Meal Planning
We've been refining the menu planning in the face of how crashy I've been lately; I've had days this week when I've slept more than 18 hours. One thing that's a problem is I might have a dish planned that exists only in my head, so we get into a loop where Brad can't make it because I'm down, or if I get up he can't help me with it because he doesn't know what it requires or how long it's going to take. In theory we have enough food frozen that we should just be able to defrost food for a day if that happens, but in practice we get tunnel vision. So we're going to try to take care of that in the planning, since we can touch base every morning during our walks.
The menu plan started out being just little notes in a spreadsheet, and has since expanded to day by day plans in Evernote, along with captured recipes. Those plans are now getting a little fleshed out with required ingredients, how many days they're expected to feed us, shopping lists, etc. We're going online with it next week.
Stuff from this week:
One of the organic orchards was selling "smoothie fruit", peaches and nectarines that had been squashed and bruised. I got some of these and cut them up and added lemon juice and honey and they made a lovely fragrant compote. I froze two small jars of it and combined the rest with mixed berries to provide a fragrant note to a berry compote. Brad then did the same with the nice ripe apriums I got from the same place; that was the last of the honey in the jar so he just poured the mix back into the jar to store it and use up all the honey. Plain these compotes are lovely mixed with yogurt for breakfast.
I had earlier gotten a tub of chicken giblets without a clear idea of how to use them, and I wanted to use them before they went bad. I didn't find any really inspiring recipes on the web, and the way I've had them in the past was either roasted (a bit hot now that the weather's gotten warm) or simmered and added to a gravy. So I basically made a beefed up roux-based sauce, with lots of mushrooms and the addition of some celery and onions, and we had them over fresh quinoa pasta. Giblets are kind of tough and chewy and it's possible I want to braise them long and slow instead, but this was a pretty good approach; they weren't *too* chewy, and the mushrooms were great. I think it would be even better with about the same amount of liver, and I've been looking for good ways to eat liver since I don't really like it plain but I'd like to eat it for the nutrition.
Our frozen lasagna had been in for a while, so we thawed it out; it is still quite tasty so I think lasagna is a good freezer candidate in general. Brad will be making another batch next week, and we'll freeze some of that.
Brad is baking a cake! It's a rhubarb and strawberry cake that looks pretty easy but isn't gluten-free, so it's taking some substitutions to do properly. I'm crossing my fingers....
The menu plan started out being just little notes in a spreadsheet, and has since expanded to day by day plans in Evernote, along with captured recipes. Those plans are now getting a little fleshed out with required ingredients, how many days they're expected to feed us, shopping lists, etc. We're going online with it next week.
Stuff from this week:
One of the organic orchards was selling "smoothie fruit", peaches and nectarines that had been squashed and bruised. I got some of these and cut them up and added lemon juice and honey and they made a lovely fragrant compote. I froze two small jars of it and combined the rest with mixed berries to provide a fragrant note to a berry compote. Brad then did the same with the nice ripe apriums I got from the same place; that was the last of the honey in the jar so he just poured the mix back into the jar to store it and use up all the honey. Plain these compotes are lovely mixed with yogurt for breakfast.
I had earlier gotten a tub of chicken giblets without a clear idea of how to use them, and I wanted to use them before they went bad. I didn't find any really inspiring recipes on the web, and the way I've had them in the past was either roasted (a bit hot now that the weather's gotten warm) or simmered and added to a gravy. So I basically made a beefed up roux-based sauce, with lots of mushrooms and the addition of some celery and onions, and we had them over fresh quinoa pasta. Giblets are kind of tough and chewy and it's possible I want to braise them long and slow instead, but this was a pretty good approach; they weren't *too* chewy, and the mushrooms were great. I think it would be even better with about the same amount of liver, and I've been looking for good ways to eat liver since I don't really like it plain but I'd like to eat it for the nutrition.
Our frozen lasagna had been in for a while, so we thawed it out; it is still quite tasty so I think lasagna is a good freezer candidate in general. Brad will be making another batch next week, and we'll freeze some of that.
Brad is baking a cake! It's a rhubarb and strawberry cake that looks pretty easy but isn't gluten-free, so it's taking some substitutions to do properly. I'm crossing my fingers....