PDA

View Full Version : September cook at home challenge



Stella
9-1-11, 6:42pm
Tonight I am making spaghetti with some of my homemade pasta sauce. I made two kinds of sauce so far, one I call Garden Vegetable and the other is Roasted Tomato and Garlic. We're having the garden vegetable tonight.

I have enough frozen stuff now that making dinner doesn't intimidate me quite so much on tired days. I have a few more things to make and freeze, but I have a very good start.

treehugger
9-1-11, 7:27pm
Happy September!


I have enough frozen stuff now that making dinner doesn't intimidate me quite so much on tired days. I have a few more things to make and freeze, but I have a very good start.

Stella, that's awesome. Ah, the power of preparation and planning. :) I find it really freeing, rather than restrictive.

Last night I made a very successful pork and broccoli stir fry, using pork chops (gifted to our freezer too long ago by my FIL who shops for meat as a hobby). I have only very recently starting eating pork at all, after a lifetime of disliking it. Baby steps, and it's working.

Leftover stir fry and rice for tonight. Whenever I make rice for a meal, I always make 8 cups (in my rice maker). Then I have lots of planned leftovers to eat with beans that are always on hand, or as fried rice, or simply to go into the freezer. Also works for rice pudding as a once-in-awhile treat.

We still have some spinach and mushroom lasagne leftovers to eat.

Saturday night we are having friends over for dinner and I am making pizza. The olive oil variation of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes is ready and waiting, in the fridge. It makes delicious (and easy!) pizza. Sauce is already made and in the freezer. Pre-shredded mozzarella cheese is one convenience item concession I make. I can't shred by hand and my food processor does not like mozzarella (it shreds bulk blocks of cheddar just fine).

I have two great looking yellow squash sitting on my desk ready to go home and be roasted or sauteed or something. Some nice person left them in the work lunchroom.

Kara

Rosemary
9-1-11, 8:21pm
Last night's kale and sausage was a big hit. We get pesticide-free lacinato kale at the farmers' market (because we can't grow enough of it in our own garden!) and DD and I love it.

Tonight's eggplant curry was not a hit. Everyone had enough to eat, and it was ok, but no one likes eggplant enough to eat a whole more meal of it, so I had to toss the leftovers, although DD ate all the tofu. DD had begged me to buy these tiny Thai eggplants at the farmers' market. Oh well.

On the other hand, DD discovered that she likes beets. She's had borscht before, and liked that ok... last night I roasted some beets and refrigerated them; today I made beet "sandwiches" for our afternoon snack by slicing them into round circles, spreading on a little cream cheese, and topping with a piece of dried apricot or walnut. She loved it. She said she'd like to take those in school lunch sometimes.

Tomorrow will be a light dinner as we're going to the state fair. Probably lettuce salad with roasted green beans.

Tradd
9-1-11, 8:22pm
I've decided to make more stuff out of my Middle Eastern cookbook since the stuff is pretty healthy for the most part, as well as being tasty.

Tonight I made a big Greek country salad. Romaine, tomatoes, onion, green pepper, Kalamata olives, and feta. Dressing is olive oil, parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Yum!

Bastelmutti
9-2-11, 12:21am
Treehugger, I also have a lifelong dislike of pork (except small amounts of bacon - if pork has fat in it, it's not that bad), especially pork chops. Here is one recipe that I like, though:
http://www.chubbyhubby.net/blog/?p=162 - I usually add a little hoisin sauce and garlic to it.

Tradd, Mmmmmmm, Greek salad!

We had chickpea burgers for dinner tonight, based loosely on a Rachael Ray recipe, on buns with cheddar cheese, lettuce and sriracha sauce. I want to experiment with non-meat burgers. These were pretty good. Tomorrow DH will make tilapia and sweet potatoes.

SiouzQ.
9-2-11, 1:46am
Tonight I made a big pot of vegetable stew to try and deal with the over-abundance of zuchini and yellow squash I have. Because I finally have ripe tomatoes, this is what I did. Layer sliced onions and garlic in a big stew pot with olive oil, then thin round slices of eggplant, slices of tomatoes, yellow squash, zuchinni, red and yellow peppers, ground black pepper, fresh or dried basil, and repeat. Add maybe a quarter cup of water and simmer for however long it takes to cook things down to a nice consistancy, but not too mushy. I then put it over brown basmati rice that has been cooked with one bullion cube. Serve with parmesan cheese on top. Truly very yummy!

Truly yummy!

Tradd
9-2-11, 1:39pm
That sounds fab, SQ!

