Meal Planning: What’s for Dinner Next Week and Two No-Oven Recipes

Meal Planning: What’s for Dinner Next Week and Two No-Oven Recipes

by | Jul 12, 2012 | Home, The "What's for dinner?" Project | 10 comments

For the longest time, I was asking you for your Meal Planning on Mondays for the week.

OK that’s just crazy.

On Monday, it’s just too late. The damage is done and the pizza has been ordered. I thought – why not do it on Friday for next week? So I’m here to share my meal plan, as well as ask for yours (and one of you will win THE WHAT’S FOR DINNER SOLUTION just for submitting your plan!)

This way, not only will you have the chance to come up with your menu, but the time to shop for your ingredients!

Since I will be traveling all next week, I thought I would share what we did this week for meals. I’d love for you to tell me what your dinner plan is for next week (Monday through Sunday,)  and give me one great tip that we can all use to make meals easier.

Here is my menu from last week:

Monday Pizza (Our favorite place does 50% on Mondays. An extra large pizza for $9? And I get my busiest day of work off from cooking. Sign me up…

Tuesday Salsa Chicken (Freezer to Slow Cooker) , Spanish Rice, Vegetarian Re-fried Beans, and Roger’s Homemade Guacamole

Wednesday Chicken Cacciatore (Freezer to Stove Top), Microwave Baked Potatoes, Salad

Thursday Brown Rice and Chicken Casserole with leftover chicken

Friday Leftover Brown Rice and Chicken Casserole (made from leftovers…) 

Saturday On the Road

Sunday On the Road

I know – no fair – I get almost a week off of cooking… But if it makes you feel better, I’m going to Missouri where everyday it’s 93 degrees for our entire trip. (And my Texas friends give me no sympathy…)

But to make up for it – if you tell me what you’re having for dinner next week (Monday through Sunday!) I will enter you to win THE WHAT’S FOR DINNER PROJECT. But you really win by not being in a panic every night for dinner next week.

And now – two recipes that are no-oven required

Salsa Chicken

Ingredients:

4          boneless, skinless chicken breasts

32 oz.  salsa (2- 16 oz. jars)

1 can    corn, drained

1 can    black beans, drained

condiments:

flour tortillas

sour cream

guacamole

lettuce

tomato

cheese

salsa

Directions:

Place all ingredients in your slow cooker.

Cook on low 6-8 hours.

30-60 minutes prior to serving, remove chicken, shred and return to crock pot

Serve over Mexican rice or let everyone prepare their own tortillas using the chicken mixture as filling inside tortillas.

Add desired condiments.

 

Chicken Cacciatore

1 pound           Boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 T                   Vegetable Oil

1 ¼ cup           Onion

2 cups              Mushrooms

1 t                    Minced garlic

1 28 oz can      Crushed tomatoes in puree

2T                    Parsley

¼ t                   Pepper

2t                     Italian Seasoning

1t                     Basil

Parmesan Cheese

 

Preparation:  Cut chicken breast into cubes.  Slice onions and mushrooms. Chop garlic.

 

Cooking:        In a large skillet, sauté chicken in vegetable oil until no longer pink in the center. Remove chicken from skillet and sauté onions, mushrooms and garlic until the onions are transparent. Add chicken and remaining ingredients except for parmesan cheese. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Serve over penne pasta or garlic mashed potatoes.

