Meg's Meal Planning

pulled pork

Pulled Pork Three Ways 

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For my son’s first birthday party, we made 20 lbs of pulled pork in crock pots! Needless to say, we had enough left over for several dinners. To prevent our taste buds from getting bored, I used the pulled pork three different ways.  Each recipe was better than the last!

  1. Pulled pork enchilada skillet – even better – it’s a one pot meal!

2. Sweet and spicy pulled pork BBQ pizza.

3. Creamy pulled pork taquitios – The recipe calls for Mexican pulled pork, but I only used my left over bbq pulled pork

Father’s Day Lunch

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What a beautiful day it ended up being for Father’s Day! Just like Mother’s Day Brunch, my husband and I hosted our families to celebrate our dads! This time we had 9 guests: my parents, two brothers, grandparents, uncle, and my mother and father in-law! Unfortunately, the early afternoon was super humid, so we all stayed inside, but it ended up working out nicely. We fit some extra chairs around our kitchen table and set the food up like a buffet.  Everyone served themselves! Here’s the menu.

Appetizers

  • Greek dip – This was a big hit!
  • Pineapple salsa
  • Pepperoni and broccoli bread- My Nannie makes the best stuffed bread! I’ve never attempted to make broccoli bread before, but I can make pepperoni bread. Of course, it never comes out as good as hers!

Pepperoni Bread

Ingredients 

  • Store-prepared pizza dough
  • 1 package of thinly sliced pepperoni
  • 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Steps

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
  2. Roll out dough on a sprayed cookie sheet
  3. When preparing, deal with the dough in thirds. Lay sliced pepperoni and cheese down on the top 1/3 of the dough, leaving enough dough to fold over the pepperoni and cheese
  4. Roll dough over the pepperoni and cheese and top with another layer. Now fold over the remaining dough on top of the second layer. Tuck excess dough in to seal pepperoni and cheese inside
  5. Bake for 30 minutes

 

 

Main dish

  • Pulled pork – My amazing hubby got up at 5:30 a.m. to put this in the crock pot! What a keeper!
  • Cornbread
  • Baked beans
  • Coleslaw – I was going to make the McCarrick Family Coleslaw (It’s amazing, my family loves it!), but my mom offered to buy coleslaw from a local restaurant-Shady Glen. When someone offers to bring you coleslaw from there, you don’t say no!
  • Baked squash and zucchini – We originally planned to grill them, but since it was supposed to rain, we decided to cook them in the oven.
    • For the veggies, we sliced them about an inch thick, layed them on a baking dish, drizzeled them with olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper and baked at 350 degrees for 40 minutes

 

Dessert

 

  
I love when our families get together. We had a great day and some delicious food!

Week of June 14th

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Week two with my CSA farm box. This week I received sage, asparagus, lettuce, snap peas, spinach, bok choy, and arugula (But I gave the arugula to my mom).  I again tried to plan my meals around what I got in the CSA.  The bok choy, asparagus, snap peas, lettuce, and spinach were pretty easy to use, but MORE sage!! Both weeks I got a large bunch of sage, so I froze a lot of it this time around. Click here to see everything I made with the items form week two. 

Monday– Pulled pork sandwiches with baked beans and lettuce.  I have to admit I didn’t make the pulled pork or the baked beans.  I stopped by my parents house after picking up the farm box and my parents insisted I take some of their leftovers home…ok fine twist my arm!  But I did add the fresh lettuce for a healthy side, topped it off with carrots and red peppers.

Tuesday– Chicken breast stuffed with sage, dried cranberries, and gorgonzola  with a side of grilled snap peas. This recipe is unbelieveable! It tasted like something I would order in a restaurant!  The original recipe calls for dried apricots and goat cheese, neither which I have, so I substituted for what I had in stock.

Wednesday– Steak and bok choy stir fry. I have never cooked with bok choy before, but it was pretty easy and this recipe was a one pot meal!

Thursday– Homemade pizza with pesto, fresh mozzarella, and tomato. I used the sorrel pesto I made last week.  I followed this recipe, but used shredded mozzarella instead. Click here for the pesto recipe. 

Friday– Dinner party!  We had a few friends over for a Friday night bbq. Since I enjoyed many of the recipes I made last week, I made them again tonight.  This way I was familiar with recipes instead of trying something new for the first time.  The menu for dinner tonight was BBQ chicken with sage/cheddar biscuits, summer pasta salad, and corn on the cobb.  For dessert I made lemon shandy bars that were oh so ooey and gooey!