Cooking The Plan

This week, I finally had the chance to try out my new cooking routines. I'd wanted to do nights of different dishes, as I blogged about here.

The last couple of weeks Mrs. LB has been working strange hours and traveled so I couldn't really get to it but this week has been sort of normal. And I know the week is not over yet but I have my dinners planned for today and tomorrow.

I was thinking about dedicating one post a week for the dinner stuff, to try and hold myself accountable. I may still do that but for now this might be more sporadic than anything - in many ways much like my weekly meal plans.

On Monday, I made tacos, like the kind you'd get at some Mexican fast food place. I bought the taco shells. For the meat, I cooked up about 3/4 pounds of ground beef and about 1/4 pound chorizo. After the meat browned, I threw in some chopped onions and chopped red bells and let it all cook down. I made my go-to rice recipe, Mexican Rice from All Recipes. The dinner was a success, very tasty and not difficult to make. This served as my Mexican night, and really that will be a lay-up for me every time. That's what I know best, Mexican food, so we that shouldn't be too hard.

Tuesday I went for... well, I don't really know. It wasn't Pasta Night, although it could have counted. I made a recipe out of a cookbook Yvie got for Christmas, a Paula Deen cookbook. It was called Cheeseburger Casserole. I wasn't quite sure about it. First, I browned some ground beef (I again used a ground beef-chorizo mixture), threw in some onions, red bells, garlic, then some canned tomatoes and oregano. I boiled some egg noodles, then threw everything together in a 9-by-13 baking dish, topped it with shredded colby Jack cheese and baked it for about 15 minutes. I wasn't expecting much but this was a very tasty and excellent dish. Score one for Paula Deen's cookbook!

Kennedy and I spent the day at Disneyland on Wednesday, so no cooking. We went out for dinner, so that's okay because I give myself an out once a week. Well, at least I will give myself one out so I don't feel like I have to cook every single night.

Today I have this planned: Slow Cooker Italian Beef for Sandwiches, another All Recipes recipe. I have all the ingredients and just have to get it together before I take Kennedy to school.

This looks delicious, and really not a whole lot of prep work for me. It's a slow cooker so that will do all the work. I've only recently been using the slow cooker so I still am getting used to it. I think this counts as my Slow Cooker Night.

I'd wanted Fridays to be Pasta Night, just beacuse the carbs will help with my running. But Tuesday's dinner might fit that bill. I might go for some chicken. Actually, now that I think about it, Mrs. LB has a late night at work so I'm not sure if I will get to anything substantial. Might have leftovers as I anticipate the Italian beef sandwiches will yield some leftovers.

I think I strained my brain enough just to have planned this stuff out, so as of yet I have no plans for the weekend's dinners. Usually we have something going on during the weekends so it's just a matter of fitting it all in. We'll see how I fit in dinners on the weekend.