menu planning

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

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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!’

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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!

Our First Foray Into Freezer Meals

Nibbles

Almost a year ago I finally started putting my Sam’s Club membership to good use by stocking our chest freezer with meat every two months. At the time I said something along the lines of ‘I haven’t graduated to full-on freezer meal prep yet’ and here we are now at the yet.

I was going to wait until our February trip to Sam’s to try out Freezer Meals (mostly because we still had quite the stash from our December trip and it’s generally not good to defrost and refreeze meat without cooking it in between), but two things changed my mind:

  1. The impending bathroom renovation (which will require weeknight attention as well as weekends, and weeknight hours are scarce what with the cooking and all).
  2. My innate impatience.

Once I get something into my head it’s tough for me to let go of it. (q.v. my current puppy obsession) So the challenge, at least for this round, was to pick meals that would work as “kits” (separate components grouped together for ease of planning and preparation) as well as others that wouldn’t require me to defrost everything this weekend. But first I had to know what I was working with.

Into the freezer for you!

Into the freezer for you!

So Saturday afternoon I grabbed my clipboard, pen, and kitchen scale, propped open the chest freezer lid, and got to work listing everything. As I suspected, we still had the lion’s share of December’s stock-up trip plus a little left from the October run in some cases. Since I figured we’d be using 3-4 freezer meals a week, I didn’t want to put all our stock into meals, so I did more or less 50% into freezer meals and left the other 50% for general use (the other 3-4 meals a week).

Then it was time to figure out what to make and make my grocery list. But just to add another facet to the challenge, let’s add a super-strict grocery budget to the mix?

I may have let my budget slide a bit last year. And I may have a bad habit of spending whatever I feel like at the grocery store and, hey, if it’s “over budget” letting it come out of the savings buffer I keep in my checking account. And I may have done that so often that said savings buffer has all the integrity of a cheap air mattress–it ain’t gonna cushion much!

Saturday was also the day I sat down with my January budget worksheet and determined exactly how much said grocery budget would be for the month and it was a number I was not happy with. (In my defense, having a restricted diet means cheap food–even some staples like dried beans–and a lot of the coupon-able items out there just don’t work for me, and we all know about the cost of eating healthy vs not; but still, I need to be better about the grocery budget.) So not only was I planning my own menu for the week, I was also prepping 20+ freezer meals, and needed to do it at a price that was 2/3 of what I spent on my average grocery runs.

But I did it! I picked simpler menu items and focused on freezer meals that would require a minimum of expensive ingredients to put together while still offering us a pretty good variety to choose from. It helped that we usually have a certain amount of things already in the pantry that we just don’t run out of, or had stocked up on before the holidays, and that I didn’t have to buy freezer bags, etc. as part of this (since we’d picked up cases of them this summer; we’re still good and set). The other thing that helped was I kept the calculator app on my phone open and I added each item there as I put it into the cart, subtotaling periodically to see where I was.

This did two things: it made me very aware of what each item cost and it kept me sticking to my list, not just tossing things in if it sounded good or was on sale. Yes, it took some of the enjoyment out of the shopping trip (I really do enjoy grocery shopping), but it’s a necessary thing.

When people ask what feels like success (money-wise, at least),
I always say not having to worry about what I’m spending
at the grocery store or on dinners out. 

Anyway! Back to the freezer meals.

Once I got home and unloaded the groceries, I sat down with my freezer bags and a sharpie to do all the labeling ahead of time. Nothing too mysterious,here, just the name of the meal and the date I bagged it and then basic cooking instructions. I made sure to list if it needed anything added (most often water for the slow cooker meals where I added bullion or soup base in lieu of prepared stock–less bulk for the bags) and if there were serving suggestions. I also have these things noted on the very bare-bones spreadsheet I compiled with the freezer meal recipes. The spreadsheet allows me to sort by ingredient (in case something goes on sale and I want to take advantage of it), but it also allows me to share it with Todd through Google Drive. I added a second sheet to the document that is the inventory of the freezer meals as well as the other frozen meats and vegetables in there. If we each update it after we make our weekly menus, this’ll help us keep on top of things!

freezermeals_screenshot

I spent about four hours putting together our freezer meal stash. Starting with the simplest bits to put together and leaving sauces that needed blending or the making of meatloaves until last. At the end I had made:

  • 3 Sweet-Potato Kale Turkey Patties (4 patties per bag)
  • 2 Lime and Coconut Chicken
  • 2 Coconut Curry Chicken
  • 2 Pineapple Salsa Chicken
  • 2 Lemon Dump Chicken
  • 2 Garlic-Parmesan Pork Chops
  • 1 Maple Mustard Pork Chops
  • 1 Bacon Potato Soup
  • 1 Chipotle Shrimp
  • 2 Cheese-Stuffed BBQ Meatloaves
  • 2 Taco Soups
  • 1 Pan of Fabulous Meatballs
  • 2 Beef Stews

(I was a bad blogger an copied the recipes down from various sources–in a notebook, by hand!–making adjustments as I added them to the spreadsheet, so I don’t have the links handy. I’ll try to track them all down and come back and edit this list )

I know Todd is looking forward to the convenience of having meals prepped ahead of time and I’m looking forward to getting our bathroom remodeled. Win-win! Depending on how these go over will tell us whether we’ll shop with freezer meals in mind on our next Sam’s trip or if we go back to our old ways.

