View Full Version : March Cook at Home Challenge
Started off the month with an easy dinner - pasta and marinara (roasted summer squash for me), chicken sausage, and steamed broccoli with leftover homemade sauce from the bibim bap we had earlier this week. But while that was cooking I spent about an hour chopping up vegetables for the next few days. Also roasted some carrots, which are a favorite snack of mine, warm or cold.
DH had to bring snacks to a meeting last night. He took a bag of clementines, some oat-cranberry-chocolate chip cookies I made, and this beautiful pastry ring that I baked yesterday, which was apparently greatly appreciated. The entire recipe had only 1/4c sugar. The filling was dried figs soaked in warm water and rum and a little butter. The dough was a standard sweet cardamom recipe.
http://www.simplelivingforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=725&d=1330689348
Tonight DD has a dinner-hour activity so she'll have leftovers from last night as an early dinner after school, and a snack after her activity, and I'll have a big salad before we leave.
Bastelmutti
3-2-12, 9:11am
Mmmmm!
Last night we had chickpea curry from the Smitten Kitchen recipe (Chana Masala) - it's a good one.
I also made my first foray into lacto-fermented vegetables a la Sandor Katz. I bought his book Wild Fermentation a while ago, but had only done pickles so far. This jar is green and red cabbage and carrots with garlic, ginger and hot pepper. This is the method I used:
http://earthmother-intheraw.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-make-raw-cultured-vegetables.html (scroll down for video)
That's beautiful, Rosemary! I bet it was delicious too.
We had a chicken fajita salad for dinner last night. Plus some muffins.
Thursday the guys really liked the broccoli beef pasta from the crockpot. I wasn't crazy about it though.
Tonight I'll do something with shrimp. Not sure what though.
Sunday - simple coq au vin in the crockpot.
Rosemary that is beautiful!
FIL made dinner last night, homemade cornbread (he even ground the flour) and tuna salad sandwiches.
domestic goddess
3-3-12, 11:27am
On Thursday I made chicken stroganoff. Didn't cook last night, as there were some leftovers and sandwich fixin's. Today, I just want to go to bed, so we'll see if I get up on time to make anything. Didn't eat at all at work last night, but I had 2 donuts this morning. At least I won't be too hungry to sleep now.
Rosemany, your coffee cake looks lovely, and I bet it tastes as good as it looks!
Tonight will be chicken breasts.
I need to cobble together some dinners for the rest of the week...
So for this week in no particular order:
Roasted Chicken
Spaghetti
White Chili (using leftover chicken)
Beef Stroganoff and Noodles
Tacos
Beans and 'Taters
I think I mentioned last week that I have been having trouble cooking during the week, due to working longer hours now, but we make do with leftovers and easy, always-on-hand things like quesadillas and bean burritos. Not the most varied of diets, but it's cheap and filling. Anyway, now I have a new personal Cook-at-Home Challenge: to use up the contents of my CSA box that will be delivered every third Wednesday. No wasting food allowed!
On the 29th, our first box from Farm Fresh to You (http://www.farmfreshtoyou.com/index.php?cmd=howitworks) arrived and it was very exciting! On a whim that night, I cooked dinner instead of working late. In the box: leeks, spring onions, green garlic, endive, 1 large rutabega, turnips, collards, mixed baby lettuces, fennel bulb, radicchio, endive, and kiwi. Everything looks so good and fresh. Plus, there are some new-to-me things in there (at least to cook), which is a great challenge.
That first night, I used those fat, gorgeous leeks, some potatoes I had on hand, and homemade chicken broth from the freezer to make the most flavorful leek and potato soup I have ever had, let alone made. Wow! And it tastes so rich and satisfying, even though it only has 6 ingredients (including salt and pepper). I had some yeasted corn bread in the freezer, so that came out and got warmed in the oven to go with the soup.
This morning I spent some time going through a few trusted cookbooks and wrote down some recipes that feature the vegetables I have to cook with. Some that sound really good: balsamic-glazed endive; braised and glazed turnips; collards with fermented black bean sauce; roasted broccoli and radicchio with lemon; lentil stew with winter vegetables and goat cheese; baked fennel. Goodbye vegetable rut! :)
One of those dishes will be dinner tonight, along with some steaks I just took out of the freezer. Tomorrow, I will at least make the lentil stew (to eat during the week), along with one or two other things.
