Meal Plan 3-9-09

After a great weekend in Portland I came home and threw myself into the duties of the week. I miss eating out and relaxing in Oregon already. We ate at a few great places, one bar in particular that we really liked last night called "Huber's." I'll try to post pictures of it on my other blog soon but not tonight. While there, we had a great Spanish coffee that was made in flaming glasses. Yum! We had some great appetizers in place of dinner including smoked salmon and artichoke dip. The atmosphere was fun and the bar has been in existence since the mid 1800s. It was hoppin' and we had to wait for a table in the dim and crowded room!

This week's menu includes:

Monday: Brown rice, shrimp, and snow pea bowl (see recipe below taken from Everyday FOOD magazine) - one of our favorites

Tuesday: Broken noodles with homemade tomato sauce and ricotta (found in the March 2009 Everyday FOOD magazine- I'm using spinach fettucine since I couldn't find pappardelle)
Wednesday: Slow-cooker smoky beef tacos (found in the March 2009 Everyday FOOD magazine) with cilantro lime sour cream and salsa - new recipes

Thursday: Two-Potato Pancakes (from Fresh from the Garden by Ann Lovejoy) - new recipe

Friday: calzones with pepperoni, olives, and mozzarella using this 30-minute pizza crust recipe from Crystal. This recipe is tried and true, I just usually add a bit more flour than she calls for. I especially love making it in my KitchenAid with the dough hook because it gets really smooth. I've never tried calzones so we'll see how it goes! They're a favorite from my childhood and hopefully an incentive NOT to go eat out on Friday night!

Saturday: Tilapia foil packets from Stephanie's crockpot blog. I have no idea how these will turn out but I figured they sounded like they were worth a shot! I'll definitely be using parmesan since cheddar on white fish sounds really strange to me. I'll also roast some fingerling potatoes from the farmer's market that we got a few weeks ago.

Sunday: We're hoping to have friends over Sunday evening so I'm planning to make mom's easy crockpot Cheesy Chicken and Rice, orange rosemary muffins (also from Fresh from the Garden) and roasted parmesan asparagus. I'm still debating about dessert and will have to do more scouting before I decide.

I hope it's a yummy week. I'm also hoping that I can jump back in the swing of things easily and even get all the laundry done tomorrow.

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Brown-Rice Bowl with Shrimp, Snow Peas, and Avocado
(from the January/February 2008 Everyday FOOD magazine). This is a favorite that I have made multiple times and enjoyed each time! It's easy, healthy, and yummy. The ginger and citrus make a really yummy sharp taste that pairs so well with the smooth buttery avocado.

Serves 4

• course salt and ground pepper
• 2 cup long-grain brown rice
• 1/4 c. soy sauce
• 1/4 c. lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp rice vinegar
• 2 tsp light brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 pound peeled and deveined medium shrimp, thawed
• 1/2 lb snow peas, trimmed and halved on the diagonal
• 1 piece (1 inch long) fresh ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks
• 1 avocado, pitted and cut into chunks

1. Bring 2 cups salted water to a boil, add rice; cover and reduce heat to low. Cook until rice is tender and water is absorbed, around 45-50 minutes
2. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, stir together soy sauce, lemon juice, vinegar, and sugar until sugar is dissolved. Set aside.
3. When rice is finished, heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Add shrimp, snow peas, and ginger, season with salt and pepper. Cook until shrimp are opaque throughout and snow peas are bright green, about 2-3 minutes
4. Divide rice among four bowls. Top with shrimp mixture and avocado; serve sauce on the side
   

First March 09 meal plan!

I can't believe it's March already. Not even the first of March, but the second! This year is speeding by uncontrollably. I'm at home sick today with some sort of stomach bug, which is making meal planning a little difficult (nothing sounds good) but it's got to be done or we'll eat out all week, making for a much more expensive meal plan in the long run. Fortunately, I was jotting ideas down all week as they came to me, so I had half the plan done already. I always do that - "Oh, that sounds yummy, maybe we'll have that next week" but then if I don't write it down, I will forget by the time my meal planning rolls around. Here's what I thought about last week's eating:

The lasagna was good and simple - I just used the recipe on the back of the noodle box and it didn't end up taking as long as I thought it would and it provided yummy leftovers. We didn't end up eating the beet salad so that goes on my meal plan again this week. Beets keep relatively well in the fridge so I'm not worried about them going bad. I loved using my Kitchen Aid to make the pizza dough on Friday night - that way it could knead it while I prepped the rest of the ingredients. I love the 30 minute dough recipe I use. Here's what's up this week:

Monday: Teriyaki chicken and rice using my favorite teriyaki sauce: Yoshida's! Yum!

