Butternut Squash Risotto

Serves four, with leftovers

Ingredients:

1/2 average sized butternut squash, cooked.  (You could also used buttercup or blue hubbard.  Acorn doesn ot work as well).  I love roasting squash, but for this recipe, I cut it in half, scoop out the seeds and boil it until it is super soft.  It comes out better and is easier to clean up.

1 medium sized onion, chopped

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 1/4 cups Arborio Rice.  My host mother in Italy always said "one [1/4 cup] for each person and one for the pot!"

6 cups vegetable or chicken stock, hot and just below a simmer on the stove next to the pot in which you will cook your rice.

1 cup white wine

1/2 cup grated Romano or Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving

In a large skillet or wide pot heat your olive oil.  Add one small piece of onion.  When the onion sizzles, add the rest of the onion.  When the onions are transparent, add the squash.  Stir into the onion and oil until all combined.  Add your rice and a ladle of stock.  

From this point forward you must commit yourself to the risotto.  I mean it:  do not answer the phone.  Stir the rice gently at a slow boil until the mixture is noticeably drier.  Add another ladle of stock.  You will repeat this proces five or six times and in that time you will see the rice become plumper and more transparent.  It is a good idea to taste it periodically.  Never stop stirring.  When it is pleasant to the tooth, but not mushy, add your wine.  Allow the wine to cook down and then turn off your heat and add your grated cheese. Stir in your cheese until all combined and serve hot with more cheese, to taste, on top.

Meal Plan: October 6-12

Sunday:

Cilantro Chicken Tacos (We didn't get to them last week!)

Monday:

Potage Parmentier

Tuesday:

Chicken Breast and Sweet Potatoes Layered in the Crock Pot with Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Wednesday:

"Annie's special" pasta aka Martha Stewart's One Pot Pasta.  We can't get enough of this!

Thursday:

Fried Green Tomatoes, Kale Chips and Broiled Fish

Friday:

Stuffed Shells with Butternut Squash and Red Pepper Sauce and green salad.

Saturday:

Roast Chicken with Little Yellow Potatoes from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook, Brussels Sprouts and salad

Our Tom Kar Gai Soup Recipe

We had a wonderful Tom Kar Gai soup while we were in Burlington and this is an effort to recreate with items we had on hand.

Ingredients:

1 can (14 oz) Coconut Milk

1 pint Chicken Stock

4 scallions, diced

1 can Hearts of Palm, chopped

1 Tablespoon Lime Juice

1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce

2 Cups cooked chicken, shredded

2 Teaspoons Asian Chili sauce, or to taste

4 servings of noodles, rice or whatever starch you prefer

Directons:

Put everything in a pot and heat through.  Seriously.  That's it.  I certainly could have added more vegetables,  such as carrots, Bok Choy, mushrooms, green beans, perhaps, but I just went with what I had.  If I had lemongrass, I probably would have exchanged the hearts of palm for mushrooms or carrots.  The HOP added the tangy flavor that I was missing without the lemongrass.  Enjoy!

Meal Plan: September 25-October 1

Sunday:

Pancakes for dinner!

Monday:

Pasta with sauce and meatballs

Tuesday:

Slow Cooker Shepherd's Pie (our own recipe - vegetarian with sauteed eggplant, onions, celery, carrots tossed in leftover tomato sauce and a Romano Cheese, topped with mashed sweet and white potatoes.

Wednesday:

Slow Cooker Boston Baked Beans with Rice steamed cabbage

Thursday:

Zucchini fritters and Borsht from the freezer

Friday:

Oven Fried Chicken, leftover beans and shepherd's pie

Saturday:

Paella?

Meal Plan: September 18 -24

As we are headed into the fourth week since we yelled "GAME ON!" I can say that things are moving forward nicely. We have planned, we have scheduled, we have eaten at home. Not only have we not ordered any kind of take-out or pre-made meal, we haven't even deviated from our meals plans for the sake of poor planning or unexpected rush. I have my first overnight trip coming up this week, so we'll keep you posted on how things go.

