I've started a second blog - My Make Ahead Meals. I wanted a spot where I could keep our weeknight dinner ideas separate from the rest of my blogging stuff (not that I've been blogging that much lately, I know!). My menus will probably be posted over there now. This blog will still have recipes that don't fit my "make ahead" criteria, gardening stuff, and whatever life musings happen to occur to me.
Feel free to check it out if you're interested!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Easy low-fat white sauce
Once upon a time, I had an awesome fat-free white sauce recipe that I found in a Weight Watchers magazine. It involved toasted flour, chicken broth, and skim milk. That recipe disappeared eons ago. Well, actually, it was probably in that HUGE box of magazine clippings that my mom recently found in her basement - I told her to recycle them as quickly as possible because I didn't want to know what was in there!
Since then, I've been making my white sauce the old fashioned way - with tons of butter. Yum. Awesome for the taste buds, not so good for the waistline.
Then, a few weeks ago, I was making my Creamy Chicken Enchiladas for dinner when it suddenly hit me that the sauce, minus the chiles, is actually a super-simple, low fat (or fat free if you choose) white sauce recipe! Duh!
Here you go:
Easy Low-Fat White Sauce
1 cup chicken broth (or 1 cup water and 1 tsp. bouillon)
1/4 cup flour
1 cup evaporated milk
salt
pepper
In a small pot, bring chicken broth to a boil. Meanwhile, whisk the flour into the milk, eliminating any lumps. Once the chicken broth boils, SLOWLY whisk in the milk and flour mixture, stirring constantly. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened and bubbly. Season to taste with salt and pepper (or whatever your recipe requires).
If you're not so worried about calories, you can also use whole milk and it will come out just fine.
Enjoy!
Since then, I've been making my white sauce the old fashioned way - with tons of butter. Yum. Awesome for the taste buds, not so good for the waistline.
Then, a few weeks ago, I was making my Creamy Chicken Enchiladas for dinner when it suddenly hit me that the sauce, minus the chiles, is actually a super-simple, low fat (or fat free if you choose) white sauce recipe! Duh!
Here you go:
Easy Low-Fat White Sauce
1 cup chicken broth (or 1 cup water and 1 tsp. bouillon)
1/4 cup flour
1 cup evaporated milk
salt
pepper
In a small pot, bring chicken broth to a boil. Meanwhile, whisk the flour into the milk, eliminating any lumps. Once the chicken broth boils, SLOWLY whisk in the milk and flour mixture, stirring constantly. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened and bubbly. Season to taste with salt and pepper (or whatever your recipe requires).
If you're not so worried about calories, you can also use whole milk and it will come out just fine.
Enjoy!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Menu plan? What menu plan?
Yes, yes, it's been a couple of weeks since I posted a menu. I know you've all been waiting with bated breath... :-)
Quite frankly, I lost my menu planning mojo. I found myself staring at a freezer and pantry full of food and finding no inspiration. I didn't want to make ANYTHING. That's usually when I pull out the cookbooks and try to re-inspire myself, but, well, we've had nice weather so I went outside to play instead. In spite of that, we did pretty well. I picked dinner up on the way home a couple of times, but, for the most part, we were still eating at home.
This week, I'm striving to get back on track. I was lucky to be able to start out the week with a couple of leftovers meals, which helps!
Monday: leftover pizza with a salad (I've been making a ton of salad lately. It's been great!)
Tuesday: leftover cube steak, with baked potatoes and some kind of veggie. I haven't made cube steak for a while, but Friday I was inspired so I stopped and picked some up. I don't make it very often, because, well, it's not at all healthy (I basically chicken fry it), and it costs way too much for what it is, but it's one of hubby's favorites so I indulge him from time to time.
Wednesday: Chicken Cacciatore (we have leftover sauce in the freezer from last time, so this will be nice and easy!
Thursday: Tuna casserole
Friday: Crock pot pot roast (last time I made a roast in the crock pot, my daughter must have pushed a button and turned off the program, because I came home to a cold crock pot and a half-cooked roast. Must remember to push it farther back on the counter this time - she's big on button pushing!).
Have a great week, everyone, and remember to go to orgjunkie.com for all your menu planning needs!