Kara
balsamic-glazed endive; braised and glazed turnips; collards with fermented black bean sauce; roasted broccoli and radicchio with lemon; lentil stew with winter vegetables and goat cheese; baked fennel
YUM.
Blackdog Lin
3-4-12, 8:41pm
I am put to shame by treehugger (you go girl!) Have been working lately with increasing our vegetable usage and dishes: my only ideas and tryings so far are garlic-braised brussels sprouts, dijon-glazed carrots, and even MORE ways to use up a head of cheap winter cabbage. And treehugger is feasting on dishes like balsamic-glazed endive and lentil stew with winter vegetables and goat cheese (I LOVE goat cheese, BTW, when I can get it).
Therefore I am so jealous that you have a DH/family that will let you try these awesome-sounding vegetable side dishes. Alas, I can tell already that DH is not gonna get onboard with tonight's dijon-glazed carrots......
Alas, I can tell already that DH is not gonna get onboard with tonight's dijon-glazed carrots......
I also have family members who are not as excited as I am about various vegetable preparations. I still make them, but I also put on the table the assorted chopped raw vegetables that I always keep ready in the fridge so that they can make a salad instead, while I happily munch on the more adventurous veggies. They are both willing to try things, at least, and the food never goes to waste as I eat it for lunch or, if the flavors work, 'recycle' it in a soup the next day.
treehugger
3-5-12, 10:45am
Therefore I am so jealous that you have a DH/family that will let you try these awesome-sounding vegetable side dishes.
Yes, I agree that I am very lucky that the one other person besides myself that I cook for, is a very easy-going eater. He likes almost everything (except green bell peppers and asparagus; he is allergic to nuts) and since he willingly admits he isn't a good cook/doesn't like to cook, he happily eats anything I do cook. He's also more adventurous that I am, but I have fun pushing myself to try new things.
So, as a follow up to my Adventures with my CSA box, I have to come clean. I do not like radicchio. I have tried. I have cooked it several different ways, and I just cannot stand its bitterness. So, I am going to ask that it be left out of future deliveries (we are allowed to exclude things) and not feel bad about it. Can't like everything. I even tried cutting the radicchio into small pieces and mixing with pasta, olive oil, and parmesan, like Mark Bittman suggested in the recipe headnote, but no go. The endive part of the balsamic-glazed broiled radicchio and endive was very good, though, so endive can stay.
Yesterday's lunch was tuna salad with fennel, olives, lemon, and capers. Delicious and a fun way to use a fennel bulb. There are left overs for 1 or 2 more lunches this week.
Last night's dinner was that lentil stew, with rutabega, turnips, green garlic, onions, and carrots. It was simple, but very good, and I suspect leftovers will be even better. That will be dinner again tonight, and I made enough that I can freeze several portions for future meals.
Another note about being adventurous: one reason that I wanted to go with a CSA instead of just going to farmer's markets myself (besides the time-saving aspect) was that I wanted to "force" myself to try new-to-me vegetables, instead of the same ones I always buy. I have never been a fennel fan, for instance, and wouldn't have bought it, but I really liked it in the tuna salad.
Kara
I made navratan korma tonight. It was fabulous! New recipe and it took a while but will be faster next time. My modified recipe is here:
http://rosemaryevergreen.blogspot.com
After eating out a lot this week because of our construction project I made soup tonight. It started out on the road to being my grandma's minestrone, but it kind of veered in a different direction. It was quite yummy though and it totally hit the spot.
Wednesday soup today (well, moved to Thursday) will be white bean and kale.
I'm on track with the menus I posted above. I made the chickpeas for tonight's chickpea chili with chicken. It's the first time making them from scratch. I'm not sure I cooked them long enough. I might go home at lunch and throw them in the crockpot for the afternoon.
We will most likely go out for Cheyenne's birthday dinner tonight. We can't eat meat because it's Friday and she will probably want to do a fish fry or pizza. Dad is taking us all out tomorrow for her birthday also.
That said, I am feeling back on track with food again. I had really kind of lost my desire to cook for a while, which is completely unlike me. The last few days it's really coming back to me. I made a strawberry preserves cake with strawberry buttercream frosting that is really yummy for the birthday girl. I've only tasted the cake batter and the frosting, but the cake batter was the tastiest batter I've ever eaten and the frosting was yummy too.
I hard boiled a dozen eggs from Grandpa's chickens last night and I will be making egg salad for today's lunch.
