Simple Suppers: Week of September 14th

You ready to eat? Me too. Eliminate the “what’s for dinner” dilemma with some simple meal planning. Or, cheat and use mine.

Diner beware, this meal plan was based on what was on sale at my Harris Teeter (North Carolina) and what was in my freezer. I also rely on a lot of pantry staples that I keep on hand. I’ll include links to all the recipes, so double check to make sure you have all the ingredients you’ll need.

Pantry Staples: Spices, Vinegars, Soy Sauce

I really love when a lot of my recipes overlap on an ingredient or two. This week’s overlap, for some reason, seemed to be scallions and sour cream. Which is delightful, since both those objectives almost always seem to turn into science experiments in my fridge!

Get Hungry! I’ll give you the quick run-down, then details to follow.

Mon: Pork Tenderloin with peanut sauce, sauteed broccoli and a green salad
Tues: Chicken Marsala with whole wheat linguine, asparagus
Wed: Chef’s Salad
Thurs: Black Bean Tostadas with Spicy Chicken Sausage

Details here:

Monday: Pork tenderloin (half-price @ Teeter), with peanut sauce, sauteed broccoli and a green salad. I’ll be making the sauce and broccoli from this recipe, but subbing pork instead. You can, of course, stick with the flank steak si vous plait.

Peanut Sauce

Tuesday: Chicken Marsala with roasted asparagus (on sale @ Teeter). This recipe originated from the Weight Watcher’s Simply the Best cookbook, and it’s wonderful. And EASY. (Yay easy.) You can eat it solo, or serve it over brown rice or whole wheat linguine. Matt will be having it over linguine, because we have some in the pantry. I’ll be eating it solo, because we don’t have that much in the pantry. To roast the asparagus, after you snap off the ends and wash them, throw in a ziploc baggie with 1 T of Olive Oil. Shake, shake, shake, and lay out on cookie sheet. Add a pinch of kosher salt, and roast in the oven at 400 for 10-ish minutes.

Wednesday: Chef’s Salad. I like this one because it’s a little bit decadent with the bacon (Oscar Meyer – on sale @ Teeter) but it uses a really light homemade dressing. I’ll actually sub half of the sour cream it calls for and put in Stonyfield Plain Lowfat yogurt. (Also on sale at Teeter. I know, isn’t this amazing???) You can order the meat from the deli and just ask them to slice it very thick, 1 inch, and chop it into pieces yourself.)

My Favorite Swap Ingredient

Thursday: Black Bean Tostada with Spicy Chicken Sausage. Brace yourself, I’ve got another Everyday Food recipe. (That’s my #1 source of recipes, so expect many to come from there.) I’ll use this recipe, and I’ll add in al fresco au natural chicken sausage to my hubby’s, so his isn’t a vegetarian option. For the chicken sausage, just tear open the casing, and brown in a nonstick skillet and mix in with the black beans. The spicy jalapeno one is the best for this.

By Friday, we like to kick our feet up and let someone else do the cooking. No, unfortunately, not our personal chef, just restaurant eating. Or, one of our willing friends or neighbors. So, I rarely plan through Friday. Hope this is enough to get you started on meal planning, using your pantry staples and grocery store sales. Get cooking!

*If you want to calculate the calorie counts for any of these meals, just plug your ingredients and servings into this here website and let them do their calculating magic.