The PINcentive Blog Hop: Week 5

PLEASE NOTE: The PINcentive Blog Hop week 6 will resume onOctober 15th!  Mark your calendar; you don’t want to miss out!  We’ll be choosing 4 winners, one of which will receive a special surprise in addition to being featured, having their content pinned a minimum of 31 times, co-hosting our next hop, and priority seating!

Menu Plan Monday: 9/30/2013

Ok, it's the end of the day. You just worked your butt off for 8 hours or possibly even more. You are beat tired. Then all of sudden your stomach grumbles with such a ferocity that it could scare a small child. You need food... NOW! Ugh, you know there is nothing at home to cook, but yet you really don't want to have another drive-thru party. What to do? You are starving, dead tired, have no food at home, and you don't want another processed "chicken" sandwich for dinner.

GUILTY.... I totally had my own little drive-thru party last week. Yea, I was tired and did not feel like cooking. Plus Jack-in-the-Box was conveniently on the way home. Oh, well like I said it happens. The hard part is moving on and trying your best to not let it happen again.

Last week, I started sharing my meal planning tips and now I'll give you another tip to help.

Meal Planning Tip #2

So last week I told you to go out and collect recipes. Now, you have all these recipes, but what the heck do you do with them!? To make meal planning easier and quicker you need to organize your recipes. There are many different ways to do this, but a couple of my favorites are binders and the amazing site Cozi. If you need ideas on binders, I suggest you search recipe binders on Pinterest. 

Ok, so how do I use Cozi? Cozi has many different functions, but the one I use the most is the recipe box. I am able to store all my recipes here online and can even put a link in so I can go back to the original recipe site. I then print my recipes and keep them in a folder for easy access. It's easy and it works for me.

The big key is to just find what works for you. There are many different ways to organize your recipes and you just have to find a way that makes sense to you. Trust me it may seem tedious and unimportant, but having your recipes organized makes meal planning so easy. I'll give you another tip on that next week!

Weekly Meal Plan

Monday: Sesame Chicken

This is a new recipe that I did not make last week. So we will see how it turns out!

Tuesday: IN-N-OUT

Per usual

Wednesday: Tomatillo Salsa Steaks

I made these once and they were great! 

Thursday: Mexican Stuffed Bell Peppers

This is a recipe I'm working on for the blog. It will be coming soon!

Friday-Sunday: No plans

Most weekends we just wing it and eat what we like. It's nice and allows me to keep to my meal plan during the week.

Have no clue about menu planning? It's ok head on over to OrgJunkie.com for more tips and info on menu planning. If you cook something this week, take a picture and post using #tablefortwoplease. What are you cooking this week?

Chicken & Vegetable Enchiladas

Imagine walking into your favorite Mexican joint and smelling all the goodness it has to offer. You pick up the scent of slow roasted chicken and the smell of freshly made tortillas. Maybe you can even pick up the spice and aroma of a nice spicy red sauce. Your mouth waters as it waits for some delicious spiciness and cheesiness goodness.

Yep, that is totally how my kitchen smelled last week as I cooked! My mouth was definitely watering and wanting all that Mexican tastiness. You can make your kitchen smell just as amazing, too. Just follow me on into my kitchen and let's make some...

Menu Plan Monday: 9/23/2013

Ok, it's the end of the day. You just worked your butt off for 8 hours or possibly even more. You are beat tired. Then all of sudden your stomach grumbles with such a ferocity that it could scare a small child. You need food... NOW! Ugh, you know there is nothing at home to cook, but yet you really don't want to have another drive-thru party. What to do? You are starving, dead tired, have no food at home, and you don't want another processed "chicken" sandwich for dinner.

We have all suffered through this horrible dilemma, and most likely we ended up having that drive-thru party and feeling a bit guilty about it. Trust me, my husband and I have been there several times. It's ok. Everybody does it. Now one way to avoid this horrible problem, is to just simply plan out your meals for the week. I know way easier said than done, but it is possible. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be giving out some simple tips that can help you get started with meal planning and avoiding those horrible dilemmas like above.

Meal Planning Tip #1

Collect recipes! How are you gonna plan what you are going to cook if you don't have any recipes? Pinterest is my top place to look for new recipes to try out. Also Google is another great place to start. If you know you are going to be tired after a long day of work, I suggest you look for 30 minute or less recipes or crock pot recipes. That way you don't have to spend a ton of time and energy cooking when you come home from a long day at work. Save those time consuming recipes for the weekend.

Simply search for recipes and save them so you can refer to them in the future. That's why I use Pinterest because not only can I search for new recipes, but I can also save them. Start collecting your recipes this week and next week I'll tell you what to do with them!

