Menu Planner – Week of June 18th

Remember last week when I said I couldn’t be held responsible if I didn’t manage to make the dinners I’d picked out each night for the week? Yeah, well…sure enough…it all fell apart. I managed to make it through till Thursday though, so that’s not bad. What happened? Well, it’s a complicated story.

And really…it’s irrelevant to you, so I won’t bore you with details. Let’s just go with “some family issues came up and Mr W and I decided at the last minute to head out of town to spend some time with my parents…thus throwing my own menu plans out the window.”

But it’s a new week and we’re back in town and we’re ready to get things moving again. Plus, we leave next week for a week long camping trip in the middle of PA as we attend Creation Northeast with 50,000 other Christian Music fans. That means there will be a mix of making dinner for us while also getting meals prepped and food frozen for next week’s trip.

Today will also be the first day in nearly two weeks that I’ve even gone to the grocery store, which should make it a bit easier to actually crank out some meals. Nonetheless, we’ll be aiming for some easy stuff this week so I can try and crank out a book chapter AND get packed and organized for the trip.

Monday (Freezer Items)

Per usual, Monday night necessitates a quick and easy meal. We’ll be running Thing Three into town to drop him off and doing some grocery shopping, so I’ll need to whip up dinner as soon as we get home. That brings us back to my Monday stand-by of that super yummy Sam’s Club frozen tilapia. I swear, everyone should keep this in stock on their freezer… Of course since I need a recipe and a picture…I’ll throw in the banana bread that I plan to make on Tuesday to put in the freezer for our camping trip next week.

Sam’s Club Parmesean Crusted Tilapia
Cornbread Stuffing
Fresh Salad
Frozen Corn
Banana Bread (with and without chocolate chips) (make adjustments as listed by Krista V in the reviews)

Tuesday (Grocery Items)

Tuesday night we’ll be headed over to a friend’s house with some people from our small group to have an unpacking party. Well…at least a “get the boxes to the right room” party. I volunteered to bring along dinner, so I’ll be pulling out the crock pot and a huge bag of frozen chicken breasts I picked up at Trader Joe’s a few weeks back. If I can get to it, I’m also going to crank out a batch of cheddar biscuits to go with it. Yum!

Crockpot BBQ Chicken
Garden Salad
Cheddar & Herb Biscuits

Wednesday (Grocery Items)

One of the nice things about summer is the grill. Oh how I love the grill. Why? Because someone else is responsible for getting the meat done. 🙂 I’ll make the marinade, I’ll get all the ingredients ready…but ultimately…it’s not up to me to make sure the food tastes great…and it’s nice to have that break once in awhile. Combine that with the fact that Mr W is one heck of a griller and we’re good to go!

Honey Lime Chicken Skewers
Basmati Rice
Corn on the Cob

Thursday (Grocery Items)

Thursday is Farmer’s market day in our area and Tapioca will be coming down to make the trek with me. Of course we’ll probably take Things One, Two and Three along as well, since they love looking at all the stalls and helping us pick out food. Hopefully I can snag some baby spinach and mixed greens…but I’m also hoping to score some early tomatoes and maybe some berries. The first of our black raspberries are starting to come in this week, but they won’t be there in droves for at least another week or two…so I’m relying on farmers who are further south to start bringing the berries is now.

Lasagna with Meat Sauce (I make it up as I go, but this recipe works too…)
Garden Salad
Whatever fresh veggies we find at the farmer’s market

Friday (Freezer Items)

Friday will be our summer family fun day for the week. With our summer schedule, we basically have Things One and Two every other week and Thing Three on a rotating schedule. As it works out, every other Thurs/Fri we’ll have ALL the kids. So we’ve decided on those days, Mr W and I will take the day off work and we’ll go do something fun. We’re bypassing a vacation this year in favor of exploring the area with day trips. Since we have a zoo membership, we’ll likely pack a picnic lunch and go spend the day at the zoo. By the time we get home, I’m not going to be keen on making a big dinner, so I’ll pull out some pizzas I have in the freezer and bake those. In the meantime, I’ll be making the ham and cheese version of my Pepperoni Bites to pop in the freezer for our camping trip next week.

Ham & Cheese Bites (adapted from Pepperoni Bites)

Saturday (Freezer Meal)

By the time Saturday roll around, we’ll be entering nearly a week of kid free time. We’ll also be in full gear getting packed and organized for our trip next week. I’ve got a 10 pack of shrimp skewers in the freezer I’ve been wanting to pull out and grill and Saturday seems like as good a time as any. Well pair with with leftover veggies and salad from the week and hopefully take a break to chill out together for a bit.

Sweet & Spicy Honey Grilled Shrimp
Fresh Salad
Edamame

Sunday (Get Ready to Camp Day!)

We’ll be eating leftovers on Sunday. Why? Well, because I have a boatload of food prep to do. I’ll be making chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cranberry cookies and amish friendship bread on Monday to pack up for our trip on Tuesday. I’ll also be bagging up marinated chicken breast and sliced up beef tenderloin and freezing it for the trip. Finally, I’ll be mixing up tupperware containers and baggies of wet and dry ingredients for both cinnamon french toast and crepes to make breakfast easier while we’re camping.  So, links to a few of the things I’ll be making just in case they sound good.

Best Ever Chocolate Chip cookies
Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies
Cinnamon French Toast
Crespelles