Menu Planning Monday.. err Tuesday... well... what we are eating this week!

I absolutely LOVE reading what my friend Julie is cooking up for the week in Scottland with her Monday edition of Menu Planning Monday and I thought it would be fun to share what we are cooking up here as well! We recently decided that we MUST plan out at least a few of our meal, regardless of how hectic our schedules are! We were wasting food, buying ingredients that we had a vague plan for, but would never follow through on, and would wait until way too late to figure out what to eat and fall back on quick fixes that didn't pack too much of a nutritional punch.

Our goals/cooking philosophy? Martin and I are on a healthy living journey together, and we have lost nearly 100 pounds together in the last two years JUST to start packing it back on when our schedules started to get crazy! We're striving for clean cooking and local eats when possible, but are really focused on overall health more than losing a certain amount of weight. We are leaning more and more towards homemade goods, and already make bread and greek yogurt at home. We plan on adding other store bought things to our to-do list over time!

When we sit down to create our menu, we try to pick one from a cookbook we own, one for the slow cooker, one from my Pinterest account, and one using items that we buy in bulk from our AMAZING Co-Op. Sometimes the universe combines to create a perfect recipe that combines more than one of these categories at once. When that happens we sit back and ooooo and ahhhh at the wonder and glory that is. that. recipe. :) Now! On to the menu!

Dinner #1: Dr. Oz's Pomegranate Salmon and Bulgar (Cookbook Recipe & Co-Op bulk bulgar) I searched online but I have NO link to a recipe or picture of this gem of a recipe, so I chose the one that looks the most like our actual dinner! The salmon is glazed with reduced pomegranate and orange juice, and the bulgar has apricots and radish in it - SUPER yum! We can't get fresh salmon up here, which is a BUMMER, because it is perfection when made with super fresh salmon!

Dinner #2: Slow Cooker Chicken Chili (Pinterest & Slow Cooker... OooOooo, AahhHhhh) My mouth started to water when I saw this, and Martin needed little to no encouragement for us to try this out this week! :) 

Dinner #3: Planet Hungrywood Sweet & Cap'n Crunchy Chicken (Cookbook & Favorite Meal) I lurve me some Hungry Girl recipes, and I'm a huge Hungry Girl cookbook freak. I only have like... five of her cookbooks. Yup! We both love these chicken fingers! 

Dinner #4: Baked Coconut Shrimp (Pinterest) Martin & I are totally addicted to coconut shrimp, so when I stumbled on a baked version, we knew we would have to try it! I am SO reviewing this for you after we make it! 

Dinner #5: Hungry Girl's Bacon Alfredo Bowl (Cookbook) This is our out-there experimental dish of the week. Hungry Girl goes ON AND ON about tofu shaped noodles and how they are the best thing since ever. I've been searching for them for years now and have never laid eyes on them... until Saturday! The Co-Op had JUST gotten in a shipment so we snagged a few bags and are going to give this a go! Eek! 

Phew! That was more work than I expected it to be! But, I'm excited to share these ideas as we experiment in the kitchen! Happy cooking from the UP!