November Cook at Home Challenge [Archive]

Anne Lee

11-2-11, 9:25am

I'll start even though I got pizza last night. It was one of those nights when things fall apart. I've been traveling so much that my grocery shopping has been hit and miss and when that is hit and miss my menu plan is a shambles.

But I'm back on track tonight with chicken and biscuits.

Rosemary

11-2-11, 10:41am

Sunday I made a small pork roast in the crockpot, and we had leftovers on Monday before trick-or-treating. I always plan leftovers for Halloween.
Last night we had a great tofu-broccoli-red pepper stir fry.
Tonight is turkey thighs with roasted potatoes and brussels sprouts.
Tomorrow, roasted spaghetti squash with ricotta, sauce and greens (think lasagna without wheat).

DD's been taking chicken-carrot-pea stew for lunch. I've been eating dinner leftovers and salads. Breakfast today was roasted sweet potatoes with walnuts and cinnamon. Yum. I don't know how cereal ever became the de facto American breakfast, because almost anything is tastier.

treehugger

11-2-11, 1:59pm

I haven't yet cooked in November, but I haven't eaten out, either. I was home sick from work yesterday, and again today, and there have been leftovers to reheat when I felt like eating. But seeing this post did remind me I had sourdough pizza dough (made from excess starter from breadbaking marathon over the weekend) slowly fermenting in the fridge. So, I just took it and some frozen pizza sauce out to come to room temp. Easy pizza for lunch sounds great on a sick day.

Dinner tonight will be more leftovers and pizza. I should eat some salad but salad never sounds good when I don't feel well.

Tomorrow night, if I am feeling better, I am going to dinner, with 2 other friends, at a friend's house and bringing a loaf of sourdough (it's been in the freezer since Monday) to go with the host's soup and whatever everyone else brought. We are meeting to pick our "menu" of cookies to bake together on December 4th (~10 year annual tradition).

Rest of the week meal plans? I haven't a clue. But I can use my unscheduled downtime today to make a plan.

Kara

Bastelmutti

11-2-11, 2:29pm

Last night was tostadas/bean-rice bowls. Tonight school night, so pasta w/ clams (canned baby clams sauteed in olive oil, garlic, parsley, lemon, S&P), and I want to try a recipe I found for raw beet salad with carrots, apple, feta, sunflower seeds to go with it. I can leave those both for the family when I go to school.

Kara, I usually make a plan, but I don't have one this week. I would like to work as much as I can from my pantry, which is a small one, but I think I can eke out 2-3 more dinners. Proteins are what I am low on. Tofu with a jar of butter chicken sauce & rice is one possibility. Red Thai curry with veg and tofu over rice or noodles is another. We have enough lunch stuff to go for another few days, too, and lots of eggs for breakfast.

treehugger

11-2-11, 2:54pm

Pizza is almost done. It smells so good, that I am suddenly really hungry for the first time since Monday.

I've been working my way (reading, not cooking yet) through Madhra Jaffrey's World Vegetarian cookbook for the past several weeks, and I have a bunch of new frugal bean and vegetable and grain recipes marked to try. I will start there later today when making my menu plan. I have my eye on her rice flour Korean pancake. I also got the new Sunset cookbook for my birthday, so I want to pull some things out of there to try. I had to skip a lot of things, going through it, since they called for ingredients not within my budget. But that's OK. Those recipes can come later.

My menu plan is never set in stone, always fluid, depending on so many factors. But I do like to keep a running list of recipes that sound good and I have the ingredients already on hand for.

Kara

domestic goddess

11-2-11, 6:13pm

I've been working in the evening for the last couple of nights, so will get back in the saddle tomorrow. I've been wanting some chicken and dumplings, so that is my plan for tomorrow night, if I get enough sleep. If not, then it will probably be something from crockpot, if I am able to get to the store. It is kind of slim pickings around here right now. But there is a lot of Halloween candy!

Mrs-M

11-2-11, 7:41pm

My November "Cook-at-Home Challenge" is as follows.

Prepare and freeze one or two soups.
Prepare and freeze a couple of pans of lasagna.
Prepare a large pot of stew and freeze.
Prepare a batch of cabbage rolls and freeze.
Prepare a large pot of cabbage hash and freeze.
I know my challenge sways more strongly towards a personal challenge of sorts, but this is a great thread IMO to remind myself of what lies ahead and needs doing.

