Week #???? and a bit more

Well, there's only one explanation for why I haven't posted in over 2 weeks - we haven't eaten. I mean, that's obviously the only reason why I wouldn't post a recipe every day, and an extensive meal plan/shopping list each week.

Or, alternatively, unlike the other amazing mommy bloggers permeating the blogosphere, I'm just unable to keep up with the little curve balls life throws while simultaneously maintaining a daily, amazingly organized, witty, aesthetically pleasing, recipe-laden, 'my happy toddler' photo saturated blog. I justify my drastic failings (in comparison with some of those amazing blogs - you know the ones I'm talking about) by telling myself those other bloggers' kids are at boarding school, or have mommy issues, or the blogs are actually written by ghost writers. None of those things are probably true, but it's what I tell myself.

What I also tell myself is this - I blog for myself. I'm never gonna make it big like some of those other blogs, for one simple reason - I'm not willing to put the time into it. So, with that said - so sorry for being a couple weeks late, and while I'd love it if it didn't happen again, we should both go ahead and plan on it :) Consider it a, um, push out of the cooking nest - or whatever you want to call it - and go make a meal plan of your own, if you haven't already (which you probably have...in which case, what did you make?! I'd love to know).

Here's what we've eaten over the past couple weeks (which were, by the way, filled with the husband traveling internationally, pink eye, strep throat, holiday weekend, and a semi-panic filled reassessing of my life):

* take out pizza
* bad day back up meals from the freezer (told you those would come in handy - perfect panic food)
* hotdogs (I mean, we put relish, onions & cheese on them & had them with sweet potato fries, but still...hotdogs)
* breakfast for dinner - pancakes, cereal, eggs
* went out to Ethiopian food for dinner (which, if you haven't done, you should consider doing. Unless you live in the midwest [anywhere other than Minnesota], then you should really consult yelp before doing so)


So, not a whole lot to document there :) Except this - our grocery bill was up. My lack of planning, and lack of time put into our meal prep may have meant I had time to tend to other very important things (and it was the right decision), but our grocery bill did increase. Moral of the story - planning ahead and sticking to a meal plan does save money.

So - here's the meal plan for this week, though it's only for 5 days since we are starting kinda late week and we have company this weekend:

Monday night: leftover lasagna (which I'll post a recipe for soon - this one was kind of a fail, but it was because I left out some key ingredients...even good cooks screw it up sometimes - my error was based in laziness and a refusal to go pick up those key ingredients from the store. I paid for it every time I ate that lasagna...even my kids wouldn't eat it. I finally smothered it in a jar of red sauce from Trader Joes and we called it an even)

Tuesday night: hubby made pancakes while I slept off strep throat. For the record, these pancakes were actually quite good. I added 1tsp lemon juice & the hubby used whole wheat flour instead of white, but otherwise I think it was the same as what's listed. I don't usually trust allrecipes, but they pull through on some of the classics.

Wednesday night: bad day back up - homemade enchilladas (I know, I can hear you "wait a minute! where's that recipe?! how can it be a bad day back up if it's not on this blog?! she's cheating on us". I admit it, I did. I made a delicious recipe and didn't get it up here yet. But it's coming - soon. I promise.)

Thursday: Chicken Divan (aha!!! here's the reason why I started this blog in the first place - we've finally got a repeat meal, and now, instead of having to do an entire post on every night's meal, I get a night where I can just drop in a link, recommend a bottle of wine, and then go consume a glass or two of it myself)

Friday: Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup with Homemade Sourdough Bread (which is currently bubbling ominously on my counter).


I'll try and get some of these recipes up - enchilladas and lasagna specifically, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this post illuminating my humanity and subsequently empowering yours. I hope that when reading these blogs, the thought that goes through your mind isn't "I don't know how she does it" (which is what I often think when looking at other blogs) but instead "oh yeah, I can do that too". Not because what I have to offer is so unequivocally great, but because I do know that good cooking, healthy eating, and affordable living are all incredibly compatible and achievable - by any of us.

So, enjoy! And please, if you feel so inclined, leave a comment every now and then to let me know you're reading/cooking, and if you have a blog - let me know what it is. I'd love to check it out.

Enjoy living like you don't have your act all together - that's how we do it here. 

Chicken Divan (aka Creamy Chicken & Broccoli Casserole)

**note** I'll go back and put in links to recipes for homemade mayo and cream of chicken soup.  But for now, here's the basic recipe!**

This is a major comfort food, and in my hubby's top 5 favorite meals so it's a pretty frequent repeat in our house. The original recipe calls for canned condensed cream of chicken recipe, mayonnaise, and sour cream. Phew! Did your arteries just seize up? It's ok, I've modified this recipe so now your arteries will just wheeze a little.

