Midweek Menu

I did not plan a menu last week and I hated when it would hit 4pm and I'd be scrambling to figure something out. I was bound and determined not to let that happen again this week.

Yesterday, we picked up our veggie box. In it, we received green tomatoes, collard greens, cucumbers, and oranges. We doubled up on oranges and cucumbers instead of getting carrots and lettuce. Once I know what's in the box, it's time to figure out how to incorporate it into a menu. The oranges are delicious! I'm not sure what variety they are but all three of us have been eating them with breakfast and as a snack. They don't peel easily so Trent is learning how to eat the flesh off the orange smiles.

Monday - Lentils and Veggies

(basically a clean out the fridge day of the veggies we have left from the previous week's vegbox. I loosely followed the recipe, but instead of spinach, I used butternut squash and sweet potatoes.)

Tuesday - Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff with sliced cucumbers on the side

Wednesday - Pork Chops with Collard Greens

(Thank goodness for southern friends because I had no idea what to do with collard greens!)

Thursday - Chickpea and Parmesan Pasta

(I have been wanting to try this recipe for weeks and it keeps getting put off - tomorrow's the day!)

Friday - Homemade Pizza

So that leaves me with green tomatoes... I like fried green tomatoes, but we have more tomatoes than I want to fry. A friend suggested green tomato salsa, so I may have to try that and see how it turns out!

Favorite Recipe Sources

Tasty Kitchen – huge compilation of recipes and many of them are rated by other readers. I love reading what people thought of a recipe and if/how they altered the recipe.

Hillbilly Housewife – great suggestions on how to make every day items from scratch. I use her recipes for making dry onion soup mix, granola, homemade yogurt, etc.

Barefoot Contessa – she knows how to make delicious food from simple ingredients. Love her recipes! I have a bunch of her cookbooks, but many of her recipes can be found on Food Network.

Taste of Home – tons of tried and true recipes. I have both the regular cookbook and the baking cookbook. Great resources!

Hobby Farm Home – a magazine that comes every other month that often has great recipes and interesting articles. My favorite banana bread recipe comes from here, but I can't find the recipe online.

Friends – great resources, especially because a lot of them are at the same life stage as me. They know what recipes are doable with young kids and a budget.

A year of slow cooking - I do a lot of crockpot cooking. You can make so many things in the crockpot from yogurt to dessert to pot roast and the food cooks itself.

Wholesome Baby Food - TJ eats what we eat now, but I used this site a lot when we were first introducing him to foods. We made all his baby food instead of buying jars of the processed stuff. Trust me, it tastes MUCH better.

Some of the recipes I mentioned in my previous post can be found at these locations:

Apple Bread I made this on Tuesday and it's yummy!

Zucchini Bread

Hummus This is a standby at our house. My 18 month old devours this whenever he gets the chance!

Graham Crackers These are SUPER easy! They didn't last a day at our house and with whole wheat and honey - they're pretty healthy too.

Squash Bread - Made this without the optional topping and it's still delicious. You hardly know you're eating squash. I wish I'd found this recipe sooner as we had a ton of squash this summer!

CSA Tuesdays

Every Tuesday, Trent and I venture out to get our veggie box. The weekly menu is revealed the Sunday before and we have until Monday afternoon to customize what we'd like for the week. This week we received green beans, a double order of winter squash, sweet potatoes, and a double order of apples. I usually get a double order of whatever the fruit offering is for the week. The CSA always offers 6 vegetables or fruits and you can double up, single order, or request none for any of the options as long as your total number equals six. I usually skip the lettuce options because we don't eat much salad at our house.

The vegetables and fruits offered change from week to week. Sometimes we'll have the same vegetable offered week after week and other vegetables will appear for a week and then not be offered again. Sweet potatoes have been in season for a while. We have accumulated at least three weeks of sweet potatoes. We also have a large supply of winter squash and that's only from today! So tonight I have been perusing the internet for winter squash and sweet potato recipes. I also have an abundance of green beans right now. Sometimes the items seem to disappear so quickly and other times I have to start getting creative to use it up before it goes bad. The latter seems to be the case for the sweet potatoes and squash (even though I enjoy both). There's just that much! So if you have any suggestions on what to do with these items, I would love to know! I'm not big on making separate casserole dishes. Normally the veggies are either in the meal (like a casserole) or they're on the side but kept simple (sauteed, roasted, etc.)

The other fun thing about getting a box of locally grown produce is TJ gets to try new foods fairly often. He has eaten such an assortment of vegetables. Tonight we had okra, cucumbers and corn from last week's box. Trent devoured the corn and cucumbers but the boy does not like okra. If it happens to sneak into his mouth, he will find a way to remove it. He makes a face every time!

