Recipe Review + Meal plan update - 1/30/2011

Chocolate chip espresso scones. They are in fact as delicious as they sound. I am love-love-loving The Craft of Baking. The flavor is great as you'd expect, but what's fun about these is that they have an incredibly tender crumb. The key technique in the first recipe in the book (aforementioned scones) seems to be keeping the bits of butter quite cold, including sticking the bowl into the freezer in the middle of making them. I ended up having to use some extra water after putting them in the freezer for longer than the recommended 15 minutes, but they don't seem to have suffered from that at all. The recipe says they will keep in the freezer a while, so I put them into baggies for later baking. I wonder how many of the recipes in this book will be freezer-friendly. I have this fantasy now about the perpetual freezer of bakable goodies...


To prep:
- stock from How to Eat
- freezer-friendly mac & cheese in cook's country magazine
- cinnamon orange scones
- sour cherry scones
- rum raisin scones


Category A: 30 minutes
Frozen taquitos + salad, rice
Frozen shrimp + stirfried veggies + instant rice pouch
Orange chicken

Category B: 60 minutes
Ravioli with spinach & sauce
Lamb Rogan Josh
Homemade pizza
Pork cutlets something

Category C: 90 minutes
- basic roast chicken from How to Eat
- steak bearnaise from How to Eat, sauteed mushrooms & mashed potatoes
- Lasagna

Weekend Breakfast:
Cinnamon rolls
Eggs
Scones

Snacks/Breakfasts:
Cereal
Yogurt
Oranges
Peaches

Drinks:
OJ
Milk
Chai
Sodas

Meal plan update!

A total lack of wine led us to Trader Joe's this weekend, so we are beyond stocked for a while now. Here's how we stand for meals:


To prep:
- scones from The Craft of Baking (chocolate chip espresso, cinnamon orange, and sour cherry...yes, I have a scone habit)
- stock from How to Eat
- freezer-friendly mac & cheese in cook's country magazine


Category A: 30 minutes
Frozen taquitos + salad, rice
Frozen shrimp + stirfried veggies + instant rice pouch
Orange chicken
sweet & sour chicken

Category B: 60 minutes
Ravioli with spinach & sauce
Chicken Rogan Josh
Lamb Korma
Chicken Jalfrezi
Homemade pizza
Turkey nachos + refried beans
Pork cutlets something

Category C: 90 minutes
- basic roast chicken from How to Eat
- steak bearnaise from How to Eat, sauteed mushrooms & mashed potatoes
- Lasagna

Weekend Breakfast:
Hashbrowns
Cinnamon rolls
Orange rolls
Eggs
Scones

Snacks/Breakfasts:
Poptarts
Cereal
Yogurt
Oranges
Bananas
Peaches

Drinks:
OJ
Milk
Chai
Sodas

Cookbooks To Work Through

I got some new cookbooks for Christmas this year, and I want to work through them cover to cover over the course of the year, skipping the things that don't sound good at all, but actually cooking the rest.

My books:

The Craft of Baking (Karen DeMasco & Mindy Fox)
How To Eat (Nigella Lawson)
Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris (Clotilde Dusoulier)
A Homemade Life (Molly Wizenberg)

In queue so far:
- scones from The Craft of Baking (chocolate chip espresso, cinnamon orange, and sour cherry...yes, I have a scone habit)
- basic roast chicken from How to Eat
- stock from How to Eat
- steak bearnaise from How to Eat

Meals Again, Post Grocery Shopping

We hit the grocery store tonight....no more shopping for this month, I hope!

Category A: 30 minutes
Frozen taquitos + salad, rice
Frozen shrimp + stirfried veggies + instant rice pouch
Turkey Meatballs w/noodles & sauce

Category B: 60 minutes
Turkey meatloaf (ready to pop in oven)
Ravioli with spinach & sauce
Chicken Rogan Josh
Lamb Korma
Chicken Jalfrezi
Homemade pizza
Turkey nachos + refried beans
Steak, mushrooms & mashed potatoes

Category C: 90 minutes
Roast chicken & sauteed veggies
Lasagna

Weekend Breakfast:
Hashbrowns
Cinnamon rolls
Orange rolls
Eggs
Scones

Snacks/Breakfasts:
Poptarts
Cereal
Yogurt
Oranges
Bananas
Peaches

Drinks:
OJ
Milk
Chai
Sodas

Vaguely Gyros

Dinner tonight (straight from the meal plan, ta-daa) was a little slower to prep than the 30 minute section I pulled it from -- more like 45 minutes. But that was because I had to defrost the meat, giggle at a hilarious little 9-month-old, and prep everything myself because my favorite dinner partner was still attempting some napping with the napless wonder. David's favorite meat is lamb -- turkey gets second place -- but most lamb dishes I know are either time consuming (stewed lamb shanks in the crockpot) or a little risky. Lamb is so fatty and bony, I never know how much real meat I will have at the end of the cooking process. But these are almost always a success because although ground lamb is fatty, you are at least guaranteed some meat in the end.

Kaylea's Gyros

- 2 lb ground lamb
- something acidic but tasty
- 2 onions
- 1 or 2 bell peppers
- various middle eastern seasonings
- hummus
- tomatoes
- goat cheese
- pita

Cook the lamb in a frying pan (you won't need any oil) until it is almost brown all the way through, leaving the meat in bite-sized chunks rather than breaking it up into tiny bits. Drain well. Add something acidic but tasty. Vinegar, greek salad dressing, some sort of alcohol, whatever. This last time around I had red pepper vinagrette on hand, that worked great. I'm not a food scientist, but I've found that adding acids like this will cut down on some of the woolly/gamey flavor of the lamb. Cook until thoroughly brown, draining again if it needs it.

Meanwhile, dice up your onions and peppers and cook them in a bit of olive oil, but not too much. You want just a little bit of browning to creep into the vegetables. Once the onions are quite soft but not translucent, add some diced tomatoes and turn down to simmer.

Meanwhile, the pita bread should be in your toaster oven getting a little bit warm and soft. Don't let it dry out, or you'll have pita chips instead of pita bread.

Add your spices. I put urban accents ras el casablanca blend into the meat and sumac from penzey's into the veggies. Cumin, coriander, oregano, that kind of stuff would do just as well.

Arrange your other toppings. Hummus, goat cheese, lettuce, plain (greek-style or plain flavor, not vanilla flavor) yogurt if you have it. Everyone makes up their own pita, taco-bar style. I like to smear my bread with hummus or cheese before adding toppings, to help it all stick together. Mmm.

New Meal Plan Strategy

I've been struggling to adapt my preferred home-making, home-cooking, home-everything'ing style to the pace my new job is enforcing. So here's my new approach....instead of trying to write out a week or two of meals by thinking about my schedule, I'm going to start maintaining at least two weeks of possibilities, categorized by the kind of day we're having. Heh. I don't want to sound pitiful. I don't need pity, but I am actually having a hard time.

Category A: 30 minutes
Frozen taquitos + salad, chips & salsa
Frozen shrimp + stirfried veggies + instant rice pouch
Ground lamb + hummos on pita w/onions and leftover spinach dal

Category B: 60 minutes
Turkey meatloaf (ready to pop in oven)
Ravioli with whatever sauce
Homemade pizza
Turkey nachos
Steak, mushrooms & whatever

Category C: 90 minutes
Roast chicken & sauteed veggies