July 9 2013 meal plan

• Pitas with roasted red pepper hummus, tomatoes, cucumbers
• BLTs on torta bread with avocado
• Chef’s salad with turkey, avocado, jack cheese
• Smoked salmon, creme fraiche, thinly sliced cucumber on baguette
• “Stuffed burgers” and a fingerling potato salad

I have no idea what stuffed burgers are, that is the husband’s request for a BBQ day. I have cheese, bacon, beef, avocado, lettuce, tomato, buns…so we will see what he comes up with. This week’s meal plan is dictated by not wanting to use the stove (again) and a plethora of avocados and red peppers from a recent Costco run. Also you can tell when I make my meal plans before eating lunch…that’s when there is meat all 5 meals instead of the normal twice/thrice a week. Oops!

July 2 2013 meal plan

• Caprese salad (1st tomatoes I’ve bought this year…yum!) and baguette with creme fraiche, herbs from garden
• Creamy garden pasta salad
• Creamy broccoli salad, and cantaloupe/mozzarella/proscuitto/mint salad
• BBQ chicken and coleslaw sandwiches
• Bagels with smoked salmon, cream cheese, capers and red onion

I bought a tub of creme fraiche from Trader Joe’s a couple weeks ago. Then took a couple tablespoons of it and put it in a mason jar with a cup of cream. Left it on the counter for 12 hours then stuck it in the fridge. Perpetual creme fraiche!

As you can tell it was waaay too hot to cook this week. The only time I turned the stove on was once (pasta) otherwise it was just microwaving canned chicken and toasting bagels. Sometimes you just need a lazy week.

Meal plan for June 26

I thought I’d start sharing some meal plans here. My style of cooking is using as many fresh (not processed) ingredients as possible. And everything in season! It just makes it cheaper as well as more delicious. I also make my “weekly” meal plans for 5 days–any longer than that and I find some of the ingredients go bad as we’ll inevitably eat out one night or just eat leftovers. I also don’t usually follow recipes exactly. Without further ado:

• Baked Ziti (husband’s request as we’ve been watching The Sopranos)
• Fish sandwiches with radish remoulade (catfish or Tilapia, whatever they have at the store)
• Fava, mint and ricotta crostini (with a simple side salad)
• Grilled pepper and turkey sausage pizza 
• Barbecued steak with herb sauce and buttered radishes

Weekly Meal Plan

I can’t believe we’ve lived in Portland for over 13 months now! One of the biggest changes we made when moving here was cooking. Yes, when we lived in San Francisco we rarely cooked for ourselves. No we didn’t live off Ramen like the common college stereotype. We lived off of tacos. And burritos. And nachos. Sort of came with the territory since we lived in the Mission District. Now I cook dinner everyday. The biggest help has been creating a meal plan and shopping from it once a week. I love the meal plans created for you in Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food Magazine, and usually use that once a month (except for when it involves expensive cuts of meat…) Other times I just make up my own meal plan based on whatever I’m craving. [This week, it was salmon, so that comes into play twice, haha.] Here’s this week as an example:

• Lighter Sesame Chicken
• Chicken with Artichokes and Angel Hair
• Roasted Salmon with Brussels Sprouts
• Salmon with Potatoes and Red Onions
• Margherita Pizza (Not really a recipe, but I just make Mark Bittman‘s pizza dough, topped with heirloom tomatos, basil and fresh mozzarella. All from Trader Joe’s. I don’t usually use ingredients that are so out of season, but clearly I am wishing for summer haha).

You may have noticed that my “weekly” meal plans are only 5 days long…yeah I’ve just found that’s the time frame that works best for us [sometimes we take a night off of cooking to go to a friends house or just eat leftovers]. You may also have noticed that all the recipes this week are from Everyday Food. Yeah, what can I say-I subscribe to the cult of Martha. 😉 Plus those recipes aren’t even really recipes per say, more like methods of cooking, and they often use less than 5 ingredients.

Infusing Vodka

Head on over here to see how Britni and I get down on infusing our own vodka into 5 different flavors. You are allowed to drool over her photos , like below: (one of the only times a non-iPhone photo will make an appearance on this here blog)

I like that picture because it shows the chips/wine carnage (probably the most important ingredients, yes even more than the vodka itself). And because you can see my engagement ring on the right! Oh yeah, by the way blogworld, I got engaged. Like, 2 weeks ago. Haha.

Bean burgers

My favorite vegetarian recipe: Kidney bean burgers!

So delicious, my friend Rosie introduced me to this recipe, she is a vegetarian and apparently found this via StumbleUpon or something silly like that. Made these while my sister was visiting since she is a vegetarian. [Also I am really bad at coming up with vegetarian meals, Morgan and I eat some form of chicken or ground beef pretty much every night. So while my sister was here, our meals were: Vegetarian lasagna, Bean and cheese burritos, Kidney bean burgers, Vegetarian chili and cornbread, and pho. I’ve never eaten that many beans in one week before, I could never be a vegetarian unless I learned to really love tofu or something.]

One major recommendation, double this recipe! It is supposed to make “5 burgers,” but I’d put it more at about 2! Other than that, I’ve only changed this recipe slightly. That blog looks like it has other great recipes too (and not all veggie), I plan to try some soon.

