Mealblog

Week of February 26

2012-02-27T08:38:00.000-08:00

Should anyone outside my immediate family happen to drop by here, you'll want to know that I'm referencing Melissa Joulwan's cookbook Well Fed in all my meal plans. My aim is to cook my way through all the recipes in this book this semseter, to make this way of cooking and eating a way of life. Not a Rule, mind you. That's St. Benedict, and can't nobody improve on St. Benedict. But a lower-case little way .

It's already Monday, and I've shopped and cooked-up and done a bit of planning. And eating . . .

Sunday night's dinner:

After cooking up 9 pounds of boneless, skinless chicky breasts and three pounds of ground turkey for use this week, I made what I guess amounted to paleo Italian-style Hamburger Helper for our Sunday-night supper. Here's what I did:

* Brown 3 lbs ground beef with 1 diced onion, a lot of garlic powder, and Italian spices (basil, sage, oregano, etc) also liberally applied

*Add 1 can tomato paste, mushrooms, and a shake of frozen chopped spinach (just enough so that there's really spinach in the "sauce," but you don't exactly taste it. Let the meat sauce/mixture simmer and fill the house with its delicious aroma.

*Make cauliflower "rice" by dicing it to a rice-like consistency in the food processor (a Well-Fed invention -- cauliflower "rice," that is, not the food processor). Add to the meat mixture and cook until tender (about 5-10 minutes -- I wanted it gently al dente, but not raw-cauliflower crunchy).

On the side: carrot sticks and kale chips (see Melanie's recipe in Snacks)

I had enough beef/cauli stuff to send with my husband to work for his lunch today.

What we have left to work with for the rest of the week:

Protein

The aforementioned chicken breasts and ground turkey (plus more uncooked in the freezer)

Tuna (about 4 cans)

Salmon (2 cans)

eggs (4 dozen left of the 5 dozen I bought, including one dozen hard-boiled)

Produce

carrots
1 more cauliflower head
2 heads cabbage
onions
8 sweet potatoes

Freezer (non-meat)

bell peppers & onions
a little chopped spinach
leftover cabbage soup from last week

In cans

tomato paste
stewed whole tomatoes

The usual complement of fats, condiments, and spices

Outdoors

very fresh new tiny dandelion greens

Other

seaweed sushi wraps, ie snacks for the 8- and 9-year-olds who love seaweed

Meal Possibilities:

Mexican, Chinese, Indian hot plates
crockpot chicken/vegetable stew (probably on Thursday)
sausage-egg scramble
tuna salad
salmon-egg muffins for Friday
cabbage soup for Friday

Monday
breakfast: oatmeal/eggs
lunch: tuna salad (husband took Sunday supper leftovers to work)
dinner: Mexican-style chicken breasts with peppers and onions, with sides of cumin-roasted carrots and cauliflower "rice" -- recipe below! (UPDATE: and now in the recipe file)

Tuesday
breakfast: oatmeal/eggs
lunch: dudes took Mexican chicken leftovers to work. The three of us at home had plain chicken breasts (I put some fresh cilantro on mine) and apples
dinner: Greek Cabbage Rolls

Wednesday
breakfast: oatmeal/eggs (we're boring, but it gets the job done)
lunch: Thai-Style Totally Paleo Chicken Salad
dinner: crockpot meal: Well Fed's "Velvety Butternut Squash" recipe made us as soup, using sweet potatoes instead of butternut squash, with shredded chicken breasts to make it a complete veg-and-protein meal

Thursday
breakfast: oatmeal/eggs
lunch: chicken breasts, leftovers
dinner: ground-turkey chili (using Well Fed's "Chocolate Chili" recipe)

Friday
breakfast: oatmeal/eggs
lunch: salmon muffins
dinner: First Friday Dinner at Belmont Abbey (which will be pasta and not paleo, but we'll go with it)

Mexican-Style Paleo Chicken Breast Dinner

I had all these chicken breasts which I'd cooked up on Sunday, plus a bag of frozen peppers and onions, plus carrots and a head of cauliflower. Here's what I did with them:

*Sauteed peppers and onions in a knob of coconut oil. They were frozen, so I wanted not only to thaw them but to cook down the water in them so they wouldn't be runny. I turned the heat down on the big iron skillet and let them simmer away while I worked on other parts of the meal.