Great Recipe Suggestion from A Friend

When you are eating what is in season, often times you have to find recipes with ingredients that you have on hand, rather than picking out recipes and buying what you need. Anyway, each week I try to make one beef or pork meal, one chicken meal, a veggie meal (I can only handle so many meat days in a row, but Jesse isn't a huge vegetarian fan), a pasta dish, and a soup or salad night. I also try to vary the cuisines we eat.

A friend of mine posted this recipe on her blog and it worked perfectly for our veggie meal. It was SO yummy. We ate it with coconut rice. I have only recently started eating rice again. I've always had texture issues with rice and the fact that it looks like bug larva. For years, I did not eat rice, but we want our children to be adventurous eaters. So I've been forcing myself to eat rice again and Jesse is forcing himself to eat raw tomatoes (usually in the form of caprese salad - another staple at our house). The coconut rice is SO good! I never thought I would rave about the taste of a rice dish, but I really enjoyed it. We eat mostly brown rice at our house (it's healthier and looks less like bug larva). Overcoming a rice dislike is a work in progress... So we had brown rice in our recipe. We also had sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes, sour cream instead of yogurt(note: add sour cream at the end, it will curdle if heated over long periods of time) and green beans instead of celery.

It was a success! The dish was delicious and I love seeing my 14 month old son chow down on vegetable curry. You should see the way he devours chickpeas! He also LOVES raw tomatoes (much to Jesse's bewilderment.) He's very much into feeding himself these days. He wants nothing to do with us feeding him. The vegetables in this dish were the perfect sized chunks for him to grab and he shoveled the rice in without a problem.

I'm in T.R.O.U.B.L.E

Oh boy! The cravings with this child are crazy. My sweet tooth is ridiculous! This afternoon I went to get the tub of cookie dough out of the fridge that I've been grazing on for a few days. I had left one last serving, but Jesse had gotten into last night and left me one last bite. Only one bite of cookie dough?? This just would not do. So naturally, tonight, we made a whole new batch. I had cravings with Trent but it was more salty than sweet. Salty is actually a lot easier to keep healthy. It's hard to pretend to be healthy when you're shoveling cookie dough into your mouth. I seriously hope these cravings calm down a bit soon! But, just in case you are now craving delicious edible cookie dough, the recipe can be found here. Don't say I didn't warn you! Enjoy!

Queen of Comfort Food

I have never claimed to be an excellent cook. In fact, truth be told, prior to having TJ, I probably didn't do the majority of the cooking. Since I'm at home now though, I do the lion's share of the cooking and I've found that I gravitate toward making comfort food. Big Time. I want it to taste good, but I don't want to spend my entire day making it. Some people desire to cook like Julia Child. She prepared all these fancy, laborious foods. No thanks. I have no desire to ever debone a duck or make some elaborate beef jello. I'm not a fan of the fruity jello. Anything that can crawl itself across my plate actually creeps me out a bit. Add to the fact that it's socially acceptable to add anything in the fridge or pantry to a jello mold as long as you top it with cool whip... Honestly, it's just plain weird, but I digress... So at our house - it's a lot of soups, pasta, roasts and casseroles. Last night, I was using up the chicken from the roast chicken that I had made on Monday. TJ is a really happy baby most of the day, but for some reason he's most likely to come undone while I'm making dinner. So most of my cooking is done by guesstimating the measurements so dinner gets done faster. Hence, the lack of measurements in this recipe.

Here's my "Pot Pie on the Fly":

Chicken Pot Pie on the Fly

For filling:

· Cooked Chicken (eyeball it)

· Mixed Veggies (eyeball it)

· ¼ head of cabbage

· ⅔ sticks Butter

· 1 Chopped Onion

· ⅓ cups Flour

· 1-¾ cup Chicken Broth

· ⅔ cups Milk

For crust:

· 1 cup of Bisquick

· ½ cup of milk

· 1 egg

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease bottom of round casserole dish. Melt butter in a large frying pan. Add onions and sauté until softened. Add flour, stir, and let cook for about a minute or two. Add broth and milk gradually while stirring with a whisk. Add veggies and chicken. Continue stirring and let it cook until it thickens. Pour filling into casserole dish. Mix bisquick, egg, and milk together in a bowl. Pour over top of casserole. Bake for 30 minutes until crust is golden brown.

I would have taken a pretty picture for you, but apparently we were all really hungry because we devoured it in no time!

