Welcome to BusyGalTips! With a background in social work, I thrive on helping others improve their lives! This is a creative way for me to live out my passion and share ways to make your busy life a little bit more manageable. ••••••••••••• Additional bonus tips can be found on Twitter and Facebook (click the links on the left). Enjoy!

6/20/2011

Busygals in the Kitchen: On the Menu This Week at BGT...

I thought I would share with y'all a typical week's menu in the BGT kitchen. 


You may remember some inspiration I received from Clare. True to my word, I have been planning out menus from Cooking With Trader Joe's incredible web site since January, and the benefits have been multi-faceted: we've been saving TONS of money, I've totally improved my cooking skills, we eat healthier, and we eat home-cooked meals that are filled with many organic veggies and fruits.


Here's a sample from this week (by the way, all the ingredients shown in this photo were $67. That's 5 meals-worth of food for two people, plus fruit and drinks, and 2 pre-made salad lunches, plus plenty of leftovers! I did have some of the ingredients already for the recipes below, which is why they're not in the photo. This is drastically less money than we used to spend on food when we were going out to meals pretty much 7 days per week).


Image courtesy of Busygaltips




Here's what's on the menu this week, taken straight from my grocery list at Cooking With Trader Joe's:
Image courtesy of cooktj.com

    • 1 (24-oz) bag Baby Red Potatoes (about 9-10 potatoes)
    • 3 Tbsp olive oil
    • 1/2 tsp salt
    • 1/4 tsp black pepper
    • 2 cubes frozen Crushed Garlic, or 2 cloves garlic, minced.
    • 3-4 sprigs fresh rosemary or 2 tsp dried rosemary
    • 2 (18 oz) tubes cooked polenta, sliced into 1/3" rounds
    • 1 pkg Soy Chorizo, removed from encasing, or substitute 1 lb meat cooked in Taco Seasoning
    • 2 (15 oz) cans black beans, drained
    • 3 zucchini squash, sliced
    • 1 large onion, chopped
    • 2 Tbsp olive oil
    • 1 cup shredded Mexican cheese
    • 1/2 cup Enchilada Sauce
    • 1/4 cup cilantro
    • Sour cream as garnish (optional)
    • I'm adding sliced Crimini Mushrooms to this recipe
    • This recipe is a favorite in our house!
    • 2 pieces of frozen Tandoori Naan, plain
    • 3-4 Tbsp Masala Simmer Sauce or other curry sauce
    • 1 cup frozen spinach, thawed and drained (squeeze the water out with your hands)
    • 2 Tbsp fresh Ricotta
    • 1/2 cup diced tomatoes
    • I've never made this...we'll see how it is!
    • 1/2 (16-oz) box No Boil Lasagna Noodles
    • 2 jars Tomato Basil Marinara (26 oz each)
    • 1 (14-oz) can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped (optional)
    • 1 bag frozen Misto all Griglia (grilled eggplant & zucchini), thawed
    • 3 cups shredded mozzarella
    • 1 (15-oz) container Fresh Ricotta or Fat Free Ricotta
    • 1 (16-oz) bag frozen chopped spinach, thawed
    • 1/4 cup Parmesan or grated Pecorino Romano
    • Basil or Italian parsley for garnish (optional)
    • I'm adding sliced Crimini Mushrooms to this recipe
    • 1 bag (16 oz) fusilli pasta (I used Brown Rice Pasta for this one)
    • 1 7-oz container of refrigerated Genova Pesto
    • 1/2 bag of baby spinach (3 oz)
    • 1 16-oz container heirloom cherry tomato mix
    • 1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
    • 1 container Ciliegine (fresh mozzarella balls), drained
    • Blarg...I forgot the fusili pasta!!! Someone want to pick some up for me? ;)

    So there you have it...a typical weekly menu in the BGT kitchen. If you haven't been using cooktj.com, or the menu planning idea, I highly recommend it! It's a time and money saver in our house!!!

0 comments:

Post a Comment