*While those were cooking, I put chicken breasts (about 8 -- they're kind of small) in a bowl, then in a microwaveable cup I melted another big spoonful of coconut oil (about 2 T, I would guess) with chili powder and unsweetened cocoa powder. Not quite sure how much: "to taste," anyway. I stirred this all up together and poured it over the chicken, tossing to coat. Then I let that sit.

*I had the kids peel five carrots, which I then cut into carrot sticks. As I'd done with the chicken, I melted some cumin and cinnamon with a knob of coconut oil in the microwave and then tossed the carrots in that and put them in the oven on 375 to roast for about half an hour (this is a Well Fed recipe, and actually in the cookbook it's more detailed, and they're even more delicious than what I'm describing here. This was my quickie corner-cutting version).

*When the chicken had marinated for a while in the spice/oil mix, and the carrots were close to done in the oven, I added it to the sauteed peppers, scraping all the spice marinade into the skillet. I covered the skillet and let all that simmer together (but not too long -- just enough to warm the pre-cooked chicken)

*I stemmed, chopped, and "riced" the cauliflower in the food processor. In a separate skillet, I sauteed it for about five minutes in coconut oil, until it was tender but not mushy.

Kids liked their chicken and cauliflower rice to be separate on the plate. At least one grownup opted to have chicken, peppers, and the chili-chocolate-mole-tasting pan juices over the cauliflower rice. Carrots on the side.

Julienned zucchini

2012-02-25T04:00:00.000-08:00

. . . really does make amazingly good noodles. You have to toss them with salt, let them "sweat" for 20 minutes or so (to avoid wateriness), and pat dry with a paper towel or clean, smooth dishcloth before you saute them, but man! We had them in Pad-Thai-style shrimp last night, and they were so delicioso.

This is why God made vegetables with no taste.

Credit for zucchini noodles: Melissa Joulwan, of course.

Week of February 20; or, the Welcome to Lent Edition of the Mealblog

2012-02-19T19:43:00.000-08:00

Should anyone outside my immediate family happen to drop by here, you'll want to know that I'm referencing Melissa Joulwan's cookbook Well Fed in all my meal plans. My aim is to cook my way through all the recipes in this book this semseter, to make this way of cooking and eating a way of life. Not a Rule, mind you. That's St. Benedict, and can't nobody improve on St. Benedict. But a lower-case little way .

Two challenges this week:

1) A strangulated budget. Some funds should be hitting our account by the end of the week, but from Monday to Thursday-ish I need to make a fistful of dollars go a long way

2) The start of Lent.

Actually, the second challenge is a good thing, given the first challenge. The kids have to eat on Ash Wednesday, but the larger and more . . . appetitious . . . among us will eat only one simple meal with no meat. So that's one way to stretch the budget . . . fasting as gift.

To ~~Aldi~~ Wal-Mart and Bi-Lo, because Aldi didn't open till 9, and we needed milk, ~~tomorrow~~ to buy:

~~2 bags~~ 1 bag frozen chicken ~~thighs or~~ breasts @ ~~$5. 99~~ $10.98 each (for 5 lbs). Boneless skinless thighs and boneless skinless breasts cost the same; I don't like to use frozen, particularly, because they're injected with saline solution, but you get more for your money in these big freezer bags than you do in the packs of fresh chicken, and in any event, Aldi never seems to have boneless skinless thighs fresh.

~~3 or 4 "bullets" of frozen ground turkey @ $1.99 each~~ 3-lb pack of fresh ground turkey @ $7-ish.

whatever produce looks good: certainly sweet potatoes, maybe broccoli? celery for soup?(bought sweet potatoes and a big spaghetti squash)

3 dozen eggs @ ~~$1.29 a dozen~~ $1 a dozen, on special at Bi-Lo. I'd been about to buy some more expensive eggs at Wal-Mart when an elderly lady sidled up to me and remarked that Bi-Lo was having this sale. I put down the expensive eggs at once, bought my milk and meat, and toddled on across the road to the Bi-Lo. I bought my spaghetti squash there, too, because Wal-Mart had been out of them. It was a big spaghetti squash, but still a bummer: Wal-Mart's are 94 cents, and this one cost $1.29. Oh, well.

milk (I forget now what it cost last week -- $2.58 or something like that)

I still have a head of cabbage, plus about 5 big carrots, plus some fresh and frozen spinach. I also have cans of diced tomatoes and tomato paste. Still have seaweed wraps to make snack "chips" -- the kids love to do this. Still have two cans of salmon.

