menu planning

Month of Menus, Part 1

Nibbles

It’s been a while since I shared a menu on the blog, but it wasn’t because I wasn’t cooking, my hands were just busy with other things. It’s been so long, in fact, that I have enough menus to share to cover an entire week’s worth of posts and give you a month’s worth of menu ideas! And with the holidays and their related shenanigans about to kick into high gear, I figured these ideas might help you jazz up your usual weekday fare.

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Rewinding way on back to September 19th, we were in the final week of the Retro Recipes throw-back. Monday sounded like a perfect time for some Mexican Midnight Fondue, with a side of refried sweet potatoes, guacamole salad, corn bread and tortillas for dipping, and a bit of a flan for dessert. Thankfully it didn’t take until midnight to make it, though it was a bit more time-intensive than I would normally done on a Monday, but it was also damned tasty and worth the effort!

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Tuesday turned out to be a leftovers night (what is it about Tuesday’s sapping someone’s will to cook?) but Wednesday saw us back on track with some Waikiki Meatballs over rice, served with steamed green beans. Polynesian sweet and sour, this one is worth having again. The sauce was the best version of a sweet and sour sauce I’ve had in a while, certainly the best homemade version to date.

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Next up was Chicken Caruso and it was… interesting. The best way I can describe it is a slightly grown-up version of mac and cheese with a few veggies tossed in and a shot of sherry in the sauce. Not bad, but not my favorite, either. The BLT salad, on the other hand, was quite tasty. I’ll keep it in the rotation as it’ll easily work year-round.

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Friday night we went out to the local Chinese buffet and Saturday brought forth an Autumn Soup–very simple with carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, celery and a rich beef broth. The leftover cornbread from Monday made a good match for the soup and saved some time–always a good thing as the week gets longer and my patience gets shorter. I’d gone into the old office earlier that day and spent the afternoon and evening working on design team projects.Simple and hearty was meant for days like this.

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We ended the week with a rich lamb curry over basmati rice and served with a light fruit salad. There was nothing overwhelmingly remarkable about this curry, but each time we have lamb its always a bit of a treat, so what surrounds it doesn’t have to be amazing, just good. The coolness of the chilled fruit is a nice counterpoint to rich, heady sauce.

After this week I was itching to go a bit more modern and try out some new-to-me products I’d ordered from iHerb.com (more on that tomorrow). So stay tuned for more menus as the week goes on!

 

Retro Recipes 4: That 70s Chef

Nibbles

Continuing the trek through culinary time, instead of our backwards progression (regression?) I decided to hop back up to the early 70s and use these recipes cards that I remember flipping through as a child. They are The Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library, circa 1971. Let’s dig in!

Simple Supper, Special Dessert

Simple Supper, Special Dessert

Monday was Labor Day but Todd had just grilled steaks Sunday night, so I didn’t feel any need to grill again. Instead, I used the suggestions from one of their menu cards and combined the Smokies version of the mac and cheese with the Polka-Dotted Mac and Cheese from the Kids’ section of the card library. It doesn’t hold a candle to my usual mac and cheese, but it was fun. The big hit was the Little Pumpkin Custards, though, so good, so simple, and so great a way to usher in the unofficial start to fall!

Pizza Potatoes

Pizza Potatoes

On Tuesday I made a one-pot dish called Pizza Potatoes that used canned tomatoes, boxed scalloped potatoes, cheese, and pepperoni. I think it would have been much better if I’d sliced my own potatoes and made a quick sauce for them, but it was worth it for the experience. It’s definitely something I’d consider making again, with that change, because it was very tasty otherwise. A quick salad was all it needed, so it was good for the first day back at work after a long weekend.

Tuna Ring with Cheese Sauce

Tuna Ring with Cheese Sauce

On Wednesday I took advantage of Todd working late to spend some time making this Tuna Ring with Cheese Sauce. Sure, I was a touch aprehensive about the recipe in general, but we like warm tuna fish dishes, so it was only a tiny gamble. I also tried out a new-to-me gluten-free pizza dough mix by Pamela’s and we were very pleased with the crust. Probably one of the best gluten-free ones we’ve had, and I’ll definitely be ordering more of the mix (I just started ordering from iHerb and already I’m liking what I chose so far). The cheese sauce is a light blue cheese sauce and it was surprisingly good.