Quite frankly, I lost my menu planning mojo. I found myself staring at a freezer and pantry full of food and finding no inspiration. I didn't want to make ANYTHING. That's usually when I pull out the cookbooks and try to re-inspire myself, but, well, we've had nice weather so I went outside to play instead. In spite of that, we did pretty well. I picked dinner up on the way home a couple of times, but, for the most part, we were still eating at home.
This week, I'm striving to get back on track. I was lucky to be able to start out the week with a couple of leftovers meals, which helps!
Monday: leftover pizza with a salad (I've been making a ton of salad lately. It's been great!)
Tuesday: leftover cube steak, with baked potatoes and some kind of veggie. I haven't made cube steak for a while, but Friday I was inspired so I stopped and picked some up. I don't make it very often, because, well, it's not at all healthy (I basically chicken fry it), and it costs way too much for what it is, but it's one of hubby's favorites so I indulge him from time to time.
Wednesday: Chicken Cacciatore (we have leftover sauce in the freezer from last time, so this will be nice and easy!
Thursday: Tuna casserole
Friday: Crock pot pot roast (last time I made a roast in the crock pot, my daughter must have pushed a button and turned off the program, because I came home to a cold crock pot and a half-cooked roast. Must remember to push it farther back on the counter this time - she's big on button pushing!).
Have a great week, everyone, and remember to go to orgjunkie.com for all your menu planning needs!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Garden 2010
I'm very excited about my garden this year. Actually, I'm very excited about my garden every spring, and then somewhere around July I lose steam and things fall apart. I'm going to do my darndest to not let that happen this year.
We have some new hardware additions this year that I'm especially excited about. Hubby got tired of me whining about having to drag the hose across the yard, and of having to put the hose away every time the mowed the lawn (because I hate dragging the hose across the yard so I never bothered to put it away), so he put an underground water line out to a spigot next to the garden gate. Voila - garden water!
One day I read an article somewhere about the convenience of having a sink in your garden, so that you can just wash the vegetables right there and not have to bring all the dirt and crud into your house. I thought that was a brilliant idea, so he built me one of those, too. He really went the extra mile, though, because he made sure it had a counter top, so I can trim everything up on the spot and toss the trimmings right into the compost pile! It turned out spectacularly, as you can see...
The bucket, which has since been replaced by a watering can, catches the water so we can put it right back into use on the garden and nothing is wasted. We went with a regular garden sprayer instead of a faucet. Now I just need to head to Goodwill and get a colander and cutting board to live on the shelf!
We're planting a bit differently this year. Since the tomatoes take over every year (literally - last year we had a 5-foot square hedge in the middle of the garden!), we're putting them in half-barrels this year. I also bought two potted blueberries that will be going into half barrels, just as soon as we get some soil to fill them. I've been wanting blueberries for a long, long time, but, outside of the garden itself, we have the worst soil in the universe, so this seemed like the best option.
I'm planting potatoes for the first time in about 10 years. Last time, I got a grand total of three potatoes. I hope it goes better this time! I bought a couple of planting bags for them - they're pretty cool, with side flaps that you can use to access the potatoes, allowing them to keep growing even as you harvest them.
Moving the tomatoes out frees up more space for other vegetables in the garden proper. So far, I have planted peas, onions, carrots, fennel, Swiss chard, lettuce, radishes, and spinach. Things are growing nicely so far. Still to come - beans (two kinds - yellow and green), zucchini, cucumbers (also two kinds, if last year's seeds are still viable), and pumpkins.
I also need to update my herb beds this year. Last year, we pulled out a couple of mistakes that were taking over everything - namely lemon balm and peppermint. They're still trying to take over everything, so I need to get some new things planted to help keep them back. I have basil and flat-leaf parsley started on a windowsill, and next month I'll head to the garden center and pick up a few more things. My rosemary is all but dead, so that needs to be replaced as well.
Lastly, I have a 5x3 trough of decent soil in the front yard that I need to fill with something. We pulled the roses out of it last year. I may let it lie this year and put raspberries on a trellis, or something like that, in it next year. That's originally where the blueberries were going to go but we decided it wasn't big enough to satisfy them. Decisions, decisions...
We have some new hardware additions this year that I'm especially excited about. Hubby got tired of me whining about having to drag the hose across the yard, and of having to put the hose away every time the mowed the lawn (because I hate dragging the hose across the yard so I never bothered to put it away), so he put an underground water line out to a spigot next to the garden gate. Voila - garden water!
