A Week's Worth of Menus

Monday -- Boca burgers, roasted potatoes and steamed mixed veggies

We prepared the boca burgers according to package directions, personally I like to top the burgers with some salsa and shredded cheese, or vegetarian tomato sauce and cheese but they are just fine plain, or served on a bun with regular burger fixings. The kids really enjoyed them, a great quick serving of protein. I'd recommend them for any quick weeknight dinner. I also made the microwave roasted rosemary potatoes, just chop your potatoes into bite sized pieces, add 2 TB of butter, some salt and pepper and crushed rosemary and microwave them for 10-15 minutes.

Tuesday -- Whole Wheat Lasagna with Lots o' Meat Sauce, we used the Paula Deen lasagna recipe, and the sauce was lovely but the ricotta was sort of bland. My search for the perfect lasagna recipe continues. I want to try one that uses a bechamel sauce soon.

Wednesday -- Cabbage, Peppers and Onion with Kielbasa

My mom taught me to make this for dinner when I was about 12. Take some kielbasa and slice it into half inch rounds, put them in the bottom of a stock pot with a tablespoon of olive oil and let them cook over medium heat. Let them get good and brown on one side before stirring them. While kilebasa is cooking slice some cabbage into thick shreds, I also portioned out about a cup of frozen chopped mixed onion and peppers. When the kielbasa was nice and browned I tossed in the frozen veggies and stirred them about and let them cook for about 2 minutes. Then I add the cabbage and stir everything together, pop on a lid and let everything cook for about 10 minutes. Dinner can be ready in as little as 20 minutes. Taste the cabbage for flavor and see if it needs salt, but usually the kielbasa is usually salty enough. This can be served with roasted potatoes, but we did raw carrot strips and applesauce. I have made it with turkey kielbasa many times, but I'd like to try it with veggie sausage, there are some delicious ones out there.


Thursday -- Homemade penne and cheese sauce, turkey hotdogs, homemade coleslaw

My Mema (southern for Grandmother) makes the world's BEST macaroni and cheese, or as some of the family refers to it "gallbladder killer" because it has enough fat to, well, kill your gall bladder. I rarely make her version because it takes a lot of time, 4-5 different cheese and you have to cook it on the stove top and in the oven. Totally worth losing your gall bladder for though. I made a stove top version that was not as good, but easily twice as fast. First make a white sauce with 2 TB os butter, 2 TB of flour, some salt and about a cup of milk (or half and half). Melt the butter, add the salt and flour, let it cook for a minute or two and then thin it out with the milk, stirring constantly. To the white sauce add several handfuls of shredded cheese. I used a 4 cheese preshredded blend, about a cup to a cup and half. Stir in some squirts of mustard, a few dashes of worcestershire sauce and a shot or two of tabasco sauce. Stir until all smooth and then put on the back burner on warm until your pasta of choice is done cooking, then mix the pasta and the cheese sauce together, stir and serve. My homemade coleslaw is shredded cabbage and carrot mixed with my own coleslaw sauce. Use whatever sauce you like, but I like the one I invented. In a small bowl whisk together a tablespoon of honey and 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar until honey is dissolved. To this add 1/4 C of plain yogurt and 1/4 of mayonnaise and whisk until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste and then you can add poppy seeds or black sesame seeds if you like, though they are optional. Toss your cabbage and carrot mixture with the sauce and refrigerate till you are ready to serve. I find the dressing sweet and tart, creamy and acidic and it is a good compliment to the cabbage.

Friday -- Homemade Pizza using "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" dough, with turkey pepperoni and cheese.
I have bragged before about how awesome this book is, the authors were kind enough to give anyone with an internet connection access to their Master Loaf recipe so you can try this ingenious bread baking method. I took the plain master loaf and stretched it into about a 12 inch flat round and pricked it all over with a fork. I placed the circle of dough onto a cornmeal covered baking sheet and then topped it with sauce and turkey pepperoni and cheese. It baked for about 20 minutes and we had pizza! You could even give people individual portions of dough to shape and top as they like in personal pizza sizes with this easy recipe. It is awesome because you just have refrigerated dough on hand when you need it so pizza can still be the impromptu dinner it is probably meant to be.

Happy cooking!

If you can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen!

One of the few challenges I actually KNEW I was going to be facing in this house was the fact that only the bedrooms are air conditioned. The living areas are dependent on ocean breezes and ceiling fans to keep it cool. So obviously cooking dinner is bit of a challenge because I want to prepare food without heating up the house unduly. Today I tried two new experiments in meal preparation and I feel like I was *mostly* successful. I tried making meatloaf in the pressure cooker and I tried making "oven roasted" rosemary potatoes in the microwave.

For the meatloaf recipe I read a lot of "pressure cooker meatloaf" recipes and sort of distilled their wisdom down into my own take on it. I made a meat loaf recipe, adding to 1 pound of ground beef 1/2 C of slow cook oatmeal moistened with several tablespoons of milk (keeps things moist), I added salt and pepper to taste, 1/2 of a large onion finely diced, about 1/2 TB of dried Italian seasonings, 2 eggs lightly beaten, and some worcestershire sauce. I mixed this all up and placed it into a plastic container somewhat smaller in circumference than my pressure cooker and then I placed it all into the freezer uncovered for 15 minutes. Meanwhile I helped my 3rd grader with her math homework and prepped the potatoes by scrubbing them clean and cutting them into approximately 1" cubes. When the timer went off I popped the now firmed up meatloaf into my pressure cooker and set it on the "browning" level and crisped the bottom of the meatloaf. While it was browning I brushed the top of the meat loaf with a mixture of ketchup and worcestershire sauce. I added a 1/2 C or so of water to the bottom of the cooker, topped it with the lid and set it to high pressure for 15 minutes. Well, after a few minutes it clicked off and I realized I had not added enough water. I let the pan come back down to pressure naturally (the meat will keep cooking during this stage) and then I added another 1/2 C of water mixed with worcestershire sauce for seasoning, popped the lid back on and cooked it for another 6 minutes.

While waiting for the meatloaf to cook I made preparations for the microwave oven potatoes. I have to admit I don't really cook much in my microwave, I use it to reheat things of course or make water for tea or melt butter or defrost meat, but actual cooking? Not so much. I was intrigued by the idea of using it to as it does not heat up the kitchen and it actually uses a lot less energy than cooking on a stove or in an oven. I smashed a clove of garlic and placed it into a glass bowl that was about 8 inches across. I added a few teaspoons of Smart Balance spread (maybe a tablespoon) because that is what I had on hand, you can use butter or olive oil I am sure. Then I added some salt and microwaved it for about 45 seconds, next I tossed in and mixed up the chopped potatoes (about 3-4 medium sized potatoes) and crushed some dried rosemary and tossed that in as well. Then I covered the potatoes with a microwave safe splatter guard and let them cook on high for 15 minutes. Now microwave times and powers will vary, so keep a CLOSE eye on your food when you try this, but it was totally worth the little extra worry, the potatoes come out great. You could smell the rosemary and they spuds had very good texture, a few of them even got a little brown around the edges! I quickly used the microwave to steam some cut up broccoli (official vegetable of the Dinner 365 Family) and we were ready to eat. (The kids also had a side of applesauce, "Because Mom if you have a dinner plate with 4 sections all 4 sections need some food in them!")

Anyhow, I made dinner; I stayed cool and comfortable and everything was ready very quickly, so a total WIN for us tonight.