meals

Thank Heavens for Freezer Meals

Nibbles

Between the changes at work and our new family of three, last week was one of those that I could have easily bailed on cooking any given night and not felt very guilty at all. The fact that I only skipped one planned meal in favor of take-out is a small victory.

Home-cooked meals from May 2-8, 2016

Home-cooked meals from May 2-8, 2016

Check out the video right here: https://youtu.be/aNylk87DuQ0

Monday: Sweet Potato Cake Turkey Burgers + Side Salad + Grapes
Super simple freezer meal number one–this one didn’t even need defrosting! I believe the patty recipe came from Multiply Delicious and I just subbed turkey for chicken as the former is way easier to find and frequently on sale. I also doubled the recipe to make 12 patties or 3 meals at a time. We’ll definitely be making another batch because they are just so simple to have on hand and very tasty.

Tuesday: Chicken Curry with Cabbage and Peppers + Basmati Rice
Never a bad time for a good curry, this was our first try of the recipe from Loving My Nest and I think it’s a keeper. A freezer meal, yes, but I didn’t bother with the crock pot and it was the right call–the chicken may have become mealy if it cooked all day. Now, I believe I added a can of coconut milk to the mix before I froze it and, yes, it “broke” a bit (separated) when I cooked it. Would I do it again? Maybe, maybe not. I was just trying to avoid planning this meal and forgetting to have a can of coconut milk on hand and while it affected the appearance slightly, the taste didn’t suffer one bit. And, yes, I’d definitely use coconut milk over cows milk for this curry and pretty much any curry.

Wednesday: Cod Creole + Parmesan Orzo + Green Beans
What is it with me and forgetting to actually buy the fish I put on the menu?! I stuck it out this time, though, and it was definitely worth it. Cod is not only a very milk white fish it also doesn’t tend to fish-up the house when cooked. And this preparation from Hello Spoonful is just so simple it’s hard to beat! The one brand of gluten-free orzo we can find is a love-hate thing for us. We love orzo and have many dishes that call for it, but the gluten-free version puts out so much starch while boiling that it really does resemble risotto by the end more so than plain pasta. Straining it is a joke, so I usually don’t even bother, just mixing it into whatever else I had in mind and going with the flow.

Thursday: Broiled Steak + Mexican Street Corn Salad
Mmmm, Cinco de Mayo–as if we needed an excuse to have Mexican food for dinner, but I’m happy to take it anyway. The meal was mostly about the salad, which I found over on Live Eat Learn. I could have eaten a large bowl of this salad and skipped the steak and not been deprived whatsoever–I can totally see us making it again. We did a few substitutions, though. Normally I’d swap hominy for beans in most recipes, but since we were already focusing on the corn, I opted for some zucchini and yellow squash that needed to be used from the crisper. Also, while I adore feta and cotija cheese, we had a sizeable block of white cheddar leftover from my party and I shredded that up into the salad instead. I also cooked most of the ingredients for a bit to soften the squash and peppers up. I’m sure there are endless variations one could make on this salad and not go wrong–some halved cherry tomatoes come to mind, and maybe some avocado chunks, too?

Friday: Take out!
I debated making breakfast for dinner, but my heart wasn’t in it. Instead I picked up fried chicken and fixings and enjoyed the hell out of it!

Saturday: Sweet Potato Carbonara with Spinach and Eggplant
Since Todd isn’t a mushroom fan and they’re pretty High-FODMAP to boot, I substituted eggplant for the mushrooms in this recipe from Eating Well. Even though my sweet potato “noodles” didn’t hold their shape, this was a very filling, very tasty dish overall and I would encourage you to try it, even if yours ends up a bit more like a sweet potato vegetable hash like ours did.

Sunday: Shepherd’s Pie-Stuffed Potatoes + Jicama Citrus Salad
I’m sure you’ve seen those quick-cut videos of inventive food on Facebook, right? Have you actually tried any of them out? Well, I can now say that I have and it wasn’t that bad! While I did neglect to add additional liquid to make up for the thirstyness of the coconut flour I used, everything went more or less according to plan in this recipe/video from Tip Hero. I even dug out my large star pastry tip to pipe the potatoes onto the top! The salad though, that was a disappointment since my jicama ended up well past it’s use-by date (something a little hard to tell with the leathery outside to judge by). I will attempt the salad again, though, as I really do love jicama in cold salads.

