Another week! (and a bonus)

I'm switching things around a bit this week because circumstances this weekend (my photography class all day yesterday and being sick) make it impossible to shop Saturday night, which was necessary to execute tomorrow's planned dinner. Also, I have several things going on Wednesday, so I need to be able to make dessert a different night. Here's how the schedule's going to go:

Week 2: Mexican Week
Monday: Chicken Fajitas
*Cherry Tart for Dessert
Tuesday: Cafe Rio Pork Burritos, Spanish Rice, and Frijoles Negros Refritos
Wednesday: Baked Chicken Chimichangas
Thursday: Chicken Posole with Tortilla Chips and Guacamole
Friday: Cafe Rio Pork Salad (with rice, beans, and dressing)

Here's the shopping list:

May Have On Hand
canola oil
olive oil
oregano
cumin
chili powder
salt and pepper
cinnamon
garlic salt
almond extract
brown sugar
sugar
powdered sugar
rice
minced garlic
butter or margarine
1 cup mayonnaise

May Need To Buy
20 oz bottle Sprite
3 cans Coke
1 cup buttermilk
sour cream
8oz cream cheese
monterey jack cheese
1 cans cherry pie filling
1 29 oz can posole (hominy)
6 cups chicken broth
1 can tomato sauce
3-15 oz can black beans
16 oz jar Chi-Chi's salsa
1 jar salsa
1 cup Chi-Chi's refried beans
1 can sliced green chilies
1 can red enchilada sauce
1 1/3 cups tomato juice
6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2.5-3 lb pork roast
2 lb pork
12 oz bottle red taco sauce
1 packet traditional Hidden Valley Ranch Mix (not buttermilk)
2-4 oz cans green chilies
18-10in tortillas
1 tub whipped topping
1 red onion
2 yellow onions
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
2 bunches cilantro
3 or 4 ripe avocados
2 Roma tomatoes
1 tomato
1 lime
2 tomatillos
lettuce

And as a bonus, I made a new dinner tonight, too! I have been loving crock pot dinners with our 1:00 pm church schedule, and Melissa sent me a couple more crock pot recipes I couldn't wait to try. Here's what we had.

Zesty Italian Chicken Fettuccini
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 package zesty Italian dry salad dressing mix
1 can cream of chicken soup
8 oz. sour cream
8 oz. cream cheese
½ medium red onion
1 cup sliced mushrooms, optional
1 (12 oz.) package fettuccini

1. Cut chicken into bite sized pieces. Dice onion. Place chicken in crock pot with Italian dressing mix, onion, sliced mushrooms, and cream of chicken soup. Stir to coat; cook on high for 3 ½ hours.
2. Meanwhile, mix softened cream cheese and sour cream together until smooth. Place in refrigerator. After all the other ingredients have cooked, add the cream cheese/sour cream mixture a half hour before serving. Serve over cooked fettuccine.

This was so yummy! (6 thumbs up, including my mom who ate with us.) Next time I will make it with half the amount of chicken, though. It was sooooo much chicken!

Pasta requires garlic bread of some kind in my opinion, and I had been looking for an excuse to make this (another of Melissa's recipes), so I made Rhoades rolls and this: (click on the name to see it on Melissa's blog)

Roasted Garlic Butter

1 large head of garlic
olive oil
2 sticks salted butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Using a sharp knife, lay head of garlic on its side and slice off the top quarter--exposing cloves (as pictured above). Place on top of square of aluminum foil; bunch foil up around the sides, leaving the top open. Drizzle about 2 T olive oil over the cloves--then cinch the foil shut. Place in a small baking dish and put in oven to roast for 1 hour.

Open foil to let garlic cool. Put softened butter in small bowl. Pick up cooled garlic head and squeeze out the cloves into the butter. Mash together with a fork.

This butter was so yummy on our rolls, I couldn't even believe it, and my mouth had been watering just reading the recipe. We went through 14 rolls just at dinner (for 6 of us, including my mom), and it wasn't because we weren't eating everything else. Yummmm . . .

Anyway, stay tuned for some more yummy stuff this week!

P.S. Since I was making another crock pot recipe today, I did a little research about the Reynold's slow cooker liners, just to see if they do leech chemicals into the food. I found this article, and while not conducted by some experts at a university, it was enough to put my mind at ease when using liners.