Monday Meal Planning 2.1

So I said I was going to do this yesterday, but then I had to go see my sister for her birthday and it took hours longer than expected. Then I got home and curled up with season 3 of Grey's Anatomy on DVD and fell asleep during the last episode I was planning to watch, so I didn't get any blogging done.

I also finished my first ever hand-knitted sock! Now I just have one more to go to finish the pattern. It was just as much fun as I had hoped.

Anyway, on to the recipes. You can tell we got a new Everyday Food magazine right before we started planning this meal, because those recipes are heavily represented this week. But they were all delicious, promise. (I decided to give you our meal plan a week behind when we make it so that I've tested the recipes I'm recommending. I have no idea why I didn't do this in the first place.)

Monday: The Pioneer Woman Cooks Steak Sandwiches with steak fries and cucumber-tomato salad.

These are absolutely delicious. Aaron said he would eat this sandwich every day if he could, and he got his wish because he had the leftovers almost every day last week. The first night he ate it with some cheese melted on top, but then found the next day that it was much better without the cheese.

For the cucumber-tomato salad, slice up a peeled cucumber and a Roma tomato into thin slices. Put into a bowl and top with about a tablespoon of sugar, drizzle with olive oil and cider vinegar, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix it all up and let it sit in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. Stir again before serving.

Tuesday: Baked Ziti with salad and garlic bread.

You can make the salad and garlic bread according to the recipes included with the Baked Ziti, but since we already had the salad fixings and some frozen garlic bread, we used those up instead.

Wednesday: Chicken with Avocado Salsa with Lemony Orzo

Since Aaron had plenty of leftovers for lunch, he hoovered this chicken recipe like it was his job, leaving no leftovers. I liked it just fine, and thought the orzo was delicious. Very quick, easy, and tasty.

Thursday: Chopped Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

Again, we loved this recipe. Very light, a little spicy, and quite tasty.

Friday: Lighter Chili with cornbread muffins

This was quite different from our normal chili recipe, but still delicious. We have leftovers for lunch today, and I'm looking forward to it. I made the cornbread muffins according to the recipe on the back of the cornmeal container.

Some edits we made to the recipe (because my brain is gone and I'm fired from grocery shopping in the near future): instead of tomato paste we used ketchup (I bought tomato paste with tomato pesto which was just not going to work), we only used 1/2 pound of ground sirloin and that was plenty of meat (this one's just a preference thing), and one of the cans of diced tomatoes we used had green chilis in it as well (again, fired from grocery shopping). The chili was excellent even with the changes.

Saturday: Asian Beef Skewers with steamed and salted edamame.

This one is a favorite of ours and we make it at least once a month. Very flavorful. We do substitute stew meat for the sirloin because it's more affordable.

Sunday: Leftovers.

Even with eating leftovers for lunch, we still had enough that we didn't need to make dinner last night. Always a plus!