Banana Spice Cookies

Banana Spice Cookies

Again, with the luxury of time on my hands, I also made these Banana Spice Cookies from the Come for Coffee card section. I wasn’t sure about the lemon buttercream at first, but it paired surprisingly well. Desserts twice in one week? This was a lot more common back in the day, and these cookies were great to pack a couple for lunch or even for breakfast over the weekend (yes, they lasted that long).

Pork Chop Scallop with Creamy Coleslaw

Pork Chop Scallop with Creamy Coleslaw

According to the back of the recipe card, in addition to the Pork Chop Scallop, Green Beans, and Creamy Coleslaw, this meal also called for dill pickles, applesauce, and Old-fashioned Oatmeal Cookies. That would be quite the plate! Again, I used the boxed scalloped potatoes and they were a bit better in this recipe thanks to the milk, but it still would have been better fresh and wouldn’t have taken any longer on the stove.

Cheese-Egg Bake and Raspberry Ring with Creamy Fruit

Cheese-Egg Bake and Raspberry Ring with Creamy Fruit

While Thursday’s supper simmered on the stove, I got a much-needed jump start on Friday’s menu by hard-boiling the eggs for the Cheese-Egg Bake and putting together the Raspberry Ring with Creamy Fruit. And it’s good thing I did, too! Friday morning showed the raspberry ring was not anywhere close to solid, so I put it in the freezer for the day. I’m not sure if it was just a fluke (jell-o molds can be tricky things) or if I made a rookie mistake, but the icy raspberry ring turned out to be a big hit with Todd so I’m glad I persevered. And that the ring mold I ordered sepecifically for this recipe wasn’t wasted (no local stores had them, go figure, so Amazon Prime to the rescue!)

Chicken Fricasee with Dumplings

Chicken Fricasee with Dumplings

Aka my favorite Cracker Barrel meal, Chicken Fricasee with Dumplings and glazed carrots are my go-to order at this regular road trip stop. Usually when I made chicken and dumplings it’s more like a hearty chicken soup with the dumplings on top, This was more chicken gravy than soup, but we weren’t complaining.

This is probably a good time to mention that a lot of this week’s recipes called for cream of something soup and I’m not generally a fan of that as an ingredient. Any time you need a substitution for that, it’s simple enough to make a white sauce and flavor it appropriately. For cream of mushroom soup I add a dash of soy sauce to give it the savory, umami flavor without the high-FODMAP mushrooms (and Todd’s not a mushroom fan, so this is a two-for-one-solution). For cream of chicken, add some chicken stock or chicken base or bullion to the roux; cream of celery, add some celery salt. It’s really that simple. And for the chicken fricassee, you start by browning the floured chicken pieces in fat and then drain the fat and add the soup. Instead of wasting ingredients, I used the fat in the pan to make the roux, along with the leftover dredging flour (which generally cannot be reused because it came in contact with raw chicken).

New England Boiled Dinner

New England Boiled Dinner

For our Sunday dinner I opted for the classic New England Boiled Dinner, of which I’ve heard a lot about but never actually tried or made myself. Yeah. The upside is that I got to use my new cast-iron dutch oven. The meal wasn’t bad, of course, but it was a little on the bland side. The leftovers didn’t go to waste–I saved the excess cabbage and veggies for when we need quick soup additions and the 6 cups of broth for Todd to use later this week.

And, yes, I also made one more dessert. The Velvet Crumb Cake was a simple cake with a broiled coconut topping and, again, as gluten-free cakes go this one–made with gluten-free Bisquick–is pretty tender and tasty. It’s from the Come for Coffee section, so I’m totally justified in bringing it with me for breakfast this week, right?

We’ve got one more week in the 70s to come because I pulled double the cards I needed for a single week. Oh, and did you notice that I didn’t have a single take-out or leftovers night this week–it’s probably the first time in months that that’s happened!

