Menu Plan Monday - November!

Menu Plan Monday with Laura at Org Junkie

Upcoming week: 

Monday: Taco Salad (bumped from last week)

Lettuce is chopped, taco meat is already cooked, cheese is already shredded and all I have to do is heat up the taco meat, cut some tomatoes and put everything out. I LOVE an easy dinner. 

Tuesday: Shepherds Pie (with Thanksgiving leftovers) for Lifegroup. 

I made it the day after Thanksgiving and froze it, and now it's defrosting in my fridge ready for it's big debut. The veggies are all roasted veg leftovers from the three dinners, the sauce is mostly the gravy and the potatoes on top are a mix of regular mashed potatoes and my Dad's cheesy mashed potatoes with bacon. The meat is shredded turkey meat. I have a feeling this meal is about to be a star. 

Wednesday: Poppyseed Casserole served with broccoli

I have had this dinner on the menu plan for weeks and it keeps getting bumped as I get closer to the date - finally I'm going to try it. 

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday & Monday (Remembrance Day):

Paul's mom is in town from Texas (woo!) so we'll be hanging out with her a lot - we're splitting her time with Paul's sister Katie - we get Nancy half the time and she gets her the other half. These are the meals I've been wanting to try for sometime and therefore will finally attempt for Nancy. I know I don't need to impress her (she's great that way) but it's fun to get to feed her great food. We will hopefully make two of these, if not all four - depending on how often we want to go out and eat in Van - this city has a lot of good food also!

Dinner 1: Slow Cooker Beef Short Ribs served with roasted veg and Bacon Hassleback Potatoes.

Recommended to me by my boss - it better be good because I struggled to track down short ribs!

Dinner 2: Balsamic Glazed Porkloin with Maple Mustard Roasted Sweet Potatoes, chopped salad and Creamy Orzo Risotto.

Dinner 3: Bruschetta Chicken with Rice and roasted vegetables. 

Dinner 4: Skillet Shepherds Pie with side salad

Reviews from last week:

Monday: Indian take out

It was my third time eating Indian and I liked it. I'm starting to feel open to another new food type. 

Tuesday: Harvest Party!

The party went so well! Many, many pumpkins were carved and much food was devoured.

Menu:

Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip Cookies (mix) Easy and fast, success!

Pumpkin Spice Loaf (mix) Easy and fast, also success!

Apple Cider (premade) I wish I remembered the brand as this was really tasty. I put it in a pump thermos and set it outside for around the fire. Big hit.

Pumpkin marshmallows These were purchased on a whim and wow, they were the belle of the ball, everyone LOOOOVED them. 

Chicken Wings (Honey Garlic & Thai Yellow Curry) Safe but successful

Cocktail Wienies (served with BBQ sauce and mustard on the side) Always a crowd pleaser / I tossed these in the crockpot for 2 hours with a bit of water on high. Perfect and easy.

Hummus and Pita I used hard pita chips and soft pita's - and the Hummus was from Costco. Easy and tasty.

Easy Rotel Queso with chips Big Hit! And so easy

Mini Pizza's (from Costco) Popular and easy - they were eaten super fast

Pork Bites (Costco) I knew this would go over well, it always does. And indeed it did.

Shrimp Nests (Costco) These were popular though I was reminded to save them for smaller parties - they are a fancier more expensive appie and they make more of an impact in a smaller setting. 

Mozza Sticks (Costco) Huge hit! Soooo easy and wow, so good. 

For three of our students/friends this was their first experience carving pumpkins! 

And then there were those like Jonathan who took it very very seriously. He even missed dinner he was so busy carving the entire night. 

Wednesday: Taco's - Hard shells with ground beef and the fixings - just like childhood.

I was saddened to discover that the hard shells I'd bought tasted like cardboard, but we had some really tasty tortilla chips in the cellar so I pulled those up and we thoroughly enjoy taco salad - with leftovers for Thursdays lunch. Everyone was happy. 

Thursday (Halloween): Crockpot Meatball Stroganoff

This was a first time trial for me and it was a success - the meatballs were a bit soft for me, but overall it was an easy and tasty dish and one I'd make again. Turns out we didn't get a lot of kids at halloween, but we did have lots of candy! We had our friends Hanne and Drian over - we ate candy and played board games and excitedly ran to the door each of the 3 times there were trick or treaters. 

Our front door

The aftermath

Leftover treats for our students

Friday: Appie Night 

We had the Froese's over and ate great appies - we also ate more candy and played more games.

Nacho's (loaded with the works and served with homeade salsa, guacamole and sour cream.)

StuffedMushrooms 

Wings (Honey Garlic)
We ran out of Boursin and Crackers, but we had extra stuffing mix from the mushrooms, so we added some extra cream cheese and some crab from the freezer and made a tasty tasty crab dip. Success!

Saturday: YOYO (You're On Your Own) 

Saturday we rested, rested and rested some more. We took some leftover Nacho's, added more cheese and rebaked it all and MAN, it was tasty. We took a walk at Granville Island, found a bike for Paul at Our Community Bikes and ended up at the Montroy's for dinner - we had a great time with their family - they do hospitality well. There house and style is warm and inviting and it was totally worth the walk in the rain to get there. Afterwards we swung by our friend Laura's place for her birthday party and I brought with me Cranberry Gin & Tonic to share - it looked super cute. Instead of using Tonic Water and Cranberry Juice, I used a Cranberry Pop I picked up at Superstore. Worked just as well!

Sunday: Taco Salad

Sunday was supposed to be Taco Salad, but when I found out we were having our friends Josh and Ana over I wanted to make something a bit more special, so I bumped Taco Salad to the following monday and had a wonderful new meal. I prepped it all in the afternoon and then put it in the fridge - and after church I pulled it out and put it in the oven. That's a win of a meal for sure!

Chicken Alfredo Bubble Up, served with Maple Mustard Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Boursin Asparagus. Wow - I will make all of this again. Daaaaang. 

The Chicken Alfredo Bubble Up was delicious. I used shredded cooked turkey from the freezer instead, which was a delightful addition. I could only find jumbo grands biscuits, so I used two cans of that and doubled the rest of the recipe since that was a lot of biscuit. I'm so glad I did - there ended up being 6 of us for dinner and we the dish was so tasty it's a blessing I'd doubled it. There was only enough leftovers for two lunches (with veggies, or one lunch without veggies). 

I wanted to do something with sweet potatoes - I'd seen some at Costco and felt inspired. They were precut into crinkle cut shapes - I found this recipe, Maple Mustard Roasted Sweet Potatoes, on pinterest and a plan was born. I used one shallot and a section of an onion since that's what I had on hand. I didn't have real maple syrup, but used Rogers Golden Syrup instead. I also added some garlic and onion salts near the end, and baked it for longer than they recommended, mine didn't seem to be baking that quickly - and I finished it off with 3 minutes on broil. 

Lastly, I had some spare boursin and decided to crumble that and put it on top of the asparagus to bake it that way - man that was a good call. 10 minutes at 400 in the oven and BAM, great side dish. 

And lastly this photo was just posted online from Jonathan and Greg's 25th Birthday party - Photobooth photos usually trickle out later and man, I am so pleased with this shot of me and my dear friends Jodi, Lindsay and Stef. We look gooooood.