First February Meal Plan

Greetings, strangers. Here's a quick meal plan:

Sunday:
Roasted vegetables, pan-fried chicken breasts, rice

Monday:
Mashed potatoes, roasted zucchini, roasted pork tenderloin

Tuesday:
chicken vindaloo, rice, leftover vegetables

Wednesday:
Caldo verde, crusty bread

Thursday:
Leftovers tossed with pasta

Friday:
Cauliflower soup, chicken in parchment

NaBloPoMo 2k15 Meal Plan #1

Can I actually just eat bacon all week instead?

It's November, which means that i get that itch to do something writing-related. i'm not saying that I'll success with NaBloPoMo, but whatever. Made this earlier today because we need to start eating better/cheaper:

Monday - rotisserie chicken, arugula
Tuesday - slow cooker pork, butternut squash in a brown butter and pine nut sauce, swiss chard
Wednesday - mac and cheese, leftover pork
Thursday - pan-fried chicken breast, roasted okra, swiss chard + lentil soup
Friday - chicken + vegetable pasta toss

I'll actually be out of the apartment for Monday and Wednesday to attend various events, so those are actually just for Colby to do while I'm gone.

Meal planning one day at a time

This has somehow become the week from hell, even though it's a 4-day week. I stupidly made appointments on campus on Tuesday and Wednesday and squeezed in an early morning telecon. And of course, Ramona hasn't been sleeping. Colby is crazy tired too and I feel bad, but I've got to keep pushing to finish things. Can 2014 be over already?

In other news, we've been trying to cook more, and it sort of works until we get super burned out by it and then eat out the entire weekend. While everyone who blogs claims that they strive for balance, I really need to figure out what that is. I don't get home from campus until 9-9:30 every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Ironically, those are the days that we've been best about cooking. We caved and got dinner for 2 from central market. Here's what the rest of the week's meals look like because I needed to take a break from trying to make plots.

Wednesday:
Lunch: Leftover chicken parm (colby), Leftover chicken tikka masala (julie)
Dinner: salmon hash and chile con carne (because no salmon hash is complete without chili?)

And that's where we run out of groceries and leftovers.

We are clearly the best at planning.

And here's a random picture that accidentally got uploaded from my phone. Because what post is complete without a picture?

Yes, those are vacuum sealed gummy bears. No, don't ask.

Meal Plan

This has nothing to do with anything except that my kitchen is in the picture too.

I haven't posted a meal plan since I don't know when. I never ever stick to the meal plan either, but I figured that we needed to get used to trying to eat in more, so I'm going to try to post a weekly meal plan on Sundays.

Monday
Gloria's

Tuesday
arugula + cheddar quiche, bacon, refrigerator pickles

Wednesday
meatballs + pierogi

Thursday (note to self: get some cheese)
butternut squash casserole

Friday 
spaghetti squash + tomato sauce

"final" new year's eve menu!

I think we've finalized our New Year's Eve menu, so I'm posting it here, mostly so that I can have a place for links to recipes and that people who are coming can see.

charcuterie:
cured sausages
aged cheddar
baked brie en croute
third kind of cheese 

sourdough bread
crackers
black-eyed pea dip
sundried tomato dip
roasted garlic dip

sushi:
California-type rolls
vegetable rolls
smoked salmon rolls
scallion pancakes with soy dipping sauce
edamame
mini "wedge" salads w/bacon, bleu cheese, mushroom, tomato, green goddess dressing
spiral-sliced ham

dessert:
stuffed cookies
poppy seed cookies
Swedish heirloom cookies
chocolate chip
strawberry cornmeal pound cake

menu draft

New years eve is coming up and I'm trying to put together a menu.  Below are some random thoughts and links.  This is mostly a "for me" type of post, so feel free to ignore my scatterbrained cooking thoughts

sushi:
california roll
veggie rolls (cucumber, avocado)
smoked salmon + cream cheese + capers + red onion roll
scallion pancakes with soy dipping sauce
edamame

clam chowder

breads/dips:
hummus
sundried tomato
bacon jam
roasted garlic + salt + butter?  Is that really a dip?  It sounds good enough to be one.

mini wedge salads with green goddess dressing

spiral sliced ham. ugh, you guys suck.

