Week One Meal Planning cont....

3.      Potato Kielbasa Skillet:  (Taste of Home Most Requested Recipes)

What you will need:

-          1 pound red potatoes, cubed

-          3 Tablespoons water

-          ¾ pound smoked kielbasa or polish sausage, cut into ¼-inch slices

-          ½ C. chopped onion

-          1 T. olive oil

-          2 T. brown sugar

-          2 T. cider vinegar

-          1 T. Dijon mustard ( I just had regular mustard)

-          ½ tsp. dried thyme

-          ¼ tsp pepper

-          4 C. fresh baby spinach

-          5 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled (I used turkey bacon)

Preparing the Potatoe Kielbasa:

1.       Place potatoes and water in microwave-safe dish. Cover and microwave on high for 4 minutes or until tender; drain.

2.       In a large skillet, saute kielbasa and onion in oil until onion is tender. Add potatoes; saute 3-5 minutes longer or until kielbasa and potatoes are lightly browned ( I think I did this a little too long. The potatoes werent quite soft after microwaving so I sauted the kielbasa and potatoes a little longer to soften the potatoes a little more).

3.       Combine the brown sugar, vinegar, mustard, thyme and pepper; stir into skiller. Bring to a boil (it didnt have enough water in it for it to boil for me). Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered for 2-3 minutes or until heated through. Add spinach and bacon; cook and stir until spinach is wilted. (makes 4 servings).

Suprisingly, we both thought this one was really good. Ben actually cooked if for breakfast a couple of mornings; he just put it in a frying pan to heat it and then put it over some eggs. Ben gave this one a 8.5 I gave it an 8.  

4.      Turkey Meatloaf (Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book 15^th edition)

What you will need:

-          1 T. olive oil

-          1 C. finely chopped fresh mushrooms

-          ¾ C. finely chopped onion (1 large)

-          ½ C. finely chopped green sweet pepper ( I just used a whole pepper)

-          3 cloves garlic, minced

-          1 C. soft bread crumbs ( I used gluten free Udi bread from sprouts)

-          ¼ C. ketchup ( I put a little extra ketchup in)

-          1 egg, lightly beaten

-          ½ tsp. salt

-          ¼ tsp. black pepper

-          1 ½ pounds uncooked ground turkey or chicken (I used turkey)

-          ½ C. ketchup

-          2 T. apricot preserves

Preparing the Turkey Meatloaf:

1.       Preheat oven to 350. Line a 13x9 baking dish with foil; set aside. In a large skillet heat oil over medium heat. Add mushrooms, onion, sweet pepper, and garlic; cook about 5 minutes or until tender.

2.       In a large bowl combine the cooked vegetables, bread crumbs, the ¼ C. ketchup, the egg, salt and black pepper. Add ground turkey; mix well. In the prepared pan, lightly pat turkey mixture into a 9x5 in. loaf. Bake for 45 minutes.

3.       Meanwhile, in a small bowl stir together the ½ C. ketchup and the apricot preserves. Spoon over turkey loaf. Bake for 15-25 minutes more or until juices run clear.

4.       Let meat loaf stand for 10 minutes. Using two spatulas, transfer loaf to a serving platter

Ben and I both liked this one. It seemed a littler healthier than your traditional meatloaf and I liked the veggies in it. We both gave it an 8.

(Sorry, dont have a picture for this one!)

5.      Corn Beef and Cabbage (Heather’s version)

What You Will Need:

• 10 baby red potatoes, quartered

·         6 large carrots, peeled and cut into matchstick pieces

• 1 large onion, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 celery stalks
• 4 cups water
• 1 (4 pound) corned beef brisket with spice packet
• 1/2 head cabbage, coarsely chopped
• 1 ½ tsp garlic
• 1 T. sugar
• 1 T. cider vinegar
• About 3 T. prepared mustard
• About ¼ C. brown sugar

Preparing the Corned Beef and Cabbage:

1.       Cut the fat off the corned beef as best you can, rinse it and stick it in the bottom of the crockpot. Place the carrots, potatoes, celery and onion on top of the corned beef.

2.       Mix together water, garlic, sugar, vinegar, and spice packet in a separate bowl and pour it over everything in the crockpot. Make sure beef is covered by water and set the cooker on Low for 8 hours.

3.       I Cooked the brisket for about 7 ½ hours, took it out and put it on a pan. Then I spread mustard on top of meat and sprinkled brown sugar over top of mustard. Cook meat at 350 for 30 minutes more.

4.       At the same time you take the meat out, cut the cabbage up into bite size pieces and put in in the slow cooker on top of the other vegetables for about another 45 minutes-hour.