One day I read an article somewhere about the convenience of having a sink in your garden, so that you can just wash the vegetables right there and not have to bring all the dirt and crud into your house. I thought that was a brilliant idea, so he built me one of those, too. He really went the extra mile, though, because he made sure it had a counter top, so I can trim everything up on the spot and toss the trimmings right into the compost pile! It turned out spectacularly, as you can see...
The bucket, which has since been replaced by a watering can, catches the water so we can put it right back into use on the garden and nothing is wasted. We went with a regular garden sprayer instead of a faucet. Now I just need to head to Goodwill and get a colander and cutting board to live on the shelf!
We're planting a bit differently this year. Since the tomatoes take over every year (literally - last year we had a 5-foot square hedge in the middle of the garden!), we're putting them in half-barrels this year. I also bought two potted blueberries that will be going into half barrels, just as soon as we get some soil to fill them. I've been wanting blueberries for a long, long time, but, outside of the garden itself, we have the worst soil in the universe, so this seemed like the best option.
I'm planting potatoes for the first time in about 10 years. Last time, I got a grand total of three potatoes. I hope it goes better this time! I bought a couple of planting bags for them - they're pretty cool, with side flaps that you can use to access the potatoes, allowing them to keep growing even as you harvest them.
Moving the tomatoes out frees up more space for other vegetables in the garden proper. So far, I have planted peas, onions, carrots, fennel, Swiss chard, lettuce, radishes, and spinach. Things are growing nicely so far. Still to come - beans (two kinds - yellow and green), zucchini, cucumbers (also two kinds, if last year's seeds are still viable), and pumpkins.
I also need to update my herb beds this year. Last year, we pulled out a couple of mistakes that were taking over everything - namely lemon balm and peppermint. They're still trying to take over everything, so I need to get some new things planted to help keep them back. I have basil and flat-leaf parsley started on a windowsill, and next month I'll head to the garden center and pick up a few more things. My rosemary is all but dead, so that needs to be replaced as well.
Lastly, I have a 5x3 trough of decent soil in the front yard that I need to fill with something. We pulled the roses out of it last year. I may let it lie this year and put raspberries on a trellis, or something like that, in it next year. That's originally where the blueberries were going to go but we decided it wasn't big enough to satisfy them. Decisions, decisions...
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Menu March 28 - April 2
Here's this week's menu:
Sunday: Pad Thai
Monday: Tamale Pie
Tuesday: Sausage and potato casserole (except I used turkey italian sausage instead of pork sausage. It was so good!).
Wednesday: Crockpot pork roast
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Buttermilk Chicken
enjoy your week!
Sunday: Pad Thai
Monday: Tamale Pie
Tuesday: Sausage and potato casserole (except I used turkey italian sausage instead of pork sausage. It was so good!).
Wednesday: Crockpot pork roast
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Buttermilk Chicken
enjoy your week!
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Menu Plan March 21 - 26
Ugh. I hate those weeks when we're gone more than we're home. This is our third week in a row like that. I'm running out of quick and easy menu ideas! I'm afraid this is going to end up being a chicken-heavy week...
Tonight: we had grilled pork chops, zucchini, and onions, and boiled potatoes with butter and chives (love having a plethora of chives right in my front yard!)
Tomorrow: meatloaf
Tuesday: crockpot orange chicken (I haven't found a recipe hubby will eat, so I cheated and bought the sauce at Panda Express!)
Wednesday: apricot chicken
Thursday: leftovers
Friday: potstickers (from a bag)
Have a fantastic week, and get yourself over to orgjunkie.com for hundreds of menu planning ideas every Monday!
Monday, March 15, 2010
Menu Plan March 15 - 19
Another busy week! I much prefer the weeks where we are at home more mornings than we are out - it makes it much easier for me to keep up with things!
Here's my plan for this week:
Today: crock pot beef stroganoff
Tomorrow: pineapple chicken
Wednesday: chili
Thursday: leftovers
Friday: chicken enchiladas
Enjoy your week! And please remember to visit orgjunkie.com for a wealth of menu planning ideas!
Crockpot Beef Stroganoff
I'm making this up as I go along today - hopefully it will turn out well!