Sunday:

Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken with roasted potatoes and salad left over from the night before.

Monday: (Scott at Fencing)

Slow Cooker Butternut Squash Soup with cheddar toasts

Tuesday:

Chicken salad, homemade pitas and leftover soup

Wednesday: (Kate traveling)

Marinated skirt steak, Bobby Flay's coleslaw and Rachel Ray's smashed potatoes

Thursday: (Kate traveling)

Pasta with eggplant and meat sauce

Friday:

Dinner out on our way to the Cape

Saturday: Wheaton's homecoming!

Dinner in Norton!

Sunday:

Pancakes for dinner after we roll in from a day of traveling.

Meal Plan: September 11-18

Sunday:

Macaroni and Cheese and Crunchy Cabbage Salad

Monday: (Fencing)

Leftovers from Sunday

Tuesday: (School board meeting)

Slow Cooker Borscht and Zucchini Fritters

Wednesday: (K @ work reception)

Hummus with pitas and sliced cold veggies

Thursday: (TES picnic)

Eggplant sandwiches, celery sticks, watermelon

Friday:

Pizza

Saturday:

Leftovers (or Salsa Bean Chicken)

Meal Plan: The New Auto-pilot plan

Today is the school year's equivalent of January 1. We've had the one last hurrah after the elongated holidays of summer, we've enjoyed the lazy days, the pajama mornings, the late bedtimes, but tomorrow.....

In appreciation of the "other new year" and the frenetic pace we know we'll be keeping once I am back on the road and we enter into the public schools system (read: the world of soccer) for the first time, we have created a secret weapon. Our new "Auto-pilot Meal Plan" can be pulled out and slapped into place at a moment's notice. Whether we are hit with an epic stomach flu or find ourselves driving back late from a weekend trip that "seemed like a good idea at the time," or just a case of too much work-travel and not enough time to plan, we will be able to activate six (count them, six!) dinners in a row.

The methodology at work for each meal in this plan is one of ease, frugality and attractiveness (to our kids). We chose this recipes based on what we typically stock in our pantry and freezer, the ability to use similar ingredients in multiple recipes, therefore having to stock or purchase fewer items and those that would let us use the slow cooker as often as possible.

I encourage you to keep track of how many times we hit this "emergency button" between now and June 30...

Here's the plan:

Monday:

Vegetable chili, brown rice, side vegetable (this week: broccoli)

I will use beans that I've soaked, cooked and frozen, a bag of frozen shredded zucchini and half a can or jar of stewed tomatoes. The remaining half can will be used in the pasta on Wednesday.

Tuesday:

Crock Pot Layered Dinner with chicken from the freezer, stored fingerling potatoes and a side vegetable (this week: new Brussels sprouts!)

Wednesday:

Pasta with tomato sauce (fortified with bean stock), Romano cheese

The second half can of Monday's tomatoes will be used here to make the sauce. I usually save and freeze the stock from cooking dried beans and add it to sauces and soups later on.

Thursday:

Broiled fish, leftover potatoes from Tuesday and side vegetable (this week: kale)

This fish is the first new thing I will have had to buy for this week's worth of dinners. Everything else is part of our normal stocked pantry or freezer.

Friday:

Homemade pizza

Using a second can or jar of tomatoes

Saturday:

Slow Cooker Ravioli Lasagna

I will use a leftover pizza sauce and turn it into the meat sauce for the "lasagna." We will probably have a salad, since we will have a chance to go to the Farmer's market or will hopefully have recovered from whatever it was that made us activate the Auto-pilot plan in the first place.

