Thursday, February 6, 2014

Menu Plan Monday, Feb 4th (Thursday edition??)


Menu Plan Monday with Laura at Org Junkie

Upcoming week: 

Monday: Veggiefull dinner + Chicken Tortilla Soup & Cheeseburger Soup
Monday night we wanted to eat healthy so we had Quinoa Stuffed Peppers (with shredded chicken), baked Zucchini, Honey Mustard Roasted Sweet Potatoes and steamed asparagus. So tasty. We had two friends over for dinner who had joined us, not just to eat, but also to make lots of soup! 

We were again making soup for a at-risk-youth program on the DTES - lots of soup!  This time we wanted to try a different mexican soup and I wanted to do another hearty teen favorite. Chicken Tortilla Soup & Cheeseburger Soup fit the bill perfectly (we doubled the recipes). T&C were awesome helpers and we had the soup whipped out in 1.5 hours. We were a great team. While T&C chatted with Paul in the kitchen I then took to making soup for lifegroup - I made a batches of Lasagna Soup and Chicken Taco Soup (also doubled). For the Chicken Taco Soup i just needed to add the ingredients to the crockpot - in retrospect I should have done that in the morning so it could cook all day, rather than all night. This way I had to get up and transfer it to something to chill all day. The Lasagna soup was easy and very tasty. PLUS we had SO MUCH FUN chatting and laughing with T&C - working is much better when you have friends. All together 4 giant batches of tasty soup were made - with enough soup to feed about 40 people. 

All I had to do was reheat the soups for lifegroup, make some garlic bread for the Lasagna Soup, and put out Tortilla chips for the Taco Soup. I shredded up mozza and marble cheese to serve with their respective soups. They were all a big giant hit. Success! There was still enough Taco Soup leftover for dinner Wednesday. There was enough Lasagna Soup leftover for dinner Thursday and lunches for two days and enough to freeze 6 personal dinners, a dinner for like 10 people. Apparently I make a lot of soup when I go for it. 

Lifegroup was awesome.  Like really awesome. Our group is handling challenges and new ideas like pros. 

I got home from a loooooooong day of work and had a hot shower, falling asleep immediately afterwards. I woke up at 7:30pm, heated up soup for the house and then after eating and talking with paul for a while, went back to sleep at 10:30. So tired! The Taco Soup was as good, if not better, the next day. 


Thursday: Leftover Lasagna Soup 
Thursday is my sister night so I need to be able to get out the door by 7pm, heating up soup works perfectly for days like this. This Thursday everyone is eating at different times so they are all just grabbing a bowl and eating when they need to.   

Friday: YOYO
Lunch with a friend, coffee with a different friend, errands in Richmond and a girls night is a perfect way to spend a friday. 

Saturday: YOYO
I'm headed over to the Island for my awesome friend Tami's 30's birthday! While there I get to have lunch with my dear friend Crystal and I'm stoked about that too. 

Sunday: YOYO
Ferry home in the morning, Women's Ministry Meeting at noon, church at 3, then a surprise birthday for my father in law. Paul will be gone with him Thursday to Sunday to celebrate. 

Monday: YOYO
This coming Monday is a holiday, BC Day. Woot woot. Sleep in with Paul, house work and then a birthday dinner for our friend Jason. Good day indeed! 

In Review:
Monday: Mexican Pie
Lately we've been eating a ton of Mexican Food and the trend continues. I made this Mexican Pie a while back and added it to the freezer for an easy meal and it was great reheated. I had a lovely time with Kayla and managed to get a bunch of house stuff done. Win win. 

Tuesday: Queso Lasagne
I made this Lasagne Monday night after Kayla left and MAN, it's awesome. I will make this again and again and again for sure! 

Lifegroup was amazing. We have some big changes coming up and our group handled them like a pro. I'm excited to see where we all go and what this looks like!

Wednesday: Spaghetti
My plans were cancelled, Paul was out...I made Spaghetti with meatsauce, enough for dinner and lunches. I served dinner and packed lunches and then read all night...oh joy. 

My parents were over for dinner so we had this tasty pasta dish then headed out to Starbucks for drinks (mmm caramel apple spice). We had a great night together talking and laughing. 

I prepped this during the day, then fried it up once the boys were over and hungry. It was kid approved and husband approved! That's a win for sure. We had a nice evening with the boys, then they went to sleep. Paul headed out to Chapel, a youth worship night. After Chapel Duncan was home to "babysit" (the boys sleep super well, he's really just listening for crying) while Paul and I headed over to our friends the Lim's for appies and drinks. The Lim's live super close and we walked over - it was a lovely night with some of my favorite people. I mean honestly I had no idea who would be there and ever time someone would knock and come in I'd be sooo happy!

Saturday: Taco's
Saturday was a great day. We played and hung out with the boys. They were cuddly and squirmy and cute. We watched movies and made blanket forts and went to the pool. I swear they eat all the time, but that's expected. After the pool we ate Soft Taco's and they were in bed! I headed out to my good friend Margot's birthday party - and I was reminded of how awesome my friends and their friends are. Great night. I was soooooo tired though...the boys wake up early! And while they will come into my bed at 5am to keep "sleeping" they are usually pretty squirmy so sleep is fleeting. 

Sunday: SUPERBOWL PARTY
Sunday we were up and out to the park with the nephews. Then Jenna and Colin came to grab the boys and join us for lunch. When they left I started prepping for our spontaneous Super Bowl Party. Every year we host one but this year we didn't think we would - Paul was preaching that day at church and we had Foundations afterwards. We both ran into people though who said they couldn't wait for our party and we realized we should totally just throw one anyways. In the end we had about 20 people there and it was so much super fun. 

The menu was entirely centered around things I had in the house. No time to shop!
Mozza Sticks (from Costco)
Crab Dip 
Mini Pizza's (I had pita, sauce, and meat to use up)
Wings (Honey Garlic & Buffalo)
Pork Bites
and more I think? 

Anyways I had it all prepped ahead of time so I could just take things out of crockpots or throw things into the oven and it was a huge success. 


And these are just the people that watched the game - there were a group of 5-10 people upstairs playing a board game and eating.


Also a huge success was Paul's awesome sermon....and our last Foundations meeting. Between those two things I was pumped for sure! God is so good and He is doing awesome things. 

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Tara - Your blog made me want to come to your house for dinner, unannounced. Just drop in, like in the olden days, and have you say, well, since you're here, you might as well stay and have dinner with us... :)

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