Booze tip: I totally took a short cut on the citrus salad and bought the large container of pre-sliced fruit in extra-light syrup. If you are a fan of  greyhounds (the drink, not the dog, though they are lovely dogs), save said syrup and mix with your favorite gin for an slightly sweeter version of this simple libation. Fabulous, refreshing, and super-quick.

And that’s another week’s menu! I hope you got some good ideas from what was on our plates this week and have an excellent week in your own kitchen! Remember, it doesn’t have to be “gourmet” to be good, or even great. Make what you like, mix things up a bit, get some variety in there, and enjoy your meals!

Shrimp & Eggplant Curry + View From the Countertop #2 (video)

Nibbles

Once again I filmed this past week’s meal prep and, since I had a request after the last one, added narration to the video instead of music (maybe next time I’ll do both, depending on time).

(Direct link for the feed readers: View From the Countertop #2)

Meals for the week of 3.21.16-3.27.16

Meals for the week of 3.21.16-3.27.16

With the Luau the weekend before and so many delicious leftovers in the fridge, it’s probably no surprise that half of this week was made up from those.

Monday: Pulled Pork Sliders + Potato Salad
See the Luau post to get the links for the potato salad. I chopped up some of the leftover pork and mixed it with the tart bbq sauce from Fallin’s for our sliders. Easy and perfect for a Monday night supper.

Tuesday: Hawaiian Chicken Legs + Sweet Leilani Luau Salad
As I mention in the video, I’d planned to make chicken salad with the leftover legs, adding pineapple and macadamia nuts into my usual chicken salad recipe. But bad news at work had me seriously considering ice cream for supper, so I feel somewhat proud of myself for eating real food. (And let’s not kid ourselves, I had a good helping of ice cream afterwards.)

Wednesday: Beef Stir Fry + Brown Rice
Freezer meals to the rescue. Yes, we could have still been eating leftovers but I figured we needed a change of pace so pulled out one of the recent freezer meal additions. It’s a pretty simple kit: vegetables, beef, and sauce (a few tablespoons of sauce is added to the packet of beef as a marinade). I added half a head of cabbage we had in the crisper and it was a good thing I did. I’ll be adding that to the notes on my freezer meal spreadsheet–the meal would have been a little light without it!

Thursday: Luau Leftovers
They pick up our trash on Friday mornings so it was a good idea to eat, freeze, or toss anything left from the party at this point. Plus, the work news from Tuesday was/is the type to hang out all week, so a night with no cooking duties was appreciated.

Friday: Shrimp & Eggplant Curry with Cellophane Noodles
A kitchen experiment that totally worked, we enjoyed it so much that I’ve transcribed it from memory/video so you can try it, too. This is a Thai-style curry so it’s a little sweet, a little spicy, and totally delicious. The basic cubes are the little freezer cubes of chopped basil I’ve found at Trader Joe’s. They’re nice to keep on hand for recipes like this when you can’t always count on having fresh basil in the crisper. The lemongrass paste is another quick tip, found in the produce section by the fresh herbs, we also buy cilantro and ginger in paste form from time to time.

Shrimp & Eggplant Curry

serves 4

2 T olive oil
1 T garlic olive oil
1 large eggplant, peeled and diced
1 bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 package cellophane noodles plus water to cover
2 T Thai red curry paste
2 T grated ginger
1 T lemongrass paste
2 basil cubes (or 2 t dried basil)
1 can coconut milk
12 oz medium shrimp

Pour hot water over rice noodles in a bowl large enough to hold the bricks of noodles and an inch of water above. Let the noodles soak while you prepare the rest of the meal.

Heat olive oils in a heavy-bottomed pan over medium-high heat.

Add bell pepper and eggplant to pan and saute until peppers start to soften slightly and eggplant edges start to brown.

Stir in curry paste, ginger, lemongrass, and basil, then stir in coconut milk. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer until vegetables are fully cooked.

