New Fridge! New Menu

If you follow the blog on Face Book, you’ll know that our fridge went out last week.  After multiple calls to the landlord (oops! Their out of town?! Arg!) and hubby going to buy a fridge himself, we have the new one coming today.  I’ll have to rush home and get all the freezer stuff loaded into coolers, but I’m happy to have a new fridge.

Thankfully the freezer didn’t go out too, but it sickens me to have to throw out as much food as I did.  As a result, last week’s menu got more or less thrown out the window and I was working with what we had.  Add another $26 to the budget last week for dinners.

This week’s menu isn’t 100% complete, but it’s getting there. I want to see what’s on sale at the market this week.  Unlike 2011’s challenge, this year’s lets me have a lot of wiggle room.

So here’s this week’s menu. I haven’t done the grocery shopping yet, so I don’t have the price breakdown. It will be a little higher this week since I have to replace a lot of basics like milk, eggs and mayo.  

As usual, in no particular order…

Mon 9: winging it. Whatever I can find in the freezer/pantry

Tue 10: Cheeseburger Casserole (from 101 ways to use pancake mix), Salad

Wed 11: CORN/Leftovers

Thur 12: Sundried Tomato, Sausage and Fontina Pizza, salad, orange slices

Fri 13: Beef Burgundy or Beef Stew (in the crock pot), salad and noodles

Sat 14: Feta and Sundried Tomato Ravioli (from 1001 Vegetarian) with a prosciutto and browned butter sauce

Sun 15: No plan yet.

Lunches: Barley Lentil Salad (from Beyond the Moon)

Other: Chocolate Stripe Cake (Hershey’s)

Down to the Wire! Last Menu of 2011

Whew!! Project 365 really has been a project! I’ve learned a lot. And we’ve eaten a ton of great food this year. I’m a little tired of my cookbooks though… And there’s a few that are not going to be staying on the shelves.  And I’ve discovered a handful of new books that I’ll be adding to the collection in 2012. Yes, I have a problem. lol. 

I am looking forward to being able to cook whatever I want, without the pressure of having it “count” toward the project.  We’ve found a lot of new favorites. I think about half or more of the recipes that we tried I will be making again.

I did a RIDICULOUS amount of cooking for Christmas… I was at 21 recipes and 9 days to go. Panic!!  Now I’m at 354/365, so 11 to go and 6 days to to it. I can DO IT.  Problem is… I have a refrigerator full of yummy leftovers!

So this week’s menu is things that can be stored for awhile (salad dressings) and some things that can be frozen. AND recipes that use up leftovers in creative ways.  As usual, these are in no particular order.  There’s more than 11 recipes here to finish, but I predict that I will not get to all of them.

There’s a Lichi Martini recipe I want to try and I bought vodka for xmas. I need to find which book it is in. Yum!

Rounding the dinners out are leftover vegetables and crackers with a big variety of dips and cheeses. It will be fun to have “appetizers” before dinner every night.

Mon 26: Shrimp with Green Beans, Tomato and Feta – 365 One Dish

Tue 27: Polish Noodles and Cabbage – Frugal Gourmet Ancient Ancestors
Leftover Prime Rib, SunDried Tomato and Goat Cheese Dressing – 1001 Low Fat

Wed 28: CORN/Leftovers night

Thurs 29: Beef (leftover) with Red Wine Tarragon Sauce – Cooking Light 2003
leftover twice baked potatoes, salad

Fri 30: Parmesan Vinaigrette (salad) – 1001 More Low Fat
Leftovers

Sat 31: Happy New Year!  Cioppino – 1001 More Low Fat
Maple Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins – Xmas Kitchen

Sun 1: I ain’t cooking nothin! 

Lunches: Orange Cabbage Salad – Bento Boxes
Crunchy Cabbage and Carrots – Bento Boxes
Orzo with Sun Dried Tomatoes and Mushrooms – 1001 More Low Fat

Other: Beef and Barley Soup (leftover beef) – 365 One Dish (eat one for lunch, freeze rest)
Carrot Raisin Nut Bread – Xmas Kitchen (freeze in small portions for lunches)
Korean Style Honey Marinade – Xmas Kitchen (freeze)

The Delicata Cycle

I mentioned the other day about roasted delicata squash. Sooo delicious!

Delicious Delicata. Say it with me. It’s fun!

1. Get yourself some lovely delicata squash.

2. Wash the outside of the squash. These things grow in the dirt ya know. You don’t want dirt in your bentos.

3. Slice off the stem and blossom ends and cut in half.

4. Remove the seeds. I suppose you could roast these like pumpkin seeds, but they’re kinda little so I never bother.

5. Slice the squash into 1/2 inch (or so) half moons. Meanwhile, turn the oven on to about 350 and spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray.

