Menu Monday

I'm linking up again with Rachel this week for Menu Monday!

We've had an erratic few weeks, so my cooking has been spotty at best. These are a few meals we've had during that time.

Slow Cooker Chicken Enchilada Chili

We love this chili and the fact that it's made in the slow cooker makes it that much better! It has great flavor and it really couldn't be easier to put together. Nothing peeves me more than a slow cooker meal that you have to prep for 30 minutes. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? We load ours up with avocado, shredded cheese, and Fritos. Tyler loves sour cream on his. I always make cornbread muffins to eat with this meal. I also leave the celery out because I truly believe it's a sin to enjoy celery. Amen.

Grilled Tortellini Chicken Caesar Salad with homemade dressing

This salad is delicious, easy, and filling. It's my friend Emily's recipe and I love adding things to it. I like to marinate chicken breasts in Lawry's Herb & White Wine marinade, grill them, and slice them up for this salad. I've always used the "dressing" recipe that comes with the salad recipe (Caesar dressing and lemon juice mixed together), but I have started using Cristina Ferrare's recipe for Caesar dressing because it's the best I've ever had. I use anchovy paste instead of anchovies. It's the perfect Caesar dressing and surprisingly, not mayonnaise based. I top this with big shavings of Parmesan cheese. It's a great summer meal!

Warm Steak and Asparagus Salad

There's nothing bad about this meal. I'm sure I've included it on Menu Monday in the past. It's easy and it's out of this world good. This was our meal for supper on Mother's Day! We add a little bit of blue cheese opposed to gorgonzola. We had slices of Kroger's Whole Garlic Clove bread on the side. This will always be a favorite in our house.

BBQ Chicken, Roasted Sweet Potatoes, and Zucchini & Squash Sauté

Wow. That's a terrible picture. Anyway, this is one of my new favorite meal combinations. Tyler is a fantastic griller and makes some of the best BBQ chicken you'll ever have. I paired it with roasted sweet potatoes which we love. These melt in your mouth! Griffin loves them too. 

I also added my favorite summer vegetable sauté. I slice up one half of an onion, one zucchini, and one yellow squash. I sauté the onion in some olive oil until it's becoming tender, then I add the sliced zucchini and squash. I add a little bit more olive oil and sauté it all until it's soft. In the last minute of cooking, I add a few shakes of soy sauce and a little bit of garlic salt. Mix that together, remove it from the heat, and add a few tablespoons of grated mozzarella cheese. Toss and serve hot! My mom made this a lot growing up. Try it! I bet you'll love it. 

Fig and Prosciutto Pizza at A TAVOLA

Obviously, I did not make this pizza. We went out for a date and we tried a wood fire pizza place that we just loved! The atmosphere was perfect and the pizza was so, so good. Our server recommended this fig and prosciutto pizza and he was spot on. It had fig jam, prosciutto, fontina cheese, and an arugula salad on top. I am excited to recreate this at home! If you're in the Cincinnati area, this is a fun and delicious place for a great date night! 

Hope you all have a great week!

Menu Monday... on Thursday!

I'm pretty late to the game this week, but I wanted to link up with Rachel and share our meals from last week!

Skinnytaste's Bangin' Grilled Shrimp Skewers with sautéed shredded brussel sprouts and rice pilaf

Holy smokes. These were so, so good. I grilled them indoors on my grill pan and we each ate two skewers. If you're a shrimp fan, you'll love these! I bought the pre-shredded brussel sprouts from Trader Joe's and sautéed them with a little butter, olive oil, salt & pepper per Kate's recommendation. This is definitely our new favorite way to eat brussel sprouts. Deeeeelish. I also served Trader Joe's rice & orzo pilaf which is one of our favorites. This meal knocked it out of the park! 

Slow Cooker Peach BBQ Chicken Sandwiches with spicy sweet potato fries

I served these with this coleslaw and slices of avocado. We liked these, but they were almost a little too sweet for me. I might try using a tangier BBQ sauce next time! I want to give them another shot. These are the Alexia frozen sweet potato fries. They were really spicy! I think I prefer non-spicy sweet potato fries. 

Trader Joe's Kung Pao Chicken with TJ's Veggie Fried Rice and frozen spring rolls

This was a low effort meal on small group night. We loved it! It's a great alternative to take out Chinese food and it had great flavor. The only thing I'll change next time is to throw in an extra bag of stir fry veggies. 

We had Griffin's second birthday party last weekend, so I didn't cook a lot during the week, but I wanted to at least share what I did make! I also made Southern Living's tomato and tortellini salad which is alway a great meal. It's important to use sweet summer corn, but luckily, I had some in the freezer! Come on, summer corn! Mmm... one of my favorite things about summer! 

Happy Menu Thursday! 

Menu Monday

My friend Rachel does Menu Monday every week! I like to try and contribute when I actually remember what we ate the previous week.

It was a lighter week for cooking, but I sure was glad to be back in the kitchen. Due to a crazy last few weeks of February and then being in Florida for two weeks in March, I hadn't really cooked in 5 weeks. Crazy! We had leftovers for a few nights and ordered a pizza on Friday. I think pizza is always a necessity the week after you return from vacation, don't you?

Slow Cooker Ham and White Beans 

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I think I've blogged about this before, but it's one of our very favorite winter meals! I substitute three large smoked turkey tails for the ham and add the tiniest bit of brown sugar. Tyler always adds smoked tabasco to his bowl and we eat it with cornbread. We like our cornbread sweet with Trader Joe's creamed honey! 

