What's for Dinner?

DinnerDoes this image bring feelings of peace and comfort or perhaps stress and dread? I've been aiming for something closer to peace than stress lately by planning my menu for the week. After I make the plan I go to the grocery store and purchase everything I need. I've been doing well except for at least once a week when I realize I am missing one key ingredient that I could swear was in the fridge when I made my plan. This means yet another ten dollar trip to the store because I can't seem to buy just one item when I head into a store.

Here are a few of the menus I have made these past few weeks:

Beef Soup

I always start my soups by sauting up some onion and celery in a little oil,
followed by adding whatever vegetables and meat I have available. In this instance it was carrots, leftover green beans and asparagas, along with some left over medium rare roast beef.

And here, my friend, is my secret ingredient that makes all my soups divine! Pacific Foods Organic Beef Broth for beef soups and Pacific Foods Organic Free Range Chicken Broth for everything else. No MSG and all natural wonderful taste! If I don't have the beef broth around I freely substitute the chicken broth for the beef. This broth is a little more costly than your garden variety broth or boullion but it is worth EVERY PENNY! My family demolished every drop of this soup and didn't leave any soup for their Dad who was working late!
Lasagna
Lasagna is always a family favorite and I have found a few shortcuts to make the job less laborious. I have found that soaking the noodles in water before making up the lasagna is much faster than cooking them throughly and they turn out perfectly cooked when it is done.

I used a bottled pasta sauce because it tastes great and makes the job even easier!

The other ingredients we love in our lasagna are spinach and zuchinni. I use frozen when I don't have fresh. Also I use cottage cheese instead of ricotta because ricotta cheese doesn't like me.

However the most popular dish I have discovered as of late is PIZZA!

Go to this blog to access the recipe I developed for Iron Skillet Pizza. It's a yummy deep dish. My neighbor suggested I try a thin crust next time so I will see how that works out next time.

My favorite variation was when I put Sweet turkey Italian sausage and mushrooms on the pizza.

This one is pepperoni which is always a hit with the kids.

Any suggestions on what I should prepare next?