Bastelmutti
9-2-11, 3:55pm
Took the plunge & joined Costco today. Brought home a giant package of wild salmon, organic ground beef, Greek yogurt, strawberries and lettuce. I saw quite a few other good items, though, so I think it will be worth the membership. Best deal today was laundry detergent, though. At other ethnic store got natural chicken, dried beans, fruit and veg, and Indian vegetarian foods for my DD1's lunches. We are well stocked up for cooking at home now! Came home and made some fresh salsa to have with chips when kids get home. Have a good weekend, everyone!

fidgiegirl
9-2-11, 5:22pm
I should join in this one this month. I am working a much more flexible job and am tempted to eat out, stop at Caribou, etc. if I'm out for a meeting or something. Also, I am continually tempted to eat out in the evening. We need to put in another Coborns order so we have more items ready to go.

folkypoet
9-2-11, 6:45pm
Leftover beans and rice with avocado last night. Probably steamed veggies tonight. Everyone's leaving in the morning, and they'll be gone four days! I am positively giddy with excitement! Thinking of treating myself to a special meal, but I haven't decided what yet. :o)

flowerseverywhere
9-2-11, 6:56pm
Our good Chinese restaurant closed down and I decided to experiment with some recipes. Awesome egg rolls, General Tsao's chicken and beef and broccoli the last few nights. This was one thing I never tried so found some good rated recipes and they worked!

After stocking the freezer today after farmers market and garden harvest, I decided next week to make some vegetable based soups to add to the freezer. It really helps on those lazy or busy days to get a break from food prep, or add a quick grilled cheese or salad to something you just have to heat up.

fidgiegirl
9-3-11, 12:13am
Nice, flowers!

Tomorrow I will put a veggie crock pot recipe together that I like. That will be for lunches for work.

Tonight we did well, we went to Whole Foods and got some of their beautiful burgers instead of going out for a meal. Not the cheapest ever, but definitively less expensive than a meal out. Plus we had rockin' sweet corn.

Debating a trip to the State Fair to get some goodies, but probably won't go. It doesn't seem worth it to spend $24 on admissions just to then have to pay for the food on top of it - both in funds and in gut rot. Although I do want to learn about beekeeping, so that might be a fun activity there, too . . .

Rosemary
9-3-11, 6:43am
You're so right about the state fair, Fidgiegirl! We went yesterday... it goes in our summer vacation budget... once-a-year ridiculous costs. At least DD gets her ticket free from the library through their summer reading program.

After the fair, we crashed for a while and then DD's friend came over for a sleepover. I made a super-easy dinner of poached chicken and green beans, which the girls devoured. (Easy on the stomachs, too, after fair food!) Made a large quantity of chicken; sliced and froze the leftovers in small containers for school lunches.

Tonight's dinner will be stuffed zucchini.

lhamo
9-3-11, 8:30am
Our good Chinese restaurant closed down and I decided to experiment with some recipes. Awesome egg rolls, General Tsao's chicken and beef and broccoli the last few nights. This was one thing I never tried so found some good rated recipes and they worked!



flowers, if you can tolerate spicy food run, don't walk, to your library and see if they have (or can get via interlibrary loan) Fuchsia Dunlop's book on Sichuan food, Land of Plenty. TOTALLY authentic (I lived in Sichuan for over five years so I know!) and the best CHinese cookbook I've found to date. You can find a few recipes on her blog at http://www.fuchsiadunlop.com/ but the book is more thorough. Worth the investment if you like Chinese food, but check it out from the library first as it may be hard to find some of the specialized items Sichuan cooking calls for so it is good to look through it and see what the recipes call for and what you have available locally.

I also quite like many of Diana Kuan's recipes at www.appetiteforchina.com. The most recent piece on her blog happens to be recipes for General Tso's chicken.

Over here in Beijing, I'm playing single mom this weekend as DH is on a business trip. Wasn't able to do the grocery shopping this morning as I was waiting for someone to come pick something up, so took the kids out for lunch. They were really great and walked all the way to the new location of a local restaurant we like and back without complaining (about 2 miles RT), and helped me with the shopping on the way. So we're set for meals tomorrow. I'll make french bread pizzas for them for lunch while i finish up the taco salad leftovers, and then we'll have baked chicken and veggies for dinner. I love Chinese food but we eat it M-Sat evenings since that is what our helper knows how to cook, so I tend to make mostly Western stuff on the weekends.