This is lifted from Chris' blog.

• Mini crab cakes
• Baked colcannon balls with drawn butter
• Quick fried scallops with a lemon/herb aioli
• Assorted sausages and cheeses.
• Mini stromboli segments.
• Spinach parmesan wontons
• Kabucha tempura
• Fried asparagus, to share the aioli
• Mixed green salad, apple cider/sriracha dressing
• Shortbread, strawberries, and pepper balsamic whipped cream
• Chocolate shells with assorted ices and sorbets.

Then for desserts, I'm thinking Momofuku Crack Pie, something with a cinnamon roll crust, and all sorts of cookies. 

Thanksgiving menus

We're still working to finalize our Thanksgiving menu, but it's shaping up to look something like this:
roasted turkey
stuffing with pan sausage
bacon cheddar potatoes
green bean casserole
butternut squash biscuits
apple cranberry sauce
sweet potato pie
apple pie

An alternate reality menu was cobbled together too, and I think it would have been equally delicious:
turkey confit
stuffing

roasted butternut squash


garlic + bacon brussels sprouts
potato leek soup
spicy cranberry sauce
sweet potato rolls
apple crumble
pumpkin cheesecake

How-is-it-July-Already? Menu

This picture has pretty much nothing to do with this post, but I figured that it's nicer to have pictures than not.

I can't believe it's already July.  I have a lot of work on my thesis that needs to get done before we go to Michigan, but it always takes about 4 times as long as it should because, wow, Ramona takes up a whole bunch of time.  Since it's actually at the beginning of the week and we just went grocery shopping, let's take a stab at some menu planning

Tuesday:
Quiche with black beans, bacon, jalapenos, and cheddar cheese

Wednesday:
Grilled zucchini, grilled sausages, grilled burgers (sensing a theme?)

Thursday:
Salmon burgers with wasabi mayo and seaweed salad

Friday:
Grilled chicken and corn on the cob

I'm also planning on making chili to last through the week for lunches.  And by "lunches" I mean two maximum, because Colby can eat a pound of chili without flinching.

Friday Rituals

For the past month or so, Colby, Ramona, and I have been going to Central Market every Friday for dinner and grocery shopping.  It's sort of silly, I guess, but I get super excited about it.  It gets me out of the house, I don't have to deal with cooking and cleaning, and I've always loved grocery shopping.

Steak salad

My dad and his wife, Denice, visited us this past week and left on Thursday.  We had a really nice time, but ended the week devoid of groceries.  Thus, Colby, Ramona, and I went on our usual Friday outing and had a nice dinner.  Their steak salad is always a favorite and their specials usually merit consideration.  Seeing that we went grocery shopping too, it's probably time for a weekly menu.

California Cobb Pizza 

Saturday

grilled chicken and zucchini 

Sunday

beef bourguinon with potatoes

Monday

Fish tacos with Asian slaw and green rice

Tuesday

Bavarian Sausage and balsamic roasted brussels sprouts

Wednesday

tuna melts with sauteed broccoli

Thurdsay

bacon and spinach quiche with salad

Friday

Back to our usual haunt.

Week 5: A Menu

I can't believe that it's already April.  I know that people are wont to say that at the beginning of every month, but March 2012 is one month that both flew by and dragged on.  I blame the sleep deprivation.  March was a month where we were all getting our bearings and trying to figure out the best way to proceed, from breastfeeding, to sleeping, to trying to find some semblance of our new normal.  We have survived.  Now that it's April, it's time to go beyond mere survival and begin to thrive.  Yesterday I baked something for the first time in months.  They were only so-so tasting chocolate muffins that I didn't eat because I don't like chocolate, but the act of making something edible that was slightly more complicated than frying an egg felt wonderful.

It's time for us to reclaim our kitchen and stop eating so many carry-out dinners.  I have a (very small) cache of food in the freezer that will help us use the kitchen and eat things that aren't completely nutritionally bankrupt.  And I totally concede that I'm not above getting things that aren't as from-scratch as before.  Thank you, Central Market's prepped food section.  Here's what our menu looks like for this week.

