August cook at home challenge!

[Kat]

I did make the muffins and candied chicken on Monday. Tuesday I felt yucky, so we ordered pizza. Yesterday I made a big pot of spaghetti and meatballs. This morning I made peanut butter chocolate chip granola (thanks for the recipe, stella!); tonight's dinner will be BBQ chicken in the crock pot and some California style veggies.

[Bastelmutti]

Tonight's dinner was chicken drumsticks, veggie potstickers, garlic bok choy & kimchi - yes, I finally made it to the Asian store to stock up. Yay! I don't have a plan for this week, but might make Thai red curry w/ tofu (maybe in soup form) and rice, chickpea curry w/ rice, chicken thighs w/ edamame, pasta w/ fresh tomatoes. I have a lot of quinoa to use up and some black beans in the freezer, so that could be another meal.

[Stella]

Yesterday I made biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Delicious! Last night I made more of the crockpot pork so tonight's dinner is going to be carnitas tacos and tomorrows will be watercress and mango salad with pork. Lunch today is chicken salad sandwiches. Today I am going to make a crockpot chicken for a few meals during the week. This seems to be working for me while things are crazy, making some kind of big hunk of meat and having it in different forms throughout the week.

[Rosemary]

We went camping this weekend. I prepped everything at home on Friday morning so that I didn't have to chop any veggies at camp. We had -
Friday dinner - turkey-black bean chili (turkey and black beans had been cooked and frozen separately; I added spices and veggies as we cooked it at camp)
Breakfasts - oatmeal and homemade trail mix, grapes
Sat lunch - salad and chicken sausages
Sat dinner - lentils and rice with veggies (carrots, green onions, and wax beans)

I'm glad to be back to my kitchen. Tonight I'm making omelettes with kai lan (Chinese kale)

[Bastelmutti]

Discovered a great homemade chai mix recipe that I tweaked to my taste: To one can of sweetened condensed milk, add 1 t. cardamom + 1/2 t. each cinnamon and nutmeg + 1/4 t. each ginger and cloves. Add a spoon of this mixture to a cup of black tea. I put it in a mason jar in the fridge. I needed to get out of my tea rut and don't really love a lot of the cafe drinks that are available for $3-4 each. Most of the chais have too much sugar in them. If you like it less sweet, you could actually up the spices and use less condensed milk, or maybe make stronger black tea.

[creaker]

Had a cookout yesterday, tried this, it was awesome: http://www.pbs.org/food/fresh-tastes/panzanella/. If you have too many tomatoes or stale bread, definitely a good recipe to use them up.

[Bastelmutti]

Fed 6 kids and a friend yesterday for lunch - bean tostadas. Today will be 8 kids and another friend - we're doing GF and regular pasta w/ butter, parmesan, red pepper flakes. Thank goodness school starts next week!

Tonight I'm sticking random Mexican food leftovers plus some cream cheese and corn tortillas in the crockpot for "Mexican casserole."

[Stella]

Thanks for the recipe creaker. That looks good and I often have too many tomatoes and stale bread.

Last night we had chicken pita sandwiches. Tonight is going to be a Mexican style chicken and black bean tortilla soup. The kids requested soup. I'm winging this, taking cues from a recipe I have for a simple tortilla soup with a recipe I have for a yummy vegetarian black bean soup.

Some upcoming meals:

-Mango watercress salad with pork
-Asian style turkey meatballs with veggie fried rice
-Hoisin chicken lettuce wraps
-Chicken enchiladas
-Green bean spaghetti carbonara
-Baked eggs with herbs, muffins, fruit

[Florence]

Tonight:
Grilled Garlic/Peppercorn pork tenderloin
Roasted sweet potatoes
Spinach salad

[Rosemary]

Last night - pad Thai (light on the noodles, heavy on the cabbage)
Tonight - chicken sausages, broccoli, fresh corn from the farmers' market