Oh, I also had a good score -- found a local brand of tortillas the kids like. I had been using one cheaper brand, but after we came back from the US the kids decided they didn't like the taste as much. The second brand I tried is handmade, a bit more expensive, but still makes a good option for breakfast/lunch quesadillas, which the kids are quite into at the moment. It is a really quick fix when we don't have other stuff in the house, along with some fruit and/or veggie sticks, so worth having on hand. These are supposed to freeze well so I'll just stock up every few weeks.

lhamo

Bastelmutti
9-3-11, 8:35am
I love Chinese food but we eat it M-Sat evenings since that is what our helper knows how to cook, so I tend to make mostly Western stuff on the weekends.

Can you give some examples of what regular, weeknight meals would look like in China? I'm just curious. Might be fun to replicate for my kids. When they were little, I used to sometimes pick a country & print them out coloring books with the map/flag/facts about that country, then make dinner from that cuisine. Really fun.

babr
9-3-11, 4:36pm
I made homemade buns to go with our veggie burgers we plan to cook over the charcoal grill later this month as we hit the road for a color tour; then made flour tortillas which dh used with leftover rice for a mexican dish while i prepared a clean out the fridge veggie egg white omelet! trying to give dh subtle hints about using fresh food up; but truly we are getting so much better at throwing less food out!

lhamo
9-3-11, 6:57pm
Can you give some examples of what regular, weeknight meals would look like in China? I'm just curious. Might be fun to replicate for my kids. When they were little, I used to sometimes pick a country & print them out coloring books with the map/flag/facts about that country, then make dinner from that cuisine. Really fun.

We mostly have a variety of stir fries. Last night we had mapo tofu (hot and spicy sichuan style tofu) and spinach stir-fried with garlic and rice. I am trying to ensure we have at least one green leafy veggie per meal. Since it is corn season we sometimes have boiled ears of corn on the cob on the side. We'll usually have one dish in it with meat, eggs or tofu and one or two veggie dishes on the side (one of them often a cold salad type, like cucumbers in a spicy vinagrette like sauce. We occasionally have noodles as a staple instead of rice, but not so much these days as I am trying to control carbs. A couple of times a week our helper will make a big pot of stewed chicken legs or stewed beef with carrots and potatoes. But mostly our meals are pretty veggy-centric.

lhamo

Rosemary
9-4-11, 7:19am
Grilled stuffed zucchini was really good! Cut zucchini in half, rub with small amount of olive oil, salt & pepper; grill for a few minutes (cut side down). Cook filling (I used just the cut-out zucchini, chopped fine, plus some cooked ground turkey I had in the freezer, and spiced it like I would chili), put into zucchini shells, and grill all together for about 5 minutes. We had this with green salad and some leftover potatoes last night. Easier dinner than I expected it to be.

Tonight will be salmon cakes, salad, and cole slaw.

fidgiegirl
9-5-11, 5:34pm
I have a crock pot meal of a veggie-barley stew going for lunches for work. I will freeze and have on hand.

Tomorrow we are going to have a fish chowder in the crockpot, too. I should go prepare it now and put it in the fridge for tomorrow.

We are going out tonight with my inlaws. That's ok for me, we were "good" all weekend and ate in all weekend. It was a savings. We were tempted a few times but opted for items we already had in the freezer. We're trying to eat down some of what we have. It's kind of gotten out of control. We have to do that every once in a while!

Tonight I will make more of Rosemary's granola. I have been eating it and loving it. It is so much less heavy than commercial granolas, and just the right amount of sweet and cinnamon to go with yogurt and fruit in the morning. Delish.

domestic goddess
9-5-11, 7:47pm
Have been trying to cook more at home, especially snack-type foods. They all eat a lot of that here, and usually buy them, which is expensive. I am so cold today, as it is a bit chilly, and you would think I'd go in and heat up the kitchen a bit, but I just got up and am not quite ready to fire up the oven. Still need to get up and get going. I have some thinly sliced chicken breasts and am going to saute one for a sandwich for dinner, and will make another to take to work tonight. Have some chicken drumsticks for the girls, which they love. We have some corn and green beans to round out the meal.

Rosemary
9-5-11, 8:29pm
Glad you're enjoying the granola, Fidgiegirl! :)
Tonight we grilled a small steak that I bought on sale and froze for the holiday a couple of weeks ago. Also grilled a zucchini, sauteed some mushrooms, and had some peas (because DD is very inflexible about zucchini!). Lunch was salads, and DD & DH had small sandwiches too.