The freezer is our path to independence

Monday
grilled chipotle lime flank steak, grilled asparagus, polenta - the flank steak is from Central Market and prepped and the polenta is from a tube.  baby steps, damnit.

Tuesday
food tree dinner - the wonderful Melanie of My Rubberbandball and more set up an AFBA food tree for us.  So far, we've had two dinners delivered to us and it's been great.  the first meal came the night my in laws left, so the timing couldn't have been better.

Wednesday
beef bourguignon - This is another prepped meal from Central Market.

Thursday
salad with grilled chicken and whatever odds and ends I find in the refrigerator

Friday
wild card - this will either consist of leftovers or ordering in, depending on how much we go through this week.

blogging together alone and a menu

A few weeks ago, a bunch of the Austin Food Blogger Association people got together at Genuine Joe' and did a blog-together.  I ended up getting three posts written, which was nice.  They're having another one tonight, but I'm sitting at home.  We had a late dinner and I've been having non-labor contractions all day, which don't do much except for prime my body for baby-having and make me crazy unfcomfortble.  I'm so over being pregnant and I'm ready for this fetus to turn into a baby.

In the spirit of blogging-together, I'm posting a menu for this upcoming week.

the making of chicken and 40 cloves... om nom

Monday:
Chicken and spinach salad with whatever random veggies we have in the fridge - I'm keeping dinner light because we're getting paczkis that day from the people who run Hill Country Pierogi. Paczkis are supposed to be consumed on Paczki Day, which isn't until (Fat) Tuesday, but, damnit, I don't think I'll be able to contain myself.

Tuesday:
Tacos - we're finally done with our birthing class, so I can actually make dinner on Tuesday nights. Yay!

Wednesday:
Tomato, chicken, artichoke, spinach pasta toss - This is definitely me trying to use up random things from the fridge.

Thursday:
bacon, avocado, tomato sandwiches on sourdough - something simple and delicious, since I've been craving bacon and avocado lately

Friday:
Chicken and 40 cloves

The upside of this menu is that Colby can basically make all of this without too much trouble.  I haven't been cooking a lot lately because we've been going out to eat a lot with all the February birthdays and Valentine's Day, but I wanted to try to eat at home as much as possible this week to balance this out.  And then again, if I do happen to go into labor, this entire menu is out the window and we'll be eating hospital food and things that I've frozen for the future.

Make Up Menu

My menu for last week fell by the wayside as I managed to overestimate just how much chicken meat is needed to make a quesadilla as well as catch a stomach virus.  Wednesday and Thurday were pretty miserable and the only things I ate were applesauce and toast.  Needless to say, stir-fry and creamed spinach were off the menu at that point, but now I have ingredients from which to plan this week's menu.  Colby's going out of town from Tuesday til Thursday for the SPIE convention in San Francisco.  I'd be totally jealous because SF seems like a pretty rad town, but he's going to be standing around hawking his company for three days, so that's a lot less fun than exploring a city by cable car.  In light of this, here's this week's menu:

quiche: dinner for lazy people

Sunday
beef, green bean, mushroom stir-fry

Monday
Chicken and forty cloves - by Colby's request and we have chicken thighs and a new resolve to make it this time.  Especially since we have some herbs that need to be used asap and this will help set up lunches for the rest of the week

Tuesday
Hopfields with the Austin Food Blogger Alliance - AFBA is having another social function and I'll be able to catch the first bit of it and eat dinner before I'm off to our birthing class.

Wednesday
spinach, bacon, cheddar crustless quiche - the easy, lazy, gestational diabetes-friendly way

Thursday
spinach salad with whatever I find in my fridge

Friday
butternut squash soup and leftovers

Menu planning in 2012

I haven't posted a menu in awhile because we've been really bad about not eating out between the combination of the holidays and having people over.  I had the horrible realization that we only have a little over seven weeks before my due date, which means that we only have seven weeks left to save money, get the house ready, and generally act like adults with no responsibilities other than to ourselves.  I'm wondering if a lot of cooking is going to fall to the wayside because of this, but I'm hoping not.  In any case, cooking at home lets us save money and, at the same time, do something that we might not have enough time to do in the crazy-near future.

This picture doesn't have anything to do with this post except that I'll be allowed to eat that in 7 weeks, if I so choose, damnit. 

