Halloween Palak Paneer

Palak Paneer
Pulao Rice
Purchased Chickpea Curry

Grilled Salmon

Grilled Salmon with terikaki marinade
Quinoa
Green salad with Ginger-Sesame Dressing

Stuffed Potatoes with Kale Salad

Twice-baked potato (with sour cream, butter, salt, pepper)
optional ham garnish
optional cheese garnish
Kale Salad


Not sure I would make this again--I did it because I bought a bag of organic yellow potatoes thinking it was a bag of yellow organic onions.

Breton (Buckwheat) Crepes

Crepes with fillings served taco-bar style:

• sauteed mushrooms
• sauteed spinach
• sliced tomato
• carmelized onion
• gruyere cheese
• quinoa
• diced sauteed ham

Dinner after the museum

After our visit of the season to Shelburne Museum, a few days before it closed for the winter.

Improved vegetable soup
pomegranate
Family Tuna Melt

The Family Tuna Melt
Split an unsliced loaf of bread lengthwise.  Scoop out and set aside some bread to make a bowl that will hold more.  Butter the bread surface, sprinkle some cayenne on it.
Mix three cans of tuna with mayo.
Spread tuna on bread
top with cheese
broil 2 minutes.
If the bread is still cold, lower rack and bake at 300 until warm.


Improved Vegetable Soup
Basic soup was broth-carrots-celery
Added: diced tomato and spinach.
Major Improvement.
Garnish with pesto

Quick Lunch Before Museum

Tomato Soup
Un-chickened noodle (spatzle) soup
grilled cheese
Spatzle

Lunch Pasta

The zucchini and mushroom needed a purpose, so I turned them into lunch with other goodies I had in the fridge.

chopped garlic
small red onion
1 zucchini
handful of mushrooms
sun dried tomatoes in oil
firm tofu, one slice diced
pesto
leftover cooked pasta
grated parmesan cheese

saute in pan, in the order you'd expect.  Served 2.

Idea for alternative: with kalamata olives and some oregano.

Puffed Apple Pancake in Rectangular Casserole dish

Full recipe here:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Puffed-Apple-Pancake-107071

1 cup milk
4 eggs
3 TB sugar
1 teas Vanilla
1/2 teas salt
1/4 teas cinnamon
2/3 cup flour
3 apples, spiral cut peeled and cored
1/2 stick of butter
3 TB brown sugar

Preheat oven to 425
Melt butter in 13x9 casserole in oven (5 minutes)
Make batter while butter melts
layer apples in casserole
pour batter over
sprinkle brown sugar on top
bake 25 minutes

Italian choices dinner

antipasta: (cured olives; sopressata)
Artichoke Ravioli (purchased) with purchased marinara
Ricotta-stuffed baby bell peppers
green salad
grapes
bread and garlic-pepper dipping olive oil


Ricotta-stuffed baby bell peppers
    (a variation of ricotta stuffed baby bells at Birthday Dinner
saute spinach, remove from pan into bowl
mix in ricotta, salt, and chopped walnuts
stuff baby bells.
Bake at 400 F for 25 minutes

Grilled Chicken with Cauliflower Soup

Teriyaki Chicken on Grill
Cauliflower Soup with Harissa.
Spinach Salad
Mushroom Couscous.

I don't think they went together as a menu, but everyone was happy.
The Teriyaki was marinated by the grocery store butcher

Sunday Night Pizza Delivered

I tried to take the kids hiking, but when we got to Mount Philo it was closed, or at least the parking lot was full and they seemed to be turning people away who had parked on the road.  We listened to This American Life on the way home, and were partway through when we got to our driveway.  So we stayed in the car running the radio, except I fell asleep, in the car, in my own driveway.

We had pizza delivered.  I pulled out a salad to go with.

Irish Oatmeal in Crock Pot

1 cup Irish Oatmeal
4 cups water

Put it in a bain marie in the crockpot.  Clean up is easy!
In the morning there's so many good things to put on oatmeal, such as: butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, chopped apple, walnut, greek yogurt.  Sometimes I even put in cut up breakfast sausage.

I was using some aluminum foil between the bowl and the crock pot crockery. But it caused aluminum oxide on the inside of my crock, so now I'm trying a small dishrag between the two.

Source and detailed instructions:
http://annkroeker.com/2008/03/25/overnight-crockpot-steel-cut-oatmeal/

Kim Chee Breakfast Bowl

2 cups quinoa
2 TB olive oil
1 cup greens (spinach or kale or the like)
1/2  of a 15oz can of diced tomato
kim chee
2 eggs.

In iron pan, saute tomato and greens in olive oil.
In another pan, cook eggs overeasy.

To iron pan, add quinoa and stir fry.

Put quinoa mixture in cereal bowl.  Top with kim chee, and then top that with eggs.

Grill Experiments--Salmon and Bison

Menu
Grilled Salmon
Grilled Steak
Grilled Corn (Elote)
leftover acorn squash with quinoa stuffing
green salad.

Notes:
Grilled Salmon
Heat grill up to 325 F.
took much longer than 8 minutes.

Next time:
oil the grill.  Less olive oil on Salmon.  It dipped into drum and caught fire.
It was cooked just about right! despite temperature dropping too low in the middle of cooking!
Salmon was generally appreciated.