I made this for Ben and I on St. Patrick’s Day because Ben informed, as I was unaware, that it is a “MUST DO” for St. Patrick’s Day! So we took it over to Gene and Annie’s for dinner and it was a really fun night! As some of you may already know… I love traditions! I think having traditions each year always gives you fun little things to look forward to throughout the year and creates great memories. So this recipe of corned beef and cabbage will probably make it onto the list of our traditions for St. Patrick’s Day. We loved the recipe! We both gave it a 9.5.

The best part about it… I made enough so that we had leftovers, and we made Reuben sandwiches for lunch the next day! Mmm Mmm GoodJ

Breakfast: I don’t always cook breakfast for Ben and I. I would love to, but since it’s just the two of us normally I make eggs in some fashion, quinoa, or we just eat whatever we have around. (I will share some of my quinoa recipes with you soon! They are easy, delicious and good for you!) But since it was St. Patrick’s Day, it seemed like a perfect day to make Saturday morning pancakes! And Ben suggested we make them greenJ  

1.      Homemade Old Fashioned pancakes: Allrecipes.com

What you will need:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted ( I used 2 T. olive oil and 1 T. butter)
• If it’s St. Patrick’s Day… add some green food coloring to be more festiveJ

Preparing your pancakes:

1.       In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix until smooth.

2.       Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

We didn’t have any syrup, so we decided to make our own…

2.      Homemade Berry Syrup: Allrecipes.com

What you will Need:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 1/2 cups mashed unsweetened fruit (I used mixed berried from Costco)

Directions

1. In a saucepan, bring sugar and water to a boil. Gradually add strawberries; return to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve over pancakes. (To thicken it a little bit I mixed a little bit of gluten free all-purpose flour and water together and mixed that in with the syrup).

This syrup actually worked great later on… I stored it in a glass container in the refrigerator and when I made the plain cheesecake and Ben and I were looking for something to put on the cheesecake it worked perfectly! It was delicious.

3.      Homemade maple syrup: Allrecipes.com

What You Will Need:

• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup (I used agave nectar since we didn’t have corn syrup; it is also possible to do the recipe without either of these, it just doesn’t turn out as thick)
• 1/2 teaspoon maple flavoring (didn’t have maple flavoring)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparing the Syrup:

1.       In a saucepan, combine the sugars, water and corn syrup; bring to a boil over medium heat. Boil for 7 minutes or until slightly thickened. Remove from the heat; stir in maple flavoring and vanilla. Cool for 15 minutes. Serve over pancakes, waffles or French toast.

The pancakes and syrups turned out great! We made some with blueberries, some with chocolate chips and some plain. The plain and blueberry were really good with the berry syrup. And since I can remember I have always had my pancakes with peanut butter and syrup, so that is how I had the plain and chocolate chip pancakes and they were delicious! They were not too thin and not too thick. Something I like to add to the batter is a little bit of cinnamon; it gives it a really nice flavor. Ben gave it an 8.25, I gave them an 8.5.

It might be hard to get past the green... but they tasted delicious!

Dessert:

As most of you know Ben and I love desserts! (Mostly ice cream!) So sometimes if we are craving something sweet, I will make something for us and this week it happened to be cheesecakeJ (The recipe I used is posted in one of the previous blogs).

Meal Planning Week 1 continued

2.      Vermicelli (Spaghetti) with Sausage and Spinach (Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, 15^th addition):

What You Will Need:

-          1 Pound cooked smoked sausage, halved lengthwise and cut into ½ inch slices ( I used Kielbasa)

-          ¾ C chopped onion (1 large)

-          2 Large cloves garlic, chopped

-          2 tsp. olive oil

-          2 14-oz cans reduced sodium chicken broth

-          ¼ C. water

-          8 oz packaged dried vermicelli or angel hair pasta, broken in half (we used regular gluten free spaghetti because that is what we had)

-          1 9-oz package fresh prewashed baby spinach

-          ¼ tsp. black pepper

-          1/3 C. whipping cream

Preparing the Pasta:

1.       In a 4-qt. pan cook sausage, onion, and garlic in hot oil over medium-high heat until sausage is lightly browned and onion is tender.

2.       Add broth and water to pan; bring to boiling. Add pasta (gluten free pasta may take longer to cook and may also cause the sauce to thicken even more, but that is ok!)  cook until pasta is soft, stirring frequently. Add spinach and pepper; cook about 1 minute more or until spinach wilts. Stir in cream. Serve immediately. (We didn’t eat this right away and it was fine using it as leftovers. I was worried about the spinach, but it turned out great).