Homemade Tastes Better - Marinara

Another thing we always make from scratch is marinara sauce. My mother is an excellent cook. She showed me how easy this could be! We buy the 6lb 10oz cans of Italian Peeled Tomatoes at Costco (yes, by now you realize that Costco probably thinks we own a small restaurant). These jars normally cost under $4 a can. First, take a head of garlic (usually about 10 cloves) and sautee it in the bottom of a stockpot with some olive oil. Once the garlic is lightly browned, dump in the can of tomatoes. You will have to squeeze/crush the tomatoes with your hands (otherwise, you will have massive chunks of tomato in your sauce). Then add in a 12oz can of tomato paste. Stir and let it simmer on the stove for an hour. This makes A LOT of marinara. I usually freeze it in tupperware ranging in size from 3.5 cups to 5 cups so that I have the perfect amount for making ziti, lasagna, spaghetti, etc. You can add onions, meat, or whatever else you like into the sauce, but I like to have the marinara on hand and then add whatever else later, depending on what I'm cooking.

Supersized Homemade Oreos

I had a major sweet tooth today so homemade oreos came to mind. Last week, I had a major oreo craving and devoured the store bought bag in about two days! So today, I opted to try and make my own. They are really yummy. I have a couple of recipes for homemade oreos but decided to do a conglomeration of them all.

For the cookie:

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

10 Tbsp butter, room temperature

1 large egg

In a medium-sized bowl, mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. Then beat in the butter and the egg. Mix until dough comes together in a big lump. Place parchment paper on the cookie sheets. Take teaspoons of batter and press down to desired shape. (I used a small, heart shaped cookie cutter.) Bake for 9 minutes at 375 F. Set on a rack to cool. ** These cookies grew a lot more in the oven than I expected so this time around, we have supersized oreos.

For the filling:

Beat half a stick of butter until light and fluffy. Mix together 1.5 Cups of confectioners' sugar and 1/4 cup of granulated sugar. Gradually add the sugars to the butter. Beat until well blended. Beat in 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

These cookies cool quick so by the time you are done making the filling, you should be able to ice the cookies. Obviously, if you want double stuffed, double the filling recipe.

And delicious! I'm really going to have to practice some will power so that Jesse actually has the chance to taste these when he gets home. TJ and I may have to go on a field trip this afternoon or there may be none left to share! Oreos, why are you so tempting!

Homemade Tastes Better - Granola

I really like granola. It can be eaten so many ways. It can be a healthy snack during the day, pour milk over it and eat it as cereal, add it to yogurt for a little crunch, add craisins and chocolate chips for trail mix... We always have homemade granola on hand. This too is SUPER easy to make, which is essential at our house.

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups oats
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375. In a large stockpot melt the butter, sugar and water. Stir and let simmer for two minutes. Add the remaining ingredients. Remove from the heat and stir well until everything is moistened. Put the granola onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 375° for 13 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool. Once cooled, break up the granola into pieces. ** Warning - breaking up the granola is the messy part, if you're not careful granola can fly everywhere!**

I got this recipe from here: http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/rawsugargranola.htm

We've also made this one: http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/honeygranola.htm
and this one: http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/peanutbuttergranola.htm

They're all good. They brown sugar recipe is my favorite to eat on its own or as cereal. The honey recipe is my favorite when I make trail mix.

Homemade Tastes Better - Bread

I've steered away from convenience foods for a while. I enjoy the taste but the fact that something that would normally need to be refrigerated can sit in a box indefinitely has always grossed me out a bit (basically not a big fan of preservatives). After having a baby, this opinion grew even more. Not only do we make all our own baby food, but we buy very few "convenience items." After staying at home for a while, I realized that making homemade can be just as easy as buying them (especially when it comes to planning a trip around naptime, juggling the groceries and baby, etc). Once you get used to homemade, you can definitely tell the difference in taste between store bought and homemade! There are three things that we ALWAYS make homemade. The first is bread. There is a huge difference in taste between the cheap white fluff and real yummy tasting bread. Rather than spend $4 or more per loaf, we started making our own. We buy the big bulk bags of flour at Costco for about what it would cost for one loaf of good bread! I have the Taste of Home Baking Cookbook. It is a great "go-to" cookbook. We just got a breadmaker for Christmas, but up until then, we've been baking bread the old fashioned way. We've tried multiple bread recipes, but this is our standby: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Milk-and-Honey-White-Bread. I'm still playing with my new bread machine. I'll post my favorite bread machine recipe once I've narrowed it down. :)