Tiffanie: this week's menu

Last week went mostly to plan, except the shepherd's pie got bumped due to the husband missing all the meals after Thursday. Yes, I am a startup widow.

My plans this week:

• big pile of nachos (for me and the kids on Sunday night; they did not appreciate the whole black beans or the tomato chunks. Their loss, it was awesome.)
• tempeh shepherds pie, green salad, roasted carrots?
• pasta with Field Roast sausages and collard greens and tomatoes. The kids suddenly like Field Roast sausages! They say they are spicy but good. True.
• tofu potato mushroom stew with miso gravy. Old standby but so good. It's a two-meal dish, so one night there will be rice under it, maybe some roasted sweet potatoes, another night there will be soba noodles. 
• sweet potato hash with all the veggies. I've started putting in mushrooms and carrots, which is a nice variation. Collard greens work well when sliced thinly. Hot sauce and fried eggs make it a nice mama-meal.
• still haven't made granola
• applesauce, for canning. I kind of doubt I can stay ahead of my husband's love of applesauce, but I may be able to make a dozen or two large Mason jars (24 oz). I'm done with making strawberry freezer jam, I have about ten 8-12 oz jars in the freezer. Plus one huge jar in the fridge. Debating what to do with my lemon cucumbers in the back yard... relish?

Tiffanie: this week's menu

Long absence -- had a bad bout of bronchitis and then went to Maui. Very little cooking!

But now real life has returned, with school and bills and hot hot days. My plans for the week include:

• tomato tortilla soup, with quesadillas. And cold cold beer. And watermelon.
• tempeh shepherd's pie, with beet salad.
• spaghetti and beanballs, with broccoli slaw.
• mapo tofu, with rice, and fried onion pancakes. Something green on the side, whatever my CSA box brings me.
• sweet potato hash, with other veggies thrown in.
• vegan blondies (so so good).
• no bake energy balls
• granola

What are you eating?

Tiffanie: this week's menu

Still trying to stay ahead of all that lettuce! I didn't make it through all of last week's meal plan, so some of it is in this week's.

Plans for this week:

• Creole Hoppin' Jean with corn chips and hot sauce, roasted cauliflower and red onions, green salad with home grown tomatoes and cucumbers. Ok, this was last night, and it was delicious. :-)
• pizza with mushrooms and olives and pesto
• pasta with edamame and broccoli and walnuts
• sweet potato hash with chard
• chili with zucchini, cornbread
• french lentil salad
• energy balls

We're going camping next weekend, but due to lack of space in the car I probably won't pack much food beyond snacks. We'll be exploring the coastline and towns, so it'll be a relaxing no-cook weekend for mama. I'm thinking I'll pack lots of fruit leather, applesauce, granola bars, trail mix, pirate booty... anything that is compact and shelf-stable.

Bernadette: This week's meal plan

I've been cooking a lot but it has been awhile since I planned meals for the week.

For this week:

• Black Pepper Flank Steak - this was actually pre-marinaded by the butcher. We ate it tonight since I came back from the grocery store late. It was delicious. 
• Chicken Tinola - a Filipino recipe, a sort of chicken and papaya soup with garlic, ginger, onion, and spinach (although I'm using napa cabbage because that's what I have)
• Asian Chicken Salad
• Tuna Nicoise Salad
• Creamy Lemon Pepper Orzo and Grilled Chicken

I realized after I finished shopping that there's a lot of chicken this week so next week I'll work on more variety and try to get a vegetarian dish in the meal plan, too. 

Tiffanie: this week's menu

Not so hot this week, but also not so cool. Just summer!

My meal plans include:

• homemade pizza, with tofu ricotta, pesto, zucchini, mushrooms, olives... whatever the kids want. And salad, since I have so much lettuce...
• baking powder biscuits, tempeh bacon or other fake bacon, roasted potatoes and onions with herbs, smoothies
• baked tofu, peanut noodles, cabbage salad
• pasta with broccoli, edamame, and walnuts.
• bibimbap (rice bowl with mushrooms, zucchini, carrots, tofu, hot sauce, etc.)

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

Deadra: New Routine....

