Weekly Menu #6

Monday
Pesto Chicken and Pasta
Side Salad

Tuesday
Tequila Lime Shrimp with Cumin Rice
Grilled Veggies

Wednesday
French Onion Salisbury Steak
Buttered Corn on the Cob

Thursday
BBQ Chicken Potato Skins
Sweet Potato Fries

Friday
Pocket Burgers with Crispy Onion Straws
Grilled Veggies

And as always, check out these snacks and desserts to bring an extra big smile to your kiddos face!

Be sure to check out our other weekly menus here.


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Weekly Menu #5

Now that we've had a few nice days, I'm really itching to cook on the grill. Just the other night we threw some hot dogs on the grill because it was a last minute decision and we didn't have anything else to grill, and then sat around by a fire once the sun went down and it was awesome! So we'll start incorporating a few more grill ideas as we move forward. Hopefully it will get so nice outside that we can do an entire week full of grilled dinners!

Monday
Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms
Flattened Redskin Potatoes

Tuesday
Cha Cha Chicken Tacos with mango Tango Salsa

Wednesday
Spicy Italian Beef Sandwiches
Cucumber Salad

Thursday
Grilled Bourbon Pork Medallions
Grilled Rosemary Chive Potatoes
Waldorf Salad

Friday
Lazy Lasagna
Caesar Salad

Here are some suggested snacks and desserts to go along with your menu this week.

Be sure to check out our other weekly menus for ideas and inspiration for your family's meal planning.

Follow the Magical Moms on Facebook and Pinterest for weekly menu ideas, crafts, and Disney Magic. 

Weekly Menu #4

I'm not sure about you, but I am ready for winter to end!  It has been so snowy and cold here and I just can't wait for a little sunshine... and grilling! I did put a grill recipe in this week, but I am just going to make on my grill pan indoors. The key lime flavor will transport me to a tropical location in all this cold. I also threw in a few of my favorite slow cooker recipes, since we aren't anywhere tropical and nothing says "burr" better than a warm meal in the slow cooker.

Weekly Menu #3

For this week's menu, we are going back to some of our original recipe posts! Boy you can tell we've come a long way in our picture presentation, lol! Even though the pictures aren't a scrumptious looking, we promise the recipes are. The Creamy Garlic Ranch Pork Chops are one of our most viewed recipes ever. And of course we only included 5 because we know you're going to have pizza and PB&J's for dinner sometime this week, right? Isn't that what all busy families do??

Weekly Menu #2

Here is our round up of our 2nd Weekly Menu plan. All of these dinners are sure to please! We can say this with confidence because these our our recipes and our pictures, not just ones we have taken off the internet and use stock photos. Our pictures may not be magazine worthy, but this is what you can expect your food to really look like (heck, sometimes we even post half eaten pictures because we could not hold our husbands off long enough to take a good pic:).

And we're adding a couple dessert/snack recipes now to go along with our menu plans. Just check out the suggested recipes below the daily menu plan.

As always, change the recipes up to fit your weekly schedule. We only post 5 because we assume you'll have leftovers and probably eat out or on the run sometime this week.

Monday
Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Bowls

Tuesday
Sausage 3-Cheese Stuffed Shells
Simple Italian Side Salad

Wednesday
Sweet Garlic Chicken Legs
Hassleback Potatoes

Thursday
Hearty Beef Stew

Friday
Honey I ate the Pork
Better Than Rice-a-Roni Rice Pilaf
Steamed Veggies

Here are some great dessert recipes to go along with your weekly dinners:

Enjoy!!

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Pizza Steak Burger

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I recently saw a pizza burger recipe over on the Pioneer Woman's blog and that reminded me of this sandwich I used to love as a kid that was served at a local root beer stand here in Cincinnati. Unlike the Pioneer Woman's recipe, this one was very basic and didn't have all the toppings like hers did. It also had the cheese inside the burger, not just on top. I figured a plain version would be more kid friendly in my house, and it wanted to try putting the cheese on the inside. I'm not a huge fan of Italian sausage so I use regular breakfast sausage instead and I always use ground sirloin instead of ground beef because it is lower in fat.

