Thursday, May 9, 2013

Menu Monday on Thursday

I plan on starting Menu Monday next week but we had some of my favorite recipes this week and I wanted to share. I'm not always the greatest at planning a menu and sticking to it but I've gotten a lot better recently. It really does help you stick to your budget if you plan your meals ahead of time.

Growing up my family always went out to eat on Friday nights. A lot of times it was just to Pizza Hut or Long John Silvers. Sometimes we would go somewhere fancier. When we ate at home, we would make our plates and gather around the TV to watch our regular shows. We rarely ate at the dining room table unless we were eating at my grandparents house. After Daniel and I got married not much changed about how I did dinner. We would usually eat in the living room. Honestly, most of the time the dining table was covered in mail and what ever else we dropped on it as we came into the house. Now that we have Lily, we have started eating together at the dining room table every night for dinner. I enjoy spending this time together as a family.

We ate out probably more than we really needed to as well. Truth be told, we probably still do. We have really started cutting back on how often we eat out and when we do we usually choose the less expensive options. Honestly, if you asked either of us where we would want to go out to eat on any given day, you would probably hear Firehouse Subs or Bariola's ( a local pizza place). Occasionally, we will splurge and go out for sushi. I can't remember the last time I ate sushi though.

Now that we are a one income family, we are really trying to stick to our budget. So, I'm really trying to plan out our meals for the week and stick to it. I've been doing a lot of searching on Pinterest for new recipes to try. Like I mentioned in my last post, we are attempting to eat healthier and add more veggies and fish to our diets. I recently created a board on my pinterest account called "Winning Recipes." I decided that I needed a place to repin the recipes that we've tried and really liked. I've found that sometimes the recipes we like get lost all the pins on my normal recipe board. This week, I went back to that board when I was making out our menu. Here's what I came up with:

Monday:Chipotle Butternut Squash and cilantro lime rice bowl (new recipe)


Tuesday: Tropical Chicken Burgers with pineapple and watermelon
  


Wednesday: Salmon Cakes with roasted asparagus


Thursday: Bacon Avocado Pasta
  


Friday: Sweet Potato Burritos 
  


Saturday: Skillet Cajun Spiced Tilapia  (the recipe uses flounder)
  



Sunday: Turkey Taco Lettuce Wraps (new recipe)



I made the tropical chicken burgers for my bible study group on Tuesday and they were a big hit.  When I made these the first time I posted a picture on Facebook. I've gotten so many people ask me about them.This time I added some Dijon mustard. It was a nice addition.

I can't take credit for any of the recipes. However, I rarely follow them exactly and I never measure anything unless I'm baking. So I guess you could say that I use the recipe for inspiration and then do my own tweaking. There's only been a few times when the not measuring thing didn't work out for me. The first time I made the Skillet Cajun Spiced Flounder I didn't measure the cajun seasoning. I just sprinkled it in until I thought it looked like enough and then I sprinkled a little more. (I like spicy foods.) It was good but it was definitely cajun spiced. I promised Daniel that the next time I made it I would just use what was called for in the recipe. I'm slowly getting more comfortable with just making recipes up and trying out new things. I'm just lucky because Daniel seems to like most of the things I've come up with. If he hasn't liked it, he's smart enough to not say anything and just eat it. :)


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