Sunday:
bacon, salsa, cheddar, black bean quiche - sort of like a breakfast taco in quiche form

Monday:
chicken quesadillas, black beans, cheater's Mexican rice - I add salsa and chicken stock in the rice cooker, instead of just water)

Tuesday:
This is the night of our Bradley Method birthing class, so we usually grab something to go

Wednesday:
beef stir-fry with green beans and mushrooms - recipe to come if I like it

Thursday:
beef and cheddar sausage, spinach salad with bacon, eggs, and anything else I can come up with

Friday:
chicken with roasted butternut squash and creamed spinach

New Year's Eve 2011 Menu

We're going to have a bunch of people over tonight, so I wanted to post this menu plan.  It's a bit ambitious, so we'll see if it gets accomplished, though I almost think that this is the last time that I'll be cooking up a storm like this for a single event for quite some time.

Starters:
spinach+artichoke dip
hummus
sun dried tomato spread
serrano ham+cheese plate from Antonelli's
crab-stuffed mushrooms

Dinner:
pot roast
sweet potatoes
truffled grits
prosciutto-wrapped asparagus

Dessert:
strawberries+cream
chocolate chip cookies
cream puffs
apple cranberry pie
pumpkin pie

Thanksgiving week menu

Menu planning for this week is made easier because Thursday is already planned out for me.  


Monday
chili

Tuesday
slowcooker lasagna (hat tip to Austin Gastronomist)

Wednesday
eggs, pan sausage (with possible recipe to come), biscuits

Thursday
Thanksgiving dinner at 24 Diner (we're going to go out to eat for this so I can concentrate on getting work done)

Friday
roasted chicken, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed sweet potatoes (like Thanksgiving, but decidedly easier)

Monday Menu Mania

This is totally not related, but here's a picture of Colby eating a PB&J sandwich

This is looking to be a rather low-key week, but it seems like I've been attacked with a resurgence of first trimester nausea.  This means that my desire to cook is incredibly low, so most of this is easy to throw together or something that I'll make Colby cook.

And to pretend to tie in the random picture with this post, I'm really good at planning dinner menus and lately, we've been good at sticking with it most of the time.  I admit that the chicken and 20 cloves was never made, but I've also decided that it's more of a weekend meal than a weekday meal.  The one thing I'm pretty terrible about is lunch.  Also breakfast.  I almost never bring lunch to school, so I pay a lot of money to get some marginal food from O's Campus Cafe.  Colby always eats lunch at home and it usually involves things that he can cram down his throat as quickly as possible.  Perhaps next week I'll plan a lunch menu as well.

Monday
cowboy casserole from Central Market, green beans

Tuesday
spinach tortellini soup, (probably sans beans bc we don't have any) crusty bread

Wednesday
tacos, green beans (because who says you can't eat green beans with tacos?)

Thursday

pasta with meat sauce (this is coming from my freezer stash of sauce+meatballs, but the BIL doesn't like meatballs, so I think we're just going to break them up and call it "meat sauce"), spinach salad

Friday

roasted chicken, brussels sprouts, rice pilaf

Menu Monday

Full disclosure: I don't always follow the menus I post.  Last week, we never made the chicken and 20 cloves because the kitchen was a mess, we both were lazy, and I had a craving for Mexican food, so we headed to Amaya's instead.  (Insert excuse for Saturday and Sunday here, though yesterday we did go to Cipollina with Randi.)  I always aspire to follow these menus, but we inevitably end up eating out at some point or having way too many leftovers to justify making another dish.  My menu this week, though, lends itself to not create massive amounts of mess or leftovers.

