Meal Planning

I don't know about your house, but I definitely make better dinners if I have a plan ahead of time. If its 430 pm and I'm suddenly realizing these people need to eat, we don't eat very good meals...and I start to look and sound like this:

haha. Anyway, my system works like this:
We get paid every 2 weeks. I have a grocery budget which I try very hard to stick to. I like to get my major shopping done on payday, allowing for the fact that will need to restock milk and produce, and whatever else may come up. So if I plan dinner ideas for at least 14 days, and then buy the food we need to make those dinners, we should be set! (I also keep a pantry full of "food storage" that we rotate into our fridge food...if that makes any sense to you.)
Recently I was trying to put together my menu and was not in the mood to think of meals, so I was asking friends for ideas. (friends are a fabulous resource!!!) Two of them half-jokingly told me that when I came up with my menu I needed to do theirs as well. Hence this post! *grin
I get my dinner ideas by asking my kids what they want (which is always pizza and spaghetti), looking at food blogs (I bookmark specific recipes when I see them), checking my food emails (from Pillsbury & Betty Crocker), and flipping thru our stack of recipe books. And when I can't fill a menu from that I scroll thru this blog for meals that I know we like! I also make sure to have at least one leftovers night per week to make sure the fridge isn't hoarding any science projects, although honestly my husband often takes the leftovers to work for free lunches!

So here is my current menu plan, with links to recipes where I can add them! Enjoy!!

• Saturday: Domino's Pizza
• Sunday: Crock Pot Orange Chicken, Fried Rice
• Monday: Tortilla Soup, chips
• Tuesday: Leftovers
• Wednesday: Mexican Shepherd's Pie, chips, mixed veggies
• Thursday: Tomato Zucchini Pasta, garlic bread, peas
• Friday: Grilled hamburgers, deep fried french fries, grapes
• Saturday: Cheesy Chicken & Broccoli, mixed veg, slice of bread with jam
• Sunday: Meatballs, baked potato with butter & cheese, roasted broccoli
• Monday: Leftovers
• Tuesday: German Pancakes, bacon, fruit
• Wednesday: Beef & black bean enchiladas, chips, lettuce
• Thursday: Hash
• Friday: Baked chicken tenders, baked french fries, apples
• Saturday: Crepes, fruit
• Sunday: Swedish meatballs (recipe found on McCormick Swedish Meatball seasoning & sauce mix packet) & fettuccine noodles with alfredo sauce, mixed veggies

I just noticed, we've been having a LOT of chicken lately...hmm.

Sometimes I like to sort of have a "schedule" that is really just me spacing out similar foods, where each week we have a soup, an Italian meal, a Mexican meal, a breakfast dinner, a super simple meal like burgers or mac n cheese, leftovers and then some kind of meat and potatoes type meal. That gets me thru a week without a whole lot of brain power, haha. Also, since I shop for all these things just as the menu period is beginning, I easily can switch things out depending on how busy I am or what I am more in the mood for each day.
Hope this helps you out today too!

Cheesy baked chicken

Have you noticed the plethora of recipes posted all over facebook? Well this is one such recipe! Since I can't link you to my friends' wall and there is no source listed, I'm copying and pasting!

It starts with a photo and then this:

You may never fry chicken again after tasting this baked crispy chicken.

Crispy Cheddar Chicken

2 lbs chicken tenders or 4 large chicken breasts
2 sleeves Ritz crackers
1/4 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup whole milk
3 cups cheddar cheese, grated
1 teaspoon dried parsley

Sauce:
1 10 ounce can cream of chicken soup

2 tablespoon sour cream
2 tablespoon butter

Crush crackers. If using chicken breasts and not tenders, cut each chicken breast into 3 large pieces. Pour the milk, cheese and cracker crumbs into 3 separate small pans. Toss the salt and pepper into the cracker crumbs and stir the mixture around to combine. Dip each piece of chicken into the milk and then the cheese. Press the cheese into the chicken with your fingers. Then press the cheesy coated chicken into the cracker crumbs and press it in.

Spray a 9×13 pan with cooking spray and lay the chicken inside the pan. Sprinkle the dried parsley over the chicken. Cover the pan with tin foil and bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes. Remove the tin foil, bake for an additional 10-15 minutes, or until the edges of the chicken are golden brown and crispy.
In a medium sized sauce pan combine the cream of chicken soup, sour cream and butter with a whisk. Stir it over medium high heat until the sauce is nice and hot. Serve over the chicken.

Well, I don't know about you, but I read the quantities they wanted me to get raw chicken all over and then toss and I was not about to use {waste?!} that much!! I measured out 2 cups of cheese and figured if I needed more I could get more. Yeah, I probably used 1 1/4 cups of cheese. I smooshed up one sleeve of ritz crackers....I bet I could have used half of one. I also only added half the salt and I never measure my pepper because I like it freshly ground.
I want to note that it was not easy to get the cheese and then the crumbs to stick to the chicken, and it seemed like a lot of cheese fell off into the chicken...which doesn't matter a lot, but the process was a little frustrating...

My husband put together the sauce. He followed the instructions as listed but he added about 3 tbsp bottled alfredo sauce. Mixed and heated it up and we put it on the chicken! YUM!
Then! He cooked up some shaped pasta and mixed about half the sauce with the pasta, which we served on the side!

Add a helping of veggies and there was dinner tonight! Dinner was great. The recipe is worth keeping and doing again. Everyone enjoyed it- hooray!