Add shrimp, simmer and stir for about a minute, then turn off the burner and let the heat of the coconut milk mixture to finish cooking to shrimp (this helps prevent over cooking the seafood). Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Drain the cellophane noodles (I find a pasta scoop works best for this, as the noodles are so small as to slip through most colanders with ease) and mix them into the shrimp and vegetables, stirring to distribute the sauce throughout.

Enjoy!

I think I’ve stumbled upon the perfect combination in eggplant and coconut milk. Usually you’d salt and press the eggplant to draw out any bitterness but, I admit, I was lazy this time and skipped that step. But the slight sweetness of the coconut milk seems to have counteracted any bitterness in the eggplant because it was the second best eggplant I’ve ever had and Todd really enjoyed it as well! (The best being this sweet eggplant dish that Bahn Thai sometimes has on their lunch buffet, it’s absolutely amazing; they leave the skin on and it’s still the best eggplant ever.)

Saturday: Corned Beef Hash + Eggs
Lazy Saturday, I slept in, it rained all day, Todd napped in the afternoon. Yeah, we did nothing much of importance and it was just fine, so a late supper of breakfast seemed like a good idea to both of us.

Sunday: Zuppa Toscana
It rained almost all of Easter Sunday as well, and since we’d all just gotten together for Todd’s birthday last weekend we’d decided to forgo a family Easter event. I grabbed the pouch of Zuppa Toscana from 12tomatoes was a good answer to an unplanned Sunday supper. Rainy weather is perfect soup weather and this one was pretty tasty. It’s been so long since I’ve been to Olive Garden I really can’t say whether it’s a convincing copycat recipe or not, but we definitely enjoyed it. Maybe next time I’ll actually plan ahead and make some fresh bread sticks to go with it.

And that work news I keep mentioning, it does deserve an explanation, but this isn’t the right post for it. I’ll try to organize my thoughts about it for the next one.

Seafood Chowder & Cooking with a Counter’s-Eye View

Nibbles

To complement this week’s post about last week’s menu, I thought I’d try something different and set up my point-and-shoot camera on the counter while I made dinner. It was also a way to test out the camera as a vlogging alternative for my larger camcorder and, despite needing a larger memory card and more frequent charging, I think it’ll do just fine for casual vlogging.

View from the Countertop #1: https://youtu.be/u-26_0wQdnE

Obviously I’ve edited it down significantly as I spend, on average, half an hour making dinner each night, but what did you think? Want me to do this again? Would you like more commentary or is the music background alone cool? Feedback is always welcome. Like I said, this is an experiment.

On the Menu

diptic2129666161

Monday: Seafood Chowder (recipe at the end of this post)
Chowder is less a recipe and more a method, at least the way I make it. Usually you start with bacon but I didn’t have any defrosted so I used the more easily divided local-made Italian sausage–it worked just as well. The thing about seafood anything is that you have to be careful not to overcook it or the shellfish will become tough and rubbery–not exactly appetizing. So you wait to add it once everything else is pretty much done and, in this case, I turned off the heat once I added the seafood mix and let the heat of the soup cook the seafood gently–once the shrimp was pink we were good to go.

Tuesday: Coconut Curry Chicken with Basmati Rice
One of the better freezer meals from that first batch I put together, I did forget that the sauce tended to be a bit thin by the end and didn’t thicken it this time. I’ve noted it on my freezer meal master list so the next time I put some up I can note it on the bag. Sometimes I’ll make a version of naan with this, but opted not to because I had a call to be on at 8 and needed to make sure dinner was done and dusted well before then.

Wednesday: Beef Quesadillas and Mexican Corn
A surprisingly good supper, I was just looking for something a little different to do and this came up in a Pinterest search, though I didn’t use any particular recipe. Seasoned beef with tomatoes and green chilies, my sweet potato refried-bean substitute, and plenty of shredded cheese. The Mexican Corn was just as simple: corn, a little diced tomato, a little diced green chilies, salt, pepper, and cumin for flavor. Top with salsa and sour cream (or Greek yogurt, in our case).