Anne Lee

11-3-11, 6:44am

My son is working on losing weight so we had chicken/veggie soup instead of chicken and biscuits. Tonight will be sloppy joes. Since I make it from scratch, it has less sodium than the canned stuff.

Charity

11-4-11, 4:18pm

So far I made:

Home made pasta with meatballs and a ragu sauce made with pork neck bones.
Shrimp scampi.
Parmesan encrusted Tilapia with roasted tomatoes.

Rosemary

11-5-11, 7:28am

The spaghetti-squash based lasagna was really tasty.
This weekend we have events at our church so meals at home will be soup from the freezer and a lot of salad (because the food at church is always too rich).

Bastelmutti

11-6-11, 8:24am

The other day I was cleaning out a closet for stuff to put in my charity pick-up pile (Tues. we'll be probably 10+ bags of stuff lighter!) and found some money in an old purse. So last night we got together with friends and ordered Italian. Fun night!

Tonight and tomorrow I'm making spaghetti and meatballs and something with the pot of pinto beans I cooked Friday. I can flip flop those two depending on what the family wants. Looks like Tues will be chicken then, so I may make something from here to go along with it:
http://www.manjulaskitchen.com/

Kara, if you like Madhur Jaffrey, you will probably like that site, too. I think I posted it before - vegetarian Indian (Jain) cooking recipes. I think I will make the potato parathas today for veggie DD1.

domestic goddess

11-6-11, 11:52am

Well, I have actually yet to cook a thing this month, and I'm leaving town on Tues. I'll cook when I am home, but I'll have to buy most of the food, as my mother no longer cooks , so she doesn't have ingredients. We finally got her on Meals on Wheels (it only took 2 years!), so I hope she will be eating better and lower sodium. Otherwise she eats only packaged foods that she can microwave. Most have enough sodium to choke a horse, and she has hypertension.
I would like to make something this evening. Maybe spaghetti, since it is quick and easy, and doesn't require a lot of ingredients I don't already have. Well, it is still a long time until dinner.

Bastelmutti

11-6-11, 1:51pm

domestic goddess,
My favorites in that situation are spaghetti/jar of sauce/parmesan/bag of salad/bottle of dressing or supermarket roasted chicken/bag of salad/bottle of dressing/nice bread and butter.

Rosemary

11-6-11, 5:21pm

domestic goddess, a couple of my quick & easy dinners are lentil soup and frittata or omelet made with frozen veggies.

I realized that Thanksgiving is right around the corner and if I'm going to cook a turkey, I'd better use up some of the stuff in our freezer. Easier to make space than I anticipated. This weekend I've used up containers of chili, soup, squash, and chicken, and another container of soup is thawing for DD to take to lunch tomorrow. Also thawing milk to make yogurt, and chicken to cook tomorrow in the crockpot. I have a crazy-busy week so it will be nice to have some leftovers on hand.

So for this week -
breakfasts: yogurt, fruit, nuts, quinoa
lunches: salads, soups
Monday - roasted chicken and roasted brussels sprouts
Tuesday - cod, salad
Wed/Thursday - tacos with black beans, raw cabbage, and leftover chicken
Friday - cousin from out of town visiting. pork roast, rest TBD as I'll have used up my veggies and will be shopping that day.
Saturday - leftovers

treehugger

11-7-11, 12:53pm

Thanks for the website, Bastelmutti. Neither my husband nor I are vegetarians, but we often eat legume-based vegetarian meals, so it's always nice to get new recipes.

Last night I cooked my first-ever butternut squash. I cubed and roasted the squash, tossed with olive oil, fresh sage, s & p. Then tossed that mixture with cheese ravioli (from Costco's freezer section), and a browned butter sauce (with more sage, which I have growing outside the kitchen door). Delicious, rich, satisfying. I will definitely make this again, assuming I can find affordable butternut squash again.

I also made a pot of black beans last yesterday. Some will go into the freezer, and some I will make into refried beans for eating with rice and salsa and tortillas later in the week.