Grocery List for this meal plan:

2 28 oz cans (or 2 qt jars) crushed, stewed or pureed tomatoes (on hand)

1 can or 3/4 C frozen pinto, kidney, rosada or navy beans (on hand)

1 T chili seasoning (on hand)

2 cup shredded zucchini (on hand)

1 cup brown rice (on hand)

1 chicken breast/4 thighs, drumsticks or whatever (on hand)

2 lbs potatoes (on hand)

3 meal's worth of vegetable sides (on hand)

Romano cheese (on hand)

garlic (on hand)

EVOO (on hand)

1 box pasta (on hand)

4 cups Mozzarella cheese (on hand)

1 lb ground beef, turkey, lamb, pork (on hand)

2 lbs of fish fillets (purchased, though I am likely to buy two meal's worth at a time and freeze one)

1 lb frozen ravioli (purchased)

We hope not to pull this trigger too often because even though we like these meals, we would get tired of them. What we are trying to accomplish is a baseline for maintenance. As long as we keep these items in the house and, in the event of "disaster" one of us can make it to the store and pick up a few items (in addition to milk, eggs flour and COFFEE) we'll be okay. Well, at least we'll eat.

Stuffed Patty Pan Squash Recipe

Ingredients:

4 Medium-sized patty pan squash

4 scallions, chopped, white and green parts separated

1 shredded carrot

6 cloves green garlic or 3 cloves aged (regular) garlic, minced

1/3 C crushed almonds

1/3 C creme fraiche, butter milk or plain yogurt

4 T shredded cheddar cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

4 T olive oil

Method:

Preheat oven to 375. Wash and trim both ends off of each squash. Stem for about 15 minutes, until middles can be pierced deeply with a fork. Set aside to cool. When they are cool enough to handle scoop out enough of each squash to make a nice deep cup, without going through the other side. Drain and chop squash innards. Coat a baking dish with olive oil and arrange squash cups in it. Saute white of the scallions and garlic until transparent. Add carrot, chopped squash, salt and pepper. When carrot is bright orange, add the almonds. Turn off heat and add creme fraiche. Stir to combine. Fill each squash cup to slightly over flowing and bake for 25-30 minutes. Add shredded cheese to the top of each and bake for another 5 minutes to allow cheese to melt.

Sausage and Asparagus Pie Recipe

This seems much more like a cold-weather meal, but we've had a few cool days over the last few weeks that made us hunker for some comfort food. This pie could be made with many combinations in the filling. I felt the filling needed a little extra bulk, so I threw in some leftover brown rice I had in the fridge. I think I could have just as easily sauteed some potatoes or winter squash.

1 double pie crust of choice.

1 lb bulk sausage, or sausage removed (this time I used lamb and rosemary sausage)

1/2 lb Asparagus, trimmed, but into 2 inch pieces and cooked to al dente.

1 small onion, diced, or the equivalent in diced scallions

1/2 C cooked rice or lightly cooked diced potatoes

2 eggs

For gravy

2 T all purpose flour

1/2 C milk

Salt and pepper to taste

Make pie crust, fit one half into pie dish, set aside. Preheat oven to 350. Cook asparagus and set aside. Cook sausage in cast iron skillet until browned, breaking apart with a spoon as you go. When browned, removed sausage with a slotted spoon and set aside to drain. Keep fat in skillet hot, add onions. When translucent add flour and whisk to make a roux. Add milk and continue to whisk until a think white gravy forms. Combine sausage, asparagus, 1 beaten egg and gravy and stir to combine. Pour into bottom of pie crust in pie dish. Top with other half of crust, seal edges, but slits in top and brush with second beaten egg. Bake for approximately 40 minutes until golden brown.

The BEST Hardboiled Egg Method

No meal plan this week because we are moving on F R I D A Y !!!!!! Until then, we will be eating the leftovers of our Easter Feast. I will post a follow-up on the recipes and how we liked them as soon as I can. Until then, I leave you with the very best hardboiled egg method I know of which came from Elise at Simply Recipes and some shots of what I think are some pretty fantastic Easter eggs.