50s Food is Pretty Tasty!

Nibbles

Or so said Todd, midway through my latest Junior League cookbook week. I’m not exactly inclined to disagree, either!

Monday we met up with friends at George and Louie’s for a much-needed catch-up session. Considering the restaurant has a retro feel with it’s sign and it’s music, I’m going to say that it was a happy accident to make it fit in with the rest of the week (well, most of it).

Italian Pizza Pie with Savory String Bean Salad

Italian Pizza Pie with Savory String Bean Salad

Tuesday kicked off the tour through the original River Road Recipes (affiliate link), published in 1959, with Italian Pizza Pie and Savory String Bean Salad. Like last time, I’m including the images of the recipes rather than typing them out because part of the undeniable charm of these sorts of cookbooks is the look of them. Transcribing them just insn’t enough!

River Road Recipes, page 89

River Road Recipes, page 89

Yes, pizza night, and the pizza was very good for being a simple ground beef and cheese combo. While the recipe called for roll mix (and I’d originally planned to use gluten-free Bisquick for that step), I ended up buying the Schar gluten-free pizza crusts. I’ve had their bread before and it was a little iffy, but these pizza crusts were amazing! It may have helped that I added garlic olive oil to the crust, some of which seeped through the docking marks, meaning the bottom of the crust “fried” in the olive oil as it baked, but whatever. I’m definitely buying those crusts again.

River Road Recipes, page 34

River Road Recipes, page 34

The side dish was the real surprise. It was a bed of lettuce topped with dressed green beans, topped with egg salad. But that egg salad, though. It had bacon in it. I’m pretty sure I’ve made egg salad sandwiches somewhere in my past that had bacon on top, but this was very next-level. If you like bacon and egg salad, chop up some bacon and added to the egg salad next time and let it sit for a bit before eating it. Trust me.

Lemon Pork Chops + Eggplant Supreme

Lemon Pork Chops + Eggplant Supreme

Wednesday was another winner of Lemon Pork Chops and Eggplant Supreme.

River Road Recipes, page 84

River Road Recipes, page 84

Making some rice or noodles would not have gone amiss with the very tomato-ey Lemon Pork Chops, as there was a fair amount of gravy left over.

River Road Recipes, page 55

River Road Recipes, page 55

Eggplant is rather hit-or miss for Todd, but I keep searching for ways to prepare it that he might like. This Eggplant Supreme was a surprise win with the celery, bell peppers, and cheese. The bits of Worcestershire and hot sauces weren’t super-strong, but they definitely added a little something to the dish!

Thursday was a bit of a rough day at the office, resulting in a tension headache that just wouldn’t go away until sometime after 8pm. I didn’t feel up to cooking, so Todd picked up sushi for us.  Maybe not the standard headache “cure” but it worked for me, that night!

Shrimp Floridian en Papillote + Baked Potatoes with Sour Cream

Shrimp Floridian en Papillote + Baked Potatoes with Sour Cream

Friday I was back in the kitchen with a little Shrimp Floridian en Papillote (try saying that without a Justin Wilson accent, I dare ya!) along with some Baked Potatoes with Sour Cream.

River Road Recipes, page 113

River Road Recipes, page 113

Usually en papillote would have me making parchment paper packets but this recipe just called for cooking it in a covered dish. You will not see me complaining about this fact. The combination of blue cheese, cream cheese, garlic, and white wine (a Florida muscadine wine, because we had it in the fridge) was quite good, and could have easily been a topping for pasta or the baked potatoes we had with it.

River Road Recipes, page 60

River Road Recipes, page 60

Now, why would we feel the need to have a recipe for baked potatoes–isn’t that pretty simple and straight-forward? Yes, but there was something special about the sour cream mix, namely the addition of celery salt and a little hot sauce. It wasn’t a lot, but it did change the overall flavor of the topping in a very tasty way.

Pot Roast in Red Wine + Sour Cream Noodles

Pot Roast in Red Wine + Sour Cream Noodles

This past Saturday was the first in a long time that I got to just spend at home, working in my pjs in The Abyss, and not having to go into Tallahassee, since the beginning of July. It was heaven. So was the Pot Roast in Red Wine and the accompanying Sour Cream Noodles.