I tried a new recipe for whole wheat sandwich bread yesterday, and I'm not sure about it. I have it doing its final rise in the fridge and will bake it tonight. It might be a flop that becomes bread pudding, but that's OK.

Kara

Rosemary

11-7-11, 6:32pm

Treehugger, easier way to cook squash: wash it off, put on a baking sheet, and bake at 400 for about an hour for a large squash. This will cook it almost completely; at this point, I cut it open, seed it, and chop. If you want it completely cooked and mashable, try 90 minutes. I cook all winter squash this way because they are so difficult to cut open when raw.

Prepped a bunch of veggies last night. Tonight, cooking for 2 nights. Leftovers tomorrow, change of plans.

treehugger

11-7-11, 6:49pm

I appreciate the suggestion, Rosemary, but honestly, I didn't have trouble cutting up the raw butternut. And I liked the way the chunks got carmelized when roasted like that, which wouldn't happen if roasted whole. It also only took about 25 minutes.

Kara

Bastelmutti

11-8-11, 12:33am

Would that method work with a kabocha squash? I'd like to bake it, but the skin is very hard, and I don't think I can peel it or cut it easily. Do you have to poke holes in it like potatoes.

Rosemary

11-8-11, 8:08am

You're right about the caramelization, Treehugger. Maybe I need to sharpen my knives! :)

Bastelmutti, I've not tried this with a kabocha squash. I have poked holes and not poked holes, and it doesn't seem to make a difference.

Kat

11-8-11, 4:16pm

So far this month, we have had chicken and dumplings, ham sandwiches, cream cheese and salsa chicken, clam chowder, and salisbury steak with herb roasted potatoes. Man, have I ever missed cooking!

treehugger

11-8-11, 6:49pm

Last night and tonight were/are leftover nights. But I will prep turkey kielbasa and white bean stew (a new recipe) tonight to go into the crockpot tomorrow before work. I think I might also make up some bread dough tonight to bake tomorrow.

Kara

Anne Lee

11-8-11, 8:43pm

Caesar chicken salad sandwiches. I had leftover roast chicken and two slices of bacon that had to get eaten. We had Hutterite colony bread and sliced apples. I needed to get dinner on the table fast and this fit the bill.

Tomorrow night will be hummus and roast beef wraps, Thursday will be chili, and Friday tacos. Sat will be roast chicken and potatoes.

Bastelmutti

11-9-11, 6:23pm

Glad to see you back around, Kat!

Tonight was tofu in peanut sauce with brown rice and garlic sauteed kale. Tomorrow might end up being chili night here, too, to put some odds and ends to use unless I can think of something else to make. We're low on proteins except beans.

Rosemary

11-10-11, 11:33am

We've actually ended up eating off of Monday's chicken most of the week, for lunch (soup) and dinner (roasted chicken, chicken burritos). Easy, frugal, and time-saving. It's been a really busy week so it's been nice to have instant dinners. All I need to do for dinner tonight is prep some more salad vegetables.

Bastelmutti

11-10-11, 12:03pm

Yup, chili is in the crockpot. I'll have to put burritos on the list for next week. That sounds good. I bought some white beans the other day & might make a white bean & collard soup tomorrow or over the weekend.

Anne Lee

11-15-11, 10:26am

Pork chops w/ sweet potato fries tonight. Tomorrow night might be leftovers assuming there are any.

Azure

11-15-11, 11:18am

Not sure what to make tonight. I am leaning toward baked potato soup. It's fast & easy and I have potatoes that are starting to get soft.
I was planning on Korean, bulgogi, mandu, rice & kimichi but just learned that Ian will probably be home this weekend so decided to wait to fix it when he's here.

Rosemary

11-15-11, 11:28am

I'm making a Hungarian-style roasted cabbage soup tonight. It's a busy afternoon so I roasted the cabbage this morning and prepped the other vegetables. Since my cabbage was too large for the amount of soup I wanted to make, I steamed 1/4 of it and put it in the freezer for another night, and used the last 1/4 to make a batch of cole slaw.

treehugger

11-15-11, 11:50am

Over the weekend I made onion-herb rolls to experiment with soft dinner rolls for Thanksgiving and a tea/lunch with friends in December. They turned out great, were easy and fun to make. Will definintely do again. This morning I used two of them to make little egg white sandwiches for breakfast.

