MPM--Eating Down the Fridge Edition

Happy Monday, everyone!

This week, Kim O'Donnel, the food blogger at the Washington Post, is hosting an "Eating Down the Fridge" challenge, with the idea being that we eat what's in the house, and, if something's missing, improvise. This is a real challenge for me; I am definitely a follow-the-recipe kind of girl. But since I need to improve in this area and work down my embarrassingly overstocked pantry and freezer, this is the kind of challenge built for me!

It started with the happy arrival of The Best Babysitter in the World, to rescue me while my husband was away. She took no time at all to hop in the kitchen and make another batch of Nikki's Healthy Cookies, using the esoteric (for me) ingredients we had on hand. She also made a lasagne (which always makes my husband weep with joy), for which we only needed the noodles. So we feel like we've started already a little bit.

From here on out, we're doing the challenge. I stocked up on a few perishable staples: orange juice, milk (which I will replenish as need be of course), ham for the sandwich for my son at Lunch Bunch, since it's a peanut-free school and so ham and cheese it is. I'm hoping to only buy milk and berries this week, which should be interesting. Otherwise, I'm working down what I have.

And embarrassingly, due to busy weeks, or unexpected nights out or other strange developments, this week's menu will look remarkably similar to other weeks. Last week, we ended up with takeout or going out on two nights, so I still have most of what we were planning for then. In an unusual-for-me move, I realized we might not get to it and froze it...but that was a good reminder of just how full my freezer is. Hence, my excitement at the challenge, which may not be much of a challenge this week at all.

As a note, from last week, the Splendid Table recipe for leek and potato soup rocked. I ate it in 24 hours. I had help from my husband, but yum.

So, for this week:

Monday: Lasagne, of course, with salad from a bag.

Tuesday: Ground pork and spinach recipe with sweet potatoes (as suggested) and maybe rice to be traditional.

Wednesday: Leftover lasagne and/or pork, depending on who in my family you are.

Thursday: Stuffed cabbage, kasha, beets.

Friday: Back to How to Eat Supper for the Hollow Pasta with Greek Cinnamon-Tomato Sauce.

Other efforts I'll be making this week: I have stuff in my freezer to try the Vegan Lunchbox Smoothie. I couldn't mentally justify the hemp milk, but I have everything else and that would help empty the fridge. I'm thinking I'll make (at least) one box of my Trader Joe's impulse buys (usually hors d'oeuvres) for snacks for my moms' group meeting. (Though that will depend on timing.) For my own lunches, since I'm working at home this week, I will try to branch out in to some of the freezer things (Dr. Praeger's, TJ's pizzas/flatbreads) instead of my default lunches. And I could make hummus for the multitudes with the number of chick peas I have. What is with that?! And I love chick peas and eat them frequently! And I still have a ton of them on the shelf. To really feel this at all, I might have to go two weeks. Tune in and I'll let you know.

If you want to join in, go here to read about it.

FFOF 68--On Drinks I Don't Drink!

Yay VALMG! So glad you are back on the FFOF case.

#1. Coffee. Do you use ground, bean or pods?

Pods? That's hard-core! I don't actually drink coffee more than maybe 5 times per year. My husband, however, considers it part of his lifesblood so we have a fabu Cuisinart that grinds the beans immediately before brewing. He mixes his own half-caf based on all the darkest beans (regular and decaf) that Trader Joe's sells.

#2. Coffee filters. Do you use paper, gold or other?

Um...gold? There is a permanent one in our coffemaker so I guess it's gold.

#3. Tea. Do you prefer tea bags, loose tea or something else?

Tea bags when I make it. I'm getting in to the chais, and Irish breakfast (preferably decaf) is a classic.

#4. Share a recipe for something you like to eat with coffee or tea.

Get in car. Drive to Dunkin' Donuts. Go to counter. Say, "I would like one old-fashioned donut please!" Give the nice person a dollar. Put change in tip cup. Enjoy!

Go have fun (and get better recipes) at VALMG's blog Fun, Crafts, and Recipes!

