Menu Plan Monday!

Hi!!

Happy Monday!! How was your weekend?? Ours was a lot of fun...we went to a cookout on Saturday afternoon and spent Sunday celebrating the best Daddy ever! I am totally beginning to sound like a broken record...but I sure do LOVE summer time!!

I don't know about you...but my desire for cooking and planning meals decreases significantly during the summer months.  The last place I want to be is in the kitchen cooking AND most of the time I would just rather grab a couple take-n-bake pizzas or make some sandwiches for dinner.  But...that really doesn't go over well with my husband and my kiddos- HA!

So...my compromise is- I will keep planning our dinners- but they are going to be NO FUSS MEALS.

I am going to keep making sure we are having a variety of meals...but none of them are going to take much effort to put together.  

My family is happy...and momma is happy- WIN-WIN!

Here is our super, simple summer menu plan for this week:

Menu Plan

Monday: Shredded Barbecue Pork Tenderloin Sandwiches, green beans and Harvest cheddar Sun Chips

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday!!  

Wednesday: Grilled "Italian" chicken, white cheddar pasta and steamed broccoli

Thursday: Hot dogs on the grill, galaxy bites and mandarin oranges

Friday: Personal Pizzas on the Grill

Saturday: Shredded barbecue pork quesadillas with black refried beans

Sunday: Grilled chicken, zucchini, and mushrooms + mashed potatoes

For tonight's (Monday) dinner, I am going to put a pork tenderloin I picked up from Aldi over the weekend in the crock pot with about a cup of water and let it cook on low all day until it is all cooked.  I don't need to add any other seasonings because the pork tenderloin came packaged in a yummy barbecue marinade.  Once the pork is cooked, I am going to shred it up and serve it on hamburger buns with some melted muenster cheese and a few pickle slices.  Some steamed green beans and a handful of Sun Chips should make this a pretty tasty summer time meal! :) (The leftover pork we have from this meal I am going to put in the freezer for our dinner on Saturday!)

Tuesday night is Taco Tuesday Night!! I am going to brown some lean ground turkey with a can of rotel (diced tomatoes and green chiles) for our taco "filling."  I love making "baked" tacos by filling crunchy taco shells with some ground turkey and shredded sharp cheddar cheese- then popping them under the broiler until everything is hot and the cheese is melted!  We top our tacos with shredded lettuce, sour cream and salsa. YUM! For my girls, I break crunchy taco shells in half, top with some meat and cheese and melt them under the broiler.  We call them "taco chips" and they love them!  

For Wednesday night's dinner, I am going to have Aaron grill some chicken breast that I have marinated in zesty Italian salad dressing.  Once a week, I buy a couple pounds of fresh chicken breast from the meat counter at our local Kroger.  I trim any fat off of them, put a couple chicken breast each in a freezer storage bag and then pour some zesty Italian salad dressing over them.  Then I put the chicken in the freezer.  All my prep work is done!  All I have to do is pull out a bag of chicken about an hour before we are ready to grill and it is ready to go!  Freezing the chicken in the Italian dressing just really adds an extra dose of flavor...this is our "go-to" method for marinading our chicken!!

Since summer started, Thursday night at our house has become "hot dog" night.  We buy ours in bulk at Sam's Club (we are VERY partial to the Hebrew National Brand)- so we always have them on hand.  My kids LOVE them (so does my husband!)- so at least for the summer months, grilled hot dogs is going to have a pretty regular spot on our menu plan!  Along with our hot dogs, the girls each get a couple galaxy bites, which are basically a cross between a french fry and a tater tot- they come in shapes like moons, stars and suns- they are so cute!  Instead of a veggie tonight- I am going to serve the kiddos some mandarin oranges.  You should see my baby take down some mandarin oranges- HA! I just stare at him in awe of how fast he can shove 10 orange pieces in his mouth!! Needless to say- he enjoys them :)

On Friday night, we are having a couple of the new first year residents from my husband's program come over for pizza.  To make it a little more fun- we are going to have everyone make their own personal pizza.  I am going to make some homemade pizza dough and have that all ready to go.  We will have just a few simple toppings: mozzarella cheese, pepperoni and mushrooms.  Grilling the pizza gives it such a yummy flavor, we have found that we don't need a bunch of crazy toppings.  I am going to have some fresh veggies and hummus out while we are hanging out making pizzas- my favorite kind of hummus is the roasted red pepper hummus from Aldi- SO YUMMY!!  For dessert, I am going to make one of Shay's bundt cakes- haven't decided on the flavor yet- but you CAN'T go wrong with any of them!!

For Saturday night's dinner, we are going to take the leftover pork we made on Monday and have barbecue pork quesadillas!!  During the summer, we actually make our quesadillas on the grill!  We just put down a tortilla right on the grill, on low-medium heat, add some pork and then a mixture of mozzarella cheese (I will have some leftover from pizza night) and sharp cheddar cheese, top with another tortilla and flip it after a couple of minutes.  The tortilla gets grill marks and the quesadilla has a slight smoky flavor- seriously SO good.  And the HUGE bonus is- I am not in my kitchen standing over a hot stove!! Yay for cooking outside!  Alongside our quesadillas, we will have some black refried beans (I pulled some out of the freezer)- I shared the recipe a couple weeks ago- you can check it out here!

Sunday's dinner is EASY. Grilled chicken and veggies + mashed potatoes.  I am going to pull out some of our marinaded chicken from the freezer and put some zucchini and baby portabella mushrooms on some skewers- and put it all on the grill.  I am majorly cheating and going to heat up some prepared mashed potatoes (my husband and girls really like Bob Evans Original Mashed Potatoes- I can get them at our local Aldi).  I am all about making a big batch of homemade mashed potatoes when it is winter time...but summer time calls for some extra help in the kitchen- at least at my house! HA!

That is what's for dinner at our house.  Hopefully if you are feeling the same way I am- pretty unmotivated to cook- and would just really prefer to serve a cereal smorgasbord every night-HA!- you can get a little inspiration from some of the simple meal ideas I am making this week.
I would love for you to share some of your easy recipes/meal ideas that you default to in the summer! I need all the help I can get-HA!

Hope you have a wonderful day!!

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I am linking up with Laura today!