6. As you slice the rings, arrange them on a cookie sheet. When you are done slicing, spray the tops of the rings with cooking spray and sprinkle them with grill seasoning. I like the 21 Seasoning Salute from Trader Joes.

7. Stick the cookie sheet in the oven and bake for about 1/2 hour or until the squash is done to your liking. I don’t like mine too mushy, but I like the edges just a bit caramelized.

These fit nicely into bentos and they are good hot or cold. You can eat the rind even. It is soft enough. Most of the time, I just scrape the flesh off with my teeth and toss the rind.

Lunch from the Freezer and Pantry

No time to pack a pretty bento lunch this morning, I just grabbed something from the well stocked freezer.

Butternut Squash and Pear Soup. I rounded out the rest of my lunch with some cheese and crackers. Easy peasy. And very tasty!

This soup has a nice little zing to it from the curry powder and just a hint of sweetness from the pears. Just the thing for a gray day like today.

Quick and Delicious Dinner

My menu plan for last night more or less got thrown out the window for various reasons. I keep plain chicken breast in the freezer for just that sort of occurance.

I thawed the chicken and found a simple and fast recipe in my 365 Great 20 Minute Recipes cookbook (out of print? I can’t find a link)

The recipe is called Ginger Chicken Saute and it really did take me only 20 minutes to get dinner on the table.  This is recipe #106 of Project 365I had rice already cooked in the fridge, so I heated that up with a tiny bit of water in the microwave. Meanwhile I also sauteed some snap peas and yellow squash.

Dinner is served! Yum! Very gingery.

This could also be done as a make-ahead or OAMC meal if you make the marinade and freeze the chicken. Just cook and eat in that case. Easy Peasy! I will make this again for sure. Hubby inhaled it too, which is always a bonus.

Menu for March 26 through April 1st

Restocking the freezer this week.  Some doubling up on recipes throughout the week.   Ground turkey is on sale at Safeway for buy one get one free, so I’ll be making a HUGE batch of meatballs to freeze. I also want to restock my freezer with roasted red bell pepper and tomato soup.  I might throw some beans in the crockpot for some sort of freezable stew later this week too. I bought a giant package of chicken breasts, so those will go in the freezer in at least 3 different marinades. (to be determined)

As of today, I am at 99/365 recipes. As always, these are in no particular order.  (Already changing the menu since I forgot a few things at the store last night…)

Sat 26 – Shrimp and Snow Pea Stir Fry – Cooking Light 04
Steamed rice, dumplings (freezer)

Sun 27 – Mini Meatloaves – Cooking Light 2004 (make double) and Twice Baked Potatoes (make at least double. hubby loves these)

Mon 28 – Pork Chili with Greens – 1001 Slow Cooker  and Sweet Corn Cheddar Pancakes – From Asparagus to Zucchini

Tue 29 – Sage Stuffed Chicken Breasts – George Foreman Green Beans (wondering if this would freeze well?)

Wed 30 – CORN/Leftovers night (might change since I won’t be around this weekend to cook)

Thur 31 – Pork and Fennel Ragu – Cooking Light 2004 Rice, Bread, Salad

Fri 1 – Off to Canada! I’m teaching a 4 hour backcountry cooking class. So not ready! Hubby and kidling to eat leftovers or eat pizza.

Breakfasts – Strawberry Cinnamon Muffins – Cooking Light 2005 and Ginger Dessert Waffles – Spices of the World

Lunches – Green Apple Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette – Cooking Light 2004 and  Tarragon Tuna Salad – Spices of the World and and Potato Salad with Parsley and Chives – Cooking Light 2004 (for hubby. Didn’t get made from previous menu) Slaw of some sort? I have green cabbage to use up.

Dessert – Applesauce Cake – Spices of the World (made with home canned applesauce) I also picked up an angelfood cake at the store – to be served topped with Cool Whip and home-canned berries.

Lunch and Dinner from the Freezer

Lentils – Make ahead and freeze.

Lentils are cheap and easy. For a little more than a dollar, I can get a whole pound of dried brown lentils.

They are also good for you. They are low in fat and high in fiber, protein and folate. They are a good source of iron and potassium. One cup of cooked lentils has 230 calories, almost no fat, 7mg of iron and 16 grams of protein. Plus they are delicious!

I cook the entire bag of lentils, either in water or broth, then freeze the cooked lentils in 1-2 cup portions. A vacuum sealer works wonders for this. Try to freeze the packages as flat as possible so that you can stack them in your freezer like library books.  Don’t forget to label and date the bags. This same method also works for barley and rice. It is nice to be able to make soups, salads and pilafs almost instantly because you have done much of the work ahead of time.

When you are ready to make a lentil dish, just thaw and add the lentils.