Eating Down the Fridge

With a hat tip to Tipsy Baker, whose posts I always enjoy, I'm joining the Eating Down the Fridge challenge next week. Really, I need this twice a month, but now is as good a time as any. Click on the link to join in!

WFMW--Best Of Edition

This week's WFMW is themed--we are to share our best tip ever. I'm not sure that this is my best tip, but it did get the most comments ever, though granted, most are from my blogging real life friends. Either way, enjoy--or enjoy again!

WFMW--writing in my cookbooks

Until I was in middle school, I had never seen a highlighter. Even after my friends had them, they seemed...suspicious, somehow. Who would mark up a book besides a delinquent who hated education? Especially with something that looked like it was really a magic marker in disguise, waiting to actually black out what it was supposed to highlight?

In our kitchen, there was a fantastic lucite cookbook stand, used to protect the cookbooks. Not that they were totally unmarked; my father used to put lipstick on me so I could put kisses in them, and every once in a while, he traced my hands or feet in the covers of the books to personalize them when they were presents for my mother. But the recipes themselves stayed safe behind clear plastic covers, just like the sofas at my great-aunts'.

Once my mother died unexpectedly, I came in to a mountain of cookbooks, all of them used, and every bookmark was a mystery. Was this one of those dishes I liked and just never knew what it was called? Or something my dad wanted my mom to try but since she knew better than he did that he hated candied apples she wisely just kept marked but knew she'd never make? I felt truly lost--I knew the tastes of my childhood were locked in those books, but where?

Well, somewhere after I moved out of the house, my mother either lost her disdain for writing in books, or privately saw it as a secret thrill, or found it more reliable than hoping that bookmarks stayed where they belonged. In some of the books she used more often at the end of her life, there were notes in the margins, ingredients crossed out, directions tweaked, proportions corrected. One recipe noted my boss really liked it when she sent it in with me once for the office--only later to have "WHO CARES?!?!?!" written in big letters with lots of punctuation (after, I suspect, I was passed over for a promotion she--and I--thought I deserved). A recipe for ricotta cake called for some citrus zest. Mom had question marks and the word "never!" written next to that. And so forth and so on.

That was such an unexpected gift and an epiphany for me. Since we assumed we had lots more time together, I never got serious about sitting down with her to ask for specifics of favorite recipes, like "what tomato sauce do you use for the crock pot pork chops?" or "besides the garlic spears, what do you do to your eye roast to make it so good?"

Since then, I have written in ALL of my cookbooks or cooking magazines that I have used more than once. I note when I made a dish ("good, but too rich for summer; make again when weather cools and will be perfect!"), whether it was for an occasion ("served after Christmas Eve Mass when our son was Baby Jesus and we had 15 relatives for dinner"), and any suggestions for next time ("loved the flavor but WAY too hot; skip most of red pepper flakes next time" or "great even without the sausage!"). More important since the sons were born: who liked it, and how. ("wouldn't eat the chicken but the sauce on rice went to thirds before we cut him off.") This way, the record is always there, and someday, if anyone else in this house ever cooks with cookbooks (my husband is amazing at cooking on the fly) and is looking for an old favorite, they'll be able to figure it out. And that works for me! What's working for you? Find out what's working over at We Are That Family!

Happy Square Root Day!

And thanks to Shelley for tipping me off.

March 3, 2009 --> 3.3=09. Get it?

So the next easy one won't be until April 4, 2016. Have to get that on the calendar. Thinking about ways to celebrate. Root vegetables on our square plates come to mind but I'm not sure that will work in the "celebration" category for my kids. Maybe we'll plant an avocado seed and the amaryllis that's still hanging out from post-holiday sales. Or carrot cake in a square pan?

But if anyone has another idea of how to teach preschoolers about square roots, I'm all ears!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

My tribute isn't as spiffy but I loved this.

MPM--In Like a Lion Edition

Greetings! After the lovely revelation that it's still light until 6, and some great 60-degree days, we woke up this morning to a lovely little dusting of snow and are now hunkering down for what could be a major storm. My mother was a teacher and always reminded me some of our best snowstorms happen in March. This could be one of them. Happily, we are well stocked with everything we need and all that flies off the shelves when storms come (milk, bread, toilet paper) so all I need to do today is round up the snowsuits again to prepare for what's probably one last round of snowy fun.