Creamy Green Chile Chicken Burritos

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I made Molly's green chile chicken burritos on Tuesday and they lived up to the name! They were so creamy, but it was nice that I was able to use the less fat cream cheese. Tyler really liked these, but I have to remember-- I am just not a green chile fan! I usually find a recipe that sounds so delicious every few months with a green chile sauce or base and I always think that maybe my taste has changed, but no such luck. I want to make these again but I will use a red sauce and I know I will really love them then! We had them with fat free refried beans. As a side note, I used this method to cook the chicken and it was fantastic! I will definitely cook my chicken for recipes like this from now on.

Rosemary Baked Chicken

I picked this sauce packet up at Fresh Market a few months ago and it's just been sitting in my pantry. You bake the chicken, pour the sauce over the top, and bake it for a bit longer. Honestly, this was just kind of "eh". It had a good amount of flavor, but it was really lemony. It wasn't awful; it just wasn't my favorite, but it sure was easy! I served this with the best roasted broccoli ever... and I do mean EVER.

Mini Honey Mustard and White Cheddar Meatloaves and Ina's Mustard Roasted Potatoes

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If you haven't visited Tina and Crist's blog, you are missing out in a big way. It is one of my very favorites. I made these for some friends who came over for supper on Saturday and we were all big fans! Mini meatloaves are so fun and these had great flavor! I loved making them with panko and I followed Crist's suggestions and put all the cheese into the meatloaves. The potatoes were a perfect addition and we had green salad and Sister Schubert rolls on the side. You can never go wrong with the Sister. 

Crockpot Chicken, my mom's Cheesy Potatoes and Roasted Brussel Sprouts 

I made this for our little Easter lunch since it was just the three of us after church! I put the chicken in when I got up Sunday morning and it was perfect when we got home. Megan suggested it and we really enjoyed it. I paired it with my mom's cheesy potatoes (recipe coming this week!) and roasted brussel sprouts. I always forget how to roast them the best, so I asked Twitter how people like to cook them. I took a few different suggestions, combined them, and they turned out perfectly. I just tossed them in EVOO, kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, and a little garlic powder, then put them cut side down on a sheet pan in a 450 degree oven for 25 minutes. They were perfect-- nice and crispy, just how I like them! We ate the leftover rolls from Saturday. This is a picture of Tyler's plate, but don't be fooled. I ate just as much, if not more. Oink! 

What did you make this week? Link up with Rachel!

Happy Monday! 

Menu Monday on Tuesday

If you've spent any time reading my blog, it won't surprise you to know that I love to cook and eat. Cooking for my family and friends is definitely one of my hobbies. 

I thought about starting a recipe journal for 2013 to record what meals we eat, where I found them, and whether we liked the meal or not. Then I remembered I had a blog and that this might be a better place to record those things. I'm going to try to stay somewhat current on my Menu Mondays, but I will be late more often than not. I'm starting out the year on a good foot, considering it's already TUESDAY, but whatever! Here's what we ate this week.

December 31, 2011 :: New Year's Eve

We stayed home, made a nice meal, watched a movie, and went to bed early! See also: we are old. Ha! We started with bacon wrapped water chestnuts as an appetizer and then enjoyed one of our favorite salads: romaine, orange pepper, hard boiled egg, and blue cheese with Garlic Expressions vinaigrette. We rounded out the evening with grilled steaks, Molly's Twice Baked Potatoes, and grilled onions. For dessert, we each had a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich from Trader Joe's. This was a great meal, but how could it have been bad? We went to bed fat and happy!

January 1

I was feeling pretty sick on New Year's Day, so I had a bowl of noodles with butter and garlic salt for dinner. It's one of my favorite easy meals! Tyler ate the leftovers from New Year's Eve.

January 2

Skinnytaste's Pasta with Butternut Sauce, Spicy Sausage, and Spinach

The only thing I did differently was that I sliced Trader Joe's Spicy Italian chicken sausage into links and browned it in olive oil (instead of crumbling it). This wasn't our favorite because it didn't have a ton of flavor. However, I attribute it to the fact that I used peeled and chopped frozen squash from Trader Joe's instead of fresh. We definitely want to give this another chance when squash season rolls around. I served it with roasted brussel sprouts and Sister Schubert's mini baguettes. Griffin loved it, especially the sausage!

January 3

Trader Joe's Spinach and Kale Bites with Tomato Basil Marinara and whole wheat thin spaghetti

About a month ago, the sample lady at TJ's was putting out these spinach and kale bites in their tomato basil marinara sauce. Griffin and I both loved them, so I picked them up and served them over thin spaghetti. I baked them in the oven according to package directions, then kept them warm in the sauce while I cooked the pasta. We had this with garlic toast and we loved it! It was a great, low calorie meal that was packed with flavor. If you have a local TJ's, you can find these bites in the freezer section! 

January 4

Ina's Winter Minestrone with Garlic Bruschetta

We always have a pot of soup on Friday nights. I left out the celery because I absolutely hate celery. It was a flavorful, easy soup that we really enjoyed! I halved the recipe and we had plenty to eat plus leftovers. I made the garlic bruschetta and it was the perfect accompaniment to the soup. This was a definite winner!

January 5

Erin's Bow Tie Fiesta

I have seen so many people rave about how good this is and I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to make it! I sent Erin a text asking her a question about making it ahead of time, and when I told her I'd never made it before, she told me she was ashamed of me-- haha! And RIGHTFULLY SO! I am so sad it's taken me a sweet forever to make this because it is SO DANG GOOD. I'm not even going to tell you how much of the pan we ate. The only thing I left out was the jalapenos. We ate it with homemade guacamole and chips. No, the chips were not homemade. Ain't nobody got time for that. (I love Sweet Brown; go look her up on YouTube if you don't know who she is!) This would be the perfect meal to take a new momma.

What about you? Any great meals you've enjoyed lately?