Potatoes au gratin, pork shoulder roast, steamed green beans and strawberries

So, I had some potatoes that had reached the critical "use 'em or lose 'em" stage. A lot of potatoes. Okay, a 5 pound bag of potatoes... sometimes I just forget things, okay?! Anyhow, I made some potato soup the other night and last night I made spaghetti and meatballs. Since that is a very easy dinner to make I decided to use up the rest of my rapidly aging spuds by peeling and chopping some for mashed potatoes and peeling and slicing some for au gratin. By the by, for making quick uniform slices, I just adore my mandolin!

The mashed potatoes got boiled, drained and saved for tomorrow night's dinner, the au gratin potatoes were placed in a buttered dish and then, I realize, "Whoops. I can't remember how to make au gratin potatoes!" Off to the internet where I am immediately captivated by The Pioneer Woman's delectable looking Au Gratin Potato recipe. Of course I only have about HALF the ingredients, but there ya go. I am more of an improvisational cook anyhow. I just needed to know some technique.

My "recipe" such as it was called for about 1/3 cup each, whole milk, half and half and sour cream, really well blended. I seasoned it with salt and pepper, 2 smashed and chopped cloves of garlic and about 2 teaspoons of flour for thickening. I placed my potatoes in thin overlapping slices on the bottom of the baking dish and topped each layer with about 1/3 of the milk/cream mixture. I baked at 400 degrees for about 20-30 minutes, honestly I didn't keep track I just pulled it out to look at when I could smell the garlic cooking. Then I topped it with mozzarella cheese (3 handfuls or so?) and put some foil on it and set it in the fridge.

Tonight in the last 20 minutes of cooking time for my marinated pork shoulder, I set the au gratin in the oven to reheat and melt and brown the cheese. Meanwhile I snapped and strung about a pound of fresh green beans and placed them in a microwave safe bowl with butter and salt and nuked them for about 5 minutes. (If I can digress on the pork shoulder roast a bit, this was a pre-marinated boneless chunk of meat about the size of 2 softballs put together. As roasts go it is pretty fool-proof and easy enough to cook on a weeknight.)

We rounded out dinner with some fresh Florida strawberries from Plant City and called it a meal. The kids really, really, REALLY liked the strawberries, they actually asked for thirds on those. Of course that would be the one dish I didn't actually COOK, but that's baseball, I guess. We have plenty for lunches tomorrow and the tag ends of the roast may even end up flavoring a pot of beans or something.

Meatless Monday: Penne in Fresh Tomato Sauce

Today I made some whole wheat penne pasta with a sauce made from 2 garden fresh tomatoes (thanks Gina), onions, garlic and yellow pepper. All the veggies were chopped into small bits and sauteed in olive oil, then I skinned and chopped the tomatoes and put them into the pot with a generous amount of salt, to flavor them and to help them break down. Then I added 2 heaping tsp of dried italian herbs. I let all of that simmer on low as the water came to a boil in my stock pot for the penne and added a small can of plain tomato sauce (I didn't have enough fresh tomatoes!). I tried the Barilla brand of whole wheat penne for the first time and it was pretty good, if a little starchy tasting. It takes some getting used to whole wheat pastas at first but we have been eating them for years now. When I first made the switch I only served whole wheat pasta under very hearty bolognese sauces because it hid the flavor a bit better, but now we are used to them and I can make a lighter, even primavera style sauce for it. I steamed some fresh green beans and dressed them with butter, salt, pepper and some fresh parmesan and called it a night.

Here's the menu for the week:

Monday: Penne Pasta with sauteed green beans
Tuesday: Slow cooker Chicken Cacciatore over spinach
Wednesday: Cheesy cornmeal waffles and chili
Thursday: Pork loin with mashed potatoes and cooked cinnamon apples
Friday: Fish! From the fish guy!
Saturday: Hamburgers on the grill
Sunday: Lemon roast chicken, salad, and fresh bread

Tuesday night's dinner has to be a slow cooker meal since I will be at a school board meeting and my husband will be coaching our older daughter at softball. I adore slow cookers for that convenience. You don't have to even be home to have a meal ready to go. Maybe I should make Tuesdays a regular slow cooker feature?

Orange chicken, curry pineapple rice, steamed haricot vert

So tonight I made sort of a citrusy-fruity themed dinner and it was pretty tasty! Here are the recipes.

Orange Chicken Breasts

Squeeze the juice of 2 clementine oranges and half a lemon and add a bit of orange zest to the juice mix. Salt and pepper the chicken breasts. Turn a heavy bottomed skillet onto medium high heat and coat the bottom of the pan in olive oil. When hot, place the chicken breasts dow in the pan and let get a lovely brown color, about 3 minutes per side. Pour in the juice mixture and let the breasts steam to finish cooking about 5 minutes. Remove the breasts from the pan and reduce juice mixture by half, then add the breasts back in and coat in thickened reduced juice.

Curry Pineapple Rice

Take (1) 20 oz. can of pineapple rings or bits (packed in juice, not syrup) and drain into a measuring cup. Fill measuring cup the rest of the way with water or broth according to package directions. For my brown rice I required 2 1/4 C of liquid and I got about 1 C of juice from the can. I used another 1 1/4 of chicken broth to make up the difference. Saute a bit of finely chopped onion (and garlic if desired) in a large pan with olive oil. Add the rice, the liquid, 1 tsp of curry powder and salt according to package directions and cook for appropriate amount of time. (On the stove top brown rice takes about 45 minutes.) When rice is done stir pineapple pieces into hot rice along with a handful of pine nuts or a small can of drained water chestnuts.

Hubby got some lovely tiny green beans (haricot vert) at Costco, super yummy and skinny they cook very quickly. I steamed them in a bit of butter and water and then simply seasoned them with sea salt. Took about 5 minutes in the microwave.

Some of those sweet delicious Hawaiian rolls would be good with this!