Dinners We Want:

Hot plates: Everyone liked Chinese last week. I'd love to do something Moroccan (I still have some Ras el Hanout spice mix I made up a couple of weeks ago). Could make ground-turkey "falafel." Indian always a hit -- I have rogan josh spices and coconut milk in the cupboard. Everyone also likes sausage-egg scrambles.

Soup for Wednesday: tomato-based vegetable. Possibly with lots of cabbage.

This is enough to be going on with, anyway. There's an awful lot to be done with chicken and ground turkey: these are the new beans and rice in my life.

Things I've noticed in the few weeks we've been eating this way:

*I'm having far less trouble with fatigue than I had been having. Of course, I'm also taking my vitamin D religiously, and that helps. But eliminating grains and upping my protein has made a noticeable difference in my energy levels. I have the drive to blog again, for starters . . .

*My teenaged son's skin has cleared up dramatically. Of course, he's not eating a purely paleo kind of diet; he goes out with friends, he eats what he feels like. But at home this is our regimen, and I think it's making a difference. Something is, anyway.

*People are less hungry than they used to be. I notice a lot less snacking. We've never been a household full of snack foods -- here it's always been fruit or nothing -- but I notice far less continual rummaging for something to eat. Meals are a lot more satisfying, and when even lunch is something cooked rather than a pbj, it seems to satisfy people on multiple levels.

*I seem to have lost about eight pounds. This is really good news. I don't need to be thin-thin, but 160 pounds on my 5'4" frame was a bit much.

Biggest complaint? We don't have dessert much any more. My 8- and 9-year-olds make cookies periodically (and they've become very competent, I have to say), but somehow my extra energy has not yet extended to making the fruit desserts in Well Fed.

Oh, and --

We didn't give up coffee and alcohol as part of our paleo eating plan, just so that we can give them up for Lent. I've been a decaf drinker for months now, of necessity, but I'm still psychologically all wrapped around my cup of coffee in the morning, so ouch ouch ouch.

The Week in Food:

Monday: We had leftover turkey-jicama hash and turkey-cabbage-Eastern-European hot plate for lunch. In the afternoon I cooked the chicken breasts, browned the ground turkey, and roasted the spaghetti squash. For dinner I made a Moroccan hot plate by sauteeing two julienned carrots and the innards of the roasted spaghetti squash with most of the chicken breasts (I left four out for future meals) shredded, in coconut oil with a Ras el Hanout spice mix: cumin, coriander, ginger, black pepper, allspice, clove, cinnamon . . . very fragrant and spicy. We had some sauteed spinach (coconut oil, garlic powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt & pepper) on the side. With two dishes we had a huge, filling, delicious dinner, with enough for lunch leftovers for Tuesday. (and yes, at least one younger child griped a little about the Moroccan spices, but everyone at least picked the chicken out and ate it).

Tuesday: Oatmeal or eggs for breakfast, leftovers for lunch. For dinner, since it's Shrove Tuesday, I'm going to break the paleo regimen and make pancakes and bacon, with raw honey instead of syrup, because that's what we have. I may make scrambled eggs or omelettes on the side for those of us who'd prefer not to eat grains and sugars (though I know there's some sugar in the bacon, dagnabbit).

