dinners week of 9/4

M  pepperoni chicken and salad

T  flat iron wagyu steak, roasted potatoes, green beans

W  soba noodles with sweet ginger scallion sauce -- i added chicken

Th  salmon, quinoa, green beans

F  turkey meatballs and spaghetti, salad

S  out

S  leftovers

meals 8/20

m  chicken sausages, roasted potatoes, green beans
t  turkey meatballs and spaghetti, panzanella salad
w  wes golfing; helen bbq salad
th  chicken pepperoni, salad
f  garlic herb halibut, broccoli, quinoa
s  out
s  leftovers

posting dinner plans to remind me of what to make!

lots of chicken this week. easy.

monday - angel hair w/ chicken, arugula, lemon --  (this was amazingly delicious; so fresh and light for a hot night)

tuesday -- burritos (adding chicken)

wednesday -- grilled cilantro chicken with quinoa

thursday -- flatbread pizzas and salad

friday -- tamale pie with ground turkey

saturday -- out?

sunday -- leftovers

meals april 15-21

s  pizza pasta, salad
m  blackened chicken with quinoa
t  meatloaf cupcakes topped with mashed potatoes, green beans
w  tomato sausage risotto, salad
th  baked potato soup
f  flatbread pizzas, salad
s  leftovers

flatbread pizzas

instead of our usual naan pizza topped with sauteed mushrooms, olives and roasted red peppers + cheddar or romano, i got some flatbread from tj's today and made 4 different mini pizzas. it was fun to spice it up a bit and experiment. here's what we had:

1. prosciutto + romano topped with arugula

2. roasted garlic, red onion, bacon + mozzarella topped with arugula (my favorite. there's definitely more garlic roasting in my future.)

3. pepperoni and mozzarella (standard, but it turned out sooo good!)

4. bacon, egg and mozzarella (i think this was wes's favorite. there are two flatbreads leftover so i foresee us having this for brekkie sometime this week.)

4 out of 10

four out of ten of the 'new things' list can be checked off. in my last post i mentioned the almond joy was a flop, but the amaretto and marshmallows turned out really well. guinness cupcakes were good, but the frosting was a bit weird.

i made the amaretto for a present for wes for his birthday and he was quite pleased with the taste! it was super easy and quick to make, and i figured it was about $5 cheaper than buying a bottle of amaretto. it could be $10 cheaper if i bought the least expensive vodka. 

with the help of ange and rob and their kitchenaid, we made mint chip marshmallows. this has been my favorite from the list so far. i've always loved the mint and chocolate combo, so this was easy for me to like. the recipe said we'd get 16 marshmallows out of it, but i got about 50 big-sized ones. go figure. it is time consuming, so i can't imagine we'd be making these too often, but it would be fun to experiment with other flavor combinations.

i made the guinness cupcakes at ange and rob's the morning of wes's birthday. the recipe said it yielded 2 dozen cupcakes, but we had so much batter leftover, we were able to make an 8-in round cake, too! since wes doesn't like cream cheese i found a recipe for a guinness buttercream frosting, which tasted ok, but it had a strange look to it as when the guinness was added to the butter/sugar mix it caused the ingredients to separate and was a bit runny. anyway, we took them with us to ztejas...i brought a candle and matches. i did call beforehand to make sure that was ok, but i still felt a bit awkward doing it!

i'll post photos if i can get around to it! 

i need to start on the savory list... ;)

new dinners

from my last post i tried one 'new' thing so far. i made almond joy and they didn't turn out too well. first, i overtoasted the almonds. coop woke up mid-nap so i had to jet up to his room to put him back to sleep. after about 10 mins i had to go back down to turn off the oven. he wasn't happy, but at least the almonds didn't totally burn. so there was that. then, it was so difficult to fully coat the coconut logs with chocolate that i gave up and just dropped a dollop of chocolate on top. meh.

i'm making a few new dins this week, so i thought i'd post. so far we had the mushroom biscuit dinner, which was fabulous. rob had made it for us awhile back and thought it was super tasty and wanted to have it again.

