Menu Plan Monday- April 14th-20th

Thanks to all of you who stopped by and read my site and my meal plan last week. It was fun to have some new visitors on my site! Here is this week's menu plan at our house.

• Monday:Pancakes and Scrambled Eggs: Tonight is Mommy's Night out as I have a MOPS meeting so Daddy will be cooking breakfast for dinner tonight for him and the kiddos.

• Tuesday: Spaghetti and Meatballs: I like to make my own meatballs by taking ground turkey, bread crumbs, one egg, and Italian seasonings and mushing it all together. I then make them into little meatballs and broil them in the oven. One pound of meat makes enough for two meals so I freeze one batch of meatballs for next time! Then all I have to do is boil some water for spaghetti, open a jar of Ragu and Voila! Dinner is served!!

• Wednesday: Harvest Steaks and buttered egg noodles with a side of canned peas. This is one of my kids favorite. They call ham, "the new meat" To make the kids ham, I just brown the ham steak on both sides and serve plain. To dress it up a bit for my hubby and me, I use this recipe from Taste of Home's Simple and Delicious Sept/Oct 07 magazine.

• 1 med onion halved and thinly sliced
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 2 tablespoons butter
• ham steaks
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1/2 cup unsweetened apple juice
• 1/2 cup apple butter

• Saute onion and pepper in butter until crisp tender.. Remove from pan and set aside. Brown ham steak on both sides. Meanwhile in small bowl, combine cornstarch and apple juice until smooth; pour over ham. Bring to boil; cook and stir 1-2 min or until slightly thickened. Reduce heat; spread apple butter over ham. Top with onion. Cover and simmer 5-7 min or until heated through

• Thursday: Chicken and Dumplings: This is super easy and my kids have been asking for it for the past week! Take 3 frozen chicken breasts and put in crock pot with 2 cans of chicken broth. Cook on low 6-8 hours. Pour cooked chicken and broth into large pot on stove and bring to a boil. Use a fork to break up the chicken into pieces. Mix dumplings using Bisquick recipe and drop onto chicken and broth. I recently startedd adding baby carrots and frozen peas to the chicken while in the crock pot in order to get our veggies in there too! A one pot meal and it is so easy!

• Friday: Day Before Chilli Recipe: My husband had been asking me to find a new chilli recipe for awhile. I found this online and it was an instant hit. While it suggests you make it the day before, I have forgotten and made it the day of and it still tasted great!

• Saturday: Homemade Pizza
• I make the dough in the bread machine using this recipe:
• For 2lb serving (this serves 4 adults plus 2 preschoolers with some leftover)
• Ingredients: 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups of all purpose flour
• 2 tsp active dry yeast
• 1-1/4- 1 3/8 cups water
• 3 tablespoons of oil
• Combine all ingredients into bread pan.
• Select dough setting. (will take 1.5 hrs to make dough)
• Preheat oven to 400.
  
• Roll out dough and top with sauce, cheese, and toppings
• Bake for 20 min

Sunday: Sloppy Joes made with Manwich and served with oven baked fries and sweet peas

Let me know if you end up trying any of these recipes. I'd love to know what you think!!