Weekly Meal Plan

Monday: Chili's

It's Monday Night Football and the Broncos and the Raiders are playing! We are headed to Chili's with a bunch of friends to watch the game.

Tuesday: IN-N-OUT

This is our weekly grocery shopping day and this is where we eat when we do our weekly grocery shop. It's just super convenient and cheap for us.

Wednesday: Sun-Dried Tomato and Chicken Pasta

Thursday: Sesame Chicken

New recipe!

Friday - Sunday: DISNEYLAND!!!

Yes, I know I said last weekend we were going, but that didn't happen. It's all good because we should be going this weekend!

Have no clue about menu planning? It's ok head on over to OrgJunkie.com for more tips and info on menu planning. If you cook something this week, take a picture and post using #tablefortwoplease.What are you cooking this week?

Menu Plan Monday: 9/16/2013

I would say last week was a pretty good cooking week. I mean honestly I did not have much planned, but I still cooked the majority of it. How did your cooking go last week?

Weekly Highs & Lows:

Lows: I honestly think it was a pretty good week. I mean we did eat out a lot, but I already knew that was going to happen. I only missed one meal and that was dinner last night because we had our "lunch" around 5. So we really weren't hungry later on.

Highs: The fact that I cooked! It's been really hot here in California so I've just been too tired to even turn on a stove plus the heat is ridiculous. We only had two meals so I really can't pick our favorite for last week.

Weekly Meal Plan:

Monday: We are going to go out with some friends for dinner!

Tuesday: Like I said last week, this is our new day for our weekly grocery shop. When we do our grocery shop, we usually eat at IN-N-OUT.

Wednesday: Chicken and Vegetable Enchiladas

The original recipe is just a simple veggie enchilada, but we love our animal protein in this family. So I'm going to add the chicken from my Chicken Tacos in the Crockpot. You also may notice that I made this dish last week as well. I was testing this recipe out for the blog so now this week I will shoot the pictures for it!

Thursday: Chicken and Peanut Noodles

New recipe! Always got to try something new each week!

Friday-Sunday: DISNEYLAND!!!

We are off to Disneyland for the weekend! We love this place so much and it's close enough that we go at least once a month. Can't wait to eat all the food I crave from there all the time!

Have no clue about menu planning? It's ok head on over to OrgJunkie.com for more tips and info on menu planning. If you cook something this week, take a picture and post using #tablefortwoplease. What are you cooking this week?

Menu Plan Monday: 9/9/2013

I've been away from the blog for a bit, but hey school and life happens. I needed to focus on school more so the blog suffered just for a bit. Anyways, I'm back and here to share what we are going to eat this week!

I won't be sharing any weekly highs and lows this week just because it's been awhile. However, there are a few changes to our schedule. Football season is in high gear and believe it or not this has changed our schedule big time. Pretty much we plan our day to day lives around football games now. So our grocery shopping and how I'm planning our meals has changed. Check it out below!

Weekly Meal Plan

Monday: Leftovers

Tuesday:  In-N-Out

So if you have read my meal plans before, you will know that when we do our weekly grocery shop we eat at IN-N-OUT. We have now officially moved our grocery shopping day to Tuesday since Sunday and Monday now consist of FOOTBALL!

Wednesday: Black Bean and Spinach Enchiladas

I'm going to be adding the chicken from my Chicken Tacos in the Crockpot recipe. These are really amazing and pretty healthy.

Thursday: We are probably going to head to Chili's to watch a football game. I told you football has now consumed and changed how I plan our meals.

Friday: Movie Night

Each week we try to get together with a group of friends to eat dinner and watch a movie.

Saturday: We will probably go out to eat this night.

Sunday: Lunch: Pepperoni Pizza Rolls Dinner: Breaded Baked Chicken

It's FOOTBALL SUNDAY!!! So we will most likely not even leave the house which means I need to plan for lunch and dinner!

Most of the recipes I make our pretty much just for two people. You can take most of the recipes and easily make it for more people as needed. What do you plan on cooking this week? Take a picture of it and send it to me on Facebook, Instagram, Google +, or my email. Use the hashtag #tablefortwoplease so I can find your pictures easier. Have no clue about meal planning? Check out OrgJunkie.com for more tips and tricks!

Chicken Arrabiata Pasta

Sorry, once again. I've been MIA for a bit on here. I needed to put school first for a bit, but hopefully I'll be able to spend more time on here. I try my best to regularly post, but sometimes life just gets in the way.

Anyways, I have an amazing recipe to share with you today! If you love pasta and spicy food, then I would stick around if I were you. Let's hop into my kitchen and start making...