Spinach-Artichoke Tilapia and the Rest of Last Week’s Menu

Nibbles

There’s really nothing like sharing good food with good friends, and we got the chance to do just that twice this week, plus celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary (8th dating anniversary). It was a pretty good week…

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Monday: Apalachicola Oyster Stew
For our at-home anniversary dinner (we’ve got a trip planned for later) I decided to make something a little special, and this oyster stew from the newest Garden & Gun release, The Southerner’s Cookbook, sounded like a good option. It’s heartier than the oyster stew I grew up with (which was all of milk/cream, oysters, butter, and green onions) but just as tasty. Unfortunately, oysters were a little on the scarce side in the grocery store (I know the local oyster beds have been having issues) so I threw in some frozen seafood mix to fill things out a bit.

Pipers Pit Fired BBQ Pizza at Northside Pies

Pipers Pit-Fired Pulled Pork Pizza Pie at Northside Pies

Tuesday: Beer & Cheer at Northside Pies
Would you get a load of that pizza up there? Pulled pork, BBQ sauce, and coleslaw. It was delicious! I’ve made many a barbecue pizza in my day, but I never thought to top it with creamy coleslaw, and I’m a little ashamed of myself for that fact.

Wednesday: Rosemary Balsamic Chicken, Cheddar Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans
This was intended to be a super easy slow-cooker meal from Crockpot Gourmet, but I was not in the mood to set things up when we got home from Northside Pies (and I’m perpetually running late in the mornings, so it wasn’t happening then!) but I figured this was something I could do in the oven, too. I was right. Obviously you need to decrease the liquid quite a bit–I used 1 cup of water and it was still more than enough, I’d say go with 1/2 cup and then add more if necessary. Once everything was cooked through I moved the chicken onto a covered plate and mashed the potatoes in the baking dish, so the whole one-pot, low-less idea was upheld.

Thursday: Spinach-Artichoke Tilapia, Roasted Carrots, Coconut Rice
I like eating fish and I like the idea of putting it on the menu regularly, but I don’t always like cooking fish so much. If I commit to a simple preparation of broiling it, etc. then I can usually avoid making it a take-out night. So Thursday night’s supper was just going to be Parmesan-topped Tilapia but when I was retrieving the cheese from the fridge I saw the leftover artichoke hearts from the party. Artichoke + Parmesan cheese sounded like a good idea, and then I dug around and found an open bag of chopped greens in the freezer… this then became spinach-artichoke tilapia and was so very good. I even paid attention to what I was doing when I threw this together, and the recipe is below.

Friday: Corn Chowder with Beer Biscuits
This was First Friday and the annual meeting of the local Artist’s Collective, so I was going to be leaving work early and getting home late. It seemed like the perfect time to pull a container of Corn Chowder from the freezer and whip up a batch of drop biscuits once I got home. Gluten-free Bisquik comes in handy for things like this, and I like to use coconut oil for the butter or shortening in biscuits.

Duck Flatbread at Bacchus

Duck Flatbread at Bacchus

Saturday: Tapas at Bacchus
It wasn’t supposed to be dinner when we met up with friends at 3:30, but we noshed and nattered long enough that that’s what it ended up being. I neglected to get a picture of my fondue when it arrived, but Todd’s flatbread with duck, goat cheese, and caramelized onions made it into pixels and was very tasty! This was sorta-kinda a meeting to discuss plans for my 40th birthday party (it’s 6 months away, but L and Todd are collaborating and L likes to get a good head start on things), which we might be holding at Bacchus depending on how L’s call to their sales manager goes. If so, that flatbread might be a good contender!

Sunday: Beef Stew with Rice
It rained steadily all day on Sunday and I can’t say that I minded terribly. Not only did it bring the temperature down (this past week was back up in the 80s with the humidity to match, blech!) but it was perfect for the beef stew I had planned. Just your basic potatoes, carrots, celery, and green onions with beef, parsley, thyme, salt and pepper. Slow cook for 6 hours and wallow in the warmth.

And here’s the tilapia recipe I promised:

Spinach-Artichoke Tilapia

serves 4-6

6 tilapia fillets
olive oil
salt and pepper

For the topping:
1 cup chopped artichoke hearts
1 cup frozen chopped spinach
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup mayonnaise
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Arrange the tilapia fillets in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet (rack optional). Drizzle the fillets with olive oil and season lightly with salt and pepper.

Combine the topping ingredients in a small bowl, then divide the mixture between the fillets. Try to keep the topping in an even layer over the fish so it cooks evenly.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the fish is fully cooked. If your fillets are frozen to start with, it might take another 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

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!