Thursday: Breaded Pork Chops, Quinoa, and Green Beans
I almost didn’t cook this night, I was so tired when I got home. But, at the same time, I was in the mood for some home cooking and the pork chops were defrosted so… Three step breading with coconut flour followed by beaten egg and then seasoned gluten-free breadcrumbs. Baked because it was too hot to even consider pan-frying them (plus a touch healthier, I suppose) and I could at least leave the room once the food was in the oven. The quinoa is cooked in our rice cooker with chicken broth, celery, carrots, and a splash of garlic olive oil. Todd’s turns out better (turns out he adds butter at the end) but mine wasn’t too bad.

Friday: “Brown Foods” Night
Otherwise known as appetizers for dinner. Not something we do often (thank goodness) but sometimes you just want to indulge in snacks and not eat a “real” dinner. So that’s what we did. Originally I’d planned to do breakfast for dinner so it wasn’t like this was any worse than the corned beef hash that we would have had. I regret nothing.

Saturday: Roasted Red Pepper Pesto Pasta with Goat Cheese and a Side Salad
Making up for Friday, a bit, this was a meatless meal that started with making the red pepper pesto (super quick and very tasty) and then boiling pasta. Can’t beat simple! Pesto sauces are generally not my favorite as a stand-alone pasta topping but the goat cheese helped smooth it out and even the leftovers were amazing. And the extra pesto came in handy the next night when I was putting together another batch of freezer meals. (Recipe from Table for Two)

Sunday: Greek Lemon Chicken with Tzatziki Sauce and Seasoned Potato Wedges
This was the dinner that almost wasn’t! We got home from the Sam’s/Publix run around 6pm and I got started on the freezer meal prep while Todd went to lay down–he was exhausted! Around 8 something I put the marinade on the chicken and started the potatoes in the oven (seasoned with garlic olive oil, rosemary, oregano, salt, and pepper, like the patates we get at the Greek Festival) and kept going with the freezer meals for another hour. Todd wasn’t interested in getting up for supper–he was out for the night–but I forced myself to sit down and eat something before finishing meal prep. (Recipe from Recipe Runner)

It was after 11pm when I finished the 18 freezer meals. None of these needed any pre-cooking (thank goodness) but they still needed to be put together one by one. In addition to the freezer meals we also added another 7 meals worth of protein to the chest freezer and picked up some of the larger items we needed for the party this coming weekend. All in all a productive, if tiring, day. (And the time change didn’t help matters, but that’s an old rant.)

Seafood Sausage Chowder

Serves 6

2 T Garlic Olive Oil
2 Bell Peppers, Diced
4 Green Onions, Chopped
1/2 lb Italian Sausage, Diced
2 t Salt
1/2 t Black Pepper
1/4 c Flour
6 c Chicken Broth (or 2 T bullion powder and 6 c water)
6 Yukon Gold Potatoes, Peeled and Diced
1 can Coconut Milk
2 lb Seafood Mix

Heat olive oil in a large pot and saute peppers and onions until the peppers start to soften. Add sausage and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle the flour over the vegetable and sausage mixture, stirring to combine the flour with the oil in the pot, forming a roux. Add the potatoes and broth and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender (about 10 minutes). Stir in coconut milk and return to a boil.

Turn off heat (or reduce to low if your seafood mix is still slightly icy) and stir in seafood mix. Cook only as long as it takes for the seafood to cook (judge by the shrimp or squid’s opacity). Adjust seasoning to taste and serve hot.

Enjoy!

Flavor vs Taste and When One is Lost

Nibbles

Taste is one of the five sense, what we pick up through the taste buds on our tongue, often simplified to the basics of sweet, bitter, salty, sour, and umami. Flavor, on the other hand, is the combination of the senses taste and smell. If you’ve ever had a head cold with a stuffed up nose you might notice that things don’t “taste” quite right–a bit of a misnomer since, really, all you’re doing is tasting, not, um, flavoring.

This was my predicament last week. It started on Monday afternoon when I grabbed a mini-Reese’s cup and couldn’t taste the chocolate at all, and barely the peanut butter. I still had some of my coffee from the morning, so I took a sip, paying attention this time, and found that I could only describe it as sweet; no particular flavor, and certainly not the vanilla that I’d used when I made it. Hmmm.