Ben and I both gave it a 7.5. It was good, but not our favorite; it was very similar to alfredo pasta.

Week ONE Meal Planning

1.      Donna Lasagna (Taste of Home Most Requested Recipes cookbook)

What you will need:

-          1 pound lean ground beef ( I used ground turkey)

-          8 oz mild or hot Italian sausage ( I used kielbasa because that is what we had)

-          1 can (15 oz) tomato puree

-          2 cans (6 oz each) tomato paste

-          3 T. dried parsley flakes, divided

-          2 T. sugar

-          1 T. dried basil

-          1-1/2 tsp. salt, divided

-          1 garlic clove, minced

-          2 eggs, lightly beaten

-          3 C. (24oz) cream style cottage cheese ( I used small curd and it worked fine)

-          ½ C. grated parmesan cheese ( I used a blend of American cheese from Costco and a little salt)

-          ½ tsp. pepper

-          9 lasagna noodles, cooked and drained ( I used the gluten free kind from sprouts that you do not need to cook)

-          4 C. (16 oz) shredded mozzarella cheese

( I also made a box focaccia bread and that went really well with it!)

Preparing the Lasagna:

1.       In a large pan, cook the beef and sausage over medium heat until no longer pink; drain. Add the tomato puree, tomato paste, 1 T. parsley, sugar, basil, 1 tsp. salt and garlic. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes ( the sauce was VERY thick, so I kept adding water to thin it out and it still didn’t really boil. I added probably an extra 1 ½ Cup water).

2.       In a large bowl, combine the eggs, cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese, pepper, and remaining parsley and salt.

3.       Spread ½ cup meat mixture in a greased 9x13 baking dish. Layer with three noodles, a third of the cheese mixture, 1-1/3 cup mozzarella cheese and a third of remaining meat sauce. Repeat layers twice.

4.       Bake at 350 for 1 hour. Let stand 15 minutes before cutting.

5.       Makes 12 servings

This was probably our favorite of all the five meals for this week. Ben gave it an 8.25 and I gave it a 9.

Found this Gluten Free Focaccia Mix and it went perfectly with the Lasagna!

Weekly Meal Planning... Gluten Free:)

March 29, 2012

Don’t you hate it when food goes bad? Well, I do. It literally makes me happy when Ben or I finish off food that is about to go bad. So you can imagine the panic that arises when we get called to a storm and there is a bunch of food in the refrigerator that cannot possibly all be SHOVED into the freezer! (So PANIC is a bit extreme, and it really hasn’t been a big deal for us so far… but for dramatic effect it is panic that sets in).

So typically the way it works when we get called is that we have literally NO warning that we are leaving ahead of time; we get a call, we pack and we leave. However, when Ben went to his work conference a few weeks ago, he let me know about 3 days ahead of time that we were heading to Dallas once the conference ended. So I figured I would scrounge around and make meals with whatever we had in our refrigerator, that way we could bring those along to eat in the hotels. It was a win-win situation… no food went bad AND we had some homemade meals to take along to the hotels with us! Well, it worked out GREAT! I cooked the meals, packed them in Tupperware in a cooler and we headed to Dallas! We had meals for about a week while in Dallas, and although we love chicken sausages… having them EVERY night is a bit excessive and not nearly as exciting as homemade meals. And when I asked Ben what he wanted for dinner he actually had OPTIONS to choose fromJ!

Well, this sparked a new idea in my head… pre-made homemade meals for Ben and I!  This is what my plan was: I would plan about 5-6 meals for the week, (which since there is only two of us eating ends up lasting us about 2 weeks) we would buy groceries for the meals, and then I would take a day (or less) to cook all of the meals. That way if we got sent out to a storm we could just pack up the meals and take them with us and not have to waste food or worry about trying to stay up all night cooking before we head out for the storm (which has never actually happened, we just shove everything in the freezer, bring whatever we can with us, and hope that everything we leave behind is non-perishable since we never know when we will be back!).

This idea worked VERY well for us. The nice thing was that we had a variety of different meals to choose from each night, it was all homemade, and I didn’t have to spend a bunch of time each night cooking!

