Resuming Normalcy

It had been a while since we had had a "normal" kind of week. Fortunately for my meal planning, no odd work schedules or house visitors were on the horizon. Just a good ol' fashion 9 to 5 (or more like 7 to 4) kind of week.

Frankly, I just needed a bit of time to rest and recuperate, so I was looking for a few low maintenance recipes requiring few ingredient and little mental capacity. Plus after overshooting the budget a bit last week, I needed to rein it back in. Looking at the calendar, we needed 4 dinners (Sun, Mon, Tues, Thurs) plus two lunches (Mon, Wed).

• Sunday: Southwest chopped salad (+lunch leftovers)
• Monday: chili pot pie (+lunch leftovers)
• Tuesday: spaghetti o's with tomato, cucumber, avocado salad
• Thursday: tomato soup and turkey pesto panini 

Not too shabby for being lazy, right?

• lime (3)
• bananas (12)
• avocado (4)
• red pepper
• green pepper
• tomato
• cucumber (2)
• corn (4)
• scallions
• cilantro
• romaine
• sliced turkey
• almond milk
• ground turkey
• boneless skinless chicken breast
• black beans (2)
• tomato soup (3)
• balsamic
• Jiffy mix
• milk
• plain Greek yogurt
• plastic bags
• paper towels

Southwest Chopped Salad

Okay so this big salad situation has been my thing recently. But I'm not just taking about a ridiculous quantity of lettuce covered in ranch alongside a crouton, tomato slice, and some shredded cheese. No, a real salad worth enjoying starts with a homemade dressing and a whole bunch of toppings! This Southwest salad in particular has been my favorite recently. I find it's best in the summer time when fresh corn is readily available. 

Chili Pot Pie

The chili pot pie is also a fast favorite of mine. My husband's love for turkey chili inspired this recipe. I love serving cornbread alongside chili, but I find it's often dry and crumbly. Baking the bread directly on top of the chili was a genius solution to keeping it nice and moist! I've also found this recipe is incredibly easy to scale up for a crowd. I like to keep this baby holstered in particular for our Small Group potlucks! It certainly doesn't hurt leveraging a handy little boxed muffin mix!

Spaghetti O's

And before you go giving my flack about the spaghetti o decision, how about you just reflect back on your childhood. They were pretty good right? So I figured I'd take a stab at making a homemade version of the canned stuff! Turns out, it's pretty simple and oddly satisfying. Serve up a bowl alongside a steamed veggie or salad and I'd say that makes for a complete meal.

Total Grocery Cost: $84.99