The strange thing was, even though I wasn’t feeling fabulous and I did stay home on Tuesday to try and sleep away whatever it was in its early stages, I didn’t have a stuffy nose. I could breathe just fine, etc. It was really strange. And this small bout of anosmia (the technical term for the lack of a sense of smell) lasted through Friday–longer than I’ve ever dealt with, even that time I had 3 cases of bronchitis & sinusitis in 3 months (more like the first cases never went away, but it was still the reason I didn’t even try to see the ball drop back in 2003).

Cooking supper this week was a series of ‘honey, I hope this tastes right!’

OTP 1-11-1-17

Monday: Broiled Tilapia and Roasted Sweet Potato Risotto

Tuesday: Cranberry BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches with Corn on the Cob

Wednesday: Orange Chicken with Rice Noodles and Green Beans

Thursday: Eggs, Grits, Turkey Bacon & Links

Friday: Corn Chowder with Cheddar Garlic Drop Biscuits

Saturday: Beef Negimaki with Not-Fried Brown Rice

Sunday: Chinese Take-out

Todd assured me everything was tasty this week. What I took away from the week’s experience was a renewed respect for the basic tastes (sweet was the easiest to detect, sour the next best) and the importance texture plays in our enjoyment of food.

Take, for instance, our BBQ pork night. I always use a bit of mayo and sweet relish on my barbecue sandwiches. While the flavors definitely play a part, the creamy texture of the mayo and the crisp cuts of pickle are a great counterpoint to the sauced pork. Another texture highlight were the rice noodles with the orange chicken–they were perfectly chewy without being too crunchy or too gummy.

I’m more than happy that my nose is working again and food has regained its flavor. Still, being without one sense, while frustrating, gave me a different perspective. And perspective is always good!

Have a tasty week!

All’s Well That Ends Well!

Nibbles

This past week was super-hectic wrapping up the latest Creative Mischief Kits and getting ready for our annual Halloween party. But we made it through and everything turned out great! Well, almost everything…

First, let’s have a look at last week’s menu:

On The Plate for the week of October 19th

Monday: Turkey, Brie, and Cranberry Grilled Cheese with Butternut Squash Soup
The sandwich inspiration came from HeatherCristo.com and the soup was already in the freezer from a batch Todd made a month or so ago. Together, it was like Thanksgiving came early and it was perfect on a chilly evening.

Tuesday: Bacon & Egg Risotto
A Brit + Co find, I admit that I get up on my culinary high horse when it comes to a risotto recipe that doesn’t follow the risotto method. I just don’t think the time “saved” by tossing everything together and letting it steam is worth the quality lost by doing it the “right” way. Stirring a pot of risotto as you gradually add the water isn’t hard, it’s only 20 minutes. If you want quick, buy a box of Rice-a-Roni. If you want risotto, make risotto. So I didn’t follow their directions (no one is surprised by now, I’m sure) but we still had a very tasty meal and it reheated great for lunch later in the week. In addition to doing it the “long” way, I chopped the bacon before cooking and left it in for the entire time rather than playing hokey-pokey bacon. I also didn’t see the need to use a separate pan for the eggs. Once the last bit of liquid was incorporated into the rice I added the eggs to the top of the rissoto and covered it just long enough for the eggs to “poach.”

Wednesday: Chicken Tortilla Soup
Based on the Black Bean Tortilla Soup from MinimalistBaker, I added chicken and substituted a large can of hominy for the black beans (beans are still something I cannot tolerate very well, and hominy is my go-to substitute for soups). I also sliced up some gluten-free tortillas and added them like thin dumpling noodles.

Thursday: Pork Chops, Glazed Carrots, and Colcannon
My Colcannon ended up a little looser than intended–I must not have drained all the liquid out from the potatoes and kale. But even though it was just this side of Colcannon-soup, it was still absolutely delicious. And the next time I feel like making potato soup, bacon and kale might just be the things I add!