Instead of store bought mayonnaise, we'll use homemade; instead of sour cream, we'll use homemade greek yogurt; instead of canned condensed cream of chicken soup, we'll use homemade cream of chicken soup.

The recipe:

Chicken Divan 

2 c  homemade mayonnaise
2 c sour cream/Greek yogurt
2 c cream of chicken soup
1 Tbs lemon juice
2 c cheese
2 c cubed chicken, cooked
2 c broccoli, barely steamed

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a 9 x 13 baking dish, spread the cooked chicken and steamed broccoli. I recommend slightly under-cooking the broccoli to retain nutrients and avoid overly mushy broccoli.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the mayonnaise, Greek yogurt, cream of chicken soup, lemon juice, and 1 cup of cheese. Mix well and pour evenly over the broccoli and chicken in the 9x13 baking dish.

Sprinkle with the remaining 1 cup of cheese, and if desired, sprinkle lightly with paprika.

Place in the oven until hot, approx 30 minutes.

Serve over brown rice. Yummy!

Homemade Yogurt - Easiest Recipe Ever

I'm probably the six hundred thousandth person to put down a recipe for homemade yogurt. But here's the thing - it's really so much easier than you'd think. So, I'm going to write the directions as simply as possible, and then give a few more details.

Homemade Yogurt

4 cups milk

1-2 Tbs plain yogurt 

Glass jars that seal 

Candy thermometer 

A spoon

1. Pour 4 cups milk into a pot
2. Bring it to a boil, and stir until it reaches 180F.
3. Remove from the heat and let cool until 110F.
4. Put 1 -2 Tbs yogurt in a small bowl and add 1/2 c milk (or however much you want, the point is a little bit) and whisk together.
5. Add the mixture from step #4 to the rest of the milk.
6. Pour into the glass jars and seal.
7. Keep moderately warm for 8-12 hours (some people just wrap their jars in a blanket and set in a warm place).
8.  Remove jars from their warm place.
9. Put in the fridge.
10. Eat.


That's it. Seriously. I mean - IT.


Here's the science of it:
yogurt contains live bacteria (the container calls them 'cultures' cause that's somehow more appropriate to eat....?). Milk also contains bacteria but some of it can go bad quicker than the bacteria in yogurt/won't make yogurt - thus step #2 (kills all the potentially bad stuff). The little bacteria in yogurt can't quite handle that heat either, so you need to let the milk cool to a temperature bacteria loves - 110F. That little bacteria is just going to grow and grow, thus step #7.

Bacteria will continue growing if it's warm - thus step #8. If you want more tart yogurt, leave it out closer to 12 hours.

Here are a couple tips:
1. Use whole milk.

2. If you have a crock pot, fill it with water and set the temperature to it's lowest setting (on mine, that's warm). Once you've filled your jars with your soon-to-be-yogurt (and sealed them), put them in the crockpot and leave covered. I've found this is the perfect way to keep my yogurt warm. If I'm going to bed and the yogurt has sat in the warm water for 3-4 hours, I just switch of the crock pot and the bacteria growth begins to slow until I bring it to a halt in the morning when I put it in the fridge.

3. Your yogurt will firm up a bit after it goes in the fridge, so don't worry if it seems a bit runny.

4. Want Greek Yogurt? Pour the finished product yogurt (as in, after step #8) into a sieve lined with a cheesecloth and press out the whey (note - whey can be used in a variety of cooking endeavors, so don't toss it. it's also apparently lactose free! What?!?!?!) There you go, Greek Yogurt.

5. Want flavored yogurt? I've put frozen berries on the bottom of the empty jars between steps #5 & #6, and just continued as usual. The end product is a bit more runny, but absolutely delicious. Fresh fruit would also work. For flavored (as in vanilla) - add 1 tsp vanilla and 3 Tbs honey to the milk when it is coming to a boil (or however much you want depending on what flavor you're going for). The end product is not noticeably different from plain yogurt.

6. Need sour cream? Just use Greek Yogurt - seriously. No reason not to. None at all. And your heart thanks you, and so does your urinary tract.

Enjoy!!!!! And let me know if you come up with any other amazing yogurt recipes (or if my science lesson is off :) It's my summary of about 15 different recipes I looked at...

Blueberry Poppyseed Muffins

This recipe is an absolute favorite! My mom has been making this recipe for years, and her muffins still come out much better than mine - though I'm blaming it on the fact she lives in Kenya and therefore gets more pure ingredients in terms of butter, sugar, and flour (probably altitude, too)...well, that's what I'd like to think it is. She's really just got me beat on this one.