Cranberry Rangoon Recipe

Happy Thursday! I know, this may sound gross to you, but you probably don't have a surplus of cranberries in you freezer. Or maybe you do.... I realize this is another recipe for fried food, but I don't go for sweets, we hardly ever eat out and we really don't have any other vices. Once a week we make something fun that is outside our normal whole-grain-local-vegetable-based regimen. Sue us!

I found this recipe on the Cranberry Growers Association website. Incidentally my favorite cranberry grower is Cranberry Hill Farm in Plymouth, MA. If you are down that way this fall you should pay them a visit.

Anyway, I changed the recipe substantially, so here is what I did:

Ingredients:

3/4 C Fresh Cranberries

1/4 C Mayonnaise

10 oz Cream cheese, softened

1 tsp Cholula hot pepper sauce

1 T sugar (I used evaporated cane juice)

3 Scallions, white and green parts, finely diced

1 package Square Wonton Wrappers

1 oil (canola, or peanut) for frying

Directions:

Combine Cranberries, Mayonnaise and Cholula in food processor and blend until almost smooth. Add half of that mixture to cream cheese along with sugar and scallions and mix thoroughly. Drop one tsp full of mixture in the center of each won ton wrapper and seal as desired. I make boats (see photo). Heat oil until it shimmers. Fry rangoons until golden brown. It helps to keep them in a low oven while you finish the whole batch. You should have about four dozen of them when you finish.

The original recipe recommended using the reserved cranberry/mayo mixture as a dipping sauce, but we didn't do that. We set it aside to spread on sandwiches or to make another batch Instead, we dipped them in the sweet and sour sauce we made last summer!

We LOVED these! The insides are delightfully pink and tangy. I can't wait to break them out at a day-after-Thanksgiving-leftover-extravaganza! That said, we've decided to start experimenting with a baked version with the help of this recipe from My Baking Addition.

Homemade Tater Tots!

I turned some so-so potato salad into some really fun fried treats!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups potato salad (easy on the mayo) with chopped onions

1/2 to 3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 egg (beaten)

1 medium-sized peeled and shredded potato

1 tsp garlic salt

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 cup canola oil

Puree potato salad. Mix with flour, egg, shredded potato and spices until thoroughly combined. Heat oil in a skillet until it shimmers. Drop tablespoonfuls of potato mixture into hot oil and cook until golden brown and crispy on both sides. Enjoy with homemade ketchup.

Hummus

We are moving away from cheese and toward hummus. I love this recipe from Simply Recipes.

Cranberry Recipes

We have two gallons of cranberries in the freezer to get us through the spring. Hopefully these recipes will help make a dent:

Cranberry Rangoons

New England Cranberry Duff

Cranberry Thumbprints

Chicken with Cranberry Sauce

Meal Plan: March 13-19

Sunday:

Leftover buffet

Monday:

Pasta with pesto and white beans

Tuesday:

Zucchini Frittata with roasted beets

Wednesday:

Tomato Soup and cheese sandwiches

Thursday:

First Annual Flynn Malone St. Patrick's Day Dinner!

Slow-cooked Corned Beef and Cabbage

Colcannon

Irish Soda Bread

Friday:

Corn and seafood chowder

Saturday:

Pasta with tomato sauce

Making Mustard!

We are starting on one of our goals for 2011 with the help of this recipe from Yum Sugar.

Meal Plain: November 28 - December 3

Sunday:

Pizza

Monday:

Turkey and Dumplings

Tuesday:

Turkey Soup

Wednesday:

Thanksgiving Shepherd's Pie with cranberry on the side

Thursday:

White bean and Apple Chili with added turkey if some leftover

Friday:

Pasta with pesto and turkey

Oatmeal cookies

Made King Arthur's Rolled Oatmeal Cookies and they were delicious. We have about dozen in the freezer for Christmas baking!

