Showing posts with label meal planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meal planning. Show all posts

Friday, April 20, 2012

Meal plan swap!

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Today I'm linking up with Race towards joy and 
a punk, a pumpkin, and a peanut for a meal plan swap. 
Here are 5 recipes for you (want more? click on over to one of the girls sites)! Sorry I don't have pictures. I promise that its all good and I hope that all the directions can be understood.
Happy planning and eating! =)

Meal 1- Taco Casserole (from the Taste of Home Cooking show)

What you'll need: 1 pound lean beef, 1 cup chopped onion, 1 bottle (8 ounces) Ortego taco sauce, 3/4 cup of water, 1 can (4 ounces) Ortega fire-roasted diced green chiles, 1 packet ortega taco seasoning mix, 1 package (12 count) ortega yellow taco shells, 2 cups (8 ounces) shredded mild cheese, and chopped tomatoes, chopped green bell pepper, sour cream (all optional). 

What to do: Preheat oven to 375 and grease 11x7 inch baking dish. Cook beef and onion in large skillet over medium heat (stir, cook fully, drain, you know...), stir in taco sauce, water, chiles, and seasoning mix; bring to boil and reduce to low heat. Cook 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Layer half of broken taco shells on bottom of prepared dish. Cover with half of meat mixture; sprinkle with one cup of cheese, repeat with ingredients. Bake for 20-25 minutes until cheese is melted. Serve with desired toppings. 

Meal 2 - Meat Balls over Rice (a meal from when I was growing up)

What you'll need: A package of precooked meatballs, a can of cream of mushroom soup (small or big, depending on how much you need), white rice, and milk. 

What to do: Get your rice cooking on the stove (we use minute rice and make it depending on how many servings we need). Mix together your milk and cream of mushroom soup (its about 3/4 cup milk... you don't want it runny, but it makes the mixture more creamy). Place however many meatballs you want in the mixture and coat well. Stick it in the microwave for a good 6 minutes and make sure meatballs are cooked throughly. After rice is cooked put in bowls and put meatballs and soup on top. 

Meal 3 - Hamburger Sandwich (one of my favorite meals my grandma used to make)

What you'll need: 1 lb of hamburger, 1 baguette, one can of cream of mushroom soup, and cheese slices.

What to do: Brown the hamburger and drain after fully cooked. Hollow the inside of the baguette (on top and bottom), but make sure you don't do it too much because you still want the sandwich to be able to hold the rest of the yummy stuff. Add the bread you took out of the baguette with the cream of mushroom soup to the hamburger and let it heat up for a few minutes. Layer slices of cheese in the hollowed part of the baguette, then place the hamburger, bread, and cream of mushroom soup mix on top of the cheese. Put the sandwich together and wrap it in tinfoil. Place it on a cookie sheet and cook in over for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted. 

Meal 4 - My grandma's chili

What you'll need: 1-11/2 pound hamburger, 3 cans of tomato soup, 1 can stewed tomatoes, 6 cans of water, 1 chili seasoning packet, 1 can of kidney beans, onions, and bag of noodles. 

What to do: Brown the hamburger and onions. Drain. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the noodles) and simmer about 20-30 minutes. Cook and add the noodles.

Meal 5 - Johnsonville Italian Meatballs (from the Taste of Home Cooking show)

What you'll need: 1 egg, lightly beaten, 1/2 dry bread crumbs, 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup milk, 1/4 up finely chopped onion, 1 package johnson ville mild italian sausage links or ground sausage. Spaghetti noodles.

What to do: Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl combine the egg, bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, milk, and onions. Remove sausage from casings. Add sausage to bread crumb mixture and mix well. Shape into 20 meatballs. Arrange meatballs on a shallow baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes or until meatballs are cooked throughly. Serve with favorite sauce and spaghetti. 

Monday, February 6, 2012

Meal planning and shrimp dip

Once upon a time I really enjoyed cooking, but over the past year or so I really haven't done much of it for multiple reasons, but having meals at home, together is important to me. I want to get back into the groove of cooking and also am hoping that by making more meals at home (and not eating out so much) will help us financially. So meal planning it is! I'm not the best at planning out meals... it takes a lot of time (especially when just starting out) and then theres the grocery shopping. Last night was the first night we went to the store with an actual hand written list... it took forever in the store and our grocery budget just didn't happen. It will get better though! As a friend reminded me, it takes time and practice! We can do this! In order to hold myself accountable I'm blogging about it and thought every once in a while I'd share a recipe. Today, I'm sharing my favorite dip! Shrimp dip!

This dip is a family favorite. We usually have it at holiday get togethers or just when we get together for whatever. Considering I'm pregnant and have cravings, I decided to make it last night! 


A few things: These are just the brands we used. You can use whatever brand you want. Also, normally I'd get canned shrimp, but had a bad experience with it once so went with this gigantic package which is in the freezer for the other times I'm craving it. I don't really have the measurements for this recipe...so you can make a tray as big or small as you want! 

Directions: 
Make sure your cream cheese is soft. We'd just gotten home from the grocery store, so ours had been out a while. Spread a pretty thick layer of cream cheese on your pan. 

Spread a layer of cocktail sauce over the cream cheese.

Drain your shrimp (if its from a can) or do as the directions say with whatever type you got. With ours we had to de-thaw it by running it under cold water for five minutes. Put a layer of it on top of the cocktail sauce. 

You're done!

Dig in! =) If you make it...let me know what you think! 
 
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