Wednesday: fasting for adults. oatmeal for kid breakfast, ~~chicken breasts and/or whatever leftovers there are~~ jacket sweet potatoes for kid lunches. Dinner: still need to decide what kind of soup.(some adaptation of a peasant cabbage soup out of my old Vegetarian Pleasures cookbook. Mainly I just have to do away with the potatoes in it. More cabbage . . . )

Peasant/Provencal-ish Cabbage Soup

Okay. Here's what I used:

two medium sweet onions, diced very finely
two large carrots, peeled and also diced very finely
three bay leaves
thyme, sage, and garlic to taste
knob of coconut oil
one can tomato paste
one medium head cabbage, shredded
one 1-lb can of crushed tomatoes (or diced, or stewed, whatever you have)
water to cover
salt and pepper to taste

Saute onion and carrot in coconut oil in the bottom of a stockpot. Add bay leaves and spices. Because my stockpot has a relatively thin bottom (it's just enamelware, nothing fancy), I added a little water at this point to keep things from burning to the bottom. Experience dictates these things.

When onion is transparent and carrot is starting to get soft and the whole thing is fragrant, add the can of tomato paste. Stir into the onion/carrot/spice mixture, then add the cabbage and toss to coat with the vegetable/spice/tomato paste. Add the can of crushed tomatoes, then water to cover. Salt and pepper to taste. Simmer until cabbage is wilted and transparent, and you're ready to serve.

If you do dairy, you could top this with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese. If you do grains, a loaf of crusty bread would be nice. We do neither at the moment, so are having hard-boiled eggs, halved and dusted with paprika, as a protein side.

Vegetable broth would be better than water for this soup, but I didn't have any on hand.

Thursday: thinking of doing a turkey sausage lasagne for dinner with cabbage leaves as lasagne noodles. The other possibility would be a sausage-egg scramble, but I think we might be tired of eggs by this point.

THURSDAY UPDATE: Upon reconnoitering in the fridge and larder, I think I'm going to do a Cajun-inspired hot plate using pre-cooked ground turkey with okra I still had in the freezer from last summer, when the nice elderly security guard from the community college across the street brought me a big bag from his garden. So, with some crushed tomato, onion and garlic, and lightly sauteed julienned-and-chopped carrot bits for a "rice" texture (carrots being what we have left in the fresh-vegetable department at the moment), plus Cajun spices . . . it'll be dinner, baby!

(second update: It was really good. I served it in crisp white restaurant-style bowls, like chili. Raves all around.)

Friday: Anyway, we'll very likely have eggs for breakfast and ~~lunch on this day. Something involving canned salmon for dinner before Stations of the Cross. Stay tuned . . .~~

Well, I was right about the eggs for breakfast. But today the expected funds went ka-ching (very quietly, but still, ka-ching) in the ol' bank account, so that I was able to go grocery shopping. More on what I bought for the coming week later, but first:

Lunch: southwestern-style tuna salad: canned tuna + tiny-diced onion, fresh cilantro, chili powder, and lime juice.

Dinner: kind of sort of the same idea, only more Thai-inspired. Ginger-lime shrimp like we had last week, but on a bed of julienned-zucchini noodles for a Pad-Thai-type treatment, spritzed with lime juice and garnished with fresh cilantro.

OK, what I bought for the coming week:

from Aldi:
5 3-lb bags of frozen boneless skinless chicky breasts
6 1-lb "bullets" of frozen ground turkey
1 3-lb "bullet" of frozen ground beef
produce: 1 pack zucchini, 2 bags sweet onions, 1 bag carrots, 2 bags apples, 2 heads cabbage
6 cans tomato paste (stocking up the pantry while the sun shines)
4 big cans stewed whole tomatoes (ditto)
10 cans chunk light tuna in water (ditto ditto)
5 dozen eggs

from Wal-Mart:
2 cartons organic whole milk
2 jars refined coconut oil
1 bottle extra-virgin olive oil
2 packs seaweed wraps for snacks
1 large bag frozen tiny shrimp
produce: 1 bunch kale, 1 bunch cilantro, 8 smallish sweet potatoes, 2 heads cauliflower

(I also bought bunny food, hay, and bedding, plus three new blueberry bushes which I need to get into the ground in a break between rains, plus pansies and violas for out front.)

I plan to do a big meat cookup sometime tomorrow. Stay tuned for another blog post with meal plans for next week!

