FAMILY MEALS: WEEK ONE

This first week of meal planning has gone fairly well thus far. Though Ben and I did have a little teensy fight on Tuesday because there was a misunderstanding on who was in charge of the vegetable dish. I guess we have a bit of a learning curve to figure this out.

Monday we ate Dawn Scampi...

Most scampi recipes are pretty high in fat, so we never eat it. This was a nice alternative and pretty delicious. Just make sure you wet the noodles in the sauce before serving, just follow what the directions say. We served the noodles first, then poured shrimp and sauce on top, so I don't think the sauce coated the spaghetti very well. Another change we did, was that we didn't have croutons, so I just sprinkled garlic herb spice on some whole wheat bread with smart balance light spread atop it, and toasted it in the oven until it was really dark and crunchy. I think that made a decent crouton substitute. The olives give the scampi a good flavor, but I think next time I would put a little bit more.

Tuesday was Oven Fried Chicken and Roasted Butternut Squash...

We were all totally loving this recipe. Soul devoured it in the first minute. We cooked drumsticks for the girls and chicken breast for Ben and me. If you have really big breast pieces, you will need to slice it in half so you won't get such a chunky piece. I didn't use the parmesan cheese in the breading because True is allergic to dairy, and for the breading that went on the breast, I added a bit more cayenne pepper than the recipe called for because we like our food really spicy!

It is cooked in the oven and the the breading gives a nice crunch that makes you kinda think you are eating something fried. Just looking at the pictures, it does look fried, but it isn't at all! I am definitely going to try and memorize this and make it more often.

Ben bought some already cut up butternut squash from the store, coated it in extra virgin olive oil, sprinkled some salt and pepper and stuck it in the oven for about 20 minutes. You can't really go wrong roasting vegetables that way.

We have enough leftovers from both nights that we had more chicken on Wednesday with a side of mashed sweet potatoes (using this recipe, we didn't like the gravy) and today we will finish off the scampi. I hope we can stick to this cause it saves us some time and hassle in the evening already knowing what is on the menu for dinner.

This past week's dinners were common dishes that typically aren't a high nutrition type of dish due to the fat content, but these recipes were nice alternatives. The wonderful part is that even though they were healthy versions, they still were jammed pack with flavor. I am for sure noting these dishes to be cooked again, especially that oven fried chicken!

Week of 1/23-1/27:

Monday: Pork Chops with Garlic Mashed Cauliflower (The recipe calls for potatoes, but we will use cauliflower.)

Tuesday: Cheddar BLT Burgers with Tarragon Russian Dressing (I am going to use lean ground turkey for the patty and use turkey bacon instead of regular bacon.) with a side of sweet potato wedges.

Wednesday: Tuesday's leftovers

Thursday: Oven Baked Taquitos (do something you already know how to make)

Friday: Pizza (or something easy like that)

If you do try out any of these recipes or have some of your own recipes to share, I would love to hear about it! Anyone else doing meal planning or following along with this? I will try to get my family meal posts up on Thursdays, that way you have the weekend to get groceries should you decide to follow along.