Meal Planning and Meal Prep in the New Year
Happy New Year! After the craziness of the holidays and break, I am back with a meal planning post! I think this is the first weekend we are home in 3 weeks! While I love seeing friends and family, it is great to get back into routine.
For me, that means Sundays are for meal planning. This week I am also attempting meal prep for our weeknight dinners like browning ground beef and chopping vegetables. I hope that it will save me time during the week cooking and save me a few dishes too! I will let you know in the future what I think!
So, onto this week’s meals:
Swedish Meatballs – I love that meatballs are so versatile. I use the same meatball recipe for everything and then just switch up the sauce. For Swedish meatballs I use a cream of mushroom soup with a little bit of milk.
Chicken Pot Pie – New recipe here! But I love pie and homemade crust is one of my favorites to make. Hopefully this one turns out. It will take longer with more prep work and a longer cooking time, so this is for a night I know we don’t have much going on.
Pie Crust
Ingredients
- 1 c flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1/3 c shortening
- 1/4 c water
Instructions
- If making a pie with a top and bottom crust, this recipe needs doubles.
- Mix together flour, sugar, and salt.
- Cut in shortening using a pastry cutter until crumbly.
- Mix in water.
- Turn out the dough onto a floured surface. Kneed lightly into a ball. If multiplying the recipe, split dough into the number of crusts.
- Roll out the dough on counter or a pastry mat using a rolling pin. Make it slightly larger than the pie pan you will be using so there is overhang.
- Roll pie crust onto rolling pin to lift it up onto the pie plate.
- If putting a top crust on the pie, cut the bottom crust off even with the edge of the pie plate. Fill crust with pie filling. Place top crust over pie and follow the next steps to pinch top and bottom crust together.
- Cut the crust to have about a half inch over hang. If there are any spots that fall short, paste in extra crust by dampening edges of the patch with water and connecting extra crust.
- Fold crust under along the end of the pie pan. Crimp the edge, pinching with fingers. Be sure the points of the crimps go over the pie pan edge so the crust doesn’t shrink while baking.
- Prick bottom and sides of a single crust with a fork. For a double crust, cut a design into the top of the crust for venting.
- For baking just the crust, bake at 400° for 12-16 minutes. For Double Crust: Brush top of crust with butter and sprinkle on cinnamon sugar. Bake at 400ºF for 45 to 50 minutes until crust is golden brown. You can wrap aluminum foil around the crust edges while baking to prevent the edges from over browning
Spaghetti with Texas Toast – I checked out the grocery ads this week and the toast and spaghetti sauce were both on sale. A perfect quick and cheap meal idea!
Leftovers – Game night means we need a quick meal. If we don’t have leftovers, we’ll have sandwiches.
Homemade Pizza – Homemade pizza is so filling and the kids love it. This week I am planning on using sausage and bacon as toppings.
Hash Brown Egg Cups – I stole this recipe off a friend’s meal plan and it’s from one of my favorite food bloggers, so I’m thinking it’s going to be good!
Chicken Broccoli and Rice – One of my favorite comfort foods. I think I switch up the recipe a little bit each time! This week I am planning on cooking 2 cups rice, then adding cream of chicken soup, some cooked broccoli and shredded chicken and cheese. Cook until cheese is melted and enjoy!
Meal Prep
These are the items I am prepping for this week.
- Shredded chicken for the pot pie and broccoli and rice.
- Mix, form, and broil the meatballs. I will freeze half for some other day.
- Make the spaghetti and freeze in a 9×9 pan. Bake from frozen on Wednesday for about an hour or a little more.
- Brown sausage for pizza.
- Bake bacon, crumble and place in fridge for pizza and hash brown cups.
Other Meal Plans:
Check out some of my other meal plans for more recipe ideas!