River Road Recipes, page 79

River Road Recipes, page 79

I usually do anything pot roast-related in the slow cooker for ease and consistency. I stuck to the stove top this time and took my luxury of time at home to let it cook nice and slow for a few hours. Worth. It. I’m not 100% sold on baking the noodles for an hour (I think I did just 30 minutes), but the combo of the sour cream noodles and the rich pot roast gravy was reminiscent of beef stroganoff, so yeah. Very tasty.

Sunday Night Quickie

Sunday Night Quickie

If Saturday was my day home to play, Sunday was the make-up day as I made my pilgrimage to the old office for a couple of hours. But I had an ulterior motive as there was a planner meet-up that afternoon that I wanted to go to. This meant I didn’t get home until after 6, though, so something called a Sunday Night Quickie sounded like a good supper option.

River Road Recipes, page 71

River Road Recipes, page 71

Essentially it’s scrambled eggs on toast but mixing in a can of chicken noodle soup? Color me intrigued. It was surprisingly tasty and not overly salty like I thought it might have been. Go figure. Breakfast for dinner is nothing new around here. of course, which is why I felt semi-confident about putting it on the menu in the first place. I think, were I ever to make this one again, I might opt for some grilled tomato slices on the side or something just to brighten up the plate.

So that wraps up our trek through the 50s, or does it? I never got to the poultry chapter and there were plenty of other intriguing recipes–do I stay in the 50s for my next week in the kitchen or shall I turn the clock back further? Time will tell!

How to Beat the Heat in Your Summer Kitchen

Nibbles

Growing up, I distinctly remember a few summers where Mom just didn’t cook much at all. Those were the summers where it was regularly 106, 107 degrees outside and we didn’t have air conditioning. We had a gas stove and oven, so cooking much of anything heated the entire front of the house way past sweltering.

Back then, Mom’s solutions were places like Ryan’s and Shoney’s with their kids eat free specials, drive through (my brothers were young, so a happy meal could totally fill them up), and–occasionally–cereal for dinner and then like.

Now, of course we have air conditioning in the Dollhouse, but after 100+ years the insulation is pretty much kaput, so the a/c isn’t always super-effective on the hot and humid days of a south-Georgia summer.

It’s enough to make cereal for dinner sound like a good idea again!

I haven’t quite gotten that far, yet. Instead, I planned this week’s menu to take advantage of some cold-cooking techniques and some chosen appliances that keep the ambient temperature at a comfortable level.

A Week of Meals: 6/27-7/3

A Week of Meals: 6/27-7/3

Monday: Salad Bar Salads

First I went for one of my no-cook favorites: Salad Bar Salads. The difference between Salad Bar salads and other dinner salads is partially in the presentation and partially in the customization. I like to take a little time and lay everything out on platters or in small bowls and set them out so the diners can choose what goes on their salads. This works well for picky eaters since there can be a little something for everyone, as much or as little as they want. I may have spent an hour or so slicing and dicing, but the most cooking I had to do was bring a small pot of water to a boil to hard-boil some eggs.

It’s also convenient for snacking later in the week on the leftovers.

Next, I consulted a book I reviewed a few years back: The No Cook, No Bake Cookbook. That gave me meals for Tuesday and Friday, along with some convenience items added in.

Tuesday: Rotisserie Chicken with Watermelon-Jicama Salad

The watermelon salad was pretty quick to prepare, though our watermelon was a lot juicier than the ones they used for the stylized photos. Still, it tasted pretty good with the salty feta cheese and crisp jicama, and the chilled rotisserie chicken from the prepared foods aisle of the grocery store meant absolutely no heat was required in the making of this dinner.

Wednesday: Zuppa Toscana with Bread sticks

A rainy night helps cool things down just enough to fire up the stove and oven. With the soup ready-to-cook in our chest freezer, I could have easily prepared it in the slow cooker to minimize the heat (and used the toaster oven for the bread sticks since it generates less heat than the full-sized oven), but I could also set the soup to simmer and leave the room. Not something I generally advocate, leaving the stove unattended, but if you have plenty of head-room in your soup pot and check it periodically, it’s relatively safe to do.