21 Ways to Save On Your Grocery Bill

21 Ways to Save On Your Grocery Bill

by | Jul 11, 2012 | Home | 19 comments

  1. Take an Inventory Figure out what you already have, and then build your menu for the week around that.  Every time veggies expires, Paula Deen dies a little inside.
  2. Go Online Before I make a meal plan or list, I see what I have, and then I see what’s on sale to decide what we’re going to eat.
  3. Make a Meal Plan If you go into the shopping trip knowing what you need for the week – and not guessing – you’re going to save a ton of money.
  4. Make a List Again – don’t guess. If  you don’t make a list, you will forget things you need, and buy stuff you don’t.
  5. Buy in Bulk – But Only When It’s Really Cheap Just because it’s bulk, doesn’t mean it’s cheaper, However, each week I put aside a part of our budget to stock up on cheap bulk items. Eventually, this will reduce your overall bill because your shopping in your pantry and freezer and not in the grocery store.
  6. Shop Two Stores – or Three  I check the weeklies (or websites) of a couple of different stores each week. Some people would think it’s a waste of time to go to two different stores, but most of us are doing it anyway, and different things are on sale at different stores.
  7. Do a Seasonal Stock Up The only time I can get canned pumpkin on sale is October and November. So I stock up for the year (I use it as a substitute to oil in muffins.)
  8. Sing up for the Store’s Loyalty Card
  9.  Beware of Prepared Food Don’t buy those little packages of pre-cooked chicken – It’s much cheaper to throw a few frozen chicken breasts into the over and make your own.
  10. Try One Store Brand a Week  
  11. Plan for Leftovers – and then Eat Them
  12. Use Your Food Processor I use it to grate cheese, and slice up veggies as soon as we get home from the store. Don’t ever, ever, buy precut veggies at the store.
  13. Double Your Batch When you find a sale on chicken breasts, double the recipe of whatever you’re cooking and freeze the second dinner for another night.
  14. Plan a YOYO Dinner Once a week, have a You’re On Your Own night where everyone  can eat up leftovers.
  15. Buy Cleaners in Concentrate Mixing your won will save you tons. Just purchase (or repurpose) a spray bottle and label it properly.
  16. Make Stew Stew is a great way of stretching your ground beef or turkey into a satisfying meal.
  17. Make Your Own Salad Wash your greens in a salad spinner and store them in a Ziploc with a paper towel to absorb excess moisture.
  18. Challenge Yourself to reduce your food bill by 5% a month for six months. Just by paying attention, you could be spending 30% on my bill in less than half a year.
  19. Learn to Make Marinades They are super easy, and when you find meat on sale, stock up and throw it into a Ziploc with the marinade and you have a meal in minutes.
  20. Make Your Own Croutons Chop up leftover/dry bread into crouton sized pieces, and then toss about four cupfuls with ¼ cup melted butter, and some grated Parmesan cheese and bake for 12 minutes at 350.
  21. Plan One Meatless Meal a Week

What’s your favorite way to be a savvy shopper?

Do You Really Want to Get Organized? Three Truths to to Deal with.

Do You Really Want to Get Organized? Three Truths to to Deal with.

by | Jul 8, 2012 | Home, The Get Organized Project | 1 comment

I know it seems like a weird question, but hear me out.

There are a lot of stories I’ve told myself about being organized:

  • Other women come by it so easily.
  • My family actively works against me when it comes to getting organized.
  • I could get so much more done if I could just get organized.

And to some extent, those are all true.

So let’s break them down. Today I want to tackle the first one.

Other women come by it so easily. Yes- I would say that most women are naturally more organized than I am.  Their natural response is when they pull something out, they put it away. Not me. My natural response is to leave it out in case I need it later.

But just because something comes more easily for someone else doesn’t mean  that I should give up on it – that it’s any less important for me to achieve it. When I use the excuse “It just comes easily for her.” what I’m saying is that the things in my life are not as important to accomplish as the stuff in her life.

You do a lot of things that don’t come naturally: I get being a mom didn’t come naturally at first. Or cooking dinner. Or figuring out Facebook. But you stuck with it – and now you can.

It was the same for me. Putting things away. Not natural – but now I do it. Keeping my living room picked up. Not natural, but I’ve set myself up that I do it for 15 minutes a day, and it stays mostly picked up.

Is there someone in your life that you compare yourself to when it comes to organization? What do you tell yourself about why you are not as organized as you want to be? I want to deal with the issues that keep us from being all that God wants us to be.

Quick Clean Your Living Room 15 Minutes: Here’s How

Quick Clean Your Living Room 15 Minutes: Here’s How

by | Jul 1, 2012 | Home | 12 comments

Quick Clean Your Living Room 15 Minutes

I said that I was going to help you get organized every Monday, and my intentions were good. But then this happened:

Looks harmless enough, doesn’t she.

This is Ash. And Ash is 9 oz. of cute high maintenance.

I will be doing a full blog post on Ash in the near future, but let’s just say she did not come to us looking like that. She was a hot mess and we’ve spent the last week nursing her back to health. And last Saturday, when I was supposed to write the blog post, was a day of having her on me for about 20 out of 24 hours.

But now I’m back. And we are going to get your Living Room organized.

Get Ready

Get Your 3 Boxes and 2 Bags together (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, go read this post all about it.)

Get Set

Figure out what area of your living room you’re going to quick clean. Now is not the time start alphabetizing your DVDs. I just want you to put 15 minutes on the clock and pull out only what you can put back in that amount of time. Maybe you need 15 minutes to clean off/out your coffee table. Maybe 15 minutes to attack underneath the stairs. Awesome. Pick an area and work on it for 15 minutes.

Go

Spend 15 minutes a day for the rest of the week cleaning and putting stuff away in your living room. You will make a huge improvement in the next six days (yes, you get Sunday off!)

Win

Every day this week that you clean your living room for 15 minutes, lave a comment on this post and I will enter you to win my book THE WHAT’S FOR DINNER SOLUTION. (I will do anything to help you have more sanity in your life – including bribery…)