I'm back!!!

After a busy several of weeks, I am back! I have so many blog posts that I composed in my head while scurrying around, and they will come, but for now it is merely a "Menu Plan Monday" post, you know, just to ease back into things. So, here it is....

• Sunday--Red lentil soup, barley flat bread, roasted asparagus, beet salad
• Monday--Chili, polenta, roasted cauliflower
  
• Tuesday--Red beans and rice, coleslaw
  
• Wednesday--Split pea soup, potato dumplings, salad with roasted squash, fresh bread
• Thursday--Gumbo, squash-corn muffins, sauteed greens
• Friday--Pizza and leftovers
• Saturday--Pasta with mushrooms and leftover greens

There have been complaints of not enough dessert. Although, those complaints come from the family sweet tooth so I am not sure how seriously to take them. We usually have a dessert on Friday night along with our movie night. Miss Tooth, says *all* of her friends have dessert *everyday* so wouldn't I PLEASE consider just one more day for dessert. How often do real people have dessert?

This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

When in doubt, put it in a pie crust

After the little one was sick for a week followed by the bigger ones sick for a week followed by the little one and me sick for a week, we have not been eating so well. All I can say is thank goodness for ground beef and potatoes! It is so easy, even a dad can do good things with it! Yesterday, even though I still had no voice, I had energy and man did I cook! We have granola, we have individual apple pies, we have knishes, we have empanadas, we have a huge pot of beans, we have oatmeal raisin freezer scones, and we have chicken and stock. I cooked so much that I quite successfully avoided doing any laundry! Anyway, here is how we will use it this week:

• Sunday - Empanadas (potato, tomato and beef for the kids, greens and olive for the adults) feta yogurt sauce, salad
  
• Monday - bean tacos, mexi-rice, coleslaw
• Tuesday - mashed potatoes with chicken gravy, steamed broccoli
• Wednesday - taco salad, beans, corn muffins
  
• Thursday - potato gratin with whatever bits of chicken might be left over
• Friday - steaks, potato dumplings, salad
• Saturday - pizza and apple pie

So, I found another great book at the library: The Frugal Foodie by Lara Starr. That is where the freezer scone recipe came from. Make the scones and freeze them. In the morning, pop as many as you need into the oven for about 10-15mn and they are ready to eat. Pure genius, I say! Now, one could do this with any scone or even muffin recipe, I guess, but hers is particularly easy and the kids LOVE them. She has a lot of great ideas for meals and saving money and one day, I imagine, I will return it to the library.

Now, about that pie crust. I am totally digging the hand held pie! It is perfect for lunches for the kids. I use spelt flour and Spectrum organic shortening (with a bit of bacon fat for flavor) for the butter and I am hard pressed for anything that doesn't taste good in THAT! We have had ground beef with olives and raisins, samosa potato and pea filling, apple pie filling, goat cheese and cherry jam fillings, chicken gravy with broccoli bits filling, bacon and potato filling and sheep's feta and spinach filling. Seriously, the possibilities are limitless! And now that I have a food processor, the crust is so easy to make. I made several batches of it yesterday. I used two last night and still have one batch chilling in the fridge, ready to go. Since I have a lot of squash to use, I am thinking about pureed squash, caramelized onion and goat cheese filling or steak, onions and feta. Now to be able to eat this much pie crust on a regular basis and still feel good about it, I only use about half of the recommended amount of fat. Most recipes seem to call for about a cup and a half of butter, shortening or lard and I am using 2/3 to 1 cup. I don't notice the loss in flavor or texture. The other thing I do is make a knish crust, which uses olive oil instead of the other fats. It is a bit labor intensive at the start, although, each step can be done in advance and tackled when one has time. I like meals that can either a) go from the freezer to the table in about 30mn or b) have the bulk of the work done well before meal time. Chopping and concentrating on pots or following recipes at 4:45pm generally does not jive well in our house. My next step is to experiment with freezing these individual pies and how long to bake them and at what temperature. Well, I guess it is time to tackle that laundry...

This link is posted to I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Eating from the Pantry and Freezer

A few special menu planning challenges this week: On Monday, we are bringing dinner to a family with a new baby. My BIL Chris is coming for a visit starting Thursday, and we will be celebrating his birthday on Friday evening. If we go crabbing this weekend, we're hoping fresh Dungeness will replace what's on the plan!

