Dinner this Week - 01.04.15

I am so excited to be back to a schedule this week! While the holidays and some time off have been fabulous, it will be nice for life to return to normal, whatever that is.

One of the big adventures of the week was the death of our downstairs chest freezer. A morning of cold sorting, discarding and rearranging ensued. The bright side is I now have a very clear idea of what we have to move forward planning the coming week's meals to utilize stores and cut the grocery budget for awhile. Since we have a smaller chest freezer on the main level, we have opted to not replace it at this time. All in all, the process made me feel a bit like a hoarder. Replacing the storage space will just allow for storing more food than we really need to have on hand at one time. I like to preserve fresh produce, especially fruit for pies, crisps and smoothies, as well as summer's sweet corn and tomatoes whenever said things are fresh and available affordably, but I've maybe gotten a bit carried away the last few years. How much freezer storage do you have? How full is it? We were lucky, my in-laws were only using about a quarter of their freezer so my three laundry tubs of frozen fruits and veggies are hanging out there until we can get our food supply under control.

One last note on the freezer thing ... fortunately G was in the basement when the freezer made the clunky sound of death. We were able to respond immediately without any concern for the safety of the food in the freezer. If this happens to you, only food that is still firm is safe to return to the freezer. Food that is 40° or colder can be refrigerated and used within standard refrigeration time frames. Food that has thawed and been warmer than 40° should be discarded. Your safety is more important than whatever the value of the food lost.

Finally, you'll notice we eat a lot of oranges these days. Not only are they in season, but we have a half a case to work through. It is a common fundraiser for local FFA chapters to sell fruit and this year we got oranges plus a few apples. Luckily, I knew that I had plenty of apples from a summer pick and freeze and had not ordered a case of apples to freeze as I have the last few years. :)

Sunday

Garlic Butter Baked Crab Legs

Farro with Pistachios and Herbs (I used a wild rice blend and a dried herb blend as they were in my pantry.)

Steamed Cauliflower

Oranges

Monday

Chili and Cornbread

Oranges

Tuesday

Leftover Chili and Cornbread

Oranges

Wednesday

Pork Chops with Mushroom Pan Gravy

Leftover Rice with Pistachios

Steamed Broccoli

Apple Wedges

Thursday

Breakfast for Dinner

Scrambled Eggs

Bacon

Toast

Oranges

Friday

Chicken Fajitas

Oranges

Saturday

Dinner out or takeout

Have a great week!

Dinner This Week - 09.28.14

Last week included a trip out of town for work and a trip out of town for fun so dinner plans were nonexistent. This week is a little crazy in our world, too. Monday is my sorority meeting. I'm super excited to be back advising the professional sorority of which I was in as an undergraduate student after a break. Sigma Alpha is a tremendous opportunity for young women with a heart for agriculture. I'm even more excited that for tomorrow night's sisterhood event, they opted for yoga! I need it this week. :)

Tuesday is a big work day. The Nebraska Department of Roads is building a bridge about 2 1/2 hours from the office with a lot of innovative technology meant to reduce the time and cost of building a bridge on a low-volume road. I'm hosting an open house for roads professionals at the construction site. In addition, we are broadcasting a live web cam with time lapse photography that has been a bit of a headache this week. Fortunately, we installed with time to fix before too much happens on-site.

The middle of the week is quiet, which is good as Friday is a licensure exam for my job ... a six-hour exam with a six inch stack of study materials to go with it.

The rest of the family's schedule is normal this week except that harvest is ramping up and and G is starting to get busier at work, too.

Dinner this week will hinge on our ability to plan and execute! Here goes ...

Sunday

Beef stew with fresh potatoes and carrots, garlic bread, watermelon, and apple crisp

Monday

Dinner out!

Tuesday

Breakfast for Dinner - Scrambled eggs and toast or French toast or Apple pancakes

Wednesday

Grilled bacon-wrapped sirloin filets, grill-roasted broccoli, fruit, and garlic bread

Thursday

Greek chicken, veggie TBA, watermelon

Friday

Dinner out!

Saturday

Sausage, potato and green bean skillet dinner and fruit

A new favorite breakfast at our house

Awhile back, I went on a canning spree.  I do this every so often.  This time, I happened to be home with a three day weekend when one of the local supermarkets had their 10# flats of strawberries on sale for $10.  I thought to myself, jam sounds fun, I'm home this weekend, and we only have two weddings and a quilt show. :)

What in my head was a little project, evolved into cleaning out the washroom/pantry, three trips to said supermarket and over fifty jars of product.  Yes, fifty!  In the process, I cleaned out my stash of previously canned stuff and found about a dozen pint jars of apples.

When it came time to make breakfast this morning, Anne wanted pancakes.  Anne wants pancakes every morning, but since we had them yesterday, I didn't feel obligated to make them again.  I negotiated an apple coffee cake.  To cut down on fat, I searched for buttermilk apple coffee cake and found a recipe from Cooking Light. I made a few modifications which comprise the recipe below.  The original is linked below.

Buttermilk Apple Coffee Cake

Cake:

• 1 1/2 cups thinly sliced peeled Granny Smith apple
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
• Cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. To prepare the cake, combine the first 4 ingredients in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook 5 minutes or until syrupy, stirring frequently; cool.
3. Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Combine granulated sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well-blended; add egg and extracts, beating well. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture; beat well after each addition.
4. Fold the batter and apples together.
5. Spoon the batter into an 8-inch round cake pan coated with cooking spray.  Sprinkle topping.  Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until cake begins to pull away from sides of pan. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
6. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Original recipe from Cooking Light, April 2001