Menu Plan Monday + A New Aldi Find!

Posted by Justine May 11, 2015

Menu Plan Monday + A New Aldi Find!

Happy Monday!

How was your weekend? Our's was really great! My husband was off the entire weekend for the first time in 5 weeks which was SO nice! Mother's Day was perfectly imperfect:) There were some tantrums, a good amount of tears, and 2 kiddos with fevers. There was also LOTS of hugs and kisses, super cute handmade cards, some fun gifts and a very attentive, appreciative husband. I was loved very well :) I felt so grateful throughout the day for the mothers in my life that have impacted the way I raise my children. And of course, the 4 beautiful babies who made me a momma and say "Mommy" at least 500 times a day....

SO thankful for them!

I am being serious and not dramatic at all when I say being a mom is my dream come true!

I hope however you spent your weekend, you had a lot of fun, some time to relax and are feeling refreshed and ready for this new week! :)

Now onto Menu Plan Monday! :)

We have a pretty busy week ahead of us...so super simple meals and recipes were the name of the game when I was planning our menu.

Here is what our family will be eating this week!

For tonight's dinner, we are having a super easy and versatile meal: "Chipotle Bowls." You know those delicious burrito bowls you can get at Chipotle?? Well...we do our own version using several different kinds of meat. For this meal, I am going to brown 1 pound of lean, ground turkey with a can of rinsed, black beans, 2/3 cup of salsa and a taco seasoning packet. I will also make some brown rice (I use chicken or vegetable stock in place of water when making my rice- makes it SO much more flavorful!) to use as the "base" of our bowls.

Assembly is too easy- get a nice, shallow bowl and put a serving a rice down, then some chopped lettuce, then some meat, then shredded cheese, then sour cream, avacado or guacamole and some salsa. SO good and SO healthy! For my girls, I will use the meat/bean mixture and make them a quesadilla with it.

On Tuesday, my daughter who is in preschool, as her Spring performance at school- so dinner needs to be QUICK and easy. We are going to have Italian sub sandwiches and fresh veggies with ranch dressing for dipping. I am going to use some french bread I got from Wal Mart (FYI: Wal Mart's bakery makes the BEST french bread for $1 a loaf!!!!), cut it into sandwich sized slices and melt some muenster cheese on it under the broiler. Once it is nice and melted, I am going to layer thinly sliced deli ham, turkey and salami, a little shredded lettuce and some Italian salad dressing over the lettuce. UM. YUM. I LOVE sandwiches and could eat them every night! Most likely, unless my girls are feeling super adventurous, they will have a good ol' ham and cheese sandwich. Since I don't eat very many carbs, I will skip the bread and make my sandwich into an Italian salad :)

Wednesday is a very special day in our house because it is my youngest daughter's birthday!! We are having a Princess Tiana party for her and she has requested pizza for her birthday dinner. DONE! My husband will either pick up some Hot N Ready pizzas from Little Caesar's or some Take N Bake pizzas from Papa Murphy's. Either way...I am not cooking :) I want to spend all my time hanging out with the birthday girl :) Of course, we will be having cupcakes and chocolate chip ice cream for dessert!! :)

The great thing about making the "Chipotle Bowls" on Monday is that for Thursday's dinner, we will be having it again since it makes enough to feed our family twice! Depending on my husband's mood, I will either make him a "bowl" like I did on Monday, or use the turkey/black bean mixture to make him a big burrito. I will be having a bowl again because I love them :)

Since we had pizza on Wednesday for my daughter's birthday, we are going to switch things up on Friday and instead of our usual homemade pizza night, we are going to have a backyard picnic. I am going to lay out some big blankets, my husband will grill some hot dogs and we will have a nice, relaxing dinner outside to kick off the weekend!!

Saturday, we are participating in a walk supporting children with Cystic Fibrosis, and we will be finishing up the walk right around dinner time. We will either pack some sandwiches, fruit and chips and have a picnic dinner....or if the kiddos are minding their manners :), we might take them to Chick-Fil-A for a kids meal!

On Sunday, I am going to marinate some chicken breasts using some buttermilk and a taco seasoning packet. Then, I am going to have my husband grill it up and then chop it into really thin slices for Southwest chicken soft tacos. For a super yummy and easy side dish I am going to make some black refried beans. Most stores carry black refried beans in a can- and they are really good! I like to make my own by taking a can of drained, whole black beans and saute them with about 2/3 cup of salsa, salt, pepper, a little garlic powder and some cumin. After they cook for about 10 minutes, I dump everything into my blender and blend them until they are the consistency of refried beans.

Then I add about 1/4 cup of light sour cream and a handful of sharp, shredded cheddar cheese...just because it makes them extra good :) These beans are one of my husband's favorites!

And now for my favorite Aldi find of the week!!

Organic Whole Milk Yogurt!!

So- my baby boy LOVES yogurt. We had been buying him Yo-Baby...but that stuff is not cheap and he eats at least one, if not two yogurts a day...so I have been on the lookout for a large container of full fat yogurt that I could portion out myself. We could not find it anywhere! We looked at Kroger, Wal Mart and Marsh! Well...once again Aldi delivers! And it seems like this is an item that is here to stay versus a seasonal item that they don't always carry. (If it is a seasonal item, it will say that on the label where the name of the product and the price is labeled.)

Of course, I already threw out my receipt, but I am almost positive this huge container of ORGANIC yogurt was not more than $3.50!

So now instead of feeding my little chub muffin yo baby, I will spoon a big dollop of this yogurt in a bowl and mix in one of the fruit purees I have made. So simple and so much cheaper!