Menu Planning Monday

Cabbage Patch Soup, with carrots and celery

Ultimate Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (I use low fat cream cheese and then do half regular cheese and half low fat cheese), canned vegetable soup

Poor Man's Prime Rib cooked with potatoes, carrots, and parsnips, baked apples
Any cut of roast, 1 can beef broth, 1 package dry Italian salad dressing mix-cook in your slow cooker for 8 or more hours. Add potatoes and carrots prior to cooking for a one stop meal. I'm also going to add some parsnips if I can find them.

Leftover Beef and Veggies over biscuits, with corn

Turkey and Noodles over mashed potatoes, with mixed vegetables
I have a cooked turkey tenderloin in my freezer from a previous meal so I will shred it, and add it to about 3 cups of water and 3 chicken bouillon cubes. I boil this, then add frozen egg noodles. Once the egg noodles are tender, reduce the heat. Then, I mix together corn starch and cold water, a couple tablespoons of each. This then become the thickener when you stir it into the turkey and noodles. You then add the corn starch/water mix to your turkey and noodles and stir as it thickents. If it doesn't thicken as much as you'd like, mix together some more corn starch and cold water.
(If you haven't ever used a corn starch thickener, adding it to cold water is really important. If you just dump it into the hot water, you will get clumps of corn starch. )

I rarely make 100% real mashed potatoes but I'm not a fan of the instant flavor so I do my mom's trick of doing a half and half mixture. I boil a couple of potatoes in water with a cube of chicken bouiloon. I then mash the potatoes right in the water and use the hot water/potatoes mixture in place of the boiling water the instant potatoes recipe calls for. I usually measure out the water that the instant potato box calls for before I boil my potatoes so that way I can kind of follow the recipe on the box. After I add the potato flakes, I add the milk and butter. I think adding sour cream or cream cheese can also reduce that instant flavor so I usually add one of those too. I just dump the milk, butter, cream cheese, or sour cream until I like the taste or texture. If it gets to runny, just add more flakes. The real potatoes make all the difference.