Menu Plan Monday with Laura at Org Junkie
Upcoming week:
Monday: "Mexican Leftovers" Casserole
Lately we've been eating a ton of Mexican Food. I have no idea why but I've been addicted....from Mexi-Rice, to Mexican Pie, and Hearty Chili Mac (with tons of Taco spices added) and Crockpot Taco Chicken Chili. I found myself with a bit of leftovers from all of these recipes. I'd already made lunches for our students and didn't want to force more on them all week, so I grabbed a big bowl and through all the leftovers that we had together. It looked and smelt great, actually. For the Mexican Pie I chopped it up into bite size pieces before throwing it in. Then I added a can of Corn and a can of diced tomatoes with chilies and mixed it all together. I put all of that in a baking container and put it in the freezer for an easy dinner option. As I'm out for dinner tonight this was the perfect time for the house to eat it, it's thawing in the fridge as I type. Paul will take it out of the fridge around 2 to help thaw it further, and then after it's been baking for about 45 minutes I'll have him top it with shredded cheddar cheese and bake for another 15 minutes. Easy peasy!
Tonight I am making a house favorite - the reasons are three fold. Firstly, I have extra Pita's in the house, so this is a good way to use them. Second, after grocery shopping this weekend (and purchasing more chicken) I realized the ridiculous amounts of chicken I have stockpiled. And lastly, this is always a crowd pleaser and most people in our lifegroup were fasting last week, so this will make them happy.
Wednesday: Chicken Taco Soup
I'm out for dinner this night, so something crockpot based was needed - all Paul will have to do is shred the chicken in the mixer and then add that and some sour cream and cheddar cheese to the soup. This was a huge hit with the youth last week and everyone in the house is dying to try it.
Thursday: Crockpot Chicken Cordon Bleu
Thursday is my sister night so I need to be able to get out the door by 7pm. I also have some ham at home that needs using up - so this is perfect! I'll serve it with rice or noodles (depending on my mood) and Asparagus, Zucchini & Broccoli.
Friday: Skillet Shepherds Pie
Since I have Friday off it seemed like a good time to try this meal that is a bit more finicky. My friend Rachelle made it for me when I visited her in Portland in October and I loved it.
Saturday: Healthy Chicken Parmesan Wraps / YOYO
For lunch I am having Mila and Irene over so that we can have a planning session for Mila's upcoming wedding. I'm making a healthy and tasty lunch (I will be adding greek salad to the meal) that isn't too heavy so that we can still focus to plan.
Paul and I are out for dinner with some friends for Dine Out Vancouver, at Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co. so our house is on their own for dinner.
Sunday: YOYO
This Sunday we have a fairly busy day - We have church at 3:30, then it's Foundations (a bible study for new people, new christians or non-believers) at 5:15, followed by a Deacons meeting at 7pm. meeting. Basically we leave for church at 3:10 and will return around 9pm. Busy busy. Last week we had a similar timeframe and had forgotten to grab food at home to bring with us and had to eat out, I'm hoping we can remember to make sandwiches ahead of time.
In Review:
Monday: Leftover Mexican Pie
Monday night was day one of fasting for Paul and I, the leftovers were a hit with the rest of the house. I spent the evening making soup with our chinese student Jessie. (which I talked about here). Jessie is a lot of fun - we laughed and I got to explain english idioms like "stirring the pot" since we actually needed to do so to keep the soup cooking. We also got to practice english vocabulatry words - "cooperative" is a tricky word!
Tuesday: Hearty Chili Mac
This was another successful recipe - and I should tell you why. The recipe itself is medium ok....nothing great, but not bad. What I do to kick it up a notch is add taco seasoning and a can of cheese sauce. Works like a charm. I made the noodles for this dinner and Wednesday's dinner Monday night so I got to just toss the noodles in there at the last second.
For lifegroup I made chai latte's and served juice, tea, water and coffee. People were so thankful for the beverages during fasting! We had a wonderful prayer time - we broke into guys and girls and the girls prayer time was POWERFUL. Man. It was good.
Wednesday: Beef Stroganoff
Wednesday morning I got up late and didn't have time to throw the Stroganoff into the crock pot....but since the noodles and beef were already cooked I put all the ingredients together into a stockpot and let it cook there for 45 minutes and it was ready for the house to eat by 6:15pm. I would definitely make this again.