Okay it's not so new, but it's more that I'm implementing it officially.  It's call, eat what's in the fridge or starve.  Well it's not that harsh, but that's the general idea.
We all know I love to cook, love it.  The down fall is that I always have left overs, and I have a tiny horribly engineered fridge, which means stuff gets shoved to the back, where is dies a slow, chilly death.  Then I throw it out, and I hate to waste food.  Also there is the cursing, the cursing when I try to add more things to the already overflowing fridge.  So to assuage this I've started having more left over nights.  Which, who knew, makes dinner time so easy.  I don't even fancy them up, I let everyone choose what they want, and they're happy!  Bonus!  And my fridge gets cleaned out!
I wonder how I didn't really clue on to this before, but it's working well.  I still plan my meals two weeks out for the most part, but I work in left over nights a couple times a week.
This domestic diva thing, sometimes just gets easier and easier.  Up next, hunting down and killing all of the dust bunnies that have accumulated.

Tiffanie: this week's menu

It's a little cool and rainy today, which is shaping my menu plans for the week...

My plans include:

• breakfast dinner of pancakes, tempeh white bean sausage patties, roasted potatoes and onions with herbs
• lentil-rice-caramelized onions with spiced pita crisps. Slightly addicted to this dish... green salad on the side.
• brown curry from a box, with lots of leftover veggies in it... tofu, carrots, turnips, onions, zucchini. Over rice, with salad.
• potato mushroom tofu stew with miso gravy, over rice or pasta.

Just made a nice banana bread with lots of coconut oil. Not sure what other desserts are in the works, maybe cookies. Also going to make more yogurt-banana-blueberry popsicles.

Tiffanie: this week's menu

I'm even more behind than usual, since we went to the Maker Faire on Sunday and I didn't do any meal planning or shopping. Fortunately we've got leftovers, and plenty of produce left over from the CSA box. The bean and escarole soup was delicious, and is now all gone (two dinners, one lunch). We ended up making pizza at home on Saturday, with homemade fresh pesto. I also made a tofu ricotta, which I liked more than the mozzarella the kids ate. Way more flavor and texture.

My plans include:

• millet and spinach polenta, with sun dried tomato pesto. Sauteed fava beans with garlic. Roasted sweet potato fries and summer squash.
• spaghetti with kale and vegan sausage. Kids will manage to get cheese on their pasta. Green salad with radishes. Might add fava beans to the pasta, too. I've got a lot of fava beans.

On Wednesday I'll get another CSA box and work off of that... at the moment I'm not coming up with much. Honestly, those two bullet points are three dinners, which takes me to Thursday-sweet-potato-hash-night. And Friday we're going out to dinner for a date night. So I guess I can be lazy this week. :-)

Today we made blueberry-banana-honey-yogurt popsicles, and I also made thyme-honey-whiskey-iced-tea. We're going to try out both this afternoon (well, the kids don't get the whiskey tea). I should also make more energy balls, to fatten up my kids.

Bernadette: Meal Plan

I haven't been good at making myself meal plan so I finally decided to try out a meal planning service. I found one called Cook Smarts, which had a free email subscription at the time that I joined but which has now switched to a paid subscription service. I continued with it because the recipes are pretty simple and using the meal plan helps get me out of my cooking rut. There's always one vegetarian meal and the dinner is usually seems pretty balanced. Each recipe also lets you know what you can make ahead of time, very handy for when I just have a few minutes to do something useful before one of the kids need me. If I don't like the sound of a dish for a particular day, I just look for another recipe from a different source but at least there are a few meals for the week already planned.


This week, I've made the following:

Stuffed Peppers with Quinoa, Black Beans, and Corn with a side of Roasted Asparagus - This dish was much easier to make than I expected and everyone liked it. The 4 year old helped me assemble the peppers and sprinkle cheese on top and was so excited to pick her pepper. She tried to eat it but mostly ate the cheese. I think she wasn't sure about the quinoa though and really doesn't like beans. She loved the corn though.
Baked Chicken Cordon Bleu and Roasted Broccoli - This one got rave reviews from the husband and we even served it to a dinner guest. I liked it because I got to pound the chicken flat although the recipe involved a little more work than I like - it can be inconvenient to watch 2 kids and handle raw meat at the same time. I didn't think the 4 year old would eat it so I broke my rule about trying to get the 4 year old to eat what we eat and made chicken tenders on the side. Making the chicken tenders was easy since all the ingredients were already there and it just meant not rolling up the chicken with the cheese and prosciutto.

I liked both dishes enough that I'd be happy to make either of them again.

Tomorrow is Honey Lime Salmon with Quinoa and over the weekend we'll probably be using our new grill which means sausages and corn and other veggies.