Keeping Up With...Food (Meal Plan for Jan 1 - Jan 7)

It's a new year and I'm back to meal planning!  I took the whole month of December off and did a lot of non-cooking, leftovers and easy meals all month.  Plus we ate out a lot since we were on vacation for 10 days in the month.  It was nice to be a little more low key with cooking and planning but it was not nice to my waistline.  So we are buckling down, planning our meals and eating healthy with the hopes of losing some weight this year.

I got a new toy for Christmas and I am already in love!

Santa brought me the 8 quart instant pot and I have already cooked two things in it and loved every minute of it.  I can't wait to play with it even more this year and see what else I can make.  My first meal was Parmesan Risotto and it was super easy and super delicious.  I love risotto but it takes so much time and is very labor intensive so I never make it.  It will be on our menu more often now I'm sure.  I also tried to make homemade mac and cheese when the boys ran out of the boxed stuff.  It was quick and good, but the boys didn't like it because of the dijon mustard.  So I'll try a different recipe this week for them.

I'll continue to share my meal plan each week as well as reviewing some of the recipes from the week before.  I will also be trying at least one new instant pot recipe each week, at least for the first few months of the year.  And I'll continue to share my overnight oats recipes each week as well.  I'm excited to get back to being a little more organized and a lot more healthy!

Here's what we're eating this week:
Monday - Ribs & Saurkraut - traditional New Year's Day meal in our house, but I will be making them in my instant pot because I'm using any excuse to use this thing! 
Tuesday - Dinner at a friend's house - she's making spaghetti & I'm bringing a salad
Wednesday - Cauliflower, Potato & Corn Chowder with salads for the adults and Mac & Cheese in the instant pot for the boys
Thursday - Jambalaya - in the instant pot of course!
Friday - Parmesan Chicken and Green Beans
Saturday - Shrimp Scampi Tacos with Caesar Salad Slaw
Sunday - Chili - yup, you guessed it, in the instant pot

Water Flavor - Orange.  I still have a few free oranges from my mother in law so I'm hoping to use them up this week.

Overnight Oats - Since I haven't shopped in almost two weeks, I'm at the mercy of what I have.  I have some Greek yogurt and frozen milk so I'll be able to follow my normal recipe to make the base oats.  I'll add PB2 and chocolate chips to some and applesauce and cinnamon to some for an apple pie flavoring.  That will be enough to get me started until I get to the grocery store.  My friend posted one about PB2 and blueberries that I would love to try! 

OK, I may have gone a little overboard on instant pot recipes, but I'm so excited to use this thing!  And all of this sounds so great, I can't wait to make it.  We also are still on break most of this week so I will be out and about with the kids a lot of these days and I don't want to have to stress about dinner, yet I still want healthy meals.  Also, last year I was doing a "use it up" challenge and I will get back to that starting next week.  I'm honestly writing this and planning this week still in "lazy break" mode so I don't feel like checking to see what I need to use up, HA!

I wish you all a happy & healthy New Year!!  Thank you for reading about what's going on in my little corner of the world!!