flavor. I was going to substitute the mashed potatoes for mashed cauliflower, but I didn’t communicate to Ben to get cauliflower, so we made do with potatoes. The recipe came out yummy indeed, though Ben did pick out the onions because there was a whole lot!

Thursday was for eating Cheddar BLT Burgers with Tarragon Russian Dressing and Sweet Potato Fries….

Oh yummy! That sauce was really good! That mix of tarragon, parsley, and onions along with the other ingredients made this burger so delicious. The patty was plain and was just salted and peppered with sharp cheddar cheese on top, but it is the sauce that made this burger. Also, we didn’t use the meat the recipe called for, but but use lean ground turkey instead and turkey bacon. Will definitely make that sauce again to accompany other burgers. For veggies, we had our trusty sweet potato fries. We coat them in extra virgin olive oil, season them with taco seasoning, stick them in the oven, and they always come out good.

Next week will be slightly tricky since it is the week leading up to the wedding and I have a feeling I may not be home as often, but I will still have my plan in placed just in case. Our freezer is fully stocked with chicken breast we bought on sale, so chicken will be the main attraction for the week.

Anyone try out any of the recipes that I did this week? I try to get my family meal posts up on Thursday (a little later this week though), so if you want to join along, you have the weekend to make sure your kitchen is stocked with the right goods! Happy planning!!!

This first week of meal planning has gone fairly well thus far. Though Ben and I did have a little teensy fight on Tuesday because there was a misunderstanding on who was in charge of the vegetable dish. I guess we have a bit of a learning curve to figure this out.

Monday we ate Dawn Scampi…

Most scampi recipes are pretty high in fat, so we never eat it. This was a nice alternative and pretty delicious. Just make sure you wet the noodles in the sauce before serving, just follow what the directions say. We served the noodles first, then poured shrimp and sauce on top, so I don’t think the sauce coated the spaghetti very well. Another change we did, was that we didn’t have croutons, so I just sprinkled garlic herb spice on some whole wheat bread with smart balance light spread atop it, and toasted it in the oven until it was really dark and crunchy. I think that made a decent crouton substitute. The olives give the scampi a good flavor, but I think next time I would put a little bit more.

Tuesday was Oven Fried Chicken and Roasted Butternut Squash…

We were all totally loving this recipe. Soul devoured it in the first minute. We cooked drumsticks for the girls and chicken breast for Ben and me. If you have really big breast pieces, you will need to slice it in half so you won’t get such a chunky piece. I didn’t use the parmesan cheese in the breading because True is allergic to dairy, and for the breading that went on the breast, I added a bit more cayenne pepper than the recipe called for because we like our food really spicy!

It is cooked in the oven and the the breading gives a nice crunch that makes you kinda think you are eating something fried. Just looking at the pictures, it does look fried, but it isn’t at all! I am definitely going to try and memorize this and make it more often.

Ben bought some already cut up butternut squash from the store, coated it in extra virgin olive oil, sprinkled some salt and pepper and stuck it in the oven for about 20 minutes. You can’t really go wrong roasting vegetables that way.

We have enough leftovers from both nights that we had more chicken on Wednesday with a side of mashed sweet potatoes (using this recipe, we didn’t like the gravy) and today we will finish off the scampi. I hope we can stick to this cause it saves us some time and hassle in the evening already knowing what is on the menu for dinner.

This past week’s dinners were common dishes that typically aren’t a high nutrition type of dish due to the fat content, but these recipes were nice alternatives. The wonderful part is that even though they were healthy versions, they still were jammed pack with flavor. I am for sure noting these dishes to be cooked again, especially that oven fried chicken!

Monday: Pork Chops with Garlic Mashed Cauliflower (The recipe calls for potatoes, but we will use cauliflower.)

Tuesday: Cheddar BLT Burgers with Tarragon Russian Dressing (I am going to use lean ground turkey for the patty and use turkey bacon instead of regular bacon.) with a side of sweet potato wedges.

Wednesday: Tuesday’s leftovers

Thursday: Oven Baked Taquitos (do something you already know how to make)

Friday: Pizza (or something easy like that)

If you do try out any of these recipes or have some of your own recipes to share, I would love to hear about it! Anyone else doing meal planning or following along with this? I will try to get my family meal posts up on Thursdays, that way you have the weekend to get groceries should you decide to follow along.