Hello, Menu Planners!We made it through everything--Graduations, proms, reunions, roadtrips...you name it! And just in time for another EDF challenge. It starts next week, which is good--the once-a-year amazing grass-fed filet sale is happening this week so I will be shopping. But we are also working hard on truly emptying the freezer this time, and I cleaned my upstairs fridge after an unfortunate incident with the maple syrup. So...we'll see how the week goes but here's the plan. Reviews from last week are below.
Monday: Chicken Cordon Bleu burgers from Rachael Ray (need to use the frozen ground chicken and the lunchmeat from last week when my one son suddenly, inexplicably changed from daily ham-and-cheese to daily peanut butter); roasted baby carrots; Mark Bittman's raw beet salad.
Tuesday: Trader Joe's gnocchi gorgonzola, salad
Wednesday: baked potato soup, broccoli salad, filet mignons from the freezer (yes, I know I said I was ditching the crockpot. But I have more cream cheese than I care to admit and something that used that, the bag of potatoes I got on sale and the fact that I love potato soup, and I'm off the wagon again.)
Thursday: our town picnic! The recreation league that runs all the kids' sports around here hosts a picnic for the entire town. My last name falls in the "entree" category so I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I am pretty sure that somewhere in there I have two bags of Ikea Swedish meatballs so, while they are not traditional picnic fare, it's my best thing for feeding a crowd--entree wise. Too bad I'm not in the hors d'oeuvres category. I have *boxes* of those to work down somehow. Hmmm...maybe I'll take 'em to Father's Day.
Friday: It's a sickness. I just can't quit the crockpot. I have a hard time feeding my vegan friends so I'm trying the vegan sweet potato chili. Plus it'll work down my tomato stash, which is taking over the pantry.
We had some hits and misses last week. The hit: the brown sugar chicken from the Year of Crockpotting blog. Everyone enjoyed it, though it was as fally-aparty as every other boneless chicken breast crockpot recipe I've made. Still, the flavor was good and it cooked up easily (once you get past all that brown sugar and ginger ale going in to the main course). A miss, sadly, was the lettuce chicken wraps from the same place. One of my guilty pleasures are the Pei Wei wraps so I was hoping to be able to replicate at home, but this wasn't it. The smell alone was a turnoff to just about all of us. Was it the shitakes, which I've never used? Had my garlic gone? I don't know but I am not trying again anytime soon.
Also a disappointment: the mashed turnips/potatoes. We've had so many turnips come from the CSA, and I know I used them before successfully, but this was not how, apparently. They were too bitter to be really good. I'm going to try to roast the ones I have left and see how it goes.
What are you up to this week? Need inspiration? Check with Eating Down the Fridge if you want to try to use what you have to make some new meals, or I'm an Organizing Junkie for more inspired menus!
3 comments:
Thanks for sharing your recipe reviews as well as your menu plans. It's good to know which recipes are great and which aren't!
when I would get a lot of turnips, I would do 1/2 turnips, 1/2 potaotoes and slice them up, toss in olive oil & sea salt, and roast them. That odd turnipy flavor dissipates through the roasting process.
Why do you have to quit the crockpot? the crockpot and the grill are my two favorite things on the planet! LESS POTS!
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