Around KJ's Table July 25th- July 31st

 The kiddos are all home now! Yay, this mamma is happy to have all her cubs back in the den. But the menus will look slightly different for the next few week as the girls will take over cooking since they are home for the summer and have the time.  You will see some gaps with family vacations.

Here is the menu this week: Weekly Meal Plan 07.25-07.31

This week is not overly complicated as the girls are doing most of the cooking and pretty self explanatory. A few notes for you:

Potato Salad: This is one I will make dairy "ed" and then a smaller bowl of d/f for the eldest.  Here is my favorite recipe: Loaded Baked Potato Salad and then for my d/f kiddo I just boil some cubed potatoes and after cooled I just added vegan mayonnaise, dijon mustard and salt and pepper.  

Fried Venison Steaks: if you are not a familiar with cooking wild game, it is all about the prep.  If you do not want your meat to taste gamey you need to remove all the silver from the meat. We harvest and butcher all our own "catches" both wild game (deer, rabbit, turkey mostly) and fish (walleye, perch, sheep head, bass, etc) so we can guarantee the best quality of end product.  But if you do not do this, try to remove as much of the "silver" you can out of your meat prior to cooking, it reduces the gamey taste of the meat. 

Venison is a very lean red meat, one of the leanest you can find, so you will need to add oil to the pan, or fat the meat if you are making ground meat. If you have harvest deer you will know that you generally do not get large "steaks" as you would from a cow but smaller, thiner pan steaks. You simply fry them in butter (or oil) and your spices of choice (garlic, onion, paprika, etc).  Fry the steaks in a skillet for 2-3 minutes per side depending on size and thickness. (they can easily become leather so don't overcook). This meal is what I grew up on and to this day is still one of my top 5 meals.  

This week when we did the fajitas we used chicken; but I have ever cut the venison steaks into strips and made fajitas or what we affectionally call "slaughter cheesesteaks", but that is for another meal/menu. 😃😉.

Most everything else on the menu this week was from the frozen section or the canned/boxed section.  

Around KJs Ladies Table: July 11-July 17

Here is the newest plan for the week: July 11th-July 17th 

We missed a few weeks in between here.... there is a reason for that.  Our kiddos are gone for a few weeks so not a lot of cooking has been happening around here, more goings out than in. 😃 It was a nice little break for this home chef.  But the kiddos are starting to roll back home this week so back to the stove I go... 

First here are some nice pics of us with our super delish meals...

Lots of good food right there... oh the sushi... yum! But in other news-

Grilled Muffins: one of my favorites.  Blueberry muffins is what I am making and here is the recipe I use

Grilled Chicken Caesar salad: easy summer meal.  Grill some chicken breasts put them on top of a nice Caesar salad.  I usually make my own Caesar dressing.  One big scoop of mayo, one small scoop of sour cream, 3-4 garlic cloves minced, small scoop of parmesan cheese and a good squirt of dijon mustard. 

Sheet Pan Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Chicken: another simple summer meal.  I have lots of basil coming in so I will make a simple pesto with basil, olive oil garlic and sun-dried tomatoes, put that on top of some chicken breasts with mozzarella cheese on top.  Then I will buy some veggies at the store, probably broccoli, zucchini, and carrots, surround the chicken, (drizzle veggies with olive oil and spices) and cook in the oven or electric skillet for about 20-30 minutes. 

Stuffed Pepper Bowls: so here's the thing, my family doesn't care for cooked peppers so I have to NOT make them the star of the meal.  So I am going to make all the things you put in a stuffed pepper, which is basically rice, sausage, tomato sauce, spices and add chopped peppers and onion in the mixture and put them in a bowl. Viola, stuffed peppers that are not stuffed!  This is a new one, I will let you know how it goes. 

Skillet Vegetable Enchiladas: This is one of the eMeals recipe this week. 

Quick Chicken Cordon Bleu: I have made this recipe before a really long time ago.  It was really well liked then, so I am pulling it out of the dusty recipe shelf.  (see I reuse recipes) It is a little bit labor intensive so I will probably prep some of this meal ahead of time.  

•  Pound the chicken thin, dredge in flour, brown (not cook) in skillet. Remove and spread with dijon mustard, top with ham, and mozzarella cheese- at this point I will wrap and leave in fridge
•  Night of dinner I will bake 15-20 minutes in oven and add sides

Pulled Chicken Sandwiches: This is my easiest meal that we have once or twice a month.  Put some boneless chicken breasts in the crock pot with a bottle of BBQ sauce.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Shred meat and add more BBQ sauce to desired "sauciness".  Serve with hardy roll (hamburger rolls seem to fall apart with this).  Coleslaw also makes a great addition to the sandwich.