Menu Monday

      I have a couple new recipes that I am excited to try this week and some old favorite comfort foods to round out the week. Tim and I are trying to cut down our grocery budget so I only have a certain amount of cash I can spend per week at the grocery store. Last week, I came in under budget and I'm hoping I can do the same this week, though I am a little nervous due to the amount of meat and dairy products I need to buy today. Eep! Wish me luck!
     Anyway, here is our menu for the week. As you can see, we are leaning heavily on some Pioneer Woman recipes this week because I just love all her soup recipes and I love having soup when it's cold and rainy outside. Also, while I love Skinny Taste, she hasn't be posting many dinner recipes lately so I'm hoping she'll have some new main course meals coming soon. To link to the recipes, click on the name of the recipe. What are you eating this week?

• Monday: Perfect potato soup. I have never been a big potato soup fan because most recipes call for cheese and if you didn't know, I don't do cheese other than on pizza. But after having potato soup at my mother-in-law's house during Christmas, I have been craving it ever since. And when I noticed this new recipe on Pioneer Woman's blog this week, I knew I had to try it out. The recipe uses bacon and cajun spice, two ingredients that I'm curious to see their affect on potato soup. Yum! 

• Tuesday: Stuffed buffalo chicken breasts with a side salad. This is a newer Skinny Taste recipe that is similar to her other recipes using rolled up chicken cutlets and a filling of various cheeses and vegetables. We love her zucchini roll-ups and because I have leftover celery from last week, I thought these would be yummy and help use up the rest of my celery. 

• Wednesday: Easy mulligatawny. This is an old favorite and Tim's request for the week. This Pioneer Woman soup recipe is super easy to make and surprisingly good despite it's strange assortment of ingredients. Green apple is soup? What?! This soup is especially good when you dip crusty French bread in it to sop up all the yummy broth. 

• Thursday: Leftover Dr. Pepper shredded pork sandwiches with coleslaw and sweet potato fries. I have had leftovers of this pork in my freezer for several months now and we need to use it up before it gets all frosty and gross. It will also help us stay in budget this week for our grocery bill. I am curious to see if the meat will be spicier since it's had longer to mingle. I don't exactly know if flavors can mingle when they're frozen, but I feel like spaghetti sauce flavors always seem to get better after they've been frozen. Maybe that's just me. 

• Friday: Chicken pot pie with cheddar crust. This is our favorite chicken pot pie recipe and one I found in Food Network magazine last winter. I haven't made it since we lived in Washington and it's about time. The recipe is very time-consuming, but it tastes so good and we will for sure have plenty of leftovers to eat the next day. I am positive that Owen will love it too. (He was still eating purees that last time I made this). P.S. I leave out the mushrooms because I don't trust fungi in my food. 

• Saturday: Leftovers. 

• Sunday: Corn chowder with chiles. This is my favorite recipe for corn chowder. But beware, it is spicy! The heat comes from both green chiles and chipolte chiles in adobo sauce. I also love the addition of corn meal to thicken it and add a nice corn flavor. If you've never made corn chowder, please give this a try. You won't regret it. Also, I recommend cooking the bacon, but instead of leaving it in the soup to get soggy, I would crumble it on top after the soup is done cooking.