KIDNEY BEAN BURGERS

One 15-ounce can kidney beans, drained, rinsed and mashed well

1/4 cup pecans, finely diced

1/4 cup onion, finely diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 egg

2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1 tablespoon ketchup

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon yellow curry powder

1/4 teaspoon cumin

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

———-

In a large bowl combine the ingredients. Mix well and chill for 15 minutes.

Form into burgers and fry in a small amount of oil, or in a nonstick pan sprayed with vegetable cooking spray, over medium heat.

———-

Christmas cookies

Every year my mom makes a ton of Christmas cookies and we all decorate them. My sister is visiting, so last night we decided to make the cookies ourselves and decorate them.

On the top we have me and Morgan (wearing his keyboard cat shirt), and on the left is Ms. Frizzle (from the Magic School Bus). I’m already planning that to be my Halloween costume next year. Oh and on the right is a really messed up looking Santa…don’t know what happened there.

Pecan Pie

Did you know that Canadians also have Thanksgiving? I didn’t either until this week. They eat all the same foods but their harvest is earlier (since they are located farther North, obvs). Luckily for me my next door neighbor married a Canadian so I get to celebrate Turkey Day twice this year! If you want to get rave reviews and a bazillion compliments on your pie that you are supposed to bring to Thanksgiving dinner (or any other gathering this fall) you should really make the Pioneer Woman’s pecan pie. Seriously. These Canadians think I am some sort of pie Goddess now, but I have to give Ree Drummond all the credit.  When reading her recipe, just be sure to read “serve in thin slivers” as “serve in huge chunks, possibly with ice cream or whipped cream on top.” Here is the recipe:

Recipe: Pioneer Woman’s Pecan Pie

Prep Time: 15 Minutes |  Cook Time: 50 Minutes |  Difficulty: Easy |  Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 1 whole Unbaked Pie Crust
• 1 cup White Sugar
• 3 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• 1 cup Corn Syrup
• ¾ teaspoons Vanilla
• ⅓ cups Melted Butter (salted)
• 3 whole Eggs Beaten
• 1 cup (heaping) Chopped Pecans

Preparation Instructions

Mix sugar, brown sugar, salt, corn syrup, butter, eggs, and vanilla together in a bowl.

Pour chopped pecans in the bottom of the unbaked pie shell.

Pour syrup mixture over the top. Cover top and crust lightly/gently with foil. Bake pie at 350º for 30 minutes. Remove foil, then continue baking for 20 minutes, being careful not to burn the crust or pecans.

Allow to cool for several hours or overnight. Serve in thin slivers.

Roasted soup

I know that it was an unusally warm day for autumn in Portland today…but I still am fully embracing the change of seasons.

With roasted soup.  I hope to make many soups this fall/winter…in my holistic health classes (I was a holistic health minor in college, didja know that?) we learned that soups are imperative to health in the colder months.

Plus they’re just dang delicious.

Penne with creamy pumpkin sauce

So I don’t have a picture for this dinner but you will just have to believe me that you should drop your dinner plans and make this recipe right away.  From Martha Stewart Everyday Food, I bring you Penne with Creamy Pumpkin Sauce.

The pumpkin is perfect for fall (and in case you haven’t heard, the canned pumpkin crisis is over so no more crazy people selling buying it for $7 a can on eBay anymore).  Also it is delicious in this dish to have savory pumpkin flavor rather than sweet like a pie.

Don’t have a rosemary bush in your yard? I feel your pain because mine hardly qualifies as a bush, more like a rosemary stick.  Instead, the BF pulled over the car and convinced me to STEAL ROSEMARY FROM A NEIGHBOR’S YARD.  Seriously I feel guilty for some reason even though their bush was more like a rosemary tree than a rosemary bush.

Oh, and I used cream instead of half-and-half, because that’s what was in my fridge.  And rotini instead of penne….and red wine vinegar instead of white wine vinegar…and I don’t know the exact measurements I used because I’ve sort of given up measuring (except for baking of course).  But a recipe is meant to be a suggestion not a set of rules, no?

Anyway, enjoy! xoxo

Canned pumpkin puree isn’t only good for pie; here, it becomes a creamy sauce for penne, topped with deliciously crunchy fried rosemary.

Prep: 10 minutes
Total: 30 minutes

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 12 ounces penne rigate (ridged), or other short pasta
• Coarse salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
• 1 can (15 ounces) pure pumpkin puree
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/2 cup half-and-half
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan
• 1 tablespoon white-wine vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon red-pepper flakes, plus more for garnish (optional)

Directions

1. Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Reserve 2 cups pasta water; drain pasta and set aside.
2. In pasta pot, heat oil over medium. Add rosemary and fry, stirring, until starting to brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer rosemary to a paper towel, leaving oil in pot.
3. Carefully (oil is hot and will spatter) add pumpkin puree, garlic, half-and-half, Parmesan, vinegar, red-pepper flakes, and 1 cup reserved pasta water to pot. Stir sauce until heated through, 2 to 3 minutes.
4. Add pasta to sauce, and toss to coat. If sauce is too thick, add some reserved pasta water. Season generously with salt. Serve pasta sprinkled with fried rosemary and, if desired, more red-pepper flakes.

From Everyday Food, November 2007