And here’s where the “normal” menu ends. I have an unofficial rule that I don’t cook the night before a big holiday dinner, party, or other food-intense day. One, because I’m usually prepping for the next day that evening, and two, because it cuts down on extra leftovers in an already-packed fridge. Instead, we went to down to Andy’s to pick up wings and then I got to work wrapping bacon around artichokes and making the pinwheels for the party. Saturday’s dinner was preempted by the party menu, and Sunday was given over to leftovers.

The table we set for our guests this year.

The table we set for our guests this year.

I’d been prepping one item from the menu a night all that week–it’s the only way I can get everything done without taking a day off work! Things like the brownies, the black bean dip, and even the spinach puffs can all be held for several days without a loss of quality, so I was able to check those off pretty quickly and slide into Saturday morning right on track!

The pumpkin bread is another recipe that can last, well-wrapped, for a couple of days on the counter. It also freezes beautifully (am I the only one who thinks of Steel Magnolias when they use that phrase?). We had one leftover from last year’s party so I put in the chest freezer, thinking I’d pull it out for Thanksgiving. I actually pulled it out last week and was noshing on it for breakfast all week.

Pumpkin Bread
from Celtic Folklore Cooking (affiliate link)

1 large can pumpkin
1 cup melted butter
3/4 cup water
4 eggs
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 1/2 cups flour
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup raisins

Mix together pumpkin, melted butter, water, and eggs. Blend in baking soda, flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, walnuts, and raisins. Place batter in a greased and floured loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until top is golden brown.

A few things. It doesn’t say what large equals, but I took it to mean the 29oz can that would make 2 pies. We also don’t do walnuts in this house (Todd’s not a fan), and raisins are High-FODMAP, so I substitute 2 cups of dried cranberries (yes, dried fruits in general are higher in FODMAPs than their fresh selves, this is my compromise), and I use a gluten-free flour blend that already has xanthum gum included and it works well as a 1:1 sub in this recipe (the Krusteaz brand, which we get at Sam’s Club). Finally, the recipe claims this makes one loaf and I’d really like to see the size of their loaf pan! It makes enough for two normal loaf pans.

Saturday morning started nice and early: 7:30 am. I needed to get downstairs and start the pork in the slow cooker and put the potatoes in the oven, then clean all the floors in the house before it got too late. That way I could get all the messy work out of the way and get a shower before having to run an errand (to delivery a local Creative Mischief Kit order and pick up ice for the party). All was going swimmingly–I was crossing items off the to-do list, I even had enough time to add a small tray of grapes, vegetables, and cheese and a batch of my seeded chicken salad to the menu. I was calm, relaxed, and in the groove.

Then I went to put on my costume.

Vanellope and Ralph, Halloween 2015

Vanellope and Ralph, Halloween 2015–a little blurry, but appropriate by the time this photo was taken 😉

Notice anything missing? The tights that I was so careful to do “right” were very wrong. Despite stretching them while they were being painted to prevent shrinking and buying a size larger than I’d usually wear, when I went to put them on (after having to fight it off the cardboard inserts in the first place) they just wouldn’t fit.

And that’s when the doorbell rang.

Thank goodness Todd was already dressed and could go down to answer the door!

Despite the bumpy start, the party was a lot of fun. Our guests ate, drank, and made merry. We gave a house tour to those who hadn’t been there before and this time I got to include a few ghost stories, as well. (I’ll be sharing what I know about the Dollhouse’s spectral residents in Friday’s post.) After that I was mainly occupied giving readings until the last guests left around 1am. Last year I decided to offer readings (Tarot) to any guest who was curious and a few people took me up on it. This year? They were asking when I was going to start and forming a line! I ended up doing 10 readings this year. It’s a great way to get some quality one-on-one time with my guests, but it does take away from the mixing and mingling.

Sunday was spent recharging from the late night. Thankfully, clean-up from a party like this is pretty simple–just a matter of putting away perishables (which we did before going to bed) and washing up the platters and bowls (which we did after sleeping in/napping half of Sunday away). The decorations get to stay up for another week and, hey, the house is mostly clean and uncluttered!

Happy Hallo-Week!