Tuesday

My easy chicken noodle soup and Betty Crocker's Baking Powder Biscuits. For the soup I'll be using leftovers from last week's whole chicken, which we made with dried rosemary and Lawry's seasoning salt before roasting. I made chicken broth in the crockpot overnight afterward using a modified version of the recipe from Stephanie O'Dea's blog (Homemade chicken broth crockpot recipe here). I didn't blend the veggies into the broth but left it clear and then froze the leftover chicken and veggies I used in the broth to add to the soup this week. It made about 7 cups of broth so I'll use some of it this week. Yum!

Wednesday
French Winter Beet Salad (from one of my favorite cookbooks by Ann Lovejoy caled Fresh From the Garden) and broiled trout with lemon

Thursday
I just discovered you can bake potatoes in foil packets in the slow cooker, so since we have a meeting that night, I'll make potatoes in the slow cooker so they'll be ready by the time we get home and want to eat before zipping out the door! I have been enjoying the blog mentioned above by Stephanie O'Dea (A Year of Crockpotting). The simple recipe for baked potatoes can be found here.

Friday-Sunday: we're headed for a getaway in Portland so I'm trying to plan a few meals that don't require us to eat out. I doubt our hotel room has a microwave or mini fridge, so I'm thinking I'll bring the cooler to keep some things like yogurt or cream cheese for bagels or something. We'll probably mostly eat out though.

Planning ahead

Menu-planner, seeking inspiration. Longing for spring, hence the crocus. I have yet to actually see a crocus yet this year but am in desperate need of some color! Last week we did pretty well sticking to our meal plan but somehow have one left over - maybe we ate out once, I can't remember. Everything was yummy, especially the bean and rice burritos that I created - they were easy and delicious, definitely something to repeat. This week's menu:



Monday: Happy hour sushi again, this time with Jesse and another couple. It was yummy tonight and then we headed over to Dilletante's for coffee and dessert. Now we'll have to stick to our meal plan since that ate up our funds for restaurants for the week! It was worth it though.

Tuesday: Lasagna and roasted asparagus with parmesan cheese

Wednesday: Winter beet salad and broiled steelhead trout

Thursday: Taco salad with ground beef, black beans, olives, lettuce, cheddar, tomato, avocado

Friday: Pizza with feta, pancetta, artichoke hearts, mozzarella, etc
Saturday: Roasted whole chicken and potatoes - save the leftovers for salads next week

Sunday: Beef stew and homemade bread at a friend's house - yummy!

Monday: Frittata (potatoes, feta, leftover veggies) and applesauce

For more menu plans, see Laura at www.orgjunkie.com

February Meal Plan

My meal plan for February 15-22

Sunday:

Out to eat after church with friends... then we're headed to a $3 movie! Jesse's brother is in town for a job interview, and Jesse and I have tomorrow off, so we're living it up!

Monday: I'm going out to sushi with college girlfriends to the Dragonfish Asian Cafe for half price Happy Hour! Jesse can have baked potatoes or something else if he wants.

Tuesday:

Thai-spiced Pumpkin Soup. This is a new one and looks yummy... and Mache with orange-cumin dressing (see below)... we went to the farmer's market this week and were hoping for spinach until we found out it was gone... mache (with a little arete above the "a") is a European relative of spinach and is apparently usually an expensive gourmet green. We got it for cheap and this recipe sounds good!
Wednesday: Bean and rice burritos (experimenting) with chips and salsa

Thursday: French Winter Beet Salad from Fresh From the Garden Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Kitchen Gardens by Ann Lovejoy. I was skeptical about beets until recently, having only had the red, strong-flavored beets at the salad bar or roasted at home. They are typically too strong for me to eat alone but last winter I discovered Chioggia beets at the U District Farmer's Market. The flavor is much more subtle, and look at the coloring in the picture at the top! This salad is one of Jesse's favorite meals I've made in the last few months; the beets paired with apples and walnuts with a lemony mustard dressing is delicious!

Friday-Sunday we are headed to Spokane for a wedding and a visit with Jesse's family. I am glad, we haven't been over there since Thanksgiving and I am looking forward to seeing his mom and hopefully his sister Holly.

Monday - I always like to plan at least one meal for the day after we get back in town since I don't want to worry about grocery shopping right away. We're going to have lasagna and garlic bread

Adventures in local eating

This winter we decided to join a local CSA so we could continue the adventure we began earlier in the year trying to eat mostly local produce. If you're unfamiliar with Community Supported Agriculture (I was until a couple years ago), here's a great description from the National Agriculture Library:

Community Supported Agriculture consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community's farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. Typically, members or "share-holders" of the farm or garden pledge in advance to cover the anticipated costs of the farm operation and farmer's salary. In return, they receive shares in the farm's bounty throughout the growing season, as well as satisfaction gained from reconnecting to the land and participating directly in food production. Members also share in the risks of farming, including poor harvests due to unfavorable weather or pests. By direct sales to community members, who have provided the farmer with working capital in advance, growers receive better prices for their crops, gain some financial security, and are relieved of much of the burden of marketing.