February 13-19

2012-02-13T05:31:00.000-08:00

Should anyone outside my immediate family happen to drop by here, you'll want to know that I'm referencing Melissa Joulwan's cookbook Well Fed in all my meal plans. My aim is to cook my way through all the recipes in this book this semseter, to make this way of cooking and eating a way of life. Not a Rule, mind you. That's St. Benedict, and can't nobody improve on St. Benedict. But a lower-case little way . . .

Back home. Fridge empty. What to eat?

Dinners We'd Like
Cinnamon Beef Stew
Meatza Pie (with ground turkey this week)
Italian Sausage (turkey) and Eggplant Strata
Indian, Chinese, Moroccan Hot Plates (chicken)
Friday: omelettes with veggies (zucchini "noodles" would be good if I can find zucchini -- it's not exactly in season right now . . . )

Sides
spaghetti squash
diced butternut squash
stewed frozen peaches
spinach salad
sweet potatoes in various forms (roasted, home-fried, julienned)
cauliflower "rice"
cocoa-toasted cauliflower
cumin-roasted carrots

Lunches
leftovers
Hot Plates
tuna
egg salad

Breakfasts
oatmeal (kids)
eggs (adults)
sausage-egg scramble for weekend

Snacks
hardboiled eggs
kale chips (thanks, Melanie!)
seaweed crisps
fruit

Shopping List
9 lbs ground turkey
4 packs boneless skinless chicky thighs
beef stew meat
2 spaghetti squash
6 large sweet potatoes
1 bag fresh spinach
2 heads cauliflower
1 large eggplant
1 bag carrots
2 little packs pre-diced butternut squash for the lazy
1 bunch kale
4 zucchini?
2 bunches bananas
1 bag apples
2 packs frozen peaches
5 dozen eggs
1 pack seaweed wraps
2 cans diced tomatoes
4 cans tomato paste
6 cans tuna
1 bottle olive oil
1 bottle sesame oil
milk
1 jar refined coconut oil

MONDAY EVENING UPDATE: Went to Aldi, for budgetary reasons. Bought about 7 lbs ground turkey; the only skinless, boneless chicken thighs were frozen, so I bought four large packs of those, plus two equally large packs of frozen skinless boneless breasts. Found stew meat for what didn't seem that fantastic a price, but went ahead and bought it. Cauliflower didn't look good. No spaghetti squash, zucchini or eggplant, so I bought two heads of green cabbage instead. Otherwise, aside from oils, kale, and seaweed, I found everything on my list there. Will hit the regular grocery later in the week.

Came home and baked and put away all the chicken thighs, made ground-turkey meatzas (these are "pizzas" with a meat crust; really you need beef, though. Turkey fell apart too much), and browned the rest of the ground turkey with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and diced onion. Put half away in the fridge for later in the week, and with the other half, I made the following for dinner:

Greek Cabbage Rolls

I guess I was thinking, you know, dolmates or something. I had a couple of pounds of ground turkey already browned and flavored with salt, pepper, onion, and garlic; to that I added a generous dose of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, plus one can of tomato paste. I also added in some leftover garlicky cooked spinach from last night's dinner.

While this meat mixture was keeping warm, I de-stemmed one of the heads of cabbage and pulled away the toughest outer leaves. Then I carefully removed about ten thinner inside leaves, filled each one with some of the meat mixture, rolled/folded it up into as neat a package as I could manage, and nestled the packages into a baking dish. When I'd used up all the meat and filled two not-so-large bakers, I covered them with foil and put them in to bake for 30-45 minutes, just enough for the cabbage to be tender.

These were delicious. The younger kids peeled off their cabbage leaves and just ate the meat inside, but really, the cabbage with the meat worked very well. It was a filling dish, so unless the bottomless teenager on dish duty has finished it all off, there will be some leftovers for tomorrow.

For a side dish I julienned two sweet potatoes and made shoestrings/noodles by sauteeing in coconut oil, with a little salt and cinnamon. This may be my new favorite side dish in all the world. We also had Italian-cut green beans (from a bag of frozen) sauteed in coconut oil with salt and pepper.

Tuesday
breakfast: oatmeal/eggs
lunch: tuna salad (made it sans mayo: just tuna, hard-boiled egg, & pickle relish)
dinner: some kind of chicken hot plate; probably Chinese with chopped stir-fried cabbage, or else Eastern European with cabbage and apples.

