My meal plan week #1 included a variety of new recipes.    If I am completely honest, there were more hits than misses, however, I will say that some of the hits simply were not worth the effort.    I do want to review the new recipes and how successful they were.  Because of schedule changes and leftovers, several of the meals were moved to last week’s meal plan.

Our Sunday meal was my tried and true Oven Roasted Fajitas and we had enough leftover for an additional evening meal.  I have blogged this recipe and would love feedback.

Our Family night meal last week combined the old with the new.  My go-to pork chop recipe was complimented by two new creations as well as a new salad dressing on my spinach salad.  A night of good eating…spicy, but good.

A year ago I tried Emerl’s Pan Roasted Pork Chops and I haven’t fixed pork chops any other way since.  They are easy, delicious and a family pleaser.  I didn’t change a thing in this recipe.  One note, if you don’t like spicy go easy on the Essense.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/pan-roasted-pork-chops-recipe.html?soc=sharingpinterest

http://withsaltandwit.com/sweet-potato-curly-fries-chipotle-lime-aioli/

As a perfect compliment to the pork, I made the sweet potato fries and the Aioli.  The fries were great on their own.  Although the Aioli was tasty,  we didn’t need it.

Using the spirilizer with sweet potatoes is more difficult than a softer vegetable like zucchini, but it was definitely worth the effort.

Trader Joe’s had beautiful cauliflower, which was one of the reasons to try the next recipe.

As a side note, although the grand girls love cauliflower, especially mashed, they are not fans of roasted cauliflower.  I decided to try this as an alternative.

http://kirbiecravings.com/2015/01/bang-bang-cauliflower.html

http://kirbiecravings.com/2015/03/skinny-bang-bang-cauliflower.html

When I found the recipe for Bang Bang Cauliflower, there was a link to a lighter version.  I elected to make the lighter version.  It was crunchy good and the grand girls loved it.  Warning…go very light on the drizzle of Bang, Bang sauce because it is quite spicy.

I made a spinach salad with baby spinach, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, and feta.  I opted to try a new salad dressing, since my favorite is bacon based and I didn’t have any thawed bacon.  We totally enjoyed the dressing and I will definitely make it again.  Warning, it does not take much to dress the salad, so use the dressing sparingly.  You can always add more.

http://diethood.com/maple-balsamic-vinaigrette/

We had a great dinner.  Seconds all around, in fact the 9 year old had 2 pork chops.  One thing I will say about my grand girls, they both eat like adults, often more than the adults!

The final meal last week was a Meatless Meal, Penne Pasta Florentine.

http://12tomatoes.com/pasta-recipe-creamy-penne-florentine-with-mushrooms-and-spinach/

It was good.  We actually had leftovers for a second dinner.  This meal is worth a second try with changes, in fact, for the initial try I actually used far more walnuts than this recipe required and I am glad I did.  My initial thoughts would be to modify this recipe by using  farfalle pasta ( lighter than the penne), red pepper flakes and Parmigiano-Reggiano.

After further review, I realized that this recipe was adapted from Julie’s Album.  The original recipe called for carmelized onions.  That may be just the flavor that was missing from the adaptation.    I will definitely give this a try incorporating the walnuts and the additional changes I envisioned.  I will keep you posted on the results.

http://juliasalbum.com/2013/01/creamy-mushroom-pasta-sauce-with-caramelized-onions-and-spinach-recipe/

Sooo, that does it for the week.  Not as many meals as planned, but we definitely had a great week of eating.

“With food like this, who needs to go out?”  Much to my dismay, this sentiment is all too often voiced by the ‘Ole Buckeye at the end of a meal.