There are actually a few farms in Kent nearby who offer CSAs and after researching them further, we decided to invest in the Whistling Train Farm which is a mere 10 minutes away from where we live. It was even more convenient than I expected! We have been pleased with the quality and amounts of food we receive each week, and I love the challenge and fun it presents in learning to cook with fresh, local bounty, such as kale, chard, different squashes, and turnips. Of course, we also get some more "standard" vegetables, such as potatoes, broccoli, carrots, garlic, etc.
I know many people who would find this daunting and stressful, but seeing what produce we're going to get each week has been a highlight for me. I start right away imagining what combinations of meals I can make with what we have stocked in our fridge.

However, it is an investment, as we've learned this week. You see the sentence in the paragraph above : "Members also share in the risks of farming, including poor harvests due to unfavorable weather or pests"? We've learned that firsthand this week as well, since the Puget Sound has been solidly frozen and snowy for the whole week now, making harvesting and produce pickup impossible. While disappointing, we knew this was the risk and part of the deal.

For some reason, even this disappointment causes me to be at least a little excited. It is a different disappointment than going to the grocery story and finding them out of the ingredient you need; different, I think, because we know where our food is coming from and know why there isn't any this week. It wasn't because some fool forgot to order enough the week before Christmas or because there was some mad rush by humanity on the stores, but instead due to unchangeable circumstances of weather, determined by God. In the way farmers in the past depended on Him directly to control the weather and provide for him, we are making our best attempt to do the same; when there isn't an abundance, we will adjust our lives to this. When there is an abundance, our appreciation and joy abounds as well.

We have been reading works by Wendell Berry, who writes extensively in both fiction and non-fiction modes about our culture's major shift in the last period of time away from the land and agriculture. We have moved so far away from an agricultural community that we usually have no idea where our food is coming from, nor do we, as a society, care. This seems to be possibly the first time in history that this is the case for such a huge majority of a society, and our new health challenges may be reflecting this shift.

I could go on; Jesse and I have made some decisions about our lifestyle that not all will make and we know this. But it is exciting for us to see what life can be like; that you can begin to live in a sustainable fashion, even while we are in the middle of the city; living in an apartment! So, this week, we may eat a lot of potatoes, rice and beans, but we know that it is temporary and in just a few short months we will joyfully be eating fresh-picked strawberries and asparagus! What anticipation we already feel about spring and summer!

October Meal Plan

I've been consistently making meal plans but have forgotten to post them every week! This week I am particularly excited to try a few meals, so I thought I would post my plan and later any recipes that worked well. Here's what's to eat this week:

Saturday (tonight): Danish squash stuffed with cranberry apple wild rice with apples and cheddar on the side

Sunday: Homemade pizza topped with chicken sausage, carmelized onions, and mozzerella

Monday: Twice baked potatoes with broccoli and cheddar (a good way to finish off the broccoli I have left from last week)

Tuesday: Shrimp with scallions and crispy potatoes (from the November 08 Everyda FOOD magazine I got in the mail yesterday!)

Wednesday: Low-calorie chicken enchiladas (at Jesse's request)

Thursday: Potato salad with local red and yellow potatoes

Friday: Chili and cornbread (for our Halloween party) with roasted pumpkin seeds and mulled cranberry apple cider

Saturday: Kabocha squash soup with carmelized onions

Potential side dishes:

• corn on the cob
• sweet potatoes
• carrots
• spinach
• red leaf lettuce (salad?)
• rice

I am also going to try a new whole-wheat bread recipe if I get a chance. Should be a yummy week, I hope! Later I'll post any good recipes I discover!

My far-too-easy Chicken Noodle Soup

Jesse raves about this, which cracks me up, since it's totally a fall-back meal. Meaning, when I don't feel like making whatever I planned for dinner, I make this instead. It makes a lot, so I'm always happy because it's just good the next day!

• 4 cups (2 cans) good chicken broth
• 2-3 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 stalks of celery, chopped
• 1 can white chicken meat in waters
  
• a couple handfuls of spirally noodles (I use egg noodles or fusilli pasta - rotini is TOO noodly, we tried that once, never again!)
  
• Basil, salt, and other spices to taste
  

1) Pour 4 cups of good chicken broth (I like the free-range chicken broth in cartons, but often use Swansons if I have them on hand) into a stockpot. Add carrots and celery and heat to over medium high. Cook for 5 minutes

2) Add noodles and let cook until veggies and noodles are soft - about 10-13 minutes

3) Add chicken + water from the can (yep, just dump it all in). You could theoretically use chicken you've cooked and diced or shredded, but this eliminates a whole step! I'm all for that, since this IS one of my fall-back meals. Throw in some salt, basil/Italian spices... what have you... to taste.

It really is that simple and it's so much better than stuff out of a can! It's especially good with soft fluffy biscuits or a loaf of homemade crusty bread. Yum!!