Weekly Menu #1!

Some of our dedicated readers may remember us doing monthly menus about a year ago. They were a big hit and earned us lots of pins on Pinterest (thank you :), however they were a bit of work to format on our part. Especially because both of the magical moms contributed to each monthly menu, there was a lot of formatting and fonts between computers that just wasn't easy to work with. And because most moms usually go grocery shopping on a weekly basis, we thought this format would work a little better for us, and make it a little more organized for you.

We put the weekly menus together with our tried and true recipes, and you get all the adoring compliments from your family! We will suggest a starch and veggie/fruit dish for each main course (pasta meals already have the starch). And remember, all of our posts are recipes that we use, and the pictures are our actual meals (have you ever made a recipe from Facebook and they show ingredients that aren't even on the ingredient list? Well that's because a lot of websites use stock photos- paid for photos of other food!) And we always welcome comments and questions for each of our posts. We are magical, but that doesn't mean we don't make mistakes, or that someone may alter a recipe that really needs to be shared with everyone, so comment away!

Each week we'll try to have a good mix between beef, chicken, pork, pasta, seafood, etc. Our weekly menus will also be relative to the time of year... not a lot of grilling recipes during the winter months, and less crock pot in the summer. We also realize that it may not be realistic for you to cook at home all 7 nights of the week (don' think that's ever really happened at my house), so our weekly menus are just Monday-Friday for 5 dinners a week. Shift them around as needed of course, but that's just how we'll lay it out for simplicity's sake.

Monday
Herb Butter Steakhouse Steak
2-Step Potatoes with Loaded Sour Cream
Henderson House Salad

Tuesday
Coco Loco Chicken Tenders
Better Than Rice-a-Roni  Broccoli Cheddar Rice
Garlic Parmesan Green Beans

Wednesday
Spicy Bacon Carbonara
Low Carb Italian Chopped Salad

Thursday
Buffalo Thigh Surprise
Garlic Rosemary Potato Wedges
Herb Butter Corn on the Cob

Friday
Spicy Italian Shredded Beef Sandwiches
Oven Roasted Asparagus

I'm sure this will be a weekly menu your family rave about!

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Weeknight Crispy Chicken Pasta & Strawberry Orange Spinach Salad

I've been debating for a while on what to call this. I got my inspiration from Chicken Parmesan, but needed something that I could cook in a much shorter amount of time.  I almost called it Chicken Parmesan casserole, but figured the name would turn my kids off to it. For this dish I used precooked frozen chicken tenders to make it a quick weeknight meal. The key to making this dish cook so quickly is "pre-cooking" the meat. It's going to sound like a ridiculous process, but trust me it gets done a lot faster this way:)

Ingredients:
10 oz. of uncooked rotini or penne pasta (I use the veggie kind to hide some nutrition)
1 Tbsp. Butter
1/4 cup diced onion
1 clove minced garlic
4 frozen chicken tenders (the kind you get precooked in a bag)
1 jar spaghetti or marinar sauce
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup shredded parmesan

Start off by getting your pasta water boiling. Then chop up your onions and heat up the butter in a skillet on medium and cook the onions until they are translucent and some start to turn brown. Meanwhile add your pasta to or of water once it starts to boil.

Now for the chicken...to get the chicken to cook fast, place it on a microwave safe place and cook for 1.5 minutes. These speeds up the cooking time by a lot! Then place in oven at 400 for about 7 minutes to get it crispy. We don't want to wait to cook this in the oven with the whole meal put together because again, it will take too long. Using the microwave and stovetop will allow us to just be able to broil the finished meal for 3 minutes. You're really just using the time it takes to boil the pasta to heat the chicken quickly. Now you can add the garlic to your onions and cook about 3 minutes then turn to low.

About the time is your pasta is done, you're chicken can come out of the oven. Leave the oven on so it stays hot for the finished product. Slice the chicken tenders and add them to the skillet with the onions and garlic.

Turn back up to medium high and cook the chicken for 3-4 minutes to get even crispier. While it looks like a lot, this whole process up to now should only have taken 10-15 minutes.  Reduce the heat on the skillet to medium. Add your sauce to the skillet, again just long enough to heat it thoroughly.

Drain your pasta and mix the sauce and chicken mix to the pasta in a large bowl and toss around to coat the pasta in the sauce. Add about half of the mozzarella and Parmesan to the bowl and stir. Pour into a 2 quart oven safe dish, top with the remaining cheese and stick in the oven. Turn your oven to broil and cook just until the cheese starts to brown.