Nevertheless - here's the recipe, straight from her kitchen :) (except she usually uses strawberry yogurt instead of blueberry)

Poppyseed Muffins

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1/2 c butter

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla 

1 cup yogurt (fruit of your choice - if you want Lemon Poppyseed Muffins, use lemon yogurt)

1/4 tsp baking soda 

1/2 tsp salt

3 Tbs poppyseeds

2 c flour 

Preheat the oven to 375F. 

In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs 1 at a time. Add the vanilla and yogurt. 

(note: most recipes will tell you to combine your dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Curse you extra dishes! The only reason you are asked to do this in a standard baking recipe, where all the dry ingredients are added at once, is to make sure you don't get clumps of baking soda or salt in your finished product. To make 1 less dish, I pour my flour right on top of my wet ingredients and my baking soda, salt, etc right on top of the flour. I do a quick surface level stir of the dry ingredients while they are on top of the wet ingredients, and then mix it all together. I've never had a clump of distasteful salt in my baking). 

Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Grease a muffin tin and fill tins 3/4 full. Bake until a toothpick/knife can be inserted into the middle of a muffin and come out clean - approx 15-20 minutes. 

Best served warm. 

The best thing about these muffins is they are an Everytime Food - great with dinner, awesome as breakfast, perfect as a snack. Love that.

** to make this recipe vegan, though I've never done it, you can apparently substitute flaxseed for eggs, oil for butter, and soy yogurt for dairy yogurt. If any of you try this - I'd love to know how it turns out!

Soy Sauce Chicken

Again - pictures to come later. So sorry!

This meal is an absolute favorite and is always a major hit with guests.

Soy Sauce Chicken 

Ingredients:
1 chicken, in pieces (if you want to buy a whole chicken and cut it up yourself - go for it! And don't forget to make Chicken Stock with the remaining bits of the carcass).

2 cups soy sauce (don't have a heart attack - you're not actually consuming 2 cups of soy sauce. That said - get a less dark soy sauce if you can) 

2 cups sugar

1 cup oil (the healthiest you can find) 

4 star anise seeds

4 cloves garlic, sliced

1/2 inch piece ginger, peeled and sliced 

Combine all ingredients expect the chicken in a large pot and stir well. Add the chicken, making sure the chicken is mostly covered by the sauce. If it isn't, try a smaller pot. If it's still not mostly covered, consider doing 1.5 times the recipe. Turn on the heat until the sauce comes to a boil. Caution: this sauce will boil over quickly, so keep an eye on this until it reaches a boil. 

Immediately reduce the heat to a simmer and allow to simmer until completely  cooked - usually approx 30 minutes.

To make sure your chicken is done, take the largest piece (usually the breast) and make a deep cut. If the meat is completely white, the chicken is done. Pink meat should be cooked a bit longer. It is fine (and actually good) if some juices still come out of the meat - this means your chicken is still moist! 

I recommend serving with brown or white rice, stirfried veggies of your choosing, and Poppyseed Muffins. 

Couple notes on this recipe: 

* The sauce is delicious poured over rice and stirfried veggies - be sure to fill a little creamer with some sauce and serve it alongside dinner. 

* The sauce also freezes marvelously and can be used in the future when repeating this recipe. As a bonus, all the oil and fat rises to the top once the sauce has chilled or frozen and can be easily scraped off - which is what I do. The sauce just gets healthier! 

* It may be easier to find Anise seeds instead of the Star Anise - in this case, substitute 2 tsp crushed anise seed for what is called for in this recipe. The link above gives more substitution options, as well. 

Enjoy!!

Week #3 Meal Plan

I made some pretty drastic re-arranges to last week's meal plan, and will probably do the same this week. So, instead of doing day by day, I'm just going to give you a list of the meals on the docket for the week and let you decide when you want to make them based on how each day goes. Cause, that's really what is sometimes more realistic. And the entire goal of this blog is to encourage and model attainable, yummy cooking.

The last couple weeks of new recipes has left me culinarily exhausted, so we're returning to some comfort foods this week. You'll see these A LOT over the next year.

With no further-ado, the meals for this week:

Chicken Divan
* A creamy chicken and broccoli casserole served over rice. This week, I'm trying to make my own sour cream and mayonnaise in order to make this Mid West comfort food a little more healthy.