The chickpea chicken chili was meh. I think if we served it over rice it might have been good, otherwise it felt a little thin even though there were plenty of chickpeas and chicken.
Tonight is tacos. We love tacos.
Broccoli-olive-roasted red pepper frittata with roasted asparagus.
Oh Rosemary that veg curry looked lovely. I love curry, When I win the lottery I will hire an Indian cook.
Dad took us out for dinner tonight for Cheyenne's birthday, but I plan to be back on track tomorrow night. I think we might have turkey burgers.
rosarugosa
3-11-12, 6:00pm
Hey Kara,
Tuna salad with fennel, olives, lemon, and capers sounds wonderful. Could you please elaborate? I just love fennel - was it raw or cooked?
treehugger
3-12-12, 11:24am
Hey Kara,
Tuna salad with fennel, olives, lemon, and capers sounds wonderful. Could you please elaborate? I just love fennel - was it raw or cooked?
It was raw fennel. The recipe (from Sunset's newest cookbook) called for the fennel bulb and a small lemon (rind and all) to be quartered and sliced thinly, then tossed with salt and left to soften for about 20 minutes. I was slightly skeptical about eating the lemon rind, but after the 20 minutes, the lemon and the fennel was slightly softened and the bitterness was gone from the lemon pith. When tossed with oil-packed tuna, chopped capers and olives, it all worked together and was delicious. I ate it on homemade rye bread.
Kara
rosarugosa
3-12-12, 12:13pm
Thanks, Kara. That's interesting about the salting of the lemon and fennel. I really like tuna, and DH doesn't like it as much, so maybe making it "sexy" with fennel and such will increase his enthusiasm!
Had a couple of freezer-burned steaks in the freezer (I know, I know...poorly wrapped and then forgotten) but I cut them up and made a really good stew with carrots, green beans, and then at the end, DH suggested that we toss in the 1.5 cups of cooked rice in the fridge. So last night's supper (and a couple of good lunches) came out of what was already here.
Tonight we'll have leftover lamb meatballs/lasagne/spaghetti sauce with some veg or other. In other words, leftovers night.
We don't eat out much but this thread helps with ideas and motivation.
Well, I am off course, big time, but I've pulled it together tonight. I finally made my stir fry and while I was in the kitchen I made a batch of chicken and herb stew. I'll add dumplings to that tomorrow and we'll have that for dinner. Isabella chopped a bunch of veggies for me and I made some brown jasmine rice so we can toss together some veggie fried rice tomorrow for lunch. Wednesday we'll have the turkey burgers with a salad. I might make a big batch of egg salad tonight too.
The chicken and herb stew was FABULOUS! Everyone insisted I put it into regular rotation. We polished off the carrot bread today for lunch and had the cornbread for breakfast. I really don't know why I ever bother making less than a double batch of anything. I made both the breads with freshly ground whole wheat flour, so they were relatively healthy.
Beef/barley/veg soup tonight. I bought a soup bone at the farmers' market last fall and unearthed it in the freezer a few days ago. Figured it was time to use it. Soup bones are a pretty good deal as grass-fed beef goes. There is a lot of meat on them. This made a meaty 6 servings of soup.
Last night was an unplanned night out. DH's cousins were unexpectedly in town. That is, unexpectedly for us; they knew they were coming here but didn't contact us until they were actually here. Although I am usually up for guests at any time, it's been a crazy past week, yesterday and today were busy, we're getting ready for travel, and these particular cousins... well, I'll just say I wasn't mentally prepared to clean the house to that level, and I'm trying to pare down the fridge prior to leaving town. So - really, dinner out was a bargain compared to the stress I'd have had otherwise.
Big eat-in splurge last night: fresh haddock. Plus the little potatoes who seem to know it is spring, based on the sprouts I had to clean off and the broccoli in the fridge. Meal for royalty from my point of view! The fish was so sweet and delicious. Tonight, well, for lunch I'm hosting a small group for squash soup, green salad with steamed asparagus, and baked pears (thanks to Rosemary). And I baked some gluten free brownies last night but I am not sure that they were worth the effort and the ingredients. I have been off wheat for nearly a year and still don't particularly like baked goods with wheat substitutions.
Sunday night was pizza takeout. Monday was spaghetti, last night was grilled sausage. Tonight I might do a frittata, Thursday night is the Basketball Game (go Jackrabbits!) so it will be pub foodish, maybe chicken strips.
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