1 pound stew beef, cut into bite-size pieces
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. Cajun seasoning
2 T. olive oil
1 onion, sliced
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
1 T. minced garlic
1 cup beef broth (I use Better than Bouillon)
2 T Worcestershire sauce
1 cup sour cream
Cooked egg noodles
In a frying pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Meanwhile, mix the flour, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, and Cajun seasoning. Dredge the meat in the flour and saute in the oil until browned.
Layer the onions, mushrooms, and garlic in the crock pot. Put browned beef on top, then add the Worcestershire sauce over all. While the frying pan is still hot, add the beef broth and stir to loosen up the browned bits on the bottom. Pour into crock pot. Stir to combine all.
Cook on low for six hours. Just before serving, stir in sour cream and heat till warmed through. Serve over noodles.
Edit: I originally wrote this recipe to have two cups of liquid. It was way, way too much - it hadn't even finished reducing on the stove by the time the noodles cooked! So I'm cutting out the water and just using beef broth - and I may even reduce the amount of that next time. But there will definitely be a next time - this was full of beefy goodness!
1 pound stew beef, cut into bite-size pieces
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. Cajun seasoning
2 T. olive oil
1 onion, sliced
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
1 T. minced garlic
1 cup beef broth (I use Better than Bouillon)
2 T Worcestershire sauce
1 cup sour cream
Cooked egg noodles
In a frying pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Meanwhile, mix the flour, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, and Cajun seasoning. Dredge the meat in the flour and saute in the oil until browned.
Layer the onions, mushrooms, and garlic in the crock pot. Put browned beef on top, then add the Worcestershire sauce over all. While the frying pan is still hot, add the beef broth and stir to loosen up the browned bits on the bottom. Pour into crock pot. Stir to combine all.
Cook on low for six hours. Just before serving, stir in sour cream and heat till warmed through. Serve over noodles.
Edit: I originally wrote this recipe to have two cups of liquid. It was way, way too much - it hadn't even finished reducing on the stove by the time the noodles cooked! So I'm cutting out the water and just using beef broth - and I may even reduce the amount of that next time. But there will definitely be a next time - this was full of beefy goodness!
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Menu Plan March 7 - 12
I didn't do a menu plan last week. We did ok in spite of that. I didn't realize until Wednesday that all we had in the freezer were seven different kinds of sausage and some chicken, though, so I did some weekday shopping! We ended up with:
Monday: Chicken Cacciatore
Tuesday: Turkey tenderloin baked in cranberry sauce
Wednesday: Burger King (I discovered the meat issue too late to do anything about it)
Thursday: BBQ baked chicken (because I didn't think of it on Wednesday, LOL!)
Friday: Potstickers (from a bag - we like the Ling Ling brand)
I've done my shopping and we are now stocked up! This is going to be a VERY busy week - far busier than I like. If we stick to our schedule and do both of our regular extra-curricular activities (story time and swimming), we'll be out four mornings this week. Fortunately, one of those mornings is for my department meeting at work, which means I get to come home early that day, but still... So I've taken some time this evening to do a little prep work in anticipation of the busyness.
First, I took two pounds of ground beef out of the freezer and cooked it up with onions and garlic. One half I left like that for spaghetti this week and a casserole next week (half a pound each), and the other half I seasoned for tacos. At the moment, I'm waiting for water to boil for pasta for tomorrow night's casserole. I should have done that while the beef cooked, but I forgot!
Here's what's on tap for this week:
Today: pad Thai (recipe from Hungry Monkey)
Tomorrow: Tuna casserole
Tuesday: grilled chicken and potatoes
Wednesday: Tacos
Thursday: leftovers
Friday: spaghetti
Enjoy your week! And don't forget to visit orgjunkie.com for tons of great menu planning ideas!
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Buying Local
Over the past couple of years, I have made a gradual effort to incorporate organic foods into our lives. We're not all organic, not by a long shot (and never would be, unless Frito Lay starts making organic Doritos, LOL!). But, when possible, I try to buy organic fruits and veggies, if they look like good quality and there isn't a ginormous price difference. I do find that the organic produce I find in my regular grocery store tends to go bad a lot quicker than the conventional stuff. I'm not sure why that is, but I have to be careful not to buy more than we'll use in a week.
I also will buy organic grain products - cereal, rice, oatmeal, etc. - when I find them. As for meat and dairy, a friend tipped me off a while back that, at our local Fred Meyer, when the organic stuff gets close to its sell by date, the price is slashed dramatically. So when I find those beloved "orange tags", I snag them. We end up getting organic milk about half the time (though I do pay full price every week for my daughter to drink organic whole milk), and the occasional pound of ground beef, that way.