Thursday: Take-Out!

We ended up taking Duncan to the pet store after Todd got home from work so decided to pop through a drive-through on the way home instead of cooking. The choice of the night was Arby’s–I adore their Jamocha shake! (The turkey club was acceptable, but the shake was the star of the show.)

Friday: Tuna and Lentil-Stuffed Tomatoes with Fruit Cocktail

Another no-cook recipe, the stuffing calls for canned tuna and lentils. Canned lentils, once drained and rinsed, are supposed to be Low-FODMAP so I decided to give it a whirl. If (and that’s kind of a big if) I make it again, I’ll use chicken, leave out the capers, and substitute tarragon for the dill. It was okay, but not our favorite. The curry-yogurt sauce was tasty, though! Fruit cocktail is a delightful throwback to meals at my grandmother’s table when I was little, back in the late-70s, early-80s but when you just need a little something to round out an otherwise-complete meal? It totally fills the bill.

Saturday: Lemon-Pesto Noodles with Shrimp

Pasta is not generally a cold-prep food, but there’s a trick that you really need to know: rice noodles. Not the brown rice pasta in the gluten-free section, I’m talking about the thin rice noodles sometimes called rice sticks, rice vermicelli, or cellophane noodles. They barely need any heat to cook, just soaking in hot tap water will do if you’re going to add them to a stir-fry or soup. Since I was going to add a cool sauce of yogurt, homemade pesto, and lemon sauce, I employed another tool useful in avoiding a hot kitchen: the microwave.

Converting a traditional recipe into a microwave recipe is pretty simple. The biggest adjustment is time: I usually divide the suggested cooking time by 3, but some guides I’ve seen suggest only cooking for a quarter of the recommended time. If you’re making soup or something else with a lot of liquid, don’t add the fully amount at first–you can always add more, later, but there’s not as much evaopration going on in the microwave as there would be on a stove or in an oven. Finally, you want to avoid over-salting your food to be microwaved. Cut back on the strong seasonings and wait to salt everything until it’s finished cooking. Better safe than salty!

You can also find a lot of ready-to-microwave options in the Mug Meals book I reviewed back in 2014.

Sunday: Sweet Potato-Kale Turkey Burgers with Zucchini “Fries”

Another cool tool for cooking without heating up the house is an electric griddle. I was able to cook my “fries” on the large, flat surface, then follow up with the turkey burgers from our freezer stash.

Speaking of our freezer meal stockpile, it’s getting pretty low. Time to resupply and prep is coming soon, I think!

What’s your go-to supper plan for beating the heat?

My Favorite Risotto Recipe

Nibbles

Risotto has a reputation for being difficult or complicated. That’s far from the truth. Some people complain about how long it takes and that you have to constantly stir it (resulting in all sorts of “hacks” or short-cuts that claim to do it better in less time, but seldom do). Stirring constantly is what created the uniform texture of the risotto, it’s not something to be skipped over, and we’re only talking 20 minutes or so, during which you’re also adding broth in small amounts, so it’s far from the boring drudgery that many make it out to be.

In this week’s View from the Countertop video I show you just how simple it is to make my favorite risotto, and I’ve put the recipe below, as well. I don’t think I’ve ever had this turn out poorly, and I’ve served it alongside steak, chicken, and salmon. Since I was filming this batch, I can tell you that it took exactly 26 minutes from the time I started the camera (just before adding the butter to the pan) and turning it off after making up our plates. And that included going and scolding Duncan at least once for whining at the baby gate keeping him out from underfoot! Add maybe 10 minutes to prep the fish and chop the rosemary; even then this is not a lengthy meal to prepare!

Risotto Friuli-Style with Rosemary and White Wine

From Marcella Cucina, by Marcella Hazan, lightly adapted for Low-FODMAP diets
Serves 4-6

6 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 Tbsp butter
1 T garlic olive oil
1 T chopped fresh rosemary
2 1/2 cups arborio rice
1 cup white wine

Mantecare:
2 Tbsp butter
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary

Salt and pepper to taste

Bring the broth to a boil and reduce to a simmer. You want the broth hot so as not to slow down the cooking process.