I also harvested the last of the tomatoes and made roasted tomato/serrano salsa with all of the ripe ones (6 pints). The green ones got packed away to hopefully ripen eventually.

Saturday night's dinner was beef/broccoli stir fry (leftovers were Sunday night's dinner). No recipe, but i had a pound of flank steak in the freezer that needed to be used. I need to clear space in the freezer for a marked-down turkey next week.

Dinner last night was kielbasa and white bean stew, made in the crockpot Sunday night. That was a new recipe and is a keeper. This will be dinners for a couple of days, along with the rest of the onion-herb rolls.

I also defrosted some baked potatoes (the texture turned really weird and spongy) that I plan to make baked potato soup out of.

Kara

Kat

11-15-11, 12:04pm

Thanks, Bastelmutti!

I made a pan of chicken lasagna last week. We also had sandwiches, cottage cheese, chips, and fruit a couple of times. Last night I made hash and eggs with a couple of potatoes, a sad onion, and a few slices of bacon that needed to be used up. Delicious! This morning I put a beef roast and some carrots and potatoes in the crock pot. Later this week I will make stuffed pork chops, and then it will be time to shop again!

It feels good to cook again, even if the baby doesn't allow me to make complicated dishes anymore! :-)

Florence

11-15-11, 12:18pm

I splurged and bought some really good steaks for tonight, garlic mashed potatoes, corn, & salad.

Azure

11-17-11, 8:54am

Last night I really did not want to cook. But I took some chicken breasts out of the freezer, defrosted them in a bowl of water, coated them with bread crumbs & parmesan, browned them in olive oil. Opened a can of crushed tomatoes, spiced it up and made a chicken cacciatore. DS devoured it.

Used up leftover french bread to go with.

Tonight I'm not sure yet. Sort of thinking of pizza bianca but since I'll be grocery shopping today that could change.

Anne Lee

11-17-11, 10:03am

DH and DS will have hamburgers on the grill w/ roasted veggies and salad. I have a work function so I don't know what I will have. Probably a protein drink.

iris lily

11-17-11, 10:08am

Last night: hamburger/rice/carrot soup.

TOnight: I've got beans and cubed meat with onions cooking away in the slow cooker in a chicken stock. Hope it will be ready for dinner.

treehugger

11-17-11, 2:06pm

Baked Potato Soup rescued my strange frozen baked potatoes (freezing them made them spongy and not fit for eating without major embellishment). Made the soup last night (delicious, cheap, filling) and served it with the last of the onion-herb rolls I made over the weekend.

I also baked some oat flour bread (Artisan Bread in 5 minutes recipe) last night. Had some toasted slices for breakfast this morning with pb & j.

Good amount of potato soup leftover for tonight's and maybe even tomorrow's dinner. If it won't stretch, then it will be always-available bean burritos.

Lunch today is leftover stew. Tomorrow my mom is coming to take me out to lunch. Yay, free lunch!

I don't yet have my weekend cooking plans. We will be gone all day Saturday, so I may play it by ear and just see what I have the energy for on Sunday.

Kara

Azure

11-22-11, 7:25pm

White chicken chili for dinner tonight. Yummy! Oh and made some sour cream chocolate chip muffins. Tomorrow is going to be very busy so I am trying to decide what to make either in the crockpot or fast cooking in the evening. I have some gr. beef I'd like to use but nothing sounds good just yet.

treehugger

11-22-11, 7:47pm

I made a pot roast and slow-roasted tomatoes on Sunday, but then the MIL took us out for dinner. So, pot roast became last night's dinner, along with gravy, fettucine and sauteed cabbage. I also had a small bowl of potato soup to start.

Dinner tonight will be a repeat of that, probably Wednesday, too, if there's enough.

I really need to (finally) make pesto with the last of our basil, and do something with those roasted tomatoes.

Thursday I need to make dinner rolls to bring to the Thanksgiving dinner we have been invited to.

Kara

Anne Lee

11-22-11, 9:35pm

We had lentil and brown rice burritos tonight. Last night was sloppy joes. Tomorrow night we will be traveling so probably Subway.

