Tiffanie: this week's menu

Oh, it's hot. Going for lazier foods this week.

The plans are:

• the millet black bean patties (didn't get to them last week), with sweet potato fries, avocados, and watermelon.
• fruit salad, mango summer rolls
• lentils and rice with caramelized onions and spiced pita crisps, green salad, smoothies.
• sweet potato hash with veggies and eggs
• pineapple fried rice, cole slaw

I bought a flat of strawberries this past week. We ate many of them, and I made a bunch of freezer jam. It goes too fast... we've almost finished the first jar already. I have a few pints left; I may make some scones today, to eat with the last of the fresh berries, or to put jam on... 

Tiffanie: this week's menu

The peaches became peach cobblers, oven roasted peach butter, and peach jam/syrup (not sure of the consistency). Not too many days left of peaches, plus the squirrels are very greedy.

Plans for this week include:

• braised red cabbage with red wine and apples and sausage. It's like a tasty wine stew with potatoes and carrots and apples and Field Roast sausages. I have way too much cabbage on hand right now. Plus salad. Might make beans and dogs for the kids.
• chickpea cutlets (a clever mix of gluten and chickpeas and spices and bread crumbs, fried up and crispy), mashed potatoes, roasted brussel sprouts, maybe a green salad. Mustard sauce with capers is required!
• millet black bean patties, sweet potato fries, salad. Maybe a rice pilaf would be nice alongside...
• calzones, coleslaw, watermelon. Kids have never had calzones, so we'll have to make some.
• a massur dal and carrot soup for a friend.
• hummus (Cooks Illustrated recipe)
• a new recipe, with nori and a rice noodle mixture. Seems like a yummy snack.

Tiffanie: this week's menu

I am planning:

• sweet potato onion kale hash, with roasted cauliflower on the side.
• lentil spinach stew with Field Roast sausages
• pineapple tofu fried rice
• mole skillet pie (it is filled with beans, onion, carrot, and kale/collard greens, topped with cornbread)

The peach tree is ripening quickly, so I should come up with some peach recipes...

Tiffanie: this week's menu

Hey, we survived the heat! I even made those full-meal muffins. They are tasty, not very sweet, and have a good texture. I'll make them again, though the kids did not find them exciting. Even with nutella! I may have to cut out sugar entirely from their diet so they can enjoy less-sweet foods...

Plans for this week include:

• eating out at Aqui (we went to an evening outdoor play afterwards, good fun)
• mushroom cauliflower pot pie with olive biscuit crust. My CSA gave me a 4.5 lb cauliflower head, so I used about half of it in this dish (doubling the recipe's request, but it was still good). The kids sort of like this dish -- they like the biscuit crust, and the mushrooms. Sadly, the cauliflower did not pass muster, as it was not roasted. This pie has a gravy made with lots of tarragon, and it's made me a fan of this herb.
• Creole Hoppin' Jean. Doing a double batch, to split with a friend. Decided to cook the beans from dried, instead of buying the Eden Organic canned. I love that brand, but it gets expensive. I do have a fresh bottle of Pepper Plant hot sauce to enjoy on this beans/rice/tomatoes dish. A big green salad will finish it off. And lots of beer. 
• Lal dal over coconut rice. Maybe some baked tofu for the kids. Sauteed greens, whatever comes in the box.

Other nibbles:

• potato salad, in the Mediterranean style, which means olive oil, cumin, scallions, sun dried tomatoes... the CSA box had gorgeous new potatoes, which make great potato salad. It's a nice way to really taste the potatoes.
• more no-bake energy balls. The boy is looking skinny, I think he just grew taller again.
• maple mustard tempeh strips. Going to the beach this week, and I love making a wrap with these for my picnic lunch.

Bernadette: what we've been eating

What We've Been Eating (pretty much everything except for the chicken tenders, roasted corn,  adobo, and the baby dishes are from cooksmarts.com):

• Rotisserie Chicken Enchiladas - really simple and easy. It was ok but I wouldn't make this particular recipe again and the 4 year old refused to touch it..
• Singaporean Noodles, which were pretty much stir fried curry noodles with shrimp and veggies. The husband loved it. I thought it was okay. The 4 year old ate focused on the shrimp, ate the noodles skeptically, and ignored the veggies.
• Mediterranean Turkey Burgers - turkey burgers with sundried tomatoes, garlic, and mint mixed into the patty. This one was good although I don't really like my burgers, which was what the sundried tomatoes did to the burger. 
• Mediterranean Plate - a dinner cobbled together from leftover ingredients: roast chicken, pita bread, olives, sundried tomatoes and hummus, homemade tzatziki
• Chicken and Pork Adobo - A Filipino dish, a family favorite.
• Homemade Chicken Tenders and Roasted Corn - I came across a recipe that said one can simply throw in corn on the cob, husks and all, into the oven for 30 minutes and it'll cook. I thought this was a great idea because I had forgotten to soak the husks and didn't feel like grilling plus I was already using the oven for the chicken tenders. It worked although the experiment might have suffered a bit because I think the oven may have started dying sometime during those 30 minutes. I tried using the oven again today and it looks like we may be shopping this weekend....
• Salmon Tacos with Mango Salsa - The 4 year old loves salmon and mango so when she heard that both ingredients were going to be put together, she was very eager for dinner. She ate dinner very happily but has no concept of taco, eating each ingredient separately rather than rolled up in a tortilla. 

I have also been cooking for the baby, who has decided that pureed food is no longer for her. She only wants table food. So, I've been feeding her a lot of finger food, sometimes little bits of what we eat if it doesn't pose any choking hazard, and started cooking some simple meals for her that are a little chunky but still soft.

• Lentils and Rice
• A no-stir baby risotto with asparagus, zucchini, and peas
• Indian Lentil Stew - lentils with potato, carrot, garlic, cumin, coriander, and cinnamon

So far, she's loved the little baby dishes. Hopefully soon, I'll be able to bridge the gap between what she can eat and what we eat!

For the coming week, I plan to make

• Lemon Asparagus Pasta with paprika roasted chickpeas
• Caprese Chicken with broccoli
• Wine Braised Pork Tenderloin with sauteed cabbage

Tiffanie: this week's menu

Oh, it is hot. And I am tired. But! I looked through a cookbook I have, Vegan Lunch Box, and was somewhat inspired by it.

This week:

• leftover lentils and rice with caramelized onions and spiced pita crisps. This time, not so much berbere spice on the pita. So very spicy! Also Japanese spinach salad to use up my CSA spinach, and possibly some vegan Field Roast sausages I have leftover in the fridge from pasta night.
• picnic in the park: hummus and carrot/cucumber sticks, falafel wraps, potato salad (with CSA new potatoes), cherries, chocolate chip cookies.
• bok choy cashew saute, rice, onion pancakes, cabbage slaw.
• massur dal and carrot soup (it has coconut milk!), empanadas, green salad.

Other things I want to make:

• full meal muffins (filled with flax, bananas, zucchini, molasses, etc)
• fennel cucumber salad (will have to drag out the mandoline)
• cheesy roasted chickpeas