Meal Planning Jan 9-13

Well, this is a little late - we've already made over half the meals already. Since we had a guest this weekend (my father-in-law), I did another set of meal plans and grocery shopping. It actually has worked out pretty well because after 5 days or so, we are running low on fresh fruits and veggies. I'm thinking we'll need to do this more frequently.

The meal board in our kitchen looks slightly different than what I am listing here. Uncas suffered a blow to the face, literally, playing soccer this morning, so he needed some soft food to chew for dinner. I've just switched a couple of nights, which isn't uncommon for us to do. The great thing about this change is that it kept us motivated to stay on track, because tonight's dinner is a huge favorite!

Meal Plan:

Friday (1/9) - Baked Potato Soup with homemade French Rolls

Saturday (1/10) - Grilled Flank Steak with roasted butternut squash and sauteed green beans

Sunday (1/11) - Crockpot Mac and Cheese with roasted root veggies (parsnips, turnips, carrots and yellow potatoes)

Monday (1/12) - Slow Cooker Butter Chicken with Rice

Tuesday (1/13) - Pork Chops with Sweet Potatoes and any other veggie I can find

Now I should get cracking with my next round of meal planning!  Thanks for reading and happy cooking!

Overnight Baked French Toast

This is my first recipe post and surprisingly it's not a dinner recipe. Although, I should note that we frequently do have breakfast for dinner, however we have never had this for dinner. I have searched a long time for the perfect baked french toast recipe that can be made the night before, so I can actually sit down and eat with everyone instead of standing in front of the stove cooking. I stumbled across this on Pinterest about a year and a half ago. It's pretty much exactly what I had been looking for - maybe even better. It makes a lot, but that's ok because it tastes even better heated up the next day. I enjoy this with syrup too, but it's awfully sweet on its own and tastes great with berries.

ED helping chop up bread.

I had bought a loaf of the bread to make this back around Thanksgiving, but over that weekend, we never got around to making it. I had stuck the bread in the freezer, and I thought it would be a great breakfast to wrap up the end of Christmas vacation. On Friday night while the kids took turns taking baths, I had them each help me with different parts of putting this together.

EA helping with the topping

It's that easy and doesn't require any crazy ingredients - bread, eggs, cream, milk, vanilla and sugar for the base. The topping has flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt and butter. It's perfect for when you have company or just because!









Baked French Toast

Ingredients:
1 loaf sourdough bread (I used Pepperidge Farm, 1.5 pound loaf)
8 eggs
2 cups milk (I used skim)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. vanilla

Topping:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces (1/4 lb.)

Ingredients for base - minus the bread.

1. Lightly mist a 9x13 pan with cooking spray.  Chop bread into bite-size chunks and place evenly in the pan. You can tear, but I find using a knife is much faster.
2.  Mix together the eggs, milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla.  Pour evenly over bread.  Cover tightly and store in the fridge overnight.
3.  In a medium bowl mix together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt.  Cut in the butter with a pastry blender until it all looks nice and crumbly.  Place in a ziploc bag and put in fridge.
4.  When ready to bake, take pan and bag out of fridge.  Remove wrap and evenly sprinkle the crumb mixture over the top.  Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees (or 45 minutes if you like it more soft and pudding-like). Let sit for about 10 minutes before serving.

Ready for the oven!

This batch was particularly good and our family of 4 ate it all over the course of two days! The first day we served with raspberries and the next day we had blueberries and blackberries. We simply zapped pieces in the microwave on the second day before serving. Whipping cream would be a good option as would a dusting of powdered sugar.

Sources: This recipe was slightly adapted from here.

What's your favorite make ahead breakfast? Thanks for reading and happy cooking!

Meal Planning Jan 4 - Jan 9

It's only been a couple of days into the new year and I'm doing great with my resolutions! It's only the first week, but hey - it's a start! 4 of my 6 goals (that's what I've been calling my resolutions for a few years now) are health/fitness related which seems a bit strange. I guess that is where my focus is at this stage in my life.

Uncas and I spent some time getting our budget set up and finalized this week. We have decided to use cash for our "fun/weekend" spending and that also includes eating out. We've set up a type of envelope system to fit with our goals. We'll be tracking our grocery bills more carefully. And by more carefully, I mean, we are actually going to track and actively work to bring them down!

Last week we did really well sticking with our meal plan and I'm hoping this week will be just as easy. I've only listed meals through Thursday. This weekend we have my father-in-law visiting, so I haven't quite firmed up the meals. I'll be posting those later this week. I'm also hoping to post a recipe (with pictures of my darling little helpers) later this week and it's not dinner or healthy - what a way start the new year :-)

And now here is the meal plan for the week:

Sunday (1/4) - Roasted Vegetables Stuffed Shells with homemade French Bread

Monday (1/5) - Simple Thai Peanut Noodle Stir Fry

Tuesday (1/6) - Black Bean Tacos roughly based on this recipe and leftover Mexican Rice

Wednesday (1/7) - Homemade Pizza and salad

Thursday (1/8) - Lemon Chicken Pasta with Broccoli and Garlic Bread (made from the French Bread on Sunday)

Thanks for reading and happy cooking!