Meg's Meal Planning

Italian

Easy Lasagna Skillet

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Easy lasagna skillet is a classic spin on a family tradition. Easier and faster to make, whip up this family favorite tonight!

Lasagna skillet

There’s no better feeling than sitting down to dinner as a family with one of your favorite comforting meals. This easy lasagna skillet with meat fits the bill. Simmered tomatoes mixed with Italian seasoning, ground meat, and gooey cheese will leave the entire family running to the table for dinner.

Skillet easy lasagna

Easy Lasagna Skillet
 
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Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 lb ground beef
  • Salt and peper to taste
  • 1 tsp Italian seasoning
  • 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
  • 1 8 oz can tomato sauce
  • 1½ cups ricotta cheese
  • 3 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
  • 2 cups part skim mozzarella
  • 6 no boil lasagna noodles
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat cast iron skillet over medium heat and add olive oil. Cook beef until no long pink and season with salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning.
  2. Add the diced tomatoes and tomato sauce and simmer until slightly thickened, around 4-6 minutes.
  3. Meanwhile, in small bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, parsley, and 1 ½ cup mozzarella.
  4. Transfer the meat mixture to a bowl. Lay 3 noodles horizonally and 1 vertically in skillet. It is ok if they overlap. Spread half of the ricotta mixture over the nodles, then spoon half of the meat mixure on top. Repeat with more noodles, ricotta mixture, and the remaining meat sauce. Cover the pan tightly with foil and bake until the noodles are tender, around 23 to 25 minutes.
  5. Remove foil. Broil 3-4 minutes until some of the noodle edges begin to crisp. Sprinkle and broil with the remaining ½ cup mozzarella cheese until the top is golden brown. Let rest 5 minutes.

 

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Easy skillet lasagna

Homemade Spaghetti and Meatballs

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There is nothing more tasty than fresh, homemade spaghetti and meatballs. Pair with a good glass of red wine and you have the perfect night!

homemade pasta and meatballs

Homemade spaghetti is not something I make often (spaghetti, yes; homemade, no), but every time I do, I wonder why I don’t it more often? It’s not hard or time consuming. I know, I know, boiling water and dropping in a box of pasta is much quicker. However, it just doesn’t give you, or your belly, the same satisfaction.

Kneading and rolling out the dough, getting your hands dirty is so rewarding! Plus, it’s a fun activity to do with your kids. It starts teaching them about food: measuring the ingredients, rolling out the dough, and watching it go through the pasta attachment.

spaghetti homemade

I followed the recipe that was included with my Kitchen Aid pasta attachment. First, I made fettuccine, then spaghetti. I must admit we all enjoyed the spaghetti better, but I learned some tips as we went.

Tips for the best homemade spaghetti 

  1. If your dough is too dry, add more water, just a little at a time
  2. If your dough is too wet, add more flour
  3. Make sure you roll it out very thin; when you think you’re done, roll it out more
  4. Cook the pasta for 3-5 minutes, but start tasting it after 2 minutes. Cooking time will depend on how thick you made the pasta and the type you are making

homemade pasta

The most important ingredient of a pasta dinner is good red wine. I want to thank my brother and The Every Day Travelers for bringing home red wine from my favorite restaurant in Positano, Italy, La Tagliata. If you ever find yourself in Positano, this is a MUST GO TO restaurant. This is non-negotiable. It is a pre-fix menu (whatever the chef feels like cooking that day). You get multiple courses: anti-pasta, salad, fries, pasta, meat, vegetables, dessert, and of course a bottle of wine. They can accommodate special diets, like vegetarian.  The next best thing other than the food is the view! The restaurant is set up high on the cliffs where guests can take in the panoramic view of Positano, the Galli Isles and Capri below.

Food from La Tagliata. Photo by the Everyday Travelers.