I've been cooking things and prepping vegetables in advance to get ready for the first week of before-school breakfasts and packed snacks and lunches. In the past, DD has had early lunch and late snack, but this year she has snack in the morning and a very late lunch, so her snacks will need to be reasonably substantial. (Her school is large, and even with only 20-minute lunchtimes, it takes a long time to cycle all the classes through the cafeteria.)

Lara
9-6-11, 4:58pm
I'd like to join in, if I may. I'm back again after a nasty divorce - it's time to get back to my goals and the things I love.

Lara

treehugger
9-6-11, 5:33pm
Welcome back to Simple Living, Lara.

Saturday night we did indeed make pizza, with friends (and they brough delicious wine). 1 pepperoni, mushroom, and olive, and 1 zucchini, red bell pepper, garlic, pepperoncini, spinach, and feta.

Sunday, I defrosted lamb chops (my FIL buys half a lamb every year and sometimes gives us a few cuts) and bratwurst (I was cleaning out the freezer) and my DH grilled them. I roasted potatoes and beets (separately) and served the beets, diced, with spinach and feta and a viniagrette.

Monday breakfast - sourdough pancakes, using my Tartine starter that I needed to feed.

Monday dinner - leftovers, plus I made bread and we had clam chowder that my FIL brought from the family restaurant.

Tonight, still more leftovers, but I need to make fried rice tomorrow to use up some cooked rice and vegetables in the fridge.

I also made pesto and hummus yesterday. The pesto will be used on cheese ravioli later in the week, and the hummus will work for lunches for a few days.

Kara

Rosemary
9-6-11, 8:40pm
Tonight I made pasta for DD & DH, steamed green beans, and salad. Used up the leftover ground turkey from the stuffed zucchini in the pasta sauce. I had the steamed green beans and leftover grilled zucchini on my salad. DD ate every crumb of her school lunch and snack, and was starving after school! She has a very late lunch this year, and if her snack continues to be in the afternoon instead of morning we'll have to beef up her breakfast some more.

Bastelmutti
9-7-11, 1:06pm
Hi, Lara! Good luck to you on your journey.

Looks like pasta week here, too! Pasta w/ red sauce tonight because it is my school night. Tomorrow DH has an evening commitment at his school and DD2 requested spaghetti and meatballs, so I will make meatballs, but probably do aglio-olio spaghetti because DD1 likes that. Then Friday we can have chicken I will convince DH to make.

Rosemary
9-10-11, 2:18pm
Last night was black bean & butternut squash chili. I baked the squash (which was from our garden) first to soften it a bit, then peeled it and cut it into quarters, which I grilled to finish cooking, before adding it to the chili. Yum! Grilled butternut squash is delicious! We had some steamed collards on the side. Greens-black beans-squash or sweet potatoes are a favorite combination of mine.

We'll have the leftover chili & collards for dinner tonight. I cooked the other 2 squash that were ripe at the same time and put them in the freezer. Although squash can keep for a long time, we don't have good storage conditions anywhere in our house, and I'd rather freeze them than have them get moldy. There are at least 2 more squash that are nearly ready to pick.

treehugger
9-12-11, 12:56pm
3 cook at home failures yesterday:

I made whole wheat bread, which rose beautifully and smelled great but it stuck in the pan and the top lifted off (second time with this recipe, so maybe I got coc ky). I will turn it into bread pudding, or maybe croutons. But I still need whole wheat bread for sandwiches, toast, etc., so I will need to make some more.

I made croutons with leftover bread ends I had stashed in the freezer but DH decided they weren't done enough when I took them out and he put them back in the oven and they burned. We salvaged a few, but the rest will be composted.

DH breaded and pan fried some fish caught by a friend yesterday. I have no idea what he did (I was purposefully staying out of dinner prep) but the result was edible, but not in any way good. At least there aren't any leftovers because there wasn't a large amount of fish to begin with and DH felt so bad about cooking it poorly, and I have trained him (finally!) not to waste food, that he ate the 3rd piece.

So, all of that added up to a less than satisfying Sunday evening.

However, I did make 2 loaves of yeasted corn bread and a giant pot of marinara (most will get frozen) and that all turned out well.

Win some, lose some, keep on cooking,

Kara

Marianne
9-12-11, 1:32pm
Wow! Such a diverse group of people here, with many different choices for meals - love it!

I finished dealing with the potatoes from the garden this morning. I don't have a cold room/root cellar, so everything gets partially cooked one way or another, then frozen. The spuds smelled so good that I had a bowl of little ones with butter for breakfast. I'm cooking chicken now, it also smells so good that I'll probably make a batch of chic-veg-noodle soup for my meal later and freeze the rest of the chicken.
DH travels with his job, so home cooked meals are important. We also live 35 miles from a town that has a variety of places to eat, so ...