I decided this might be what I try to do when we have kids… (I also might decide that I was CRAZY to even try this idea once we have kids) but I love cooking and having home cooked meals not only because it saves money, but they also taste SO much better! I also realize that if I am cooking every single day I will miss out on quality time spent with Ben and our kids. It seems like it would be such a time saver to have all the meals already cooked! So this is my idea for all the mom’s/ dad’s/cooks out there to try:

Try taking just one day out of the week (get someone to watch the kids for the day if you have them) and cooking about 5 or 6 meals. Sure, it does sound like a lot of cooking in one day but the benefits far outway that negative: The rest of the week you get to just relax, hang out with your family, and when it comes to dinner time you just pop the prepared food in the microwave, on the stove or in the oven to heat it up and it’s ready in 5 minutes! Sounds like a pre-bought microwave dinner doesn’t it? YES… BUT it’s homemade, it’s allergy safe, it’s healthier and you know EXACTLY what is in it! PLUS you don’t have to cook EVERY DAY and you still get homemade meals every night. Having dinner as a family is one of the most important things you can do as a parent and spouse and what better way than to have delicious home cooked food your family LOVES?!

So my plan is to post the weekly meal plans that I am planning each week and give you feedback for how the food was and what changes I would make. (However, when Ben and I are on the road the options are obviously MUCH more limited… so we will see what happens during that time). Feel free to try some of them out, make all the same meals or pick and choose the ones that sound good to you!

TIPS for how to begin this meal planning:

1.       Make sure you look at what is on sale before you meal plan! If there are sale items, use those to cook with… make meals based off of the meats and items that are cheaper that week.  

2.       Cook things that have similar ingredients. For instance, the meals I will be sharing with you for this week have kielbasa sausage in them. Costco sells the sausage in about a 3lb. package, so I made three VERY different and unique meals and used all of the kielbasa. You don’t want to buy a bunch of groceries and only end up using SOME of each of them! Then you get into the big problem we have already talked about… WASTE.

3.       Be creative and use what you already have! If you notice something is on the brink of going bad… try to find a recipe that you could whip up quickly and put it to use! There is always something you can make and the people around you won’t be upset that you are experimenting and making more delicious meals for them to enjoy!:) Food goes bad faster than you think! It is so easy to forget about it as it gets slowly shoved back in the refrigerator and then you begin to smell something funky every time you open the refrigerator and realize it is coming from the green thing that used to be food in the way back. Wasted food= wasted money that could have been saved or better spent… so make sure to be smart and save that money!

4.       Don’t be afraid if something doesn’t turn out! I am speaking to myself on this one, and Ben can testify to its truth! Sometimes I get so flustered, frustrated or worried thinking that what I am making is not going to turn out. The fact is that it’s going to happen on occasion and that is ok, it is all part of cooking and learning! It’s ok if something does not turn out how you’d hoped; you can learn from it and either fix the mistakes for next time, or decide that maybe that recipe is one that you were not very fond of.

5.       Try things that you have never tried before. Mix it up, you may pleasantly surprise yourself! Some of the things that have tasted the best are the things that I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out or was afraid that it was going to taste horrible.

6.       Set aside a time for cooking and enjoy that time! Whether you set aside an entire day, or just a few hours… use it and soak up every moment. I don’t know if cooking relaxes you, flusters you, stresses you out, etc. But try to make it a time that you take for yourself and a time that even relaxes you. I like to turn on some music when I’m cooking in the kitchen. Do whatever YOU enjoy doing to make that a time to re-energize and motivate yourself! Sometimes praying or talking with God as you cook, even asking him for help (maybe you don’t really know how to cook and you feel like it NEVER turns out the way you hoped; God can walk you through it and give you the confidence to achieve and succeed. Talk to him as you cook, ask him questions… it may sound silly, but he is always right there with us, he ENJOYS spending time with you, and he loves to help you even in the little minor things that may seem silly!) You may feel like you are so busy to set aside a chunk of time, but in the end it will be about the same amount as you would have spent if you had cooked every night for dinner.

7.       Ask friends for ideas and recipes they’ve tried and loved! You don’t have to stress yourself out trying to search and come up with different recipes all the time! That is what recipe books, friends, and GOOGLE can be used for! Many of the recipes I have tried have come from searching on Google, which usually eventually takes me to allrecipes.com (so you could skip a step and go straight there. You just search exactly what you want to make and it will give you a list of different ways to make it and reviews from the people who have made it already).

8.       Watch cooking shows! I have to admit, I am not much of a T.V. watcher… I highly prefer the T.V. to be off most of the time. However, cooking shows really do help teach you more about cooking and gives you great ideas! If you don’t have a schedule that allows you to watch cooking shows you enjoy, I found a website www.laurainthekitchen.com and it is great! She has a HUGE variety of recipes on her website and no commercials! Most of her shows are between 10-20 minutes. You just click to view all recipes and then almost all of her recipes come with a video link to youtube and you can watch her make the recipe any time you want. Her cooking is simple, easy to follow, and delicious!