next up on my try new things list is marshmallows. i'll let you know if they turn out!

m  mushrooms and biscuits
t  chicken sausages with cous cous and broccoli
w  meatball bowtie soup
th  chimichurri steak with roasted potatoes and green beans (trying out a new malbec, too)
f  chicken rollatini, salad
s  leftovers
s  chicken teriyaki and rice

trying new things

i'm tiring of posting the meal plan. i write it out every week and keep it posted on my fridge, but can't seem to make an electronic version of it. plus, we're not having anything all that new, just recycling old recipes. boring!

so here's a new challenge. i'd like to try 6 sweet and 6 savory recipes (one a month). i suppose i need to catch up 2 months, but that's no big deal. #4 is the only one i’ve done, the rest will be for the first time. looking foward to trying them out, and i'll post about them, too.

sweet
1. homemade marshmallows
2. almond joy
3. homemade horchata
4. guinness cupcakes (ok, made these last year, but they were so good!)
5. make a rainbow cake for my birthday
6. find a delicious lemon dessert recipe

savory
7. try burrata in a recipe
8. homemade amaretto (mmmaybe this should be in the sweet category, ah well!)
9. attempt this norwegian potato bread (not lefse)
10. try my hand at hash browns
11. chicken and dumplings
12. homemade wheat thins

dinners week of 1/22

curry pot and chicken pepperoni were both tasty dinners last week. will make again for sure! we didn't end up having the penne w/ bacon and peas so that will be on the menu this week. a bit chicken heavy again this week. need to start mixing it up more. getting tired of chicken!

s  chicken cordon bleu casserole (new recipe; eager to try! this is wes's fave dish so it will be interesting to see how it works in a casserole and if it's less time intensive.), salad
m  penne with turkey bacon and peas, salad
t  chicken paprika and dumplings, green beans
w  chicken teriyaki with rice, edamame
th  turkey meatballs, spaghetti, salad
f  salmon burgers and fries (too easy to pass up)

trying new recipes

kind of chicken-heavy this week, but not too bad. looking forward to trying the curry pot!

m  curry pot with chicken instead of tofu
t  penne with (turkey) bacon, peas and lemon
w  sweet potato gnocci and turkey burgers
th  book club--leftovers for wes
f  steak with roasted potatoes with soyrizo and mushrooms, green beans
s  chicken parmesan with pepperoni, salad
s  cajun chicken pasta, broccoli

Dinners this past week

Holy moly! I thought I had only lapsed a week or two, when it's been since Thanksgiving since my last post. I will try to be more regular. However, nothing new, really, other than a very tasty Chicken Paprika and Dumplings recipe we tried this week. Have been relying on the tried and true! We had some really good dinners over Christmas while my mom was here, including a turkey dinner on Christmas Eve, a yummy egg dish on New Years, and a variety of cookies Ange and I made (should have posted on that baking affair, darnit!).

This past week, Ange and I planned out our lunches and had lunch together every day except Friday. I'll list those out after the dinners as well. My fave of those was Avocado Pasta. Tasty!

S  Sweet Potato Gnocci and Ground Turkey, Salad
S  Chicken Sausage with Pasta, Salad
M  Chicken Tortilla Soup
T  Chicken Paprika and Dumplings
W  Steak, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans
Th  Chicken Pot Pie, Salad
F  Salmon Burgers, Fries
S  Turkey Chili and Cornbread (I could taste a hint of the cinnamon in the chili, and it really did make a difference in a good way! The cornbread was good but a bit mushy. Had to cook it longer as I didn't read the recipe correctly. I saw 375, but not the note to turn it up to 400 as 375 in a restaurant convection oven is different than in a regular oven at home.)
S  Leftovers

Lunches w/ Ange

M  Hummus, Red Pepper, Avocado, Mozzarella in a Lavash Wrap with a Cup of Soup (Chicken Tortilla)
T  Spicy Peanut Wrap
W  Avocado Pasta (I added sliced sugar plum tomatoes on top)
Th  Repeat of Monday's wrap with a cup of roasted red pepper and tomato soup