Views of the Amalfi Coast

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homemade Spaghetti and Meatballs
 
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Recipe type: Dinner
Cuisine: Italian
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 tbsp water
  • 3½ cups sifted all-purpose flour
  • ½ tsp salt
Instructions
  1. Place eggs, water, flour, and salt in a mixer bowl of your Kitchen Aid. Using the flat beater, mix for 30 seconds on speed 2.
  2. Switch out the flat beater for the hook attachment. Knead for 2 minutes on speed 2. Remove dough from the bowl and knead by hand for 1-2 minutes. Let it rest for 20 minutes.
  3. Cut the dough into four even sections and roll out with a rolling pin. (Unopen bottle of wine works too).
  4. Attach your pasta sheet roller to front of the Kitchen Aid Mixer. Turn on to speed 2 and feed the rolled out dough through the roller.
  5. Cook immediately in a boiling pot of water for 2-5 minutes for fresh pasta.

 

 

Oven Baked Pork Schnitzel

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Super easy oven baked Pork Schnitzel is an easy week night recipe. Pair it with potatoes and a salad for an easy and satisfying dinner.  

Pork Schnitzel

Looking to get in the fun of celebrating Oktoberfest? Then try this easy oven baked Pork Schnitzel. It’s healthier than pan frying, but tastes just as delicious. It also is a great make ahead meal and stores well in the freezer.

Pork schnitzel is a popular German dish prepared by breading and frying thin pork cutlets. Although there are many varieties of schnitzel like chicken, veal, and turkey. Pork is one of my personal favorites. The key to a good schnitzel is a meat mallet. You need to pound the pork very thin.  Skip the gym and have this be your arm work out!

Baked port schnitzel

Oven Baked Pork Schnitzel
 
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Super easy oven baked Pork Schnitzel is an easy week night recipe. Pair it with potatoes and a salad for an easy and satisfying dinner.
Author:
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 4 boneless pork chops, pounded until ¼ inch thick
  • ½ cup flour
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 1 tsp roasted garlic powder
  • 2 eggs whisked
  • 1 cup unseasoned breadcrumbs
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 425.
  2. Combine flour and spices in shallow bowl. Eggs in another, and breadcrumbs in another
  3. Dip each piece of pork into flour, shaking off excess. Then dip into egg, then bread crumbs. Place pork on a lightly oiled wire rack over baking sheet.
  4. Bake for 15 minutes. Flip and bake another 5 minutes.

 

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Healthy oven baked pork schnitzel

Garlic Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

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Garlic roasted cherry tomatoes, perfect for snacking, adding to soups, salads, pasta, or chicken dishes! This easy recipe is also great for freezing and using later! 

garlic roasted tomatoes

Summer is coming to an end, and that means the garden is overflowing with cherry tomatoes. I honestly can’t believe how many I’ve gotten this summer. I’m out there almost every night picking a few handfuls of tomatoes.

Garlic roasting cherry tomatoes is a DELICIOUS way to use up the bountiful pickings from the garden. They are so versatile! You can throw them in nearly anything: soup, salad, quinoa bowl, or a chicken/pasta dish! And maybe most importantly, you can freeze them until fall/winter when your making more hearty meals. Of course, I also just eat them once they’re out of the oven; they are that hard to resist!

garlic roasted cherry tomatoes

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Garlic Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
 
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Garlic roasted cherry tomatoes, perfect for snacking, adding to soups, salads, pasta, or chicken dishes! This easy recipe is also great for freezing and using later!
Author:
Serves: 2 cups
Ingredients
  • 2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved length wise
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1.5 tsp Italian seasoning
  • 1.5 tsp roasted garlic seasoning
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Lay parchment paper or use silicone baking sheet on large rimmed baking sheet. Spread cherry tomatoes cut side up on baking sheet.
  3. Drizzle olive oil on top. Sprinkle with salt, Italian seasoning, and roasted garlic seasoning.
  4. Bake 15-20 minutes.

 

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roasted garlic cherry tomatoes

Week of August 20th

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Week of Aug 20th

Summertime and the livin’s easy! Right?! Now that summer is winding down, my diet is starting to catch up. When it’s warm outside, I don’t mind sitting on the deck with 1 or 2 glasses of wine, (Rose all day!) or taking an impromptu trip to Tree House Brewing Co. when they are pouring drafts, or getting ice cream for dessert a few nights out of the week. So this week is all about healthy eating – cauliflower rice, quinoa, chicken, shrimp.