We hosted Women at Prayer at the house - again I made chai latte's and served juice, tea, water and coffee. The Chai Latte's were a huge success a second night in a row. Prayer and worship were great, and it was such a treat to be with so many women from the church. I was so pumped! I kept wanting to jump up and down, and even shout. I have no idea where it came from but it was awesome.
Thursday: Chicken Taco Soup Leftovers
There were so many leftovers in the fridge and only have the house was eating - I declared this a leftovers night and no one minded a bit. To quote our housemate Duncan, "You have mastered the art of family cooking. I NEVER dread leftovers like I did when I was a kid." High praise indeed! Duncan is never afraid to be kind and gracious with his words and I so appreciate it!
Friday:
The fridge was still filled with food and I knew I was cooking a big dinner Saturday and wanted that stuff eaten up. So leftovers again!
Friday I was up early to drop Paul off at work and then head down to Bellingham, WA for groceries. I ran into my friend Emily at Trader Joe's (which was a treat) and was back by 2pm - I picked up Paul who was just finishing work and dropped him off at his afternoon job and then joined Jenna and the boys at the park to watch the boys run around like crazy and talk with Jenna. Then I picked Paul up from his afternoon job and we headed home to unload the groceries from the car and prep for the following day.
Friday night is always my favorite day of the week of prayer and fasting - we meet for a breaking the fast celebration, we talk and tell stories of what God did. This year we gathering in our pastors house and it was awesome. People were expected and faith filled and it felt like so much fun. Afterwards we headed out with a bunch of our philipino and chinese friends to grab Vietnamese food - Lemongrass Pork with spring rolls, and my fast was a thing of the past.
We were up early and off for a day with friends on a boat. As we headed out I packed us up a picnic lunch and put the burrito mix into the slow cooker. We had a relaxing day with our friends (new and old) and enjoyed the boat ride to Bowen thoroughly.
Paul getting bait ready for fishing
Boats docked at Bowen
Irene, Chenny and myself
Sights around Bowen
Including the worlds smallest candy store - TC's idea of heaven.
He bought old favorites from back home.
We got home right at 5:30 when people were starting to arrive for the Board Game Extravaganza. Thankfully our friends are almost like family, so they pitched in immediately to help. Hanne and Ana became my sous-chef's and we pumped out a wonderful dinner in no time. Josh was amazing and did the dishes (so thankful) and then everyone else helped pitch in as needed. The recipe was a big success - the crowd loved it and it's been requested to be added to the lifegroup meal rotation, which works for me since it fed 14 people without much fuss.
Then it was on to the games! To start we had Table 1 - Ticket to Ride, Table 2 - Settlers: Cities & Knights, and Table 3 - Agricola. The games were so good. As the night wore down and three couples left, the remaining 4 couples started a last set of games: Aquire for the guys and Settlers: Cities & Knights for the girls. It was an epic success of a night. Our friends are all kinds of awesome. Plus I won at Settlers, so that's extra good.
Sunday: YOYO
The only draw back to such a great Saturday was how late we stayed up - we were playing games until almost 1am, so I needed all the sleep I could get! I slept in until 12:30 and it was awesome. Muchly needed as the rest of the day was going to be a bit crazy.
Church was a showcase of the ministry areas in our church so each ministry area needed to set up a booth - I am in charge of Women's Ministry so I got our booth all prettied up - our girls all wore matching colors and we won for best Table! I'm not sure if ours was better than the amazing campus or international ones BUT I will say that my shirt perfectly matched the tablecloth, so there's that.
*Photos by Dorothy Wong, church photographer extraordinaire!*
The church service was super fun, we were having the ENVy's - our church's yearly award ceremony. Our church initials are ENV (Every Nation Vancouver) so the name seems appropriate. I won the "Iron Chef" award for feeding so much of the church at lifegroup and other events, which was fun. There was lots of laughter and good times in that service.
*Photos by Dorothy Wong*
Then it was on to Foundations: my uncle, Pastor Greg, teaches the course and it is so helpful to be reminded of basic foundational truths. A bunch of our friends are in the course, so it's extra awesome.
*Photos by Dorothy Wong*
We quickly grabbed dinner then headed off to the lifegroup leaders meeting. We were home by 9:15 - in time to make lunches and then hit the hay. Sleep was so needed after that evening!
1 comment:
Really looking forward to this Tuesday's meal.
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