Some lentil recipes I’ve tried recently: (recipe titles are links to the recipes)

Lentil Pear and Goat Cheese Salad – from Eat Well Stay Well

Lentil and Fennel Salad – from Cooking Light (holey smokes batman! This is fantastic!)

Lentil Salad with Spinach, Cheddar and Pecans  – from Food & Wine

Country Lentil Soup

– from 1001 Low Fat

 

 

And some old favorites:

Bacon and Lentil Soup

Lentil Soup with Cauliflower and Bacon – from Food & Wine (this freezes well)

Tomato Lentil Salad

Mushroom and Lentil Soup – from Super Foods (this soup also freezes well)

Green Lentil and Mixed Vegetable Pan Fry

– from What’s Cooking Vegetarian

 

 

 

Still need more ideas? These are on my to-be-tried list:

Lentil Soup with Chard – from Cooking Light

Bay Scented Lentil Salad with Pancetta – from Cooking Light

Barley-Lentil Salad – from Beyond the Moon

Lentil Vegetable Soup – from Horn of the Moon

Lentil and Pancetta Soup – from Cooking Light

Bulgur and Lentil Pilaf – from 1000 Great Recipes

Sweet and Sour Lentils – from Moosewood Low Fat Favorites

1001 Low Fat Recipes

Project 365 Marches on. As of today, I am at 78 recipes. Ahead of schedule on purpose since I know there are quite a few days coming in April that I will not be cooking.

I am slowly adding series of books to my cookbook collection. The 1001 series by Sue Spitler is one of these. I have four, with plans to add at least two more.

Let’s start with 1001 Low Fat Recipes. So far this year I have made five recipes from this book; Italian Turkey Burgers, Chicken China Moon, Garbanzo Parsley Salad, Artichoke Delight, Country Lentil Soup and Potato Seafood Cakes.

Except for the Seafood Cakes, which I ended up heavily modifying, everything has been delicious. The recipes are well written, easy to follow and flavorful. Not something you always get from a low fat cookbook.

Other recipes I have tried (prior to 2011’s Project 365) include
Mushrooms in Vermouth and Turkey Marsala.

I have a ton of recipes tagged to try soon as well. Mushroom Barley Soup with Herbs, Chinese Coleslaw, Fruit Filled Muffins, Salmon Salad Farfalle, Sesame Shrimp Stir Fry, Easy Chicken Saltimbocca, Golden Spaghetti Squash… I could go on and on.

One thing I really like about this book, compared to other low fat books, is that it doesn’t call for a lot of “low fat” product substitutions. Instead, she uses less oil and cooking techniques to make the recipes healthy. They rely heavily on seasonal vegetables and fresh herbs. Food itself has a lot of flavor if you cook it right.

Most of the recipes take 30 minutes or less and don’t have an extensive list of ingredients. Additonally, they do not call for hard to find or “weird” ingredients. There are a lot of re-worked classic dishes throughout the book.

There are 18 chapters, starting with Appetizers. This is a very well organized book. Sometimes the chapters may be short, but it makes recipes very easy to find.  For example, there is a whole chapter on Dinner Sauces. Vegetable Entrees are followed by Vegetable Side Dishes.

Pear Overload! Part #1.

I recently had the privilege of harvesting an entire tree’s worth of pears. Almost 5 gallons worth (and there’s still more to harvest!). What to do with all these pears?

I just happened to have a butternut squash in the fridge that needed to be eaten as well… So I did a quick search on RecipeZaar and found a great, easy recipe!  Butternut Squash and Pear Soup.  And it’s vegan! Bonus.

I wanted to use the entire squash, so I more or less doubled the recipe. I also used my new lemon curry powder, which is lighter in taste and worked perfectly in the soup. I didn’t have any vegetable broth on hand, so I used water and vegetable buillion.

2 teaspoons olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 lb butternut squash, cut into 1-inch pieces (about half a medium squash)
2 ripe medium bartlett pears, peeled, cored and cut into 1-inch pieces
3 1/2 cups fat-free low-sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth

Heat oil on medium heat in Dutch oven or soup pot. Gently sauté onions until softened—about 5 minutes.

Add curry powder and stir, sautéing for 1 minute. Add butternut squash and pear pieces. Sauté for 3-4 minutes.

Pour in vegetable broth and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes until squash and pear are tender. Transfer soup to a food processor or blender and purée until smooth, working in two batches if necessary.

I let the soup cool, then took my stick blender to it. The soup is creamy and thick, but not gloppy. Into tupperware it went! Each container is about 2 cups (~2 servings) of soup. Labeled and put most of it in the freezer for later. It isn’t really soup weather right now, but this will be fantastic in about a month as the weather turns cooler. I intend to eat it for lunch – maybe with some grainy crackers and chevre cheese.

And so begins my fall food storage…