Salad Night: Spinach Salad
* A bed of baby spinach topped with cranberries, walnut pieces, red onion, hardboiled egg and feta cheese served with a Pear Vinaigrette

Vegetarian Night: Enchilladas
* This week's version will be with homemade tortillas, homemade refried beans, homemade enchillada sauce, homemade salsa, and cheese (not homemade)

New York Style Hotdogs and Sweet Potato Fries
* Needing a comfort night - this should do the trick.

Taco Night
* This recipe will also use homemade tortillas, homemade refried beans, and homemade salsa. We'll do all the work of homemade tortillas and refried beans in one day (with probably an extra contingent to go in the freezer for upcoming weeks) and will subsequently save ourselves a lot of time in the future.


Note - I'm also going to start doing one big Ingredients List, and just * the items I have in my kitchen. My point in *ing the items in my kitchen is to illustrate how a well-stocked kitchen makes for less work when meal planning and grocery shopping. And to illustrate how many non-perishable items can be on hand in order to save you time when shopping. The cost is bigger up front, but as you go through items at different paces, you'll do fewer "big" grocery runs and more "weekly stock ups".

Ingredients List (sorted in order of above listed recipe)
1 lb chicken
1/2 - 1lb broccoli
cheddar cheese
* cream of chicken soup (if you have flour, butter, and chicken stock on hand - I'll do a recipe on making homemade cream of chicken soup)
sour cream (unless you also want to make your own)
mayonnaise (unless you also want to make your own)
lemon
* rice 
spinach
* cranberries
* walnuts
* feta cheese
* salad dressing of your choice
* flour
* salt
1 large can of canned whole tomatoes
1 bag dry kidney beans
lettuce
onion
*garlic
* homemade salsa/ingredients for homemade salsa
* taco seasoning
* ground beef
* chili powder
* hot dogs
buns
relish
ketchup 
If you want to make your own sour cream (I'm actually making Greek yogurt in lieu of sour cream):
* milk
* plain yogurt
If you want to make your own mayonnaise: 
* white vinegar
* egg
* oil
* salt
* salt
* pepper


There you have it, there you go - this week's grocery plan and list. We have fewer meals this week because I did a couple nights of make shift dinner last week (cereal one night, scrambled eggs another). We just moved to Seattle a few weeks ago, really, and sometimes settling in gets the best of me and dinner plans go out the window. Dinner plans will probably go out the window year round, but for this month - I have a very valid excuse.

Happy shopping!

ps - don't forget to get yourself a couple comfort items!

Potato Bacon Chowder

Chowder is relatively easy - take your favorite veggies, cook them til they are soft, add some milk, blend it all up and you have a chowder. Toss some saltine crackers on top or some seafood in the mix? You'll look like a pro.

The difference between cream of whatever vegetable soup and chowder is a little vague, and wikipedia was of no help. So, you can call this soup what you like - but Potato Bacon Chowder sounds yummy, and this was yummy. Enough said.

Potato Bacon Chowder 

4 cups potatoes, diced (peels left on) cooked or uncooked*
1 c chopped onion
2 Tbs butter (use oil to make vegan)
2 c Chicken Stock or milk (use veggie stock to make vegan)
(3-4 cups water if potatoes are uncooked)
6 strips of bacon, cooked and crumbled like bacon bits (omit to make vegan)


In a large saucepan, melt the butter. Add the onion and saute. If the potatoes are uncooked, add and stir for 1 minute. Add 3 cups water (possibly more) until potatoes are covered. Let simmer for 15 minutes, check periodically to make sure potatoes are still covered by water.

Add 2 cups Chicken stock or milk (milk will make for a creamier soup, and arguably make this more of a chowder). Using an immersion blender, blend your soup until it is creamy. Add the crumbled bacon. Serve immediately with warm bread.


Couple Notes:
* I used leftover potatoes (and incidentally a few carrots and bits of garlic) from the Roast Chicken with Root Veggies. I also had some leftover mashed potatoes from a bagel recipe (which I'll post soon) and some leftover baked potato and sweet potato from a meal a couple weeks ago that my kids just wouldn't eat. I had just tossed the leftovers into a ziploc bag and into the freezer. You'll find if you save bits of leftovers like these, you'll quickly come up with enough for a whole meal - no reason to throw away a whole meal just because it presents itself in pieces.

*  If you are making this vegan, add some salt and potentially some more veggies - carrots, garlic, sweet potato to give the soup some more flavor. The longer you saute them, the more flavor you'll have. Potatoes and veggie stock won't create the same result on their own. If you like veggie bacon, add that, too.

* If the soup is too thick, add some more liquid - milk, water, or chicken stock. If it's too thin, add some more raw veggies and let them cook. Blend again. I just don't recommend blending bacon - bacon is meant to be eaten in recognizable form.

Enjoy!