Menu Monday

    We're back home from our wedding weekend and are ready for a full week at home just the three of us with no big plans. We have a majorly busy October so it's nice to have this week to recharge. All we plan to do this week is get some things done around the house like yard work and some cleaning. Also, this week, it is officially fall in Kentucky and it is so cold. So we're going to be eating a lot of meals meant to warm us up. And because I recently got the second Pioneer Woman cookbook, I plan to make a few recipes from it. Yum!

• Monday: Parenting class. Tim and I have our parenting class with some folks from our church on Mondays so we eat dinner with them. This means that my kitchen will stay clean and I don't have to do dishes tonight. Yay! 
• Tuesday: Beefy chorizo chili. This recipe is one I pulled from the October 2012 issue of Rachael Ray Magazine. The article was called "Chili 10 Ways" and featured a classic recipe for beef and bean chili with ways to substitute, add, or remove ingredients to make nine other varieties of chili. This particular recipe stood out to me because I have some leftover chorizo in my freezer that I have had no idea what to do with for a while and this looks like a good way to finally cook with it. And the weather this week is supposed to be really cold so a lot of cold-weather warm recipes are on our menu for the week.

• Wednesday: Tequila lime chicken with black beans and mexican rice. This is a recipe from Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond's new cookbook. You can find the recipe on the Tasty Kitchen website. Pioneer Woman describes this as "a scrumptious marinated, grilled chicken breast you can serve with pico de gallo, refried black beans, and flour tortillas. Wonderfully flavorful!" It just looks really yummy and I love Mexican food and could eat it at least once every week.

•  Thursday: Slow cooker split pea soup. Tim has been begging for split pea soup for a couple weeks now so I'm going to try this Betty Crocker recipe from a cookbook that I have. You can also find the recipe online. I will probably make some changes based on my normal split pea soup recipe, but I'm am interested in trying it in the slow cooker to make it easier on me. 

• Friday: Steakhouse pizza. I made this Pioneer Woman recipe a month or so ago and I have been thinking about it ever since. I loved it. Tim wasn't a huge fan, but he doesn't like onions as much as I do. I will make my own pizza dough and while I have this recipe, Tim will be playing around with some other ingredients to make his own pizza.

• Saturday: Beef stew. Pioneer Woman calls this a "scrumptious, simple beef stew recipe that’s perfect for warming your soul." And it is going to be so cold this week, that we will need some soul-warming (and tummy-warming) food. I first made this recipe last fall after my sweet Washington friend Amanda brought me beef stew after Owen was born earlier that year and I had a huge craving for it. I don't have her specific recipe, but this one from Pioneer Woman is really delicious and makes a ton. We had it on Halloween last year too. Yum!

•  Sunday: Shepherd's pie. I will be using my leftover beef stew, plus some frozen vegetables and mashed potatoes to make a quick and easy shepherd's pie. I don't mind eating leftovers that much, but if I can change up the leftovers a bit so that it's not exactly the same thing, then that's even better. Pioneer Woman suggested doing this with her beef stew in her cookbook, but there is no recipe or photo available on the Internet that I could find.