UPDATE: Chinese hot plate for Tuesday night dinner:

shredded cabbage (about 1/3 head)
thin-sliced onion
2 large carrots julienned
a couple handfuls frozen green beans
garlic powder
grated fresh ginger
coconut oil
about six medium-sized boneless skinless chicken thighs, pre-cooked with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika, and diced into 1-inch cuboids

I melted the coco oil in the skillet, sauteed the onions till they were soft, added the frozen green beans to give them time to thaw, then the cabbage and carrots, then the chicken. Dash of garlic powder and grated fresh ginger to taste. One-dish meal. Very filling for five people. I had enough left over for a single-serving take-to-work microwave lunch tomorrow.

Wednesday
breakfast: oatmeal/eggs
lunch: chicken salad or some other chicken thing
dinner: cinnamon beef stew w/cumin-roasted carrots

Thursday
breakfast: oatmeal/eggs
lunch: stew leftovers
dinner: Indian-themed chicken hot plate

Friday
breakfast: oatmeal/eggs
lunch: tuna salad
dinner: omelettes? vegetable blue-plate special?

Saturday
breakfast: oatmeal/eggs
lunch: leftovers
dinner: going to the Cub Scout Blue-and-Gold Banquet. Must take food.

Sunday
brunch after Mass: sausage-egg scramble
dinner: whatever . . .

UPDATE: How the week played out

Dinners: We had cinnamon beef stew on Wednesday, with leftovers for Thursday lunch. Chicken Rogan Josh on Thursday, using already-cooked boneless breasts, a can of coconut milk from the cupboard, and spice mix I'd made up last time we had Rogan Josh. Carrots and green beans on the side.

Friday dinner was ginger-lime shrimp -- I'd had to go back to the store, and they had pre-cooked frozen shrimp on sale, so dinner was a matter of marinating the shrimp as they thawed in garlic, ginger, and lime juice, then searing them in the cast-iron skillet. With them we had sweet potatoes.

Saturday night dinner we had various Latin American food at the Cub Scout Blue-and-Gold Banquet.

Tonight (Sunday) we had the remainder of the ground turkey I'd pre-cooked on Monday sauteed with cabbage, carrots, and onion chopped to coleslaw texture, plus two Gala apples, peeled and chopped. The vegetables were a good way to stretch the leftover meat without overpowering it -- I can see cabbage standing in in lots of recipes where I need something to provide either a noodle or a soft rice texture. At any rate, chopped finely it was a very good "filler" to extend my limited amount of meat. Seasonings were ground mustard and caraway seeds -- I was going for sort of an Eastern European flavor. Sweet potatoes and roasted sweet onions on the side (I did buy a lot of sweet potatoes last week . . . ). Anyway, this was a good "hot plate," and we have enough leftovers for my husband to take to work for lunch tomorrow.

Lunches: leftovers, omelettes, tuna salad, hardboiled eggs, scrambled eggs -- we eat a lot of eggs. Plus apples and bananas, toasted seaweed sheets, whatever veggies are left over, etc.

Sunday Brunch: I had had to go to the store for coconut oil, which Aldi didn't have, and there, in addition to the frozen shrimp, I bought some jicama. A jicama. A jicama root. One of however you designate a unit of jicama.

Anyway, jicama. You can slice or julienne it raw for use in salads, which I've done, but you can also cook it. If you're going to use it in place of potatoes, in for instance a recipe for home fries or potato salad, you have to pre-cook it for a long time -- 12 to 24 hours, according to the cookbook -- to tenderize it enough for it to stand in for a cooked potato. I bought my jicama on Friday, peeled and diced it, and put it to cook in the crockpot covered with water for what turned out to be slightly more than 24 hours. It cooked all Friday evening, all day Saturday, and all morning Sunday, until I was ready to use it in a ground-turkey hash.

I drained the jicama in a colander, then fried it in some coconut oil in my cast-iron skillet. To the fried jicama I added about half a bag of frozen peppers and onions, which I'd thawed in the fridge and pressed the water out of. As all this was cooking, I seasoned it with salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, and chili powder, and when the vegetables were looking done, I added . . . half a pound, maybe? . . . of pre-cooked ground turkey. More chili powder to spice it up, and scrambled eggs on the side, and that was brunch after Mass.