It's been months since I have eaten at a restaurant or had take out. Honestly, I don't miss it. I do try a lot of the clone recipes, getting better at Chinese, not as many flops anymore. :o)

Bastelmutti
9-12-11, 2:44pm
DH made a batch of quinoa yesterday for lunches, and I made a batch of chap chae (Korean noodles) today using odds and ends, also for lunches. Tonight we'll have some tacos or tostadas with black beans I had left over and the rest of the sweet potatoes. Weds. will definitely be pasta, since it's my school night, but I'm up in the air tomorrow. I think I will defrost some salmon and serve w/ rice and edamame. Thu. can be tofu stir-fry or chicken from the freezer, but I'll probably need to get vegetables at that point.

Lara
9-13-11, 1:33pm
Tonight I'm making a casserole using shredded leftover fried chicken, (sans skin and breading now), enchilada sauce with a homemade polenta and cheddar cheese topping. Fresh green salad on the side.

treehugger
9-13-11, 1:59pm
Last night was a leftovers dinner, same for lunch today. Tonight's dinner will be pasta puttanesca (with some of the marinara I made Sunday, plus olives, capers, red pepper flakes, and a can of oil-pack tuna. Sauteed green cabbage on the side.

Kara

Bastelmutti
9-13-11, 4:13pm
Changed my mind. Salmon tomorrow. French bread pizzas tonight. I was able to go grocery shopping today to carry us through the week with fruit and veg.

Florence
9-14-11, 3:27pm
Cajun chicken pasta tonight.
Thursday leftover cajun chicken pasta
Friday: leftover slow cooker Beef Stroganoff

domestic goddess
9-14-11, 3:43pm
Have no idea what we are going to have for dinner tonight. Looked in the fridge to start prep, and my sil has apparently thrown out the meat I bought for the planned dish. Just for that, I may have to make tuna casserole, which no one but me likes. Sil does that often. He is constantly rearranging the kitchen, even though he doesn't cook anything but hard scrambled eggs and make a huge mess. Arrrrrgh!

Rosemary
9-16-11, 6:15am
Yesterday was busy. Dinner was a super-easy chicken and broccoli with fruit salad for dessert. Leftovers tonight so that I'll have plenty of cooking energy tomorrow. We're hosting a farmers' market dinner that was sold at our annual church fundraising auction. The menu this year is butternut squash soup, cilantro cucumber salad, roasted green beans & cherry tomatoes, and grilled stuffed zucchini. Dessert will be an apple gratin with whipped cream. The squash, cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers are all from our garden; some of the apples will be as well. I had to make last-minute menu changes from my plan because one of the guests called to say she had recently been diagnosed with diabetes and is also on blood thinners, so she can't eat cabbage-family vegetables or leafy greens - our mainstay! Luckily, it's early enough in the season that the summer squash and green beans are still available. She should be able to eat everything on the table, including the dessert, which is grain-free and sweetened with only a miniscule amount of maple syrup.

Bastelmutti
9-20-11, 8:44am
Rosemary, how do you make apple gratin - does it really have cheese in it? Poor woman. I hope I never have to give up cabbage and greens. I don't know what we'd eat in winter.

Hope everyone is doing well. I feel like I'm at the grocery store every other day. We did have two gatherings with friends that cleaned us out a bit, but were lots of fun, and we cooked in instead of going out. Also, one of my DDs started playing a sport, so I feel like she basically needs a double lunch to get enough calories (she tends toward low-calorie, low-fat stuff naturally, so I am trying to make sure she has enough calories). We have the added problem that DH has been having problems with dairy, so my modular style of cooking (one vegetarian/three omnivores, one kids who likes stews and stir-fries/one who only likes stuff plain and separate and mostly raw vegetables) has to become even more modular with cheese only as an optional topping, which knocks a few of my standbys off my list. Here is what I'm making this week so far:

Mon. - Thai red curry w/ vegetables and tofu, sticky rice
Tue. - Indian potato curry, rice, kale
Wed. - Huevos rancheros (got the black beans soaking)
Thu. - Chicken drumsticks and sweet potatoes
Fri. - Probably pasta

Rosemary
9-20-11, 10:04am
Bastelmutti, the apple gratin was modified from this
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/11/magazine/mag-11eatpie.html
I used 8 c apples, maple syrup instead of honey (scant 1/4 c for a larger size recipe), and whipping cream instead of sour cream. It looked a lot more appetizing than the clumpy appearance in the article photo (because of the change in cream).

