Quinoa Pilaf

I inherited a box of quinoa from one of my former roommates. I have been feeling a little adventurous this week so I thought I'd see about finding a recipe to try out for Tuesday dinner and Glee night with Candice. I followed this recipe and added some spinach to it because I have some I need to finish up.

I have to say - it was delicious! We both really enjoyed it and I think I'll probably make it again. We had chicken and cornbread with it and strawberry shortcake for dessert. The recipe says it is 4 servings but I think it is probably closer to 6. Guess I'll be eating it as a side dish for the rest of the week!!

Meal Plan, week of 5/3-5/10

For the time of my CSA I think I will start my meal plans on Monday and then amend them on Wednesday when I have my new delivery of produce. Produce waits for no one so I've got to eat it while I can!

I realize having a pumpkin chocolate chip muffin for breakfast isn't exactly healthy...but it is what I have around the house right now so it will have to do! Next week I'll make oatmeal if I have time.

Monday
B: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin
L: Lettuce, spinach, carrot, and cucumber salad with grilled chicken and a homemade roll
D: Quesadillas using meat, cheese, and tortillas from the freezer
S: String cheese, pirate booty, cookie

Tuesday:
B: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin
L: Peanut butter sandwich (I am tired of salad!)
D: Dinner with Candice - my week to cook! Chicken breast with quinoa pilaf and spinach
S: String cheese, carrot sticks, strawberry shortcake

Wednesday: CSA delivery day!
B: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin
L: Tuesday dinner leftovers
D: Grilled chicken with asparagus (I know this is coming in the box)
S: String cheese, carrot sticks, strawberry shortcake

Thursday:
B: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin
L: Wednesday dinner leftovers
D: Chicken curry with rice from freezer and misc. veggies from CSA box
S: String cheese, carrot sticks, strawberry shortcake

Friday:
B: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin
L: TBD
D: Pizza night
S: String cheese, carrot sticks, strawberry shortcake

Saturday: Out of town for wedding
Sunday: Out of town for wedding

Garden!

One of my favorite parts about my new house is having the outdoors just outside my door! I am so excited to try growing some veggies this year. Ideally I would prefer to plant these in the ground but I don't really have 'ground' so I'll have to make do with planters. Anyway - I have 2 tomato plants from Candice in the back right. The long planters have 3 bell pepper plants and 1 zucchini plant. I am hoping that the zucchini will grow over the side. The front left has sage seeds, next to it is basil (SUPER excited about this one) and in the big pot I scattered carrot seeds because I think that would just be fun to grow your own carrots. I still have some rosemary seeds and cucumber seeds so I think I need at least 1 more pot. I know the plants are a little cramped in the pots but I've got limited space so they will just have to make do!

I'm hoping that these plants will produce a decent number of veggies. This combined with my CSA will hopefully keep me well stocked all summer!

Monkey Muffins

So I had a tube of biscuits that technically expired 2 days ago (forgot about them - whoops!). And since I just made a whole pan of rolls, I didn't want to make the biscuits alone. Soooo - I had to find something to do with them.
Enter MoneySavingMom's post on using refrigerated biscuit dough. Luckily I did not have 12 cans to use up but one was enough. I decided to make Monkey Muffins! I did not have sweetened condensed milk so I just left that part off (probably better for the waistline anyway).



Honestly, I wasn't overly impressed. Don't get me wrong, I WILL be eating them all. But I probably won't be making them again. The sweetened condensed milk probably will make them amazing but it will also add A TON of sugar. So - my vote is - great way to use up some biscuits. Probably won't be doing it too often.

CSA, week 1

A friend and I joined a CSA for the growing season. This week marks the first week of our goodies! We are sharing a small share and thank goodness for that because we are both drowning in produce! This week we split 3 pints of strawberries, 1 pound of spinach, 1 head of lettuce, and 1 bunch of swiss chard.
Can we say salads for lunch this week?!?!

The picture includes only MY portion - so this is only half of what we got this week. Holy moly!

I have no idea what to do with swiss chard but man is it pretty!

Here is my plan for using up these goodies:

1.5 pints Strawberries - hello strawberry shortcake
Spinach and lettuce - salads with carrots, cucumbers and chicken paired with a homemade roll
Swiss Chard - research what to do with this other than to eat it in salad.

We get another delivery next week so I've got to eat all of this before the new goodies come in!

Freezer Cooking Update

We could call this - Freezer Cooking - the chicken edition!

Today I crossed 2 more things off my list - curry chicken and 'generic chicken breast.'
Here is the curry chicken. I didn't make the rice because that is super easy to make with my rice cooker and doesn't take much time either. This should cover 3 meals worth of chicken curry. I have them in the freezer in individual portions.



I also marinated chicken in Italian dressing and cooked it up to put on my salads for the week.



To summarize:
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
1 lb taco meat for tacos and quesadillas (and maybe a taco salad?)
Bread Machine Rolls
Pizza (will make 2 personal size pizzas)
Curry Chicken
Chicken Breasts for whatever meals I come up with
Chopped onion to add to things (I hate chopping onions and try to do it as infrequently as possible)
Meatballs

Harris Teeter Triples

I did pretty well at Harris Teeter this week. I ended the month with a decent amount of $$ left over in the grocery budget so I decided to use it to stock up a little. Below is what I got using coupons. I also purchased some meat and produce to stock up for May.

For everything in the picture I spent $5.54. Yep, less than $6 for all of that! I am pretty excited about everything I got. I probably could have passed on the toothpaste (with the amount of toothpaste I have, I should probably brush my teeth a lot more often) but it was almost free so...I'll donate it if I end up with too much.

I didn't take a picture but I also got a great deal on the chicken I like. It is expensive chicken - normally $6.99 a pound - but it was on sale for $4.99/pound and I had 2 $1/1 coupons so I purchased nearly 4 pounds of chicken breasts. That should last me for a good while!