As always, I'm indebted to Well Fed for the bones of this meal.

Snacks

2012-02-04T07:03:00.000-08:00

A random listing of favorite between-meal snacks around here:

*almonds (rationed out in little bowls, because almonds are pricey!)
*clementines
*apples
*bananas
*leftover meat or salmon muffins, left carelessly on a plate on the counter (the dog likes this, too)
*hard-boiled eggs, peeled, halved, and sprinkled with paprika or curry powder
*seaweed

A note about this last. My wonderful kindergarten-teacher next-door neighbor, who has celiac, has opened the eyes of my younger children to the wonderful world of gluten-free eating. Going to play with Mrs. M. and eating gluten-free snacks is the highlight of any day in the life of my 8- and 9-year-olds.

Because she's a teacher, she doesn't just play with them and feed them -- every moment at her house is a teachable moment. So she has not only fed them seaweed snacks, but she's drawn them into the experience of making seaweed snacks. And now they've taught me. Here's what you do:

You take a sheet of that seaweed that's made for wrapping sushi, right? And you hold it in some tongs over the burner on your stovetop. Mrs. M. and I both have gas stoves, so we're holding the seaweed over actual flame, but I don't see why this wouldn't work with any other kind of burner, with the added advantage of not catching your seaweed on fire quite so easily as we have done. (Adult supervision, folks! Somebody supervise the adults with the flaming seaweed!)

So you toast your sheet of seaweed for approximately thirty seconds, until it's shriveled and crisped a little. Then you eat it. You could salt it; my kids seem to like it as is. The seaweed is a little too fishy-tasting for me, but the kids love the whole experience, and it makes a very nutrient-dense snack with enough crisp to satisfy a craving for chips or popcorn.

More quick and easy paleo-type snack ideas?

February 5-12

2012-02-03T08:35:00.000-08:00

January 30-February 3

2012-01-28T09:23:00.000-08:00

Looking Ahead: Week of Jan. 23

2012-01-20T07:29:00.000-08:00

Meals for the week

Dinners we know we want:

Chocolate Chili from Melissa Joulwan's Well Fed
Meatza Pie (ditto) w/tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, onions
Hot Plates (ditto):
Greek hot plate w/grilled chicken, zucchini, tomatoes?
Indian hot plate w/grilled chicken, cauliflower?
Velvety Butternut Squash (casserole for Friday)
pork chops
leftovers of the above

Sides:

roasted spaghetti squash
carrots (cumin-roasted?)
jicama home fries (if I can find jicama); otherwise sweet potato home fries
salad (plain ol', with oil&vinegar dressing)
applesauce
cauliflower (as itself or as "rice")

Lunches/snacks:
meat and spinach muffins
grilled chicken (make LOTS this week -- could make chic salad)
hard-boiled eggs
almonds
leftovers

Breakfasts:
oatmeal (kids)
eggs (grownups)
also maybe some ground-turkey/applesauce sausage? hmmmm -- could make a lot of that to have for lunch/snack fill-ins as well.

Sunday cookup, which might happen on Monday, depending:

chicken thighs & pork chops
ground turkey/apple sausage patties
meat & spinach muffins
chocolate chili (may NOT eat this until guys are back from March for Life!)
hardboil 2 doz eggs
roast spaghetti squash and sweet potatoes (for home fries; couldn't find jicama this week)
make nori chips

Sunday pm:
cooked 25 chicken thighs & 14 pork chops (garlic/cayenne rub on both)
made a big crockpot of chocolate chili to keep in fridge until ready to simmer
used up all ground beef in chili, so no meat muffins this week
roasted 2 spaghetti squash & 4 sweet potatoes for side dishes

To do:
hardboil eggs
make more nori chips for kids to snack on

Actual Week's Menu:

Sunday brunch: omelette (kids had leftover pizza)
Sunday dinner: chicken thighs + spinach salad + cherry tomatoes

Monday breakfast: oatmeal/scrambled eggs
Monday lunch: chicken thighs + fried sweet wedges
Monday dinner: pork chops + applesauce + cocoa-roasted cauliflower