For the salad, I really can't even call this a recipe. While I do love to make my own salad dressings and such, I'm trying to throw this entire meal together in about 20 minutes, so I'm using  jarred dressing and canned fruit!

Strawberry Orange Spinach Salad (just use the desired amount of each for the number of people eating the salad):
Baby spinach
Mandarin oranges (the canned kind)
Pine nuts
Gorgonzola or mozzarella cheese
Strawberry vinaigrette (could also use a raspberry dressing and change the name to Raspberry Orange Spinach Salad)

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and toss just before serving. Enjoy!

Sweet and Spicy Chicken Sliders

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I don't know about you, but my family doesn't like to repeat meals often. Unless it's spaghetti or tacos, I can usually only get away with making a meal every couple months. Plus I like to make new things so I can share with our readers! But I don't always like to reinvent the wheel, sometimes it's just finding a different way to prepare he same ingredients. Like this meal, my Sweet and Spicy Chicken Sliders. I'm taking basically the same ingredients from our Sweet and Spicy Bacon Wrapped Chicken, but turning them into tiny bite size sliders. They really aren't a whole lot of work but they are definitely a lot of flavor!

Ingredients:

3 large chicken breasts

1 Tbsp. Cajun seasoning

1 tsp. cayenne pepper

Salt and pepper

2 Tbsp. Brown sugar

12 slices bacon

Provolone or preferred sliced cheese

Hawaiian rolls

Preferred toppings

Start off by pounding your chicken breasts into thin pieces. Then cut each chicken breast into quarters. I trim off some of the pieces so they will nicely fit on the rolls and then cook the leftover pieces and store in the fridge for some crazy leftover dish my husband can create another day. Then season the chicken with Cajun seasoning, cayenne and salt and pepper.muse more or less to suit your taste. The cayenne pepper is very spicy, so if you're not big on spice, use a lot less or none at all. Store in the fridge until you're ready to grill.

Next cut your bacon slices in half and cook until crispy. Keep the bacon grease to cook the chicken in. You can use the same pan, but I like to use my grill pan, so I pour the bacon grease onto the grill pan. Heat the grill pan (or keep the same pan) at medium heat. Place your little chicken breasts and cook a few minutes each side or until chicken is cooked thoroughly. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cook just until the sugar melts into a glaze. Place a bacon slice or two on top of the chicken, then top with cheese. Cut your cheese slices if necessary so they aren't bigger then your little chicken breasts. Cook until they are melted.

Cook the Hawaiian rolls per package directions. Let cool slightly then cut them in half with a good bread knife. Serve the mini chicken breasts with cheese on a roll topped with a few slices of bacon. Add any condiments or toppings you prefer.

Tonight I kept the bar food theme and served these with Perfect Potato Skins. Yum!

30 Minute Chicken- Magical Mom Style

So last week both Tracy and I had Pampered Chef parties. One of the items we both got with our free product was the Deep Covered Baker. We quickly found out this baker has a multitude of uses, one of them being you can cook a whole chicken in the microwave in 30 minutes!! Pampered Chef does have a recipe on their website for a chicken, but you know I can't just copy a recipe, I have to make it my own!

Anyway, I used our old standby recipe for herb butter and smoothed it all underneath the skin of the chicken. Yes, underneath. The skin is water tight, so if you put the butter on the outside it doesn't really soak into the meat. Trust me, under the skin is the way to go.

Don't worry, if you don't have the baker, you can cook this in a large corningware, or just cook in your oven or crockpot (but it will take a heck of a lot longer). It will still taste delicious!

Herb butter:

• 1/2 stick real butter
• 1 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary and thyme
• 1/2 tsp. lemon zest

Bring butter to room temp and mix in the herbs.

Chicken spices:

• 1 Tbsp. paprika
• Dashes garlic powder, thyme, black pepper and salt

Make sure to clean out the chicken's insides. cut any extra fat and rinse the chicken. As I mentioned above, rub the herb butter under the chicken skin. Sprinkle the spices on top. Mist the baker with olive oil and place chicken inside. Cook in microwave for 30 minutes or until chicken reaches 165 degrees. Remove from microwave, cover and let rest 10 minutes.

Yummy!!