Butternut squash from Montesino Ranch and puppy feet

Monday
Crab, avocado, and arugula salad, adapted from Nigella's recipe but it sounded good since we have that arugula

Tuesday
Chicken and 20 cloves and roasted brussels sprouts, for real this time

Wednesday
homemade sushi, which will consist mainly of california and vegetable rolls, mostly to use up the rest of the crab and avocado

Thursday

Bacon, eggs, and biscuits

Friday

butternut squash casserole (recipe to come!) with a salad because that dish is the opposite of light eating. :)

comings and goings and eatings

i *heart* Cupprimo

The past week has been beyond crazy.  Chris came out to visit and we worked on a program that will help me shave months off of my thesis.  In addition, we ate at some tasty restaurants, made some delicious dinners, and generally hung out all over Austin.  And while normally, a visitor isn't cause for that much chaos, my brother-in-law moved in with us on Wednesday.  Colby got him a job at his company and he started today, so this weekend was filled with rearranging the house, sacrificing our guest bedroom, and trying to fit in some Halloween activities as well.  Colby and I dressed up as Juno MacGuff and Paulie Bleeker, since the only thing I needed to buy to complete my outfit was a bottle of Sunny D.  By the way, Sunny D is disgusting.  Six year old me had some pretty terrible taste in beverages.  Colby got some sweet yellow gym shorts out of the deal, which I've been wearing since Saturday night since they're actually way too short for him. ;)

confituras apple butter fresh from the farmers market

Monday:
Pan sausage, potatoes, and eggs with toast+Confituras apple butter

Tuesday:
Butternut squash+apple soup, roasted brussels sprouts

Wednesday:
Lasagna from Central Market, salad

Thursday:
Mac'n'cheese chicken casserole (recipe to come, if it turns out okay)

Friday:
Chicken and 20 cloves (We got 4 pieces of chicken thighs instead of cutting up a whole chicken), roasted brussels sprouts + butternut squash

yet another menu plan

We arrived back from our babymoon yesterday evening and since then I've been tired and trying to keep busy.  We have another appointment tomorrow where we find out the sex of the fetus.  I definitely have my preference and so does Colby.  Either way, I'm just glad that I'll finally be able to start filling out the rest of the baby registry so the overeager grandparents can get off my back. ;)  Our babymoon was awesome and I'll be posting pictures once we finally sort through them.  We put our new camera to use and wow, does it ever make a difference.  In the mean time, here's a quickie menu plan for the week

This is what happens when a DSLR meets dusk and my dinner

Tuesday:
Pasta with spinach, tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, artichokes, chicken and mozzarella cheese

Wednesday:
Grilled cheese with homemade tomato soup

Thursday:
butternut squash gnocchi with brown butter sage sauce and roasted brussels sprouts

Friday:
Chris comes to town, so it seems likely that we'll go out to eat somewhere.  Or maybe we'll make something fancy for dinner

Menu Plan, because cooking doesn't make me want to pukedie anymore

My summer long odyssey of getting through the first trimester of pregnancy largely unscathed meant that I basically had to stop cooking. It's not that all I wanted were pickles and ice cream, but rather the convergence of common first trimester side effects. Everyone knows about morning sickness, and I became intimately familiar with it. What I didn't realize, however, was that I would attain a superhuman sense of smell. Granted, it was nothing like my dog's amazing snout, but it was enough to make things like cooking onions verboten in my kitchen. One day, Colby made a salmon burger without using the vent hood and the entire kitchen and living room reeked of its salmon-y afterscent. In order to escape the stench, I made him go to IKEA and the outlet mall in Round Rock, in which the only thing we ended up purchasing was a halloween costume for my dog (and oh man, does she ever *love* it. ;)).

Kimchi only looks a little bit defeated, no?

Now that I'm well into the second trimester, I'm at the point where I can cook again.  Both my wallet and the 'sband thank me.  Mostly my wallet.  Colby still isn't so happy about the constant mess in the kitchen, but baby steps, you know?

Monday:
Bison tacos with spinach, tomatoes, sour cream, sharp cheddar, and salsa

Tuesday:
Pasta with sundried tomatoes, grape tomatoes, spinach, artichoke, garlic and mozzarella

Wednesday:
Pan-fried marinated chicken with roasted brussels sprouts and mashed sweet potatoes

Thursday:
Tuna salad sandwiches with roasted butternut squash

Friday:
Something yummy in Corpus Christi

My goal this week is to eat in for every lunch and dinner.  Monday and Tuesday I'm attending a conference that provides lunch, but on Wednesday and Thursday I'll be schlepping in leftovers.  On Friday, Colby and I are going on our babymoon.  My plan is to eat yummy food, hang out on the beach, and visit the aquarium.  Posts and pictures to follow.