Tuesday breakfast: oatmeal/scrambled eggs
Tuesday lunch: pork chops + applesauce + hardboiled eggs
(both for home and for college-goers)
Tuesday dinner: saute of chicken, onions, mushrooms, carrots, spaghetti squash + cocoa-roasted cauliflower + spinach salad

Wednesday breakfast: oatmeal/scrambled eggs
Wednesday lunch: leftovers of some description (&/or a big salad w/hardboiled egg)
Wednesday dinner: chocolate chili + cocoa-roasted cauliflower (if any left) + salad

Thursday breakfast: oatmeal/scrambled eggs
Thursday lunch: chocolate chili/any other leftovers + hardboiled eggs
Thursday dinner: chocolate chili &/or omelettes + salad

GO GROCERY SHOPPING FRIDAY

Friday breakfast: oatmeal/scrambled eggs
Friday lunch: tuna salad w/hardboiled egg + spinach salad
Friday dinner: velvety butternut squash casserole (using pumpkin) + green beans + deviled eggs

Saturday breakfast: sausage-egg casserole? (I bought some ground turkey to make sausage, and didn't realized until after I'd gotten home that it was already seasoned with stuff, including sugar. I put it aside, but might drag it out for this breakfast, since we've been otherwise good all week)

Saturday lunch: ? whatever little stuff gets cooked up or is left over

Saturday dinner: Meatza Pie

Still perfecting this cook-ahead thing, still figuring out just how much meat we need to get us through the week . . .

Monday January 16, 2012: Meal Plan

2012-01-16T12:19:00.000-08:00

M:

breakfast and lunch today were catch-as-catch-can/leftover affairs

snack: almonds

Dinner:
chicken breasts baked w/coconut oil, cranberries, & a little honey
green salad w/vinegar & oil dressing
sauteed diced butternut squash & onion

T:

start pork roast in crockpot in a.m.

breakfast:
kids: ~~oatmeal~~ leftover bagel/cream cheese
me: ~~scrambled eggs~~ hard-boiled eggs (boiled 5, ate 2, put others in fridge for later)

lunch:
chicken breasts from last night's dinner
one kid: pbj

snacks: almonds, decaf coffee w/almond milk

dinner:

pork roast rubbed w/cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, sage, coriander
unsweetened applesauce
leftover butternut squash

W:

breakfast:
oatmeal (kids); eggs (adults)

lunch: leftover pork
start beef stew

dinner:
beef stew
salad w/vinegar&oil dressing

Note: chicken stretched to two lunches, so leftover pork is for dinner, w/green beans & caramelized onions & applesauce. Starting stew tonight to feed us through lunch & dinner tomorrow, when we're on the go.

Th:
breakfast: oatmeal/eggs

lunch:
sandwiches (kids), hardboiled eggs or leftover chicken (me -- there's a tiny piece left) + fruit& nuts
dinner: beef stew

Stew recipe:

(modification of a recipe from Melissa Joulwan's Well Fed)

2 lbs beef stew meat
2 medium onions, diced
3 parsnips, sliced into bite-sized chunks
3 carrots, ditto
garlic to taste
1 large can diced tomatoes with juice
dash balsamic vinegar
coconut oil for searing meat (recipe called for 3 TB, but I didn't measure that carefully)
liberal sprinklings of salt & pepper, + cinnamon, clove, coriander, sage
a dash of cayenne pepper
a little water to keep it from cooking dry

Sear meat in large skillet, dosing it well with salt and pepper, and transfer to crockpot. Add vegetables and seasonings. Pour on tomatoes and add some water to make it stewy but not soupy. Stir everything, put lid on crockpot, turn it on low (to cook overnight) or high (to cook in an afternoon), and leave it. Inhale delicious smells for hours on end.

This was a HUGE hit with everyone. Requests for a repeat performance.

F:

breakfast: oatmeal/eggs
lunch: ~~sandwiches (kids), ? for me~~ Well-Fed spinach-egg muffins
dinner: grownups out to dinner @ college; cheese pizza for kids

Sat:
breakfast: oatmeal/eggs
eating with friends