Meals this week

Hi everyone!
  So we are 3 days into the week and so far the meal planning has been a great success. Let me tell you what we're having this week..

Sunday: Slow cooker pulled pork (with rice and broccoli)
Monday: Tuna Casserole
Tuesday: Beef Tacos (or in my case taco salad)
Wednesday: Lemon Garlic Chicken
Thursday: Sloppy Joes
Friday: Corned Beef and Cabbage
Saturday: Hot dogs and Fries

And here are the recipes

Pulled pork

I have to say I absolutely love this recipe, I found it on thecountrycook.net. That site is amazing, I have used many of her recipes and never been disappointed!
To sum it up take a pork shoulder and coat it in Grill Mates pork rub (which is amazing!) put it is you slow cooker with a small bottle/can of either coke or dr pepper, I've tried both and either works great. And then set it and forget it for 6-8 hours or over night on low. When it is done take it out and discard the liquid in your slow cooker. Then pull the pork, put in back in the pot and cover it in bbq sauce... heaven!

Tuna Casserole

 I know this is not technically a meatless meal but it's a favorite in my house, and this recipe is actually one that I got from my mother and sister in law. Thanks for sharing :)

What you need;
1 bag of egg noodles
1 bag of mixed vegetables
2 cans of tuna
1 large can of cream of mushroom (or chicken) soup
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 tsp onion powder
salt and pepper to taste
1 sleeve of ritz crackers crushed

Preheat oven to 375. Boil your egg noodles and just before they are done add in the mixed vegetables
When they are done drain and set aside. In the same pot you made the noodles and veggies in place the soup and tuna, stir to combine. Add milk and stir. Add seasons and return noodles and veggies to the pot, stir. Place in a 13X9 pan and spread crushed crackers evenly over the top. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Lemon Garlic Chicken

This is a recipe I have never made before but I have dying to try. I hope it comes out well! I found the recipe here.

The only thing I changed about this recipe is that instead of using whole chicken breasts and finishing them in the oven I cut up the chicken and cooked it in the sauce. I also mixed it with pasta, to stretch it a little and served it with brown sugar glazed carrots. It was amazing, and the kids asked for seconds!

Corned Beef and Cabbage

This is a meal I loved as a child and I would honestly ask for any day of the week. But it was something we made special on St. Patrick's Day. I used to boil everything but then I found an amazing recipes from the Pioneer Woman for corned beef and I've been using it ever since! You can find it here. The corned beef comes out wonderfully!!

Hot Dogs and French Fries

I think this is pretty self explanatory. It is a big hit in my house any night of the week.

Slow Cooker Minestrone Soup
 Another new recipe for me this week! I have actually never made my own minestrone soup but I have always wanted to. I found the recipe here. The only thing I am going to change is that I don't have any sun dried tomato pesto so I'm going to leave that out.

Meal Planning.. a sanity saver!!

So I've been trying since probably the start of the school year.. (yeah that's right I'm talking about September) to get better about meal planning. For both budget reasons and for sanity reasons. :) Although I had the best of intentions nothing seemed to stick. It would go well for a day or two and then something would happen and I would end up defrosting something on the fly or ordering out or just microwaving something. So I took to my favorite place for ideas.. Pinterest! And low and behold I found an awesome pin, that led to an awesome blog post. Yay, right? So here is the link to the blog post... here.

Basically the article talks about how this wonderful mom feeds her family of 4 on $60 a week at Aldi's. (and I love Aldi's!) So I figured what the hey.. and wrote out a month's worth of meals following the schedule outline in the blog post.

Meatless Monday
Taco Tuesday
Web Wednesday
Throwback Thursday
Fancy Friday
Sandwich Saturday
Slow cooker Sunday

I am at the end of week one and I must say I love it. I just look at the schedule the day before and make sure I defrost the things needed for the next days meal. And once a week I go shopping for any fruits or veggies needed for that week's meal. It's kind of amazing.

I'll post recipes for this week soon!