Monday – Vegetarian Quinoa Bowl with Roasted Kale, Chickpeas and a Lemon Tahini Dressing

Quinoa for blog

Tuesday – Garlic butter chicken with parmesan cauliflower rice.

keto chicken recipe

Photo by eatwell101

Wednesday – Shrimp tacos with mango salsa

Mango shrimp tacos

Thursday – Enchilada chicken meatballs served over quinoa.

gluten free enchilada chicken meatballs

Photo by Isabel Eats

Friday – Creamy kale and turkey sausage pasta with sun dried tomatoes.

creamy kale and sun dried tomatoes

Italian Cheese Tortellini Salad

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Cheese tortellini mixed with cherry tomatoes, marinated artichokes, garlic, and pesto makes a perfect pasta salad. Serve it as a side or dinner, perfect for cook-outs, BBQ’s, summer picnics, and potlucks.

Italian cheese tortellini salad

As soon as the weather starts getting nice, I get excited to start my garden. Fresh basil is the number one item I plant every year. Making homemade pesto like this tastes fabulous and freezes great. I made the pesto in this recipe last summer and stored it in ice cube trays in my freezer.

Italian cheese tortellini salad needs to be your go-to pasta salad for the summer. Your family and friends will thank you for not making another salad with mayonnaise! Add whatever protein topping you like; I did chicken, but I bet grilled shrimp would taste just as good.

pesto cheese tortellini

If using homemade pesto, make in advance to make this a 15 minute dinner recipe!

Italian Cheese Tortellini Salad
 
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Recipe type: Pasta salad
Cuisine: Italian
Serves: 3-4
Ingredients
  • 1 lb cheese tortellini
  • 1 pint cherry tomatoes, washed
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • ½ cup red onion, diced
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 cup marinated artichokes, coarsely chopped
  • 1 lb chicken strips, seasoned with salt and pepper
  • ½ cup homemade pesto
Instructions
  1. Cook cheese tortellini according to package directions. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water.
  2. Meanwhile, heat 1 tbsp olive oil in sauté pan over medium heat. Add red onion and cook until they begin to brown, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Remove and add to a large serving bowl.
  3. In same pan, add 1 tbsp olive oil and cook chicken strips over medium heat until cooked through, about 9 minutes, flipping half way through.
  4. Once pasta is cooked, drain it and add it to the large serving bowl with the red onion and garlic.
  5. Add in cherry tomatoes, artichokes, and chicken.
  6. Stir in pesto. Add pasta one 1 tbsp at a time to thin out if needed.

 

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Italian pesto cheese tortellini salad

Easy fettuccine with kale, spinach, and cherry tomatoes

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This is an incredibly easy week night meal. You can never have too much of basil and tomato combo especially in the summer! And that now it’s offically summer, we can celebrate with this easy dinner! 

Fettuccine with kale and spinach

 

Easy fettuccine with kale, spinach, and cherry tomatoes
 
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Serves: 2
Ingredients
  • ½ box fettuccine
  • 3 cups total of kale and spinach, washed and chopped
  • ½ cup cherry tomatoes, washed and halved
  • 3 oz pesto
  • Handful fresh basil, chopped
Instructions
  1. Cook fettuccine according to packaged directions
  2. Meanwhile heat pesto in large frying pan over low heat, stiring often
  3. Add kale and spinach to the fettuccine with 2 minutes left of cooking. Reserve ½ cup of the cooking liquid
  4. Drain pasta and add it along with the kale and spinach to the frying pan with the pesto
  5. Stir together, add the cooking liquid if needed to thin out the pesto
  6. Toss with the cherry tomatoes and serve!

 

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Healthy fettuccine

Avocado Spinach Pasta

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Creamy and healthy pasta sauce made with fresh spinach and avocados. This is an easy week night meal that will get dinner on the table in less than 30 minutes! 

