bee creative

While cleaning the 'fridge....

I found a squishy tangerine in the 'fridge.  Citrus are one of my "special" foods that I allow myself while trying to eat local.  Which made me very sad that one was found a little past peeling and eating. 

It could have been juiced and added to a salad dressing, or to a tomato sauce (supper yummy, add it at the last minute), but it was early morning and I wanted to use it while I was thinking about it.  So I sliced it up and added it to my tap water. 

Very, very tasty! 

On the menu -week of February 10th

Apple cake anyone?  Today I used the last of the apples that I had from my Mom and Dad's trees.  I made a yummy cake from Chocolate and Zucchini (from the cook book).  Made me think about portion size a lot-it's super rich and a small piece was all I wanted at one time. 

I'm also reading Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.  That made me think about portion size plus a whole lot of other things!  If I hadn't already been going down the "buy local" and "grow your own" road, reading this book would have convinced me.

Funnily enough, this is the week I bought my first non-local vegetable since last spring.  I bought some organic kale from California.  There were no local greens to be found and I forgot I still have some broccoli pesto in the freezer that I had made.  Darn!  Ah well, it's a good reminder to stick to the grocery list.  At least the other impulse item was local, a baking potato.  I was picking out a few smaller 'Yukon' potatoes while the clerk was putting out potatoes and the idea of a baked potato just seemed so yummy.  Since I knew I was going to do some baking, I decided to get one.  It's amazing how different the texture of potatoes can be, depending on the variety. 

The rest of my purchases for the week:  nuts, dried fruit, milk, cream for butter, ground pork (not local),  canned salmon (locally produced, caught by a local fisher, but Alaskan salmon), oranges, carrots, beef (almost local) and some spices.

From the pantry:  stewed chicken, onions, pickles, tortillas, beans, tomatoes, eggs, dried corn, apples, flour, and sugar.   

Here's my  menu for the week:

Sunday:  Chicken cacciatore (chicken from the freezer)
Monday:  Burrito (potato that I baked Sunday, plus beans from the freezer, and kale)
Tuesday: Cassoulet (chicken from Sunday, plus beans, plus sausage)
Wednesday: Frittata (last of the potato, and kale)
Thursday:  Pasta with sausage
Friday:  Salmon cakes

I'm overlapping ingredients a lot this week.  The potato is large enough to be part of three meals.  The chicken will be a part of two meals, possibly three if I decide to add some to the burrito.  Because I've already froze it once, I'm going to try to use this batch of chicken up this week.  I used the pork I bought to make sausage.  I had it for lunch today (with a bit of the baked potato) and will use it in two of the other dishes.  I'll also freeze some of it for later.   The salmon is a  bit of an experiment.   I tend to mostly get previously frozen or fresh, but I wanted to try the canned to see if it would be a good possibly for stocking up.  I think this summer I need to get my parents to show me/help me can some salmon.  What they've done in the past has been very, very good.

I did also make desert this week-chocolate cookies.  It will be a challenge to use portion control with those! 

 

On the menu -week of February 3rd

It’s Sunday evening and I’m facing up to the fact that a whole lot of cooking is just not going to happen….  I spent most of Saturday at a conference, which left me pretty lazy today.  And that’s real life.  It also meant a revise of the menu was in order.

So the menu is:

Sunday:  Bread, goat cheese, peppers in olive oil, and a pear (instead of veggie pot pie).
Monday:  Polenta with tomato sauce (instead of a squash/tomato sauce).
Tuesday:  Hash with potato, carrots, onions, corn.
Wednesday:  Scrambled eggs and toast.
Thursday:  Pizza
Friday:  Apple salad with yogurt, blue cheese and walnuts.

Shopping list:  Bread and an apple.  The rest is from the pantry. 

All ingredients are local except the blue cheese, the olive oil, and possibly the corn for the cornmeal (although I know it was ground locally).  I’ll also have to get milk on Tuesday. 