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground sirloin
1/2 lb. sausage
1 packet of Italian dressing mix
Butter
1/4 cup diced onions
Sliced provolone or mozzarella
Pizza sauce (I use a local one from LaRosa's)
Kaiser rolls from a bakery
Any preferred toppings (I top mine with a few onions, pickle slices and a tiny bit of mayo)

Mix your sirloin, sausage and Italian dressing packet together in large bowl. Prepare a spot for your burgers on the counter by placing wax paper on your counter. Take a small ball of the meat mixture in your hand and shape into a thin patty. Place a slice of cheese or two on top, then top it with another thin patty. Keep doing this until all your meat is used.

I'm making these in a large skillet inside on my stove,  but you can cook on your outside grill. If cooking inside, my trick for some of the best tasting burgers is to cook diced onions in some butter until the onions are carmelized. I then cook the burgers on top of the caramelized onions. To caramelized the onions, you'll want to cook them over medium heat until the onions not only become translucent, but start to turn brown. Since you diced the onions, they will shrivel up to the point where you'll barely even notice them after you cook the burgers. If you're grilling outside you'll skip this step.

Cook the burgers to your desired done ness, and remove from heat. Split your kaiser rolls  and stick in a 400 degree oven for just a few minutes. Warm the pizza sauce, then assemble your burgers on the rolls with the pizza sauce and any toppings you prefer. Serve with a delicious salad and dinner is done!

Spaghetti Lasagna with Garlic Cheese Toast

Spaghetti is one of the few meals that I can count on all 3 of my kids getting excited about. I try to change it up and sometimes they like the changes, sometimes they don't. This is one of the changes they enjoy and it allows me and my husband a change to the plain old boring spaghetti routine. You get a lot of the flavor of lasagna, but in an easy weeknight dinner meal.

Ingredients:
1/2 lb. ground sirloin/beef or turkey
1/2 lb. sausage (I use regular sausage but you can use Italian sausage
Spaghetti noodles
Jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce
8 oz. ricotta cheese
Parmesan cheese

It's pretty simple, you just make like you would spaghetti... Cook noodles according to package directions, brown the beef and sausage until done... then add the sauce and ricotta to the meat mixture and cook over medium low until bubbly. Serve the sauce over the spaghetti noodles and sprinkle with cheese. 20 minutes cooking time but with all the flavor of lasagna!

For the Garlic Cheese Toast:
French bread slices
Butter, room temp
Garlic powder
Shredded mozzarella
Parmesan
Paprika

Butter the bread slices, sprinkle with garlic powder, top with desired amount of cheeses and sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes. Use it to slop up all that yummy sauce.

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!!

Sausage, Beans and Rice (Gluten-free)

Let's be honest, this sounds like a pretty smile recipe. But I try to avoid the boxed rice varieties just because they are full of fillers and preservatives. So this recipe is really about how to make the Cajun flavored rice portion of this popular dish without having to buy a boxed rice. It's also gluten-free when you make it yourself, most boxed versions are not. I also recommend buying a nitrate-free all natural gluten-free sausage. If you can't find them in the longer links, you can usually find with the bun-sized smoke sausages. There are lots of chicken and turkey varieties out there with less fat as well. For the beans, we use Bush's brand because all of their brands are gluten free. Many other brands use wheat as a thickening agent. We are not a gluten-free household, but my little sister who visits for dinner frequently does have celiac disease, so I always plan a few gluten free meals each week.

Ingredients:

• 2 cup instant brown rice
• 1 can chicken broth
• 2 Tbsp olive oil or butter
• 1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 1/2 tsp minced garlic or garlic powder
• 1 tsp Cajun seasoning
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1 link gluten-free smoked sausage (or kielbasa or andouille)
• 1 can Bush's Chili Beans

Cook rice according to package directions except substitute chicken broth for water. You may need to add just a bit more water to get the correct rice to broth ratio. While rice is cooking, heat the oil/butter in pan over med/high heat and add pepper, onion and garlic. Cook until veggies get tender.

 Add cooked rice and remaining spices to the pan with cooked veggies. Cook on low. Meanwhile slice sausage and cook in separate skillet over med/high heat until cooked thoroughly. Add sausage and can of beans to the rice and cook over medium until heated thoroughly.

You can substitute any gluten free beans, but if they are not chili beans just increase the chili powder to 1 1/2 teaspoons.