Salsa Verde (for the hot pepper intolerant)

So, I am ready to admit that I have BAD reactions to most hot peppers. I have temporarily lost my eyesight, but most often get swollen lips and burning fingers. It's just not worth it. I have played around with different salsas and think I have finally found something that I love.

Ingredients:

7-8 Tomatillos, husks removed, washed well, sliced in half across the equator

1 small-medium onion, cut into thick slices

2 Cloves garlic

1 tsp lemon juice

Salt and Pepper to taste

Lay a piece of aluminum foil on a baking sheet. Spread tomatillos, cut side down, on foil along with the onion slices and the whole cloves of garlic. Broil for about minutes or until vegetables are just browned.

Transfer all vegetables along with juices into food processor. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper. Pulse several times until you get the consistency that you want. Serve with tortilla chips or pour over enchiladas. I am guessing this will can well.

Fresh Chicken and Roasting Recipe

Tonight I had my first ever fresh chicken. What I mean by that is that it was not only free-range, organic and local, but that it had been slaughtered the day or the day before I had purchased it. It had never been frozen. I bought it from a woman at the Norwich Farmers Market yesterday. She owns Thymeless Herbs in Woodstock, VT and she and her daughter were selling chickens, eggs, herbs as you might guess and a wide variety of eye-appealing (and delicious) baked goods. They reminded me of my favorite children's book, Oxcart Man by Donald Hall about a family in the Upper Valley (I think) who send "everything they made or grew all year long that was left over" with the father to sell at the market in Portsmouth.

I was taken aback by how lovely this bird was. In someways I wish I had taken a picture, but I am mostly glad I didn't. In the end, I realize that it's a chicken. But I took a moment to be thankful for the partnership between the family at Thymeless Herbes and my own. They worked and invested to produce an animal which fed my family and I was able to pay them directly for their labors.

I use something loosely based on Nigella Lawson's Roasted Chicken recipe, or method, really, from her book How to Eat:

After removing the innards, I lay the chicken, breast-up, in a cast-iron skillet and then fill the extra space with chopped vegetables: onions, carrots, whole peeled garlic and sometimes fennel bulb if I have it. I cut a lemon in half and put one half inside the chicken. I sprinkle fresh ground pepper and kosher salt over the top and then pour a dime-sized drop of olive oil on the breast of the chicken and rub the oil, pepper and salt all over the skin. As I am doing this I push as many of the vegetables under the bird as I can. Then I squeeze the other half of the lemon all over the top and drop it into the skillet.

I then roast at 400 degrees F for 15 minutes per pound, plus 10 minutes. Get out your calculator and use the exact weight to determine the roasting time. If you are really on top of things, throw a couple of zucchini breads into the oven with your chicken to leverage the energy used by the oven. Today I was. It was a pretty rock-star day.

The advantage of using the cast-iron skillet is that when your chicken is done (180 degrees in the thigh joint) you can transfer it to a cutting surface, put your skillet on the burner and make your gravy, taking advantage of all the brown bits on the bottom. To make the gravy, transfer all vegetables to a serving dish, discard lemon and then heat skillet on burner and stir all contents, scraping the bottom. When you have a little bit of a simmer going, throw in the gizzard (not the liver!) The gizzard looks like a heart. Then add a little bit of cornstarch and a then a little bit of chicken stock until you get the consistency that you want. Some people strain their gravy. I never do. I also like orange juice labeled "high pulp."

To make "in the moment stock" add your chicken's neck to 6 cups of water in a pot and simmer. You can also add the out layer (not the paper layer) of the onion you used and the ends of the carrot along with some salt and pepper.

Carve your bird and serve with its vegetable roasting companions and your gravy. Tonight I threw together a Summer Harvest Stuffing. Tomorrow we are planning to make Pesto Chicken Pizza. Had I not been so taken by the beauty of this foul and my own self-satisfaction in how I acquired it, I probably would not have used the livers for the stuffing linked above. I typically save them throughout the year to make pate for Christmas.