This week's recipes!

Thursday's lunch:
Slow cooker pork Cuban Sandwichn on whole wheat,
cherry tomato halves,
blueberries and blackberries

Here are our recipes from this week!! As always, we included a fish dish and one meatless dish. We all take dinner leftovers from lunch the next day (makes clean up/lunch-packing efficient!).

I have to admit, I was even surprised how filling our meatless baked potatoes turned out to be!!

Easy Chicken Curry - this one we had actually planned to make last week, but let our laziness convince us to order a pizza. This is a new recipe, and Hubby was skeptical. So When we finally made it this week, he was kicking himself for voting pizza before...

Shrimp and Cannellini Beans (with asparagus and toast) - This recipe is SO ridiculously easy and makes your kitchen smell SO yummy! We pair it with a veggie, and some extra carbs (sprouted wheat toast + butter).

Friday's Toddler Lunch:
Baked sweet potato + mozzarella, strawberry,
shelled edamame, orange slices,
and yogurt pretzels

Cuban sandwiches (with Crockpot pork loin). I got this recipe from Parenting.com magazine, but couldn't find a link for it online. For the pork loin, cook tenderloin, onion soup mix, 1c water, 3/4c red wine, 3 tbsp garlic, 3 tbsp soy sauce, on low for 4 hrs in a Crock Pot. We shredded it and used half to make sandwiches. We toasted split, wheat ciabatta rolls, and topped with pork, provolone, deli ham, and dill pickle slices. We served with a side of steamed broccoli.

Sweet potatoes, mozzarella and edamame - really, this is all we ate for our meatless meal. Super quick: microwave some potatoes (M and I had sweet potatoes, hubby went for a regular russet). Cut open and apply a smidge of butter. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese. Serve with shelled edamame. Very filling. Nutritional bases covered. :)

Pork tacos - (see the Cuban sandwich recipe for how we made the shredded pork). Stir in 2 tbsp BBQ sauce with 1 cup of the shredded pork. top a corn tortilla with meat and 1/4 c bagged coleslaw + 1tbsp greek yogurt.

Grilled Pizza - We use store-bought whole wheat pizza dough from Trader Joe's. I shop there about once a month, so I stock up on a few for the freezer when we are low, but we have also found it at many 'regular' grocery stores. You may have to ask where they keep it (sometimes its in the freezer section). Then we skip to Alton Brown's recipe for margherita pizza (about halfway down this lengthy recipe). We omit the red pepper... and usually the garlic (but only because we forget it since this is easy enough to do from memory).

Three more weeks of simple cooking!

If you are working on your simple cooking weekly recipe planning, here are our last 3 week's recipes (again, each week includes one fish recipe and one meatless recipe. And leftovers from all meals were turned into our lunches the next day - including for the 2.5 year old!)

Week 1

I am leveraging some of the goodies from our CSA box this week: carrots, broccoli, lettuce.

Pear struessel muffins, Once a Month Mom. with blueberries instead of the chopped pear and applesauce instead of the pureed one... YUM! We put most of these in the freezer and are doling them out for special breakfasts.
Meatloaf Cupcakes w/  mashed potato 'icing', modified from Cooking Light with a side of broccoli
Shrimp 'Fried' Rice, Weelicious (140 Fast, Fresh and Easy Recipes) - very similar to their Veggie Fried Rice recipe + peeled, deveined shrimp
Turkey Spanikopita Burgers, Rachel Ray (365: No Repeats) with a side salad for mom and dad, green beans for M (he's still not into the texture of lettuce...). Also always a surprise for guests that no, they will not even notice the spinach IN the burger. It's just yummy!
Veggie Bowtie Pasta Salad, Parenting.com. Use your favorite Italian dressing and you can't go wrong. I love all the veggies mixed in, too!
Veggie-filled Sausage and Rice, modification of my mama's savory, FAST recipe :)

Would anyone use it if I included the shopping list for the week, too?

Week 2

This week we leaned heavily on a new cookbook we received from a friend: Williams Sonoma: One Pot: Food Made Fast

Chicken Stew with Dumplings
Chicken and Vegetable Curry - made with zucchini and green curry... so not really spicy. Served with brown rice that I'd made the day before while we were eating dinner
Mustard-crusted salmon & potatoes (& Caesar salad for the adults, canned peas for M). This one actually didn't go over all that well with my crowd, if I am being honest. Too strong a mustard taste.
Cauliflower Mac and Cheese (from Eating Well When You're Expecting)
Mu Shu Pork Stir Fry. This didn't look like it was all going to fit in the pan... but as the cabbage wilted, I could add the rest. Surprisingly good!

Week 3

* bought a bag of spinach to add to 'beef' up the vegetable quotient of some of our recipes

Baked Shells (from the weelicious cookbook) (adding chopped spinach to the sauce). I couldn't find jumbo shells at either the grocery store or Super Target, so I just used whole wheat penne instead and sort of threw all the ingredients together (plus a few handfuls of spinach!) and baked for 20 minutes. It was still delicious! And the toddler ate every last bit of his without us doing acrobatics or bargaining.
Chicken and Kale Risotto with Pine Nuts and Bacon (using spinach instead of kale; from Start Fresh by Tyler Florence )
Taco Salad (from Eating Well When You're Expecting). Hubby said it: this is always so good. Never fails. We serve the toddler's with a side of green beans instead of on a bed of romaine.
Tomato-Ricotta Salata Spaghetti. Another regular in our rotation. We finally found our local CA grocery store is carrying ricotta salata!... and after three weeks in a row, this week they weren't. So I subbed goat cheese. Not bad.
Shrimp and Corn Chowder (& quesadillas made with whole wheat tortillas, Mexican cheese and chopped spinach; from Cooking Light) This is one of our favorite recipes to make. M loves shrimp (he's a southern boy at heart!) and the soup is SO savory!!! It's a quick and easy one to impress guests!!!