CityMama™

Let's Meal Plan Together for the Week of 1/31

I desperately need to be inspired. Please share what you are cooking this week (doesn't have to be a week's worth of meals, just a dish or two) and help me end my week and, perhaps, kick-start next week!

Also, I know I need to start cooking double meals and freezing one for when the Bundle is due (in about a month--yikes!). What are your favorite freezable meals? Soups? Stews? Casseroles?  Recipes or links most welcome.

• Monday-Ziti with vodka sauce, green salad (leftover barbecued salmon and halibut for J.)
• Tuesday—White Turkey Chili with fixins
• Wednesday—Pan-fried Korean dumplings, rice, cucumber salad, maybe some grilled chicken too?

And then?

 

Let's Meal Plan Together for the week of 1/24

This is kind of a topsy-turvy week, so I'm not planning a full week of meals. Which feels kind of nice.

• Monday—Meatloaf, rice, and salad. HOWEVER, The Bundle has been jonesing for chicken wings so J. is going to pick up some wangz at Wingstop on his way home. I HEART PREGNANCY!
• Tuesday—Work dinner, kids will have dinner with Tata. J. will likely be eating moar meatloaf.
• Wednesday—Will be coming back from an all-day work meeting so will likely pick something up on my way home
• Thursday—Fred's Steak (a local legend), baked potatoes, and this amazing-sounding pancetta and parsley salad (from one of my favorite restaurants/chefs)
• Friday—Celebrating Glennia's 50th birthday!
• Saturday & Sunday—As usual, I'm not sure yet.

What do you have going on this week?

Turkey, Green Chili, Hominy Chili

My friend Alisyn made this chili on New Year's Eve, and even after (the baby and) I spent a solid hour plowing through all the appetizers on her buffet table, I had to have a bowl of this delicious chili.

When we were invited to a chili cook-off, I knew this was the chili I wanted to bring. Alisyn gave me the general ingredients, but she just wings it, and so did I.  You can, too.

TURKEY, GREEN CHILI AND HOMINY CHILI

Note to self: Eat more hominy. It's so satisfyingly good.

• olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 2 lbs of ground turkey
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tbsps ground cumin (or more or less to your liking)
• 1 tbsp dried oregano (crush between your fingers when adding to pot)
• 1-2 tsps ground chipotle (I like the flavor of this in chili, but you can omit)
• 2-4 ounce cans of diced green fire-roasted chilis
• 2 cans of hominy, drained
• a quart-sized box of chicken broth
• sea salt and fresh-ground pepper to taste

Pour a couple 3 glugs of olive oil into a Dutch oven and heat over medium heat. Add garlic and onions and saute for a few minutes until onions start to become translucent. Add turkey and bay leaves, and brown it, crumbling it as you stir. Add the cumin, oregano, and chipotle pepper. Stir for a few minutes then add the chilis, hominy and enough broth to cover everything, you might not use the entire box. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Check for salt and pepper. It's done in about 20 minutes. Serves 8.

Garnish with any of the following:

• fresh cilantro leaves
• chopped onion
• Mexican crema or sour cream
• lime wedges
• shredded asadero or crumbled cotija cheese
• slices of fresh jalapeño

Meal Planning Monday for the week of 1/17

My meal plan this week is informed by my feeling a litle dodgy (thanks a lot, Baby Bundle!). I was looking forward to starting a period of vegetarian eating, but that's out the window until I feel like my body can handle it. Instead, this week is about comfort.

When I'm feeling terrible, it's hard to accomodate J.'s preferred Cross-Fit/Caveman Diet low-carb way of eating (and mine, too, when not pg), so I just try to make sure I have lots of salad fixins on hand. (And cheese, canned tuna and hard-boiled eggs, too.) If he doesn't want to eat what I'm making for dinner, he has salad-y options.

• Monday—Pasta with peas from Depression Cooking, salad. If you haven't ever watched Depression Cooking on YouTube, I highly recommend it. The simple recipes are made better with the addition of Great Grandma Clara's stories of how her family made it through the Depression. She says, they didn't have a lot, but they always had good food.
• Tuesday—Leftover Sausages, Cabbage and Potatoes. (I made this dinner for our Golden Globes party last night and it was great. A perfect Sunday night meal—with bonus leftovers!)
• Wednesday—Lentil Soup (more like a stew), dark German rye bread and butter, green salad
• Thursday—Coconut and Chicken Curry Soup, basmati rice (how good does this look?!)

PS I'm so glad my family loves soup. I could eat some form of it every single day.

• Friday—Family Movie Night (take out)
• Saturday & Sunday—not sure quite yet

What have you got on deck this week? Any favorite winter soups to share?

Meal Planning Monday for the week of January 10, 2011

Ten days into the new year and I am finally back to planning my weekly meals. I took a break over the holidays because we did a lot of group meals with family and dining out. Which, not gonna lie, was awesome.

