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

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 5-12

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 . . . 


Plans for the week of February 5-12


First of all, the men of the house will be on their own from the 6th through the 11th, because the wimming (and one boy) are going to visit family. So what I'm planning, shopping, and cooking for, with regard to the upcoming week, is a kind of desert-island scenario, in which people could swim to land and go to fast-food restaurants, but won't. WON'T, I SAY. Because there will be food here, and mother will have cooked it, so there'll be guilt, too. So there. 


Meals, therefore, will be simple. I'll make a big pot of chili  big thang of Czech meatballs for Sunday night, which should provide dinner for two for at least another day. Baked or grilled chicken thighs will be good to grab for lunch, and perhaps some pork chops. Maybe one more big container of browned ground meat, possibly with stuff already mixed into it so that they don't have to think about making it into a meal. 


For example:   


Last night (Thursday), we had what I thought was going to be a cruddy desperation-dinner kind of meal. Friday is shopping day, not to mention that for us it's meatless, so on Thursday we have what I like to think of as Mardi Gras without the parade:  ALL MEAT MUST GO. 


Last week this felt like a feast, because what with one thing and another, and especially with the chili's stretching over several meals, we had a lot of meat left to work with. This past week, on the other hand, not so much. There had been hamburgers on Saturday night, and then on Sunday we had Meatza Pie (from Well Fed),  essentially a pizza with a ground-beef crust like a flat burger, which was a huge hit but very meat-intensive, using up nearly a pound per person. Perhaps I made mine too thick. Oh, well, people loved them, but I may be a little more miserly with the meat next time, or mix beef with ground turkey to stretch.


Anyway, we ate well all week, but by yesterday the fridge was starting to look empty. We used up the last few bits of chicken in a quick soup (sauteed onions and garlic in leftover chicken fat/pan juices from baking, diced chicken thighs, chicken broth, a handful of frozen green beans, salt & pepper), which left for dinner about a pound and a half of browned ground turkey, seasoned with Italian-sausage seasonings (basil, oregano, sage, garlic, paprika, red pepper flakes). By way of vegetables I had a few roasted sweet potato wedges, about a soup-bowl-ful of spaghetti squash seasoned with garlic, and a half-bag of frozen chopped spinach. And I had eggs. 


I quickly stir-fried both the sweet potatoes and the spaghetti squash in a little coconut oil, which revived them and gave them a little crispiness. To a thin pool of leftover chicken broth in another skillet I added the sausage meat and shook on the half-bag of spinach. All this I sauteed until the broth was gone, the meat was warm, and the spinach was cooked. Then I added three eggs and scrambled them with the meat and spinach. 


And I thought, This is one lame dinner. And I'm serving it to at least one person who really dislikes cooked spinach. Oh, dear. 


Well, knock me over. That dinner was the sleeper hit of the week. The non-spinach-lover declared that the spices in the sausage (which really was quite zesty, though not too hot for the 8- and 9-year-olds at the table) made him not notice the spinach, and this was quite something, because he always notices sneaked-in spinach.  The 9-year-old said that this was the best meal he had ever had in his life, with the possible exception of a dinner he remembered eating at his grandmother's when he was 8. 


So I'm thinking I'll mix that up again, so that it can be nuked and served in less time than it would take to call Papa John's. Maybe I'll omit the eggs, since it's going to sit in the fridge for a few days;  I don't think anyone would miss the eggs, and I'd only put them in to stretch the meal farther anyway.  


Menu Plan:


Sunday
brunch:  sausage and  egg scramble (sans spinach, but with some of the same meat)
dinner:  chocolate chili, a double batch in the crockpot Czech meatballs, enough for dinner for 5, plus plenty of leftovers. We took a bunch on the road with us for a car-picnic. Very portable and good even cold!



Monday
breakfast:  oatmeal/eggs
lunch:  baked chicken thighs, baby carrots, clementines, almonds (for both homeboys and travelers)
dinner:  leftover chili with salad/carrots/clementines


Tuesday
breakfast:  eggs
lunch: chicken thighs or pork chops, baby carrots, clementines, almonds
dinner:  leftover chili if there is some;  otherwise a choice of chicken thighs, pork chops, or ground meat mix, with the aforementioned selection of fresh produce


Actually . . . the whole week is going to look like this, and as I won't be the one deciding what's for lunch or dinner, I think at this point we can just say lather, rinse, repeat. 


I may make a double batch of cioppina tonight, so that it can be frozen and eaten next Friday. (Note to self:  Call the dudes and tell them to get it out of the freezer). They could do tuna for lunch. 


Snacks: 
hardboiled eggs
almonds
fruit/veggies


Shopping list
ground beef, 5.5 lbs
ground turkey, 3 lbs
boneless, skinless chicken thighs, 3 packs
pork chops, one big econo-pack
bag spinach salad
bag baby carrots
sweet potatoes
bananas
clementines
almonds
garlic powder
can tuna (4) 
eggs (box of 5 doz)
milk
frozen chopped spinach
frozen green beans
frozen peaches

We want to do a dessert, maybe for Sunday. Well Fed has a really nice-looking peach crumble kind of thing, with an almond-meal crust. I'm going to try grinding almonds in my little manual food processor and do this. It's essentially stewed fruit with some crunch on top. 


Weekend Cookup
brown ground turkey with sausage spices and diced onion, chopped spinach added
bake chicky thighs and pork chops with paprika-garlic rub
make chili, leave in crock pot to simmer and reheat 
pre-roast sweet potatoes
hard-boil a dozen eggs


That seems . . . too easy. But it should keep two dudes in simple grab-meals for a week.