I'm still in "using up what's in food storage" mode, because that's the way we roll in February, March, and April (if you still haven't seen Sharon's post about this, check it out.  I think I've linked to it three times). I really want the chest freezer to be close to empty by late spring so I can put what's left in the little freezer and defrost that bad boy to get it ready for filling up again in the summer! This week, I'm trying to use up apple pie filling, delicata squash, some straggly red cabbage and kale from the garden, home-canned pear sauce, canned cherries, frozen bell peppers, and corn meal.

Monday: Bean and bacon soup (made a big batch Saturday), corn muffins, and apple pie!

Tuesday: No-knead artisan bread, hummus, marinated feta and olives, roasted delicata squash

Wednesday: Bibimbap, sesame spinach, rice - I hope to post the recipes for this one later in the week, because I would say this meal is my number one crowd-pleaser, and it's easy, nutritious, and endlessly adaptable.

Thursday: Pork chops, pear sauce, mashed potatoes, German red cabbage, roasted delicata squash

Friday: Salmon patties, oven fries, coleslaw, white chocolate white forest birthday cake (I hope to post this recipe later in the week, too!), chocolate ice cream

Saturday: Crock pot chili, corn muffins

Sunday: BBQ ribs, baked beans (I make 'em like this, except I use cooked dry beans), coleslaw, corn muffins

Have a fantastic week!

This post is linked to Menu plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie 

A brand new week

I am hoping to keep this week extra simple because the big one is (and has been for years) really wanting to do more of the cooking. Today we made chocolate pudding together and she was able to do most of it on her own. So, I am going to make a serious effort to get them all in the kitchen more. Partly because they want to and partly because I feel they need to learn some skills and kitchen work is one they are most interested in right now. So, without further ado...here is this weeks menu:

Sunday: Mediterranean fish stew, potato gratin, pickled beets and salad

Monday: Kale and squash baked pasta, sauteed mushrooms

Tuesday: Roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, pickled beets, sauteed chard

Wednesday: Tortilla soup and taco salad with black beans

Thursday: Thai beef stir-fry, asain coleslaw, rice

Friday: Pizza and pie

Saturday: California pork chops, rice, green beans and salad

As a back-up plan, I did manage to get 3 cheese pizzas frozen and an additional 4 crusts.

I, too, am working to use up the canned and frozen goods from last year. The salsa, pickled beets, pickled peppers, tomato sauce and canned tomatoes we have no problem using. It is the canned beans, watermelon rind (???), peach puree, green beans, apple pie filling and pickled carrots/peppers that are a challenge. I was inspired by the Casaubon's Book post that was a link in one of Erica's posts; specifically where she says "...good cooks can transform second choices into first ones." I am determined to make these less than favorite canned goods a bit more fun. Last year, I froze a lot of peaches (whole and sliced), blueberries and pureed squash that I have been rationing, but I feel confident that we can start eating at will.

This post is linked to Meal Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

My Happy Week

In Novella Carpenter's excellent memoir, Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, she quotes an old Portuguese saying that the happiest weeks in a person's life are the week after their wedding and the week after a pig goes to butcher.  S picked up our half a pastured hog on Saturday, so this has all the makings of a very good week! With that in mind, this week’s menu is unabashedly pork heavy. We haven’t been eating much pork for quite some time, so we are ready!* Besides, all that hog happiness just seems to work really well with some of the storage items I want to finish up soon – home canned pickled beets, pear sauce, the last of the frozen cranberries, potatoes that are starting to sprout, and a big 5 pound bag of coarse ground cornmeal that’s been in the freezer for a while.

Monday: Pork chops baked with sauerkraut and pear sauce, mashed potatoes, peas

Fat Tuesday: BBQ country ribs, potato and beet salad, coleslaw, corn muffins, bananas Foster

Wednesday: Salmon patties, oven fries, pickled beet coleslaw

Thursday: Bean and bacon soup, corn muffins

Friday: Tuna melts, oven fries, fruit

Saturday: Ladies Night, Erica doesn’t cook, the family eats leftover goodness

Sunday: Maple-mustard pork roast, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, delicate squash, gingerbread with pear sauce and whipped cream

I am participating in Meal Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie, along with a couple, two, three hundred other bloggers.  If you need inspiration, there is lots to be had! 
*
I stopped buying industrial pork a while back because of all the scary news about hormones, antibiotics, E. coli, a probable link between pork mega-farms and methicillin-resistant staph, and the incredible amounts of pollution produced by factory pork farms. As if we needed any more reasons to avoid industrial meat, the FDA recently approved a new chemical for industrial meat production, one that is very likely to remain in the meat, because it is given to the animals close to slaughter. We have local sources for local, organic, pastured beef, lamb, chicken, and eggs, but until a couple of weeks ago, our only source for pastured pork was our local food coop, and it was incredibly expensive. Then my lovely friend Josie, who keeps her ear to the ground about such things, found a farmer who raises pastured pigs. Let the happiness begin!