But now I am fully "fooded out" and ready to get back to some simpler, more comforting fare. At least for the next week or so.

Tonight I'm cooking up some white truffle polenta with spicy Italian sausages.  Polenta and sausage is a dinner we had often while growing up and I never much liked it. I don't know why, because nowadays, come fall, I can't get enough polenta. Come to think of it, my kids are starting to say, "Polenta agaaaaiinnnn?" so I guess I am getting a glimpse into why I got so sick of it growing up. (Too bad, kids!)

Here's what I've got coming up this week. It's sort of a clean out the freezer and pantry week, because I'd like to do a month's worth of mostly vegetarian cooking starting next week. I'm heading into the final 8-9 weeks of being pregnant and aside from my daily pastry (a practice that is going bye-bye realquicklike when I get back on Weight Watchers post-partum), I'm trying to eat as simply and as healthfully as possible.

• Monday: Baked chicken legs and thighs; roasted cauliflower tossed with capers, olives, and parsley; quinoa with garbanzos, sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts (making enough of this to last through a few days'-worth of lunches)
• Tuesday: Penne alla vodka, a big green salad
• Wednesday: Oprah's favorite Centerville chicken pie, mashed potatoes, broccoli
• Thursday: something from my Christmas present cookbook (Thanks, J.!), The Indian Slow Cooker. (I love that the author is as obsessed with raw onions as I am. I am the person who orders extra raw onions with my burgers.)
• Friday Family Movie Night: Leftover New Year's Hoppin John' and sauteed collard greens
• Saturday-Sunday: Playing it fast and loose. Not sure yet, but I think I will make a big batch of bean soup.

How about you? How were your holidays? What are you cooking to get back to normal?

 

 

Cooking with Kids: Bunny's Chili

I remember being younger than Bunny when my mom would turn me loose in the kitchen and let me cook (mostly things like scrambled eggs, pancakes, or soup...). Now that she's almost 8.5 (and we have a baby on the way), I've been making more of a concerted effort to teach her how to cook simple things. She's really excited about our lessons and always says, "Do I get to make this when Bundle is here?" 

The funny thing is that it's Wallie who, at the moment, has the patience for the start-to-finish—the reading of the recipes, the gathering of ingredients, the cooking and the clean up. Bunny prefers to come into the kitchen, help for awhile, then leave. She isn't much for the details.

Having said that, her repetoire now includes: making scrambled eggs (she knows to keep the pan on low, stir gently, and to take them off the stove while the eggs are still glossy), making toast (and checking to make sure the toaster is off), heating up her favorite veggie sausages in the microwave, and making tomato soup from scratch (and adding a little honey if the tomatoes are too acidic).

A side note: she can also make hard boiled and poached eggs in our egg cooker which is a great gadget for kids (and makes cooking eggs SO easy—just don't ever fill it up all the way with water or the eggs get over-cooked.)

Last night we tackled chili.

I don't use a recipe when making chili. It's always a variation on the same theme:

• diced onions (pre-diced onions from Trader Joe's are perfect for this, especially if kids are cooking)
• smashed garlic
• a pound of ground beef or turkey
• a can or two of drained pinto, black, or kidney beans (with beef) or drained cannelini beans (with turkey)—or all beans (and maybe some diced zucchini) for veggie chili
• a can of diced green chilis (with turkey)
• a large can of diced tomatoes (usually with the beef, sometimes with both)
• Penzey's chili powder
• cumin
• unsweetened cocoa powder
• a pinch of cinnamon
• oregano
• salt and pepper to taste
• if I have it, a half bottle or so of beer (as long as it's not dark and bitter, Corona or Heineken are perfect)

And the toppings include:

• diced avocado
• chopped onions
• shredded cheese
• minced fresh cilantro
• Mexican crema or sour cream
• lime wedges
• jalapeños en escabeche
• hot sauce or salsa
• tortilla chips (if I have them) or rice (Hawaiian style!)

Last night I turned Bunny loose on this loose recipe. She learned how to use a can opener for the first time, opening all the beans and tomato cans. I taught her to taste for salt as she goes. To add a little water if the consistency didn't look right. A measuring lesson is up next because those teaspoons and tablespoons can be confusing (I don't measure, but I'm trying to teach Bunny about proportions of things.) But overall, she did a great job, and the chili was delicious. Not a drop was left!

Regional Dialect Video Meme (How Do YOU Say It?)

This was fun to do!  Now you try!

Regional Dialect Video Meme 

Say these words: Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught

Now answer these questions:

• What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?

• What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?

• What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?

• What do you call gym shoes?

• What do you say to address a group of people?

• What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?

• What do you call your grandparents?

• What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?

• What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?

• What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

See also Miss Disgrace, Avitable, you?

If you participate please share your videos in the comments!