Actuals for Jan 9 week, cooking for 2 in MN. Where cleaning/sorting ambitions continued in my quest to regain space in the freezer and eventually the pantry, too. This week reconfirmed that even with lunches of leftovers planned I should only count on cooking 4 main dish recipes weekly. And clear-out ambition took hold elsewhere in the house. I have at last slimmed down the excessive “save in case our taxes get audited” bags of detailed receipts from all but the past 2 years.
Mon: Reheat – Liver & mushrooms over rice, broccoli
Tues: Egg Bake from freezer
Wed noon: Chicken Lasagna roll ups, fresh spinach salad. Old favorite I haven’t made in a while. Glad I kept notes since you need double the butter and flour (2 T each) to actually get a thickened white-sauce with 1 C of milk. I also use jarred basil pesto, and cottage cheese in place of ricotta. http://www.thebrewerandthebaker.com/archives/6965
Wed dinner: New batch of Egg Bake, recipe from my niece who modified it substantially from this starting point http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2015/09/18/easy-make-ahead-breakfast-casserole/. “Our way”: all of a medium onion, about 1 C. diced bell peppers, frozen spinach thawed & squeezed dry, tsp garlic salt in the egg mixture, more milk (so 1.5 C total), 2X cheese (so 2 C total). Put cooked sausage in pan first, top with bread and remaining ingredients.
Squares from one 8x8 pan re-stocked the freezer. Some of the other 8x8 pan served as dinner and the rest was refrigerated for meals later in the week.
Thurs: BAKED mid-morning: Crescent roll meatball sub cupcakes. Sampled, then kept some out for a Fri/Sat meal, rest frozen for future. https://www.plainchicken.com/meatball-sub-cupcakes/
Thurs dinner: Reheat- Egg bake, tater tots, fresh pear, fresh orange slices
Fri: - Reheat – Chicken lasagna rollups, bag salad Lemony Caesar. Red grapes
Sat: Reheat – Crescent roll meatball subs, Sunflower Crisp bag salad. Dessert: Oatmeal cookie ice cream sandwich.
Sun: (today)- Salmon, sweet potato, mangos, carrot/apple salad OR cold peas with h.b. egg salad
Hopefully I will cook closer to the plan this week!
Sunday: whole roasted chicken, green beans, white beans (soaking now, they will be served for 3 days), cheese ravioli with jarred tomato sauce, figuring out what to make with treviso radicchio
Monday: probably Country Captain or Coronation Chicken with the leftover chicken
Tue: pork shoulder with fennel and rosemary, maybe a soft polenta.
Two overachiever cooks in the SF Bay Area cooking for ourselves.
There are still issues with so many farms. We went to the Berkeley market yesterday to set our selves up for success week and were thrilled to see Riverdog and Kaki farms. But it was still a lean market for veg purveyors.
Very broad plans this week until we figure out the refrigerator and deal with drying out from the rain.
Sunday - Cheese plate or omelet
Monday - Delayed holiday dinner with family
Tuesday - Freezer meal TBD
Wednesday - Leftovers
Thursday - Pantry meal TBD
Friday - Takeout
Saturday - Sheet pan TBD
Between the holidays and the rain, the farmers” markets have been really lean. When I last went to the Tuesday Berkeley market, it was still around half its normal size and there were many missing vendors and an absence of vegetables you expecg to see year ‘’round (e.g. broccoli).
Using this marinade on drumsticks and thighs tonight, which I will roast. Omitted the smoked paprika, and used a half tsp sweet Hungarian paprika and a tsp of Aleppo pepper.
Ended up making salmon cakes with Friday’s leftovers last night.
I might add cardamom and rice to make it more like this
I cup of rice : 4 to 6 chicken thighs works better at our house when I make chicken & rice mains, for 4 servings. I rarely cook more than 1 cup of rice, orzo or small pastas at a time these days.
Actuals
I really stuck with the plan except Thursday I made a fried haddock, nuked potato and broccoli dinner for me and DH had leftovers with his broccoli.
Saturday I made a large ham salad and except for hambone and scraps bagged in the freezer the ham is all gone!
Sun: pork ramen from the freezer for DS and me; DH had chicken fettuccine from a Rana kit he didn’t make last week. (The guys did not follow the menu plan they made for while I was away.)
This was from Costco - they had several different varieties. He said it was okay but not worth getting again. The sauce seemed gloopy but that might be my anti-Alfredo sauce bias talking.
Continuing the purge of freezer, fridge and pantry. I had a short grocery list this week: dairy of various sorts, citrus, and greens. Without apology, I’m also going hit the bakery tomorrow for a loaf of sourdough - I’ve been Jonesin’ for a tuna melt. We have several cans of tuna on hand, but we’ll have two less by the end of the week. In all, I am very pleased with the progress we’re making on whittling down stores of all types.
Hi everyone, This is off topic, but since I know most of you, and a lot of you know the types of things I cook, and probably cook fairly similarly, I’m coming to you with my problem. My food processor broke for the second time, and I can’t find the replacement part that would make it work. I’ve had this thing for something like 24 years, and it does the job. It’s a fairly basic cuisanart, which doesn’t seem to be available any longer. I really need to replace it, but find myself scared of buying the wrong thing (silly). Anyone have one that they love? I don’t want anything really big and hard to move - mine lives under the island, so I need to be able to lug it to the counter when needed. Don’t need anything huge since we’re only 3, and fairly soon to be only 2. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks everyone!
My 1988-vintage one is only 4 C and just barely manages making pie crust dough. Last year, just before CH closure, I asked for recommendations and researched larger ones. Still haven’t bought it but the finalist for me is the moderate-cost $130 cuisinart dlc-10 (a 7 C capacity unit). Here’s the Amazon link.
Others raved about their Magimix CS5200 XL, but I’m not spending $500 on a food processor.
I finally had to replace my old one, and went with a Cuisinart (again). I’m very happy with its performance, and for the two of us who cook and bake frequently, it’s just the right size. It’s not light, but not so heavy that I can’t carry it back and forth from the pantry (I’m in my mid-sixties with a bad back).
I had a similar issue with my 15-plus-year-old KA processor a few years ago; in my case, it was the bowl and lid that were irrevocably chipped and no longer replaceable due to design changes. Ultimately, I did end up spending more than the >$200 much-recommended Cuisinart DLC Pro 11-cup in part because I find the bowl/lid assembly on the Cuisinarts can be stiff and difficult for me to manipulate. I got the Breville 12-cup and am super happy with it. It might be a bit heavier than the KA, but it’s not a crazy weight, and it has several design elements that are superior to the KA and Cuisinart machines I’ve used. The bowl has a closed bottom, which means you put the steel blade in and load it up before you lift it onto the base (super handy, especially when you’re weighing ingredients, but also in general), and it’s also less likely to leak in use. The bowl and lid also lack all the the little crannies that make them hard to get clean. I like that, instead of just a couple of thickness options for slicing, the slicing blade is completely adjustable like a mandoline. It’s plenty powerful, easy to use, and easy to clean. 10/10 would personally make the investment again.
