How Was It?/What's for Dinner? 1/16-22/12

The Whimsy household will not be at full strength for part of this week, which means there maybe a little more casual meal production. However this month's Real Simple just arrived with a food cover, so when we are all here and not scattering to a thousand different events, the choices should be new and maybe even exciting.

Monday: Sausage & Escarole (or Spinach) Soup
Tuesday: Crock Pot Bean & Spinach Enchiladas
Wednesday: Burritos
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Potato, Ham, & Spinach Frittata
Saturday: Creamy Chicken & Mushroom Pot Pie
Sunday: Maple Glazed Salmon with Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Reviews

How Was It? Well, life happened and it didn't all happen. But here is what did happen and how it went...
Crock Pot Baked Potato Soup: I liked it, but it didn't grab my attention excessively, because I kept forgetting that it existed at lunchtime and when we were in leftover mode on the weekend. Y liked it, he did eat/pack the leftovers. The Kid found it bland, even when allowed to add Cheddar and bacon.
Quiche Lorraine: The BEST Quiche I have ever made. It deserves its own post, perhaps tomorrow.
Steak with Cognac Sauce & Potatoes: It was fine, I didn't bother with the sauce, because I don't think it brings enough improvement to bother with the effort. However this is the meal where I got my salad mojo back. Yay!
Roasted Chicken with Caramelized Shallots & Mashed Potatoes When the cold weather finally settled in and I went to my favorite roasted chicken recipes things didn't not go well. A couple of old reliables, bombed. I guess it was just breaking in a new oven. It was time to get back on that horse. Still didn't achieve crispy, but it was much, much better. Still don't love this new oven that came with the house. We seem to be negotiating some kind of truce.
Creamy Spinach Salmon: meh, why frozen spinach, didn't specified thawed or still frozen, went frozen and it watered down what seemed like it might be a nice mustard-y cream sauce. It was worth the try, good ingredient list, but either details were missing and kind of a poached cooking style. Salmon is better other ways.
Parmesan & Herb Sausage, White Bean and Escarole Soup: No Parmesan & Herb Sausage to be found went Hot Italian, didn't spy any escarole either, recipe suggested spinach. Forgot to tell the boys they could augment with grated Parmesan cheese. The Kid: meh. Y: loved it. I thought it was fine, which is better than the kid's meh, but no where near Y's love of it. It will freeze fine, and Y has more winter lunches ready to go.

How Was It?/What's for Dinner? 1/9-1/15/11/12

Monday: Honey Soy Glazed Salmon with Spinach & Peppers
Tuesday: Crock Pot Baked Potato Soup
Wednesday: Quiche Lorraine/Adult Dinner Out
Thursday: Steak with Cognac Sauce & Potatoes
Friday: Creamy Spinach Salmon
Saturday: Roast Chicken & Sweet Potato Spoonbread
Sunday: Parmesan & Herb Sausage, White Bean and Escarole Soup

Reviews
Navy Bean Soup is a family favorite so no question every one was happy to see it even if the cold spell broke.
Salmon with Gingery Green Beans it is a good recipe it suffered from a little neighbor interruptus. I guess best served hot. Kid passed, had soup leftovers, but he doesn't have the health concerns that have brought the weekly salmon into rotation.

Menu Plan Revision

So life happened this week, as it does. Tuesday's dinner had to wait for Thursday, since we went to tour the local School of Rock for the kid. He is contemplating getting to know his guitar again. Well a 6:45 tour and meet potential new teacher equals dinner out, we were practically at the pub any way. Fish and Chips for me, yay!

Anyway there was a reshuffle of the menu and some additions, I really have to plan thru the weekend. It is just sooo far away when I'm sitting down with the cookbooks.

Midweek Review: Chicken with Potatoes, Bacon & Cabbage

This recipe feels a little like spinning plates, there is always something to going in, or coming out, or starting. Even when I cheat and by the pre-shredded cabbage. Nothing is hard, just busy.

Y loves this dish. I'm sure it is the vaguely german nature of the cabbage under the chicken, but it makes him happy. Kid likes it, with major exceptions. Only wants the potatoes that got crispy, and HATES the bed of cabbage. Full blown horrible face. I think this is a keeper but the kid has to make a salad so he can skip the cabbage, but it is not more work for me. I will post this one tomorrow since I don't want to lose it to some random magazine website redesign.

How Was It?/What's For Dinner?

Week in Review:

This could not have been Y's week more, the chili and soup were requests from him, and then all the experiments had an asian bent and he loves him some asian food. So he would happily welcome the return of any or all. The Chicken & Spinach being fine, but probably the least interesting.

The Kid pretty much spent the week "hatin' it". There was a lot of "Is this enough? Can I make something else now that I've tried it?" Some of it was too many veggies not from the approved list, which is longer than the approved fruit list, but doesn't give me a lot of variety. His problem with the salmon was that it was salmon. He is going to have to get used to it. I think he kind of liked the Pot Sticker Salad: there was too much soy dressing, and the bean sprouts