One thing I've realized is that as the pickin's for local vegetables have gotten slimmer at the co-op, I'm starting to pull more of the vegetables and fruits that I preserved from the pantry.  This means, of course, less to buy at the store.   

I've also realized that I have to really keep in mind to not touch the stuff I've stored until I can't find things in the store.  That  should help me make it until the first of the local spring crops start coming.  Farmer's market starts again in March!  There won't be much to chose from, but should be a few things.

Prep:  Only thing made ahead was the polenta.  I had corn meal mush for breakfast this morning.  And the pizza-that's a special event!

How did last week's menu go?  Pretty good except for Thursday.  To be honest, I had ice cream and hot fudge for dinner.  I did have a bigger than normal lunch that day though.

On the menu- Week of January 27th

Something that comes up a lot when I'm reading about cooking on other blogs (such as Crunchy Chicken yesterday) is how to cook for one or two people, to be able to eat a variety of foods, and still make healthy choices.  This is something I've been doing for about 17 years (that was scary to figure out)!  And this got me to thinking....  I'm going to start posting my weekly menu (I drift in and out of doing menus), my shopping list, plus a few notes on a weekly basis.  It might be helpful for someone?  It will also help keep me on the straight and narrow for eating what I have in my pantry and not letting it go to waste (excellent suggestions at Crunchy's blog). 

So here it goes!

One of the best techniques for me is to make one or two main dishes and to prepare basic ingredients on Saturday or Sunday,  and then mix them up throughout the week or to freeze portions that I can use later in the month.  Each week becomes a mixture of using up things from the pantry and adding new things .

This week I bought:  oranges, a pummelo, hazelnuts, sugar, flour, milk, cream, peanuts, bacon, pasta and pears (everything bulk or local except for the citrus -one of the cheat items I allow myself and the pasta). 

From my pantry I'm adding:  dried beans, bread cubes from the freezer, cooked chicken, red peppers in olive oil (from freezer), eggs, cheese,  tortillas, chicken broth (frozen), carrots, onions, frozen fruit, and pear/ginger preserves. 

The prep:   cook beans in the crock pot, make yogurt, make butter, make soda bread with buttermilk from making the butter, make bread pudding to use up bread in freezer (ginger bread), make risotto to use up chicken broth, and freeze yogurt left over from last week to make yogurt cake next week.  I make my own yogurt and butter to cut back on plastic and to have it be local.  I'll save two portions of beans and then freeze the rest.  Beans freeze very well.  I'll eat risotto tonight, save one portion and then freeze the rest. 

Menu

Dinner:

Sunday-Risotto
Monday-White beans sauteed in olive oil with sage.  Citrus salad.
Tuesday-Rice cakes (add onions and carrots)
Wednesday- Chicken and bean wraps.
Thursday- Pasta with red peppers and bacon
Friday-Wild card day (an omelet, hash, whatever sounds good/needs to be used up when I look in the fridge)

Breakfast:  Bread pudding or smoothies (frozen fruit and yogurt)

Lunch:  My lunch is provided for me at work but I usually take an assortment of fruits, vegetables, nuts, cheese, or bread for snacks in case I don't like what's on the work menu.

Notes:    The bread pudding turned out supper yummy!  I tweaked a recipe from Pasta & Co. By Request by Marcella Rosene.  I live in a small city that has several really good local bakeries and I've been baking my own too.  Unfortunately, it's hard for one or two people to eat a whole loaf of bread before it dries out.  One of my challenges has been to come up with recipes that use bread that is a little past it's prime.  Mostly I use the last bit of a loaf for bread crumbs or for bread salad.  Lately I've been trying to find the just right  bread pudding recipe.  I think I've got it!  Rosen's recipe calls for half and half.  I substituted whole milk and cut the whole recipe in half.  I also changed the type of bread and the type of preserves...hmm, maybe this qualifies as my own recipe now?