A few thoughts on last week.

I finally buckled down to the crockpot recipes I've been meaning to try for forever. The rutabega was starting to sprout and get ready to have baby rutebegas, it had been hanging around my kitchen so long!

First on the agenda: roasted winter root veggies. I was curious how this would go since I tend to think of roasting as dry and crockpots as wet, in general. One morning when I was too awake to go back to sleep, I started peeling and popped everything in the crockpot by 7am on low. By 10, I had to turn it off because they were so done, thanks to my impossibly hot slow cooker. As I had guessed, they were more braised than roasted, but were nice and tender. The other change I would make next time: even less salt (and I cut down from what she listed) and I would put the parsley on after. The parsley cooked in to a dark green goo, and I prefer it closer to its raw state.

The creamy crockpot risotto, on the other hand, was fantastic. I made it for Ash Wednesday dinner, which was a bit of a mistake; no meat is allowed for Catholics on Ash Wednesday, and that includes chicken broth. Oops. Fortunately, I had vegetable broth and other than being a bit on the pink side, it worked just fine. But in just 2 hours exactly (thanks to the superhot crockpot) I had some no-work risotto as good as any I've made on the stove. Note for anyone thinking of trying this: the hardest part of this is timing. Cook it too long, and it disintigrates. If it cools, it forms a semisolid that is hard to resurrect. Right out of the crockpot, as soon as it is finished, it is burn-the-roof-of-your-mouth hot, but when cooled enough to eat is the time to go for it. I paired it with the warm bean salad from The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper, and while I liked that fine, it wasn't the transformative bean experience they suggested it would be. Still, one of the best bean recipes I've tried. And I do keep trying them for all the reasons we already know: so much better for you than meat, high fiber, cheap cheap cheap...and they are still beans. I'd still rather eat them as dip. (Put some minced rosemary and minced garlic over medium heat in some olive oil on the stove. Heat until fragrant. Pour in food processor with a can of cannelini beans and puree. Eat like hummus.)

While I was on a roll with the crockpot, I also tried the broccoli with toasted garlic and lemon. My husband loved it, which was nice. I thought it was a great way to make a ton of broccoli at once, so if I'm on veggie duty for a family dinner, this is likely to reappear. But for us, it was a lot, and I like it just as well when we put it in the microwave with a little olive oil and some pepper.

Also, as I was not one of the first in line at the Co-Op for the sale, I had to adjust last week's menu a bit. There was no ground turkey left, but there was ground beef, and ground pork, and, a big splurge, veal cutlets. I decided to go old school and fry them up like my mother used to, but I am desperately afraid of frying (probably a good thing in the end) so they absorbed too much oil because I am too worried my oil will explode to heat it to the proper frying temperature. Still, my kids each ate an entire cutlet themselves and were sorry that they could only have one each, so they clearly weren't too terrible.

And one last "found" recipe that I finally tried, lest the gruyere tragically mold in my fridge: the Baked Spinach with Gruyere from November's Real Simple . Oh. My. Goodness. Ok, really, with a cup each of whole milk and heavy cream, how bad can this be? Add six eggs and it is as much a quichey dinner as a side dish. I am auditioning recipes for Easter and this is a total winner.

On to this week:

Monday: Stuffed cabbage, kasha, salad

Tuesday: Pacific rim pork, rice, broccoli

Wednesday: Greek Turkey Burgers, Greek "salsa," salad, gruyere spinach

Thursday: Leftovers or freezer meal

Friday: Freezer meal or take-home pizza.

My husband is jetting off to a wedding this weekend (I'm staying home, thanks to the dog and her Very Expensive Emergency Surgery in January) so wish me luck next weekend. The kids will pine for him (yes, "the kids" will be pining) which tends to amplify my own missing him. I am so so spoiled that he rarely goes away, and that I have been able to pack the weekend with other people we love, but still, keep us in your thoughts.

Need more menu-planning inspiration? Go see I'm an Organizing Junkie for one of the biggest selections of menus on the web!