Menu Plan Monday ~ Week of May 23rd

I'm really sad to say that last week's menu plan was a huge fail.  I made pasta salad instead of macaroni salad, I made the Spanish Rice, but didn't get to the quesadillas, the spaghetti was even considered...don't even get me started on the pulled pork! 



Cheesey Spanish Rice Bake



There were several factors that caused such a failure in meal planning last week: 

1. I was a bit ambitious in my selections last week, choosing recipes/meals that required a lot of chopping (macaroni salad, pasta salad, spaghetti sauce).  I really must have forgotten that I am a mother of a toddler that doesn't like me to be in the kitchen AT ALL!
2. I had an entire day that just didn't go right last week.  Grace woke super-early on Wednesday.  Of course, that was the day we had a play date scheduled.  The play date didn't go as planned, mostly because Grace wanted to take a nap right in the middle of playing since she was up so much earlier than normal.  I didn't even get a chance to relax after our guests left.  Remmy woke Grace up and there went naptime for me.  Good thing, I guess since the Emegency Broadcast System announced a tornado warning in our area.  That's rare, so I was really freaked out. 
3. After all of that, my allergies kicked in and knocked me on my butt for almost 3 days.  (Luckily, I had plenty of leftovers in the fridge.)
4. Grace and I had an unexpected outting to our local thrift shop's 1/2 Price Day!  We had a great time and found some wonderful deals, but we got home past dinner time.  I was too tired to cook and Grace was ready to eat.  So, leftovers it was....again. 
5. I completely forgot that there was a chicken BBQ in our town scheduled for the weekend.  We picked up 2 packs of BBQ chicken breasts and enjoyed them for dinner on Saturday and Sunday.   

This week, I'm keeping the plan pretty simple.  One, because I don't want a repeat of last week's failure.  And, two, because I have a feeling Grace is going to be a bit grumpy this week.  Seems like she has allergies too.  She's had a runny nose and watery eyes for most of the weekend.  Poor baby. 

Here's what's cookin' this week in my kitchen: 

• Monday:  Pasta with vegetables, salad, garlic bread.  I've made this pasta dish before and just realized that I forgot to share the recipe with you.  I usually make it a little different each time, but this time, I'll try to keep track of what I throw together! 

• Tuesday:  BBQ Chicken Salad Wraps.  We still have a bunch of chicken left over from the chicken BBQ over the weekend.  So, I was really happy that I remembered this recipe from last summer!  I already mixed up the salad after Sunday night's dinner.  I didn't have any homemade BBQ sauce in the fridge, so I used some Butch's Smack Your Lips BBQ Sauce that I ordered a few weeks ago.  Mmmmm! 

• Wednesday:  Easy Chicken Jambalaya.  IF we still have chicken left from the weekend, this will be the perfect recipe to finish it up.  But if not, I know there is some frozen, pre-cooked chicken in the freezer.We have errands to run after Joe gets done work.  Dinner will be quick and easy so we can get out and get home before Grace's bedtime. 

• Thursday:  Leftovers.  We have errands to run after Joe gets done work.  Leftovers will help me get dinner ready quickly and easily so we can get out and get home before Grace's bedtime

• Friday:  Penne with Spicy Sauce.  I love to try new pasta recipes.  Especially, if they claim to be spicy!  It's a meatless recipe, too!  We've been trying to eat a couple of meatless meals each week.  Some weeks we do better than others. 

• Saturday:  DiGiorno's Pizza.  We'll be using the last of the DiGiorno's Pizzas from the freezer.  I'll have to look out for another sale so we can stock up again! 

• Sunday:  Undecided.  Joe is on call for this holiday weekend.  So our plans are really up in the air.  We'll probably just hang out at home and enjoy watching Grace play in the yard while grilling some burgers and hot dogs.  Hopefully the weather will be nice.  It's been so rainy and dreary lately.  We only had one nice day last week. 

Okay, so that's what's on the menu at our house!  What will you be cooking up this week?  Join in and share your menu with us at Menu Plan Monday hosted by I'm an Organizing Junkie!