I started buying the organic eggs about six months ago - I was buying the cage free ones, anyway, and the organic ones were only about 70 cents more a dozen, so I figured, what the heck? And now, apparently, I can't go back, because a few weeks ago I was at a different grocery store, and they didn't have organic eggs, and I bought regular ones and they were NASTY.
That said, I have never made much effort to buy local food. I've almost always had a vegetable garden of some sort, and I am the occasional farmer's market shopper (mostly during strawberry season). But I never really thought about it much, or made an effort to seek it out. Over the past year that, too, has changed. Last spring, a CSA opened up down the street from my office. I couldn't convince hubby to sign up, but I did take advantage of their farm store, and bought produce from them nearly every week over the summer. This fall, they also started carrying local honey from a farmer in the next town, and I coughed up the $20 to buy a jug of it. I am so glad I did - the difference between that and the Costco honey I've been buying all these years is like night and day!
For the past eight years, I've been driving by a local butcher/smokehouse about a mile from my house. I've seen them at the farmer's market in the past, but always thought they just did bacon and sausage. Then I did a little research and found out that they also sell beef, pork, and buffalo. On Friday, my daughter and I stopped in to check them out. Turns out all the meat is raised about 20 miles from us, and it's hormone-free, mostly antibiotic-free (they give the cows antibiotics when they are first born), and grass fed beef. I was afraid the price would be completely unreasonable, but it turned out that it is the same or less than the grocery store where I usually buy my meat (depending on the cut)! I was so excited. I bought a roast, some pork chops, and 10 pounds of ground beef to try, plus some pepper bacon (which was divine - we had it for breakfast this morning). They threw in some buffalo sausage for free, since I was a first time customer. Can't wait to try that!
So there I go, expanding my horizons again. Now, I would love to find a local source of dairy products and chicken. I can get local eggs, but they're $6 a dozen so I just keep buying the organic ones at the store...
I also will buy organic grain products - cereal, rice, oatmeal, etc. - when I find them. As for meat and dairy, a friend tipped me off a while back that, at our local Fred Meyer, when the organic stuff gets close to its sell by date, the price is slashed dramatically. So when I find those beloved "orange tags", I snag them. We end up getting organic milk about half the time (though I do pay full price every week for my daughter to drink organic whole milk), and the occasional pound of ground beef, that way.
I started buying the organic eggs about six months ago - I was buying the cage free ones, anyway, and the organic ones were only about 70 cents more a dozen, so I figured, what the heck? And now, apparently, I can't go back, because a few weeks ago I was at a different grocery store, and they didn't have organic eggs, and I bought regular ones and they were NASTY.
That said, I have never made much effort to buy local food. I've almost always had a vegetable garden of some sort, and I am the occasional farmer's market shopper (mostly during strawberry season). But I never really thought about it much, or made an effort to seek it out. Over the past year that, too, has changed. Last spring, a CSA opened up down the street from my office. I couldn't convince hubby to sign up, but I did take advantage of their farm store, and bought produce from them nearly every week over the summer. This fall, they also started carrying local honey from a farmer in the next town, and I coughed up the $20 to buy a jug of it. I am so glad I did - the difference between that and the Costco honey I've been buying all these years is like night and day!
For the past eight years, I've been driving by a local butcher/smokehouse about a mile from my house. I've seen them at the farmer's market in the past, but always thought they just did bacon and sausage. Then I did a little research and found out that they also sell beef, pork, and buffalo. On Friday, my daughter and I stopped in to check them out. Turns out all the meat is raised about 20 miles from us, and it's hormone-free, mostly antibiotic-free (they give the cows antibiotics when they are first born), and grass fed beef. I was afraid the price would be completely unreasonable, but it turned out that it is the same or less than the grocery store where I usually buy my meat (depending on the cut)! I was so excited. I bought a roast, some pork chops, and 10 pounds of ground beef to try, plus some pepper bacon (which was divine - we had it for breakfast this morning). They threw in some buffalo sausage for free, since I was a first time customer. Can't wait to try that!
So there I go, expanding my horizons again. Now, I would love to find a local source of dairy products and chicken. I can get local eggs, but they're $6 a dozen so I just keep buying the organic ones at the store...
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