Rosemary

11-23-11, 8:02am

Sunday: roasted chicken thighs, mashed cauliflower & potatoes, salad.
Monday: a great stir-fry with broccoli, carrots, tofu & cashews
Tuesday: leftover soup from the weekend
Wednesday: poached cod and salad

SiouzQ.

11-23-11, 11:25am

treehugger

11-23-11, 11:46am

My first attempt at baking whole wheat bread was not much of a success; I'm not sure what you could call the loaf that I ended up with! Heavy like a brick, dense, crumbly, but smells and almost tastes like bread. It wouldn't even hold up to the toaster very well! However, I will NOT be deterred and will try again. I guess it didn't rise enough, or I didn't proof the yeast correctly? Any thoughts? Maybe I need a better recipe! Help!

Well, I am no expert (only been baking yeast bread since about May) and I would need to see your recipe, but I have learned a couple of things about whole wheat bread.

1) the structure depends on kneading to build the gluten (which isn't as automatic with whole wheat because the "sharp" grain cuts the gluten). So, it needs more kneading. Are you doing it by hand or in a mixer? Apparently, it's easier to develop gluten in a mixer, which is what I do).

2) Some people add extra gluten (product is called Vital Wheat Gluten) to whole grain breads to combat the above. I haven't tried that yet and have still made some successful loaves though.

3) Take a look at the recipes at King Arthur Flour (I swear I don't work for them, even though I am always mentioning them). They have several different 100% ww bread recipes to choose from. Most (or all?) use "special" ingredients like powdered milk and potato flour (or instand potato flakes) to add softness and body to ww bread. This has worked for me.

Good luck and keep trying and just make croutons or bread pudding with the mistakes! :)

Kara

lhamo

11-23-11, 8:26pm

We had a huge Thanskgiving buffet dinner last night courtesy of my job -- kids went back for three servings at the dessert bar! But they had a good main meal, too. Decided to do low-key Thanksgiving dinner at home tonight. I'm going to roast a chicken and some cauliflower, as turkey is ridiculously expensive here and we really don't need a whole turkey for four people. I'll bake some sweet potatoes and I'm thinking of experimenting with a ricotta pie (either spinich or asparagus, if I can find the latter). And maybe an apple pie for dessert.

Kids are at school (they don't get thanksgiving off), DH has gone on an errand and I am enjoying wonderful peace and quiet at home on my day off after a series of three 12-18 hour work days. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday!

lhamo

Kat

11-24-11, 1:23pm

We went back to using cash for eating out, so we have been doing well eating at home. It helps that I created an "overflow" envelope fo rthe extra money at the end of each week and told DH when it reaches $85, he can buy a nice bottle of scotch ;-)

Anyway, I made homemade hash again with the leftover roast. I also made beef stroganoff and honey chicken stir fry. Cereals for breakfasts and leftovers (DH) or salads (me) for lunches.

Made pumpkin muffins and green bean casserole to take to our family's Thanksgiving today...

babr

11-28-11, 10:54am

DH AND I WERE SHOPPING AND HE SAW READY MADE PIZZA CRUSTS And oops left the caps on; anyway i said i could make pizza dough! so that is what i will be working on today; and we are helping our budget as dh is eating out less; taking more foods that i cook up into the office! yyou know how that adds up

off i go to cook

Stella

11-29-11, 10:16am

I came back from trip #1 totally ready to eat home cooked food again.

Last night was stir fried chicken, broccoli, carrots, spinach and bean sprouts with brown rice. This morning I'm making banana strawberry toasted coconut oatmeal and for lunch we'll have a tomato, spinach, olive and feta quiche. Dinner is Chinese chicken salad. We're having edamame for a snack.

Rosemary

11-29-11, 10:30am

Sunday: homemade baked beans (way less sweet than canned!) with pork chops, salad.
Monday: kale, potatoes, and chicken sausage 'eintopf' (one pot: German peasant fare and a comfort food favorite of mine) with roasted squash sweetened with dried apples for dessert
Tuesday: salmon cakes, salad, and this recipe, modified with a lot less oil and more beans:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sweet-potato-and-vegetable-tian-recipe/index.html
Wednesday: chicken with mushrooms and steamed cabbage
Thursday: black bean and butternut squash chili with broccoli salad
Friday: leftovers