Menu Plan Monday

This week's MPM has been ready for a week!! I'm so proud of myself for getting ahead of the game and getting it accomplished, along with getting together easy-peasy meals for the hub to make while I'm at BlogHer!! And surprisingly enough, we, for once, made all the meals last week and nothing is getting carried over to this week!!

Recipes are below!!

Monday: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Tuesday: Pasta with Beef from the Crockpot

Wednesday: Penne with Cauliflaur

Thursday: Pesto Stuffed Steaks (my birthday!!)

Friday: Hot Dogs (a BlogHer meal)

Saturday: Chicken Quesadillas (a BlogHer meal)

Sunday: Tator Tot Casserole

I am going to be doing some "snack making" during the week so that hub and the kids aren't complaining while I'm gone that there's nothing to eat... they have a tendency to do that...

Once again, breakfasts are usually cold cereal, oatmeal and sometimes Boug just wants toast and a banana! Lunches usually are leftovers or sandwiches paired with yogurt or fruit generally. My meals are usually a bit heavier in meats and chickens as hub is a butcher and brings so much home for free or next to nothing!! Check out more Menu Plan Monday entries at orgjunkie!!

Recipes:

Pasta with Beef from the Crockpot:
I use any large piece of beef laying around, or even stew meat and let it cook in sauce in the crockpot, 6-8 hours, by the time that dinner rolls around the meat is tender and shredded and all I have to do is boil pasta!

Penne with Cauliflaur:
8 ounces penne pasta, uncooked
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup frozen chopped onion
1 tablespoon bottled minced garlic
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 (16-ounce) package frozen cauliflower
¼ cup Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon dried parsley
3 tablespoons bottled lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

Cook the penne normally, but save 1 cup of the pasta water. Melt butter or margerine in a skillet, add olive oil, onion and garlic. Cook about 7 minutes or so, add in the cauliflaur and red pepper. Cover and cook about 5 minutes. Add in about 3/4 of the pasta water and cook about 5 minutes. Add in the penne, parmesean, parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and stir well. Cook til the cheese has melted and everything is heated through.

Pesto Stuffed Steaks:
This one you'll have to do to family size, we use 3 decent sized steaks and just butterfly them and jam the insides with pesto and grill!
Recipe calls for ribeyes, good steaks, but you can definitely use your preference, we like ribeyes, but we'll be using shell's for this.

Tator Tot Casserole:
2 lb. beef
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 bag of tator tots
1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese

Pat ground beef into bottom of greased 13x9x2-inch pan. Spread soup over meat and cover with grated cheese. Top with tater tots. Bake at 350 degrees, covered for 45 minutes and then uncovered for 15 minutes.