I could eat pasta all day, every day.  Some of my favorite sauces are traditional marinara, a white wine sauce, and just good fashioned cheese! And now, I’m adding avocado/spinach sauce to the list. This recipe is a great family meal and easy to make in advance or right when you want to eat!

If you have more sauce than you need, freeze the extra. Pour into an ice cube tray, freeze for 24 hours, then pop out and store in a zip lock bag.

 

Avocado Spinach Pasta
 
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Serves: 3-4
Ingredients
  • 1 box shells
  • 2 avocado
  • 2 cup fresh spinach
  • 2 garlic clove minced
  • ⅓ cup olive oil
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
Instructions
  1. Cook shells according to the package.
  2. Meanwhile, add all other ingredients to a food processor, blend well.
  3. Add to pasta when done cooking.

 

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Avocado spinach pasta

 

Pasta with mushrooms, asparagus, and pesto

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Pasta with spring vegetables like asparagus and mushrooms mixed with a pesto sauce is an easy weeknight dinner. Use your choice of pasta. Bon Appetit. 

pasta pesto

Once you start seeing the sales for asparagus in the grocery store, you know Spring is on the way! Although asparagus is not one of my favorite vegetables, this recipe stood out to me.  It’s something different and I’m always looking for new ways to incorporate veggies in my diet. This recipe was inspired from Fine Cooking Magazine, April/May 2016 edition.  The recipe calls for cavatelli, but any kind pasta will do- penne, rigatoni, even tortellini!

You can use store bought pesto or click here for my homemade pesto recipe.

Pasta with mushrooms

 

Pasta with mushrooms, asparagus, and pesto
 
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Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • Kosher salt
  • 1 lb pasta, your choice
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 8 oz mushrooms, washed and sliced
  • 8 oz asparagus, trimmed and cut on the diagonal into 1 inch pieces
  • 2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 4 tbsp homemade or store bough pesto.
  • Ground black pepper
Instructions
  1. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Boil the pasta according to package directions until just shy of al dente. Reserve 1 cup of the cooking water and drain.
  2. Meanwhile, heat the oil and butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the mushrooms and asparagus, cook until the mushrooms start turning brown, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute
  3. Add 2 tbsp pesto and pasta water and stir. Lower the heat, toss in the pasta and simmer until the pasta is al dente, 1-2 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and additional pesto if needed. Serve with grated cheese.

 

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Mushrooms, asparagus, pasta

 

 

Pasta bake with chicken sausage, mozzerella, spinach, and cherry tomatoes 

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I said my New Year’s Resolution was to post more, so far that has been a big fail!  I’m about 6 weeks away from the baby’s due date, so instead of a weekly meal planning post, I’m offering a single meal dish of my dinner tonight.  

As I sat down to eat, I had this sudden urge to take a picture of this dish and share it with my blog!  This pasta dish is on the lighter side; it’s creamy, but has no heavy cream in it. Instead the creamy consistency comes from greek yogurt!  The inspiration for this recipe can be found here.

  

Pasta bake with chicken sausage, mozzerlla, spinach, and cherry tomatoes

Ingredients

  • 1 box veggie or whole wheat pasta
  • 1 lb spicy or mild Italian chicken sausage
  • 1 bag of spinach
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
  • 1 cup tomato sauce
  • 3/4 cup plain greek yogurt
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 and 1/4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Steps

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
  2. Cook pasta according to the package directions. Before draining, place spinach at the bottom of the strainer and drain pasta over spinach, allowing it to wilt.
  3. Cook chicken sausage in 1 tbsp butter or olive oil over medium heat for 12-14 minutes. Add garlic and cook for another 30 seconds. Remove from heat and place cooked sausage onto cutting board. Slice into bite size pieces.
  4. Add garlic pieces to a large bowl, add the cooked pasta, sausage, spinach, and tomatoes. Then add tomato sauce, yogurt, milk, 1 cup of cheese, and spices. Mix very well. Pour into casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese. Cover with foil.
  5. Cook for 30 minutes covered. Remove foil, and cook for another 10 minutes
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