Meals for the Week of June 20, 2011

I thought I would expand a little more on summertime lunches/snacks from last week's post.  If you are now faced with children at home all day or more often, get organized with snacks and lunch food and make it fun for them.

• If they are old enough, get those sandwich thins bread or bagel thins and use those for making their own toaster oven pizzas.
• Quesadillas are so quick and versatile.  Keep tortillas stocked in the fridge.  
• Grill or poach chicken that can be used for topping pizza or in quesadillas or just for eating with some fruit and cheese.  
• I also love to make nachos for lunch.  It’s the perfect use for leftovers from a taco dinner.  Layer the chips and shredded cheese, add leftover meat, beans and rice, more cheese and pop it in the microwave for a few minutes.  It’s nice to take a break from working to sit at the table with the kids sharing a big pile of nachos.
• Make the Double Grape Slushies listed in the menu this week.  Or come up with your own slushies.
• Make popsicles- simply puree fruit and juice together.  Save your 8oz yogurt containers to use as popsicle molds.  Pour in the puree, cover with plastic wrap or foil, then poke popsicle sticks through and freeze.

It's been awhile, so I thought I should remind everyone about ziplist.com.  This is the web-based and smart phone shopping list application.  I think it's the best shopping list tool around.  I love that I can sit at my computer, go through online recipes when planning meals and as I choose things, I can just click and add the recipe to my ziplist.  It automatically syncs with the app on my phone, so when I'm out shopping, my list is always available.  You can also easily text your list to someone else, or what do what I did and had my husband download the app for his phone and gave him the login and password so he can view the lists too.
They have recently added in a coupon feature on the website and they have a bunch of checklists for all sorts of shopping situations like weekly shopping, low fat, high fiber, holidays, pantry, etc.  You can use those lists to pre-populate your own lists.  Very cool!

Meals for the Week of June 20, 2011

Orzo with Chicken, Corn and Green Beans

Pretzel Crusted Chicken Breasts- A Dijon mustard and crushed pretzel coating for baked chicken is a great flavor combination.  You can slice and serve on top a salad for a great summer meal.

Crockpot Polenta Lasagna- This vegan lasagna is super easy in the crock pot and although it’s sort of a cold weather comfort food, it actually keeps your kitchen cool in the summer by keeping the oven off.  If you don’t want or need it to be vegan, make your own changes like using shredded cheese and a meat sauce if you want.

Buttermilk & Herb Marinated Chicken- If you don’t want to buy a carton of buttermilk that will not get used up, there is powdered buttermilk sold where you find powdered milk.

Grilled Turkey Meatloaf- This is a basic meatloaf recipe with instructions for cooking it on the grill.  If you have your own favorite meatloaf recipe, use that instead and then follow the directions to grill it.

Barbequed Turkey with Mustard Sauce- I like that this recipe uses inexpensive turkey legs and thighs.  It also uses a rather simple sauce that is sweet and tangy and goes perfect with the grilled turkey.

Quick Poached Salmon with Dill Mustard Sauce- Tender poached salmon and a no cook sauce.  You can substitute the wine in the poaching liquid with vegetable broth if you prefer.

Thai Beef with Chilies and Basil over Coconut Rice- Very quick cooking using ground beef and you can easily substitute ground turkey if you wanted.    

Fish Tacos with Chipotle Cream Sauce- The sauce calls for just a little bit of chipotle from a small can. You can stick the rest in the freezer for future use. 

Easy Grilled Tri Tip- This is my recipe I submitted to Allrecipes.com years ago.  I share it here at this time of year.  It’s great for bbq parties because you can buy a couple of tri tips and it serves a crowd.  It’s an affordable way to have something a little more “upscale” instead of the typical burgers and hot dogs.  Or you prepare this and ask your guests to bring sides and drinks and it’s all done!

Orzo with Chicken, Corn and Green Beans- Great weeknight meal you can make with leftover roasted or grilled chicken.

Grill Roasted Artichoke Leaves- This is delicious!  You take the loose leaves from an artichoke, wrap them in a foil packet with salt, pepper, olive oil and butter and place it on indirect heat on a grill to steam/roast giving you tender leaves in a butter sauce.  YUM! 

Strawberry Panzanella- This fantastic strawberry and bread salad is perfect for summer and I highly recommend you try it.  It’s also great to bring to a summer potluck. 

Double Grape Slushies- Healthy and refreshing for the hot weather and something that the kids can help make!