Lets talk about food
I love the farmer's market.
There's a vendor that comes every other week, that carries low-temp pasteurized, non-homogenized milk, from Skagit Valley, grass-fed cows. It works out to over $3 per half-gallon, so close to $7/gallon... but i'm okay with getting one every other week. And the container is glass, which means I take it back when I go...
Anyway. One of the things i've been trying to do lately is write up a meal plan. Cooking isn't difficult; what's hard is coming up with an idea for what i'm making for dinner. Standing in the kitchen, while tired & brain dead, is NOT the time to be searching for inspiration.
Combine this with a current interest in "going paleo" - no grains, legumes, or potatoes, basically. I'm fudging on the legumes prohibition, & ignoring the avoidance of dairy requirement... Just trying to go crazy eating salads, leafy green veggies & lean meats. (Although i'm not working too hard on the "lean meats" part... I'm not going to avoid a really good sausage, or some pulled pork.)
Well, a verging-on-pathological meat buying spree during first quarter has resulted in BOTH freezers being FULL of meat. A shank ham, 14 lb free range turkey, multiple whole chickens, what's left of last fall's cow, some salmon & shrimp & cod, and a whole bunch of boneless skinless chicken breasts. Which is great, this is all stuff I'm supposed to be building my meals around, but without the compliment of veggies? Incomplete.
So now i'm trying to plan out a weekly meal plan. I'm realizing I need to come up with a flexible pattern to my week. Something like, Roast on Sunday, Soup on Monday, Crockpot on Tuesday, Quiche on Wednesday, who knows on Thursday...
I also need to get the large roasted items out of the way while its still moderately cold at night. That ham & turkey, while obtained at excellent prices, are too huge to do after work... Not to mention the fact that the cubed leftover ham would be FANTASTIC in quiches, sandwiches & omelets the following days/weeks.
But this week is proving a little difficult. Mostly because I have to come up with an after-work meal AND some kind of lunch that can be cooked in 15 minutes when I come home for lunch, and "pan seared chicken with bacon greens" gets a little boring after the 3rd time in a week...
There's a vendor that comes every other week, that carries low-temp pasteurized, non-homogenized milk, from Skagit Valley, grass-fed cows. It works out to over $3 per half-gallon, so close to $7/gallon... but i'm okay with getting one every other week. And the container is glass, which means I take it back when I go...
Anyway. One of the things i've been trying to do lately is write up a meal plan. Cooking isn't difficult; what's hard is coming up with an idea for what i'm making for dinner. Standing in the kitchen, while tired & brain dead, is NOT the time to be searching for inspiration.
Combine this with a current interest in "going paleo" - no grains, legumes, or potatoes, basically. I'm fudging on the legumes prohibition, & ignoring the avoidance of dairy requirement... Just trying to go crazy eating salads, leafy green veggies & lean meats. (Although i'm not working too hard on the "lean meats" part... I'm not going to avoid a really good sausage, or some pulled pork.)
Well, a verging-on-pathological meat buying spree during first quarter has resulted in BOTH freezers being FULL of meat. A shank ham, 14 lb free range turkey, multiple whole chickens, what's left of last fall's cow, some salmon & shrimp & cod, and a whole bunch of boneless skinless chicken breasts. Which is great, this is all stuff I'm supposed to be building my meals around, but without the compliment of veggies? Incomplete.
So now i'm trying to plan out a weekly meal plan. I'm realizing I need to come up with a flexible pattern to my week. Something like, Roast on Sunday, Soup on Monday, Crockpot on Tuesday, Quiche on Wednesday, who knows on Thursday...
I also need to get the large roasted items out of the way while its still moderately cold at night. That ham & turkey, while obtained at excellent prices, are too huge to do after work... Not to mention the fact that the cubed leftover ham would be FANTASTIC in quiches, sandwiches & omelets the following days/weeks.
But this week is proving a little difficult. Mostly because I have to come up with an after-work meal AND some kind of lunch that can be cooked in 15 minutes when I come home for lunch, and "pan seared chicken with bacon greens" gets a little boring after the 3rd time in a week...