This week - we had leftovers from the farmers' market dinner on Sunday. Monday, tacos. Today, homemade chicken noodle soup at DD's request. I'm poaching about 3# of chicken and will freeze most of that for later meals, and use a small amount in the soup.

Lunch today will be leftover butternut squash soup and salad. I love this soup - it is like eating the sunshine of a perfect autumn day.

Bastelmutti
9-20-11, 10:17am
Mmmmmmm! Those desserts look really good.

treehugger
9-20-11, 12:02pm
Saturday I was feeling icky, so dinner was chili from the freezer, macaroni, and toasted slices of yeasted corn bread I had made the week before.

Sunday I was planning to make 2 bread puddings (a sweet and a savory) to use up the loaf o whole wheat bread I had screwed up. We got invited over to the inlaws for dinner (yay! salmon!) so I prepped the puddings before we left and baked them after we got home.

Monday lunch: lasagna from freezer; dinner: savory bread pudding (with ww bread, smoked sausage, cheese, sage)
Tuesday lunch: sandwich from sourdough I made Sunday, plus avocado that a coworker brought in (double yay!), lettuce, provolone cheese; dinner: more bread pudding.
Wednesday: haven't thought that far ahead.

Edited to add: ugh, I'm eating my sandwich now and the avocado is NOT ripe like I thought it was. So, I have crunchy avocado slices on my sandwich. So disappointing. I haven't had an avocado in a long time since they are so expensive now. But, I gotta eat it since that's all I brought for lunch.
Kara

Bastelmutti
9-20-11, 2:18pm
PS I have mentioned before that I am a terrible baker. I have found one thing I can bake - chocolate wacky cake (the old recipe with vinegar in it)! Turns out great every time. I think I will also take some of my leftover black beans from tomorrow and make black bean brownies.

Stella
9-21-11, 7:41am
I've been doing well on this except on weekends. Now that Zach is going to be home again weekends should be easy too.

Monday we had roast chicken, mashed potatoes and watermelon. Last night I used the leftover chicken meat for chicken wild rice casserole. There was enough of that leftover for tonight. Today I am going to use the carcass to make stock to freeze. Tomorrow Dad is home so I have to figure out something he can eat. He has terrible stomach issues, so there are a lot of foods he can't eat. Maybe homemade mac and cheese and a salad. He likes that and it doesn't upset his stomach.

Rosemary
9-24-11, 12:06am
Tuesday, chicken noodle soup, homemade, requested by DD, and salad
Wednesday, leftover chicken, made new with cilantro sauce, steamed kale, green beans, and carrots
Thursday, braised cod with artichokes (frozen) and parsley yogurt, and roasted brussels sprouts
Friday, lentil soup and salad. Enough soup remains for dinner tomorrow night.

Make-ahead stuff:
Roasted all the carrots from the garden and put them in the freezer. Used some in tonight's lentil soup.
Coconut macaroons. I keep these in the freezer. One is enough, and they have no refined sugar or flour.
Keeping up with raw veggies for salads.
Granola (applesauce version, no sweetener or oil)
Hard-boiled eggs

DD has used up the quinoa and buckwheat pancakes that I keep on hand for her breakfasts, so I'll make more of those this weekend.

I updated the 'menu' that I created for our refrigerator during the allergy elim diet to reflect changes and additions to our foods. DD found this very useful and liked to see how many choices she had. (posted it on my blog if anyone's interested)

redfox
9-24-11, 8:33am
I'm on the road, and miss home cooking!

Bastelmutti
9-28-11, 3:21pm
When we took our trip this summer, we missed home cooking, too!

Tonight - school night, so pasta, sauce & meatballs
Thurs. - chicken drumsticks, potato parathas & chickpea patties, unless I get work in & have to simplify (then drumsticks & potato-chickpea curry)
Fri. - scrounge around because I'm not going grocery shopping until Sat.!

Rosemary
9-28-11, 4:30pm
I made a big pot of chili on Monday that we had for dinner last night as well. DD took some for lunch today, and I froze 2 more lunch-sized quantities.
Tonight is a tofu-broccoli-carrot stir-fry.
Thursday, salmon and green beans.
Friday, potatoes au gratin and a big salad.
Saturday - dinner potluck at a friend's. She's making chili and I'm bringing veggies, homemade dip, and an apple crisp (free of concentrated sweeteners) made with apples from our tree.