Bison Steak
heated grill up to 325 F
cooked to 135 F.

next time:
Serve red meat again, half the kids liked it.


Elote--
Took more than half an hour to cook.
Shucked corn
turn on various sides to get them slightly charred
smear on mayo/cheese mix
served paprika/cayenne/chili powder at table for sake of anti-spice child.

Next time:
char a little less, it will be fine, and faster.
make sure cheese is cotija.
divide smear; mix paprika/chili into most smear.

Cod with Potatoes and Saffron

Baked Cod and Potatoes with Spanish Seasoning
Cucumber Salad

Cod was a good deal at Hannahford's, so I bought 1.5 pounds.  I looked at my iPhone while she wrapped it, and found this recipe:
     Baked Cod and Chorizo
"Perfect," I thought, "I bought that amazing Spanish Chorizo weeks ago, and we need to eat it before it goes bad.  And I have a couple potatoes that need to be cooked soon."  I bought some saffron to fill it out.

The seafood lady gave me some salmon as well, to encourage me to come back and buy it another day.

When I got home: problems.

• The chorizo was growing mold.  It had been waiting months, not weeks.
• I couldn't fit all the fish in the iron skillet.

My husband came to the rescue, pulled out his big iron griddle, and basically took over the seasoning and cooking.  I felt bad about this because unlike me, he'd already worked a long day, and dinner was now late for everybody.  Seasoning was the basic garlic-cumin-salt-paprika-cayenne, with some saffron threads.

I had been nervous about the potatoes really cooking in the skillet, so I had baked them an hour before.  I sliced the two baked potatoes onto the griddle with the fish so they would be seasoned too.

For a side dish, I sliced cucumber and celery in the food processor, added some grape tomatoes and sliced green onions, and dressed it with salt and little olive oil.  I was going for something halfway between Israeli Salad and Spanish salad.

The potatoes were a hit.
The fish was mostly a hit.  The saffron didn't show up though; maybe it was lost when we switched pans.
The salad was small, and entirely eaten.

Acorn Squash with Quinoa Stuffing

Acorn Squash with Quinoa Stuffing
Green Salad
Multigrain Rolls

Cut the acorn squash in half and bake in oven at 350.
Make quinoa in rice cooker.  Be sure and rinse it much first.

mix into quinoa:
Kale
tiny cubes of tofu
minced celery (food processor)
minced mushroom (food processor)
chopped walnuts. (food processor)
chopped apple (food processor)

Tasty, children were only mildly appreciative but I don't care.  We ate 75%.
The rolls were not vegan, actually.

Monday Night Leftover Fest

I made a salad, and put together some ham fried rice from the leftover rice and diced ham.
And put out all the containers of leftovers for people to choose and heat in microwave.

Leftover red pepper noodles from Zen Garden
Leftover Happy Family from Zen Garden
Broccoli-Cheese soup, which is especially good with tortilla chips, who knew?
Commercial Chicken Tortilla Soup from Costco
Turkey Chili
Red Beans
Quinoa
Shredded Cheese

Sunday Tortellini

Mushroom Tortellini (Rana)
Red Sauce (Bove)
Herb Salad (hannaford brand)
Caeser Dressing (Marzetti Simply Dressed)

The mushroom tortellini helped with the homesick.  The kids and I used to get the Safeway grocery store's brand frozen mushroom ravioli regularly.  Until tonight, I hadn't found mushroom ravioli in Vermont.

Cauliflower Soup with Harrisa

A real recipe for homemade harissa is here:
http://www.kitchencaravan.com/recipe/homemade-harissa-moroccan-spice-paste

saute in olive oil:
two spoonfuls of chopped garlic from jar
spoonful of dried red chilis
cumin
cinnamon

salt
canned roasted red pepper
fresh cilantro
lemon zest and juice

Serve with basic cream of cauliflower soup, made with yogurt instead of milk or cream.

Quick Tomato Soup

a version from memory, from the cookbook about quick dinners, which is still packed
For some reason, the kids like this better than Campbell's, and call it "homemade."

can diced tomato (organic from Costco)

chicken broth (used Better than Bouillon; can used vegetarian base)

boil tomatoes in broth to remove canned taste.

Puree with hand-held blender.

Add milk.

Serve with grilled cheese, or as side dish to meal.

Vegetable Soup with Pesto

Inspired by the Jane Brody Provencal Vegetable Soupe Au Pistou, in the Good Foot Cookbook, in a box of my still unpacked books.
Also inspired by Hamburger Soup that my mom used to make.

1 can organic diced tomato from Costco
1 zucchini
couple celery ribs
onion
Better than Boullion organic vegetable broth base

also good: leeks
also good: green beans
also good: potato

Pesto purchased from Healthy Living

Carrot Cake

http://www.chow.com/recipes/21792-moist-carrot-cake-recipe
for full instructions

Dry
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup King Arthur white whole wheat
2 tsp. baking soda2 tsp. baking powder1/2 tsp. salt3 tsp. ground cinnamon1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Wet
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups oil
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar (used super dark)
2 tsp. vanilla

Other
3 cups grated carrots
1 cup walnuts (food processor), pressed onto top of batter as I forgot.


325 for about an hour.
tossed the shredded carrots in a spoonful of dry mixture by habit.