Other random stuff:

S and I just watched “Away We Go” on DVD, and I loved it so much. Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida wrote the screenplay, and I think Dave Eggers is, well, a genius. It is nice to watch a movie that reminds you about what’s important. I like it that the main characters are portrayed as being deeply in love, but realistically. They aren’t perfect people and they sometimes get on each others' nerves, but at the same time, they always have each others' backs. On their journey around the country, the couple gets a foretaste of what sorts of challenges life will throw at their attempts to be true to each other and to create family. Most of the other characters add up to one giant cautionary tale about just exactly what we’re all up against and all the many ways we can lose the path and forget what matters, through bad luck, selfishness, or just plain human weakness. The movie manages to be hilariously funny while still retaining its ring of truthfulness. It is affirming and hopeful – overall the perfect romantic movie for our Valentine’s weekend! Now that I’ve shamelessly built it up to the point where your expectations will be far too high to enjoy it, forget everything I’ve said and go rent it.

One of my favorite poets, Lucille Clifton, died yesterday.  I had the privilege to see her read her poetry in college.  She said that someone once asked her why her poems were so short.  She replied that she had raised six children, and that her poems were limited by the number of lines she could remember as she cared for her family and household and worked throughout the day and waited to write them down in the evening.  This is one of my favorites.  Actually, they are all amazing.  There are links to several of her poems here.

Itchy Fingers

 I have been itching to post about so many things, but I have been down with a nasty virus this week.  I never did make a meal plan, my strategy this week was to get people fed with as little energy expended as possible.

So here's what we did eat:

Monday:  Leftover beans, leftover rice, leftover salsa, and hard-boiled eggs

Tuesday:  Taco soup with pasta, avocado, corn muffins

Wednesday:  Salmon patties, oven fries, roasted broccoli, homemade tartar sauce

Thursday:  Donburi

Friday:  Steak, Colombian salt potatoes, guacamole

Saturday:  Homemade bagels, scrambled eggs, bacon

Sunday:  Valentine's Day breakfast - coffee, gingerbread pancakes, pear sauce, sausage
Potluck party with friends - pasta salad, fruit salad, lemon bars

For this coming week, I intend to post the meal plan on Monday.

Oh, and there's an awesome post on Sharon Astyk's blog about eating locally in February (and March, and April) and how these are the months where you end up "finishing up" the stuff that's not necessarily your favorite.  For instance, next week, I think we will be finishing the pickled beets I made last summer.  Also the pear sauce that no one has touched.  And next summer I will focus my canning efforts on stuff that we really like (and the kids really like); the old standbys like strawberry jam, spaghetti sauce, and applesauce.

A pop quiz

Here this blog has just been started and I am getting a pop quiz. R told me yesterday that he will have to work late every night this week. So, how do I feed the fam food a) they can eat and b) I feel good about, and still manage to parent in a way that allows me to sleep easy at night. My instinct is to make 14 dozen tamales, a giant pot of beans, 2 batches of granola, roast a chicken and make stock. I am not going to do that. That would take two solid days of "parenting with my voice" from the kitchen--deal breaker. I could make a run to the store, but the convenience foods my kids allergies (wheat, cow-dairy, nuts and seeds, eggs, soy and garlic. Yes, I know, GARLIC?!?) allow them to have are waaaaaay expensive and I have already spent my budget this week. But finances aside, I have a lot of ingredients in this house. Sure they are ingredients that take a day to thaw, a night to soak or an hour to cook, but there is plenty. This is not a prologue to my big plan. I have no plan as of yet. I have a menu I made on Saturday as a starting point:

Sunday: T-bones, potato gratin, mushrooms and onions and chimichurri sauce.

Monday: Polenta, roasted cauliflower, sauteed chard, marinara with left over steak.

Tuesday: Fish tacos, beans, rice, salad, salsa and avocados.

Wednesday: Black bean burgers, Jojos, salad and broccoli.

Thursday: Leftovers cleverly thrown together in a new and exciting way that the children love.

Friday: California pork chops, rice, broccoli and pickled beets.

Saturday: Pizza and apple pie.

Of course, R won't be here, so I will have to alter things so there won't be a fridge full of leftovers about to go bad. Well, wish me luck.....Josie

p.s. That cheat sheet would have been awesome about now.