Melt the butter with the garlic olive oil in a large pot or pan over medium heat. Stir in the chopped rosemary and then the rice.

Raise the heat to medium-high and stir the rice in the butter mixture to coat every grain. Add in the wine and cook, still on medium-high, stirring constantly, until the wine is absorbed.

Add the first cup of broth (about 2 standard ladles worth) and cook and stir until the rice has absorbed the liquid. Then add more hot broth, this time only a single ladle or half a cup at a time, cooking it is absorbed, stirring constantly, repeating until all the broth has been incorporated. This part usually takes 20-25 minutes.

Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the mantecare ingredients. This adds creaminess and richness and is not to be missed! Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve while warm.

We ended up having two nights of take-out (I know, so sad). One was planned but the next night I had a horrible sinus headache and just couldn’t fathom the thought of being in the kitchen, so Todd went and picked up Chick-fil-a and I got to experience the amazingness of the Frosted Lemonade. Oh, man, I think I could have one of those every day and not get tired all summer. I’m definitely on a lemon kick.

Here’s what the rest of the week looked like:

Home-Cooked Meals 6/13-6/19

Home-Cooked Meals 6/13-6/19

Monday: Zucchini Crust Pizza
Another as-seen-on-Facebook recipe, this started with the basic crust recipe from Tastemade and I added a meat sauce, tons of mozzarella cheese, and some mini pepperoni slices. Why a meat sauce? It made no sense to me to dirty two dishes to make both the tomato sauce and brown the ground beef. And my zucchini yeilded way more than 4 cups of shreds, so I think we ended up with a double-thick crust. That mean it never crisped up enough to pick up like a slice of normal pizza, but the flavor was really good. I think if/when I make this again I’ll just use some self-rising flour (like gluten-free Bisquick or the like) for a little loft and layer everything in a casserole dish. It’d also make a good freezer meal, I think.

Tuesday: Vegan Corn Chowder
The problem with planning your menu with an eye on the weather is that the weather can shift and leave you with a serious mismatch. Such was the case with the rain holding off until Wednesday and it still being hot and humid on Tuesday night. Oh, well, we always enjoy this corn chowder (from What to Feed Your Raiding Party, the cookbook I wrote), regardless of the weather. I did, however, opt not to make the corn muffins I’d had in mind.

Wednesday: Coconut-Lime Chicken, Purple Rice, and Steamed Green Beans
This recipe from Once a Month Meals looks similar to what I have in our freezer meal recipe reservoir. Usually I’d bake this one, but grilling would be a good idea, too! The purple rice is the last of the bag I brought back from Disney Springs last fall. This time, just making it straight, I could taste a little more of the inherent sweetness in the rice and I definitely would like to pick more of this up next time I find it.

Thursday & Friday: Take out
Thursday was a lettuce wrap from Jimmy John’s (Beach Club is my absolute favorite) and Friday was a Chick-fil-a Cobb Salad and the aforementioned Frosted Lemonade. It was so hot and miserable I was definitely leaning more towards the cold foods, can you tell?

Saturday: Vegetarian Eggs Benedict
As spotted on Cast Iron Cookie, I wasn’t a huge fan of the Hollandaise sauce (it came out too thin for my liking) but the idea of using hashbrowns (Minimalist Bakers’ Hash Brown Haystacks, and I definitely recommend using an egg in the mix) for the base and adding greens instead of the Canadian bacon, that I was all for. Instead of just wilted greens I opted to make up a quick creamed spinach (but kept it fairly thick) for the middle layer. And can I just say that this was my best batch of poached eggs probably ever.

Sunday: Rosemary Risotto with Broiled Salmon
The reason for my being, this week. Since we already talked quite a bit about the risotto, all I did to the salmon was add some salt, pepper, lemon slices, and a sprinkle of dried dill. I put them in shortly after I started the risotto and it was all done at the same time.

That was our week, what’s on your plate for this week?