Tiffanie: this week's menu

The Isa Does It journey continues!

My plans this week include:

• eggplant and bread crumb fettuccine, green salad. 
• spinach and black bean burrito bowl, corn chips
• white beans in sherry-bread crumb gravy, sauteed greens, mashed potatoes
• lentils and rice with caramelized onions with spiced pita crisps
• sweet potato hash with veggies

I've been exploring the sweets section in the cookbook. The chai snickerdoodles are a huge hit, and I was happy to see the chocolate chunk cherry mini loaves in there. They are fantastic reheated, sort of a molten chocolate cake. The maple bran blueberry muffin is good, but I need to use a different maple flavoring, mine was too strong. Today I tried the giant oatmeal raisin cookies; they are the chewy sweet variety. Nice with tea!

Tiffanie: this week's menu

I'm still trying out my new Isa cookbook!

This week's plans include;

• taco night
• sushi night (just avocado/fried sweet potatoes, plus some miso soup)
• Harira soup, plus olive oil bread and salad. The soup is Moroccan, I think, and has eggplant and tomatoes and chickpeas and angel hair pasta... it seems very hearty and tasty.
• Mapo tofu, brown rice, cabbage slaw, onion pancakes (possibly home made)
• pesto cauliflower linguine with breaded tofu, salad
• mustard tempeh wraps (more of a lunch thing)

Lots of tofu this week, guess I'm just in the mood for it. Or lazy...

Oh, and I found frozen cherries, so I'm going to make the delicious chocolate cherry mini loaves!

Deadra: Cooking for 5!

Okay it's still for 4, kinda, but now with the added help of a really small person!
It's really a good thing that I like to cook, or it would be really daunting to get back in the kitchen after having had a baby!
So far I've found that it's best to make things that can simmer and have no particular end point time wise, something that doesn't need to be babysat, or have finicky timings.  I've found this includes:
stew, soup, chili, long simmering sauces and bread.  Yeah I've made bread!  I tried my hand at no knead bread and it's so forgiving!  And it's delicious!
I've also made a bunch of miso soups, kimchi soup and mac and cheese.  These aren't long simmering, but they're quick and easy, which works well too.
I managed to make the bulk of Christmas dinner too, which just required  a little preplanning, and spatchcocking the bird, which allowed it to cook super fast.  I had some help with baby holding, so that make cooking easy.  We had our standard Christmas dinner of a bird, a lot of stuffing, gravy, yorkshires and cranberry sauce.  I also made apple pie and Christmas pudding with a creme anglais.  (We set the pudding on fire, intentionally, it was fun and delicious!  Also if you care, vodka will not ignite unless you heat it up first.)
Right after Christmas we had some house guests, so I made a few meals for 8, but that worked out because there were lots of baby holders, so I was able to indulge my inner Martha Stewart and cook it up.
On the weekends I indulge my inner Betty Crocker when Adam can hold a baby so I can bake it up.  I've kept us stocked in muffins, cakes and cookies.  It's been nice to indulge my kitchen goddess, even post baby.  The kitchen is my happy place and even though I might leave it a disaster (I have to baby-hold too!) it does soothe my soul and leave me feeling like I can do this parenting 3 small children thing.
Now to figure out laundry....  I propose throw it all out and start over.

Tiffanie: this week's menu

I've got a new cookbook, Isa Does It! So I'm trying out recipes this week.

My plans include:

• taco night, with some roasted butternut squash and kale and mushrooms.
• sushi night with yakisoba (with shiitake and broccoli)
• a soba bowl, with roasted cauliflower and sprouts and miso tahini sauce
• soup and bread... probably a simple vegetable soup with tiny pasta, possibly a cabbage potato soup. Or both. Olive oil bread recipe to try out...
• tofu wrap with edamame hummus and sprouts
• sweet potato hash with random veggies and eggs
• pasta + Field Roast sausages + tomato pasta sauce
• a bran blueberry muffin

The kids and I are discussing having three regular food nights each week: taco, sushi, and pizza. They like building their own food, and each food type is welcomed by the kids. The prep time is pretty minimal for me (mostly cooking rice and making pizza dough), and we can do different toppings/fillings as the seasons change. Seems like a good way to get them more involved with prepping dinner and eating more veggies.

Do any of you have regular scheduled themed dinners each week?

Tiffanie: this week's menu

I missed a few weeks of recording my weekly menu, but I'm still on task for actually doing the planning. It really removes a layer of stress from cooking daily.

This week I'm not entirely sure of the entire menu yet... I'm getting a new cookbook in the mail on Tuesday, so I want to reserve some time to try out new ideas.

I do know that we'll be having:

• bok choy and chickpea saute with cashews, rice, baked tofu, smoothies.
• pineapple fried rice with tofu

I have some excellent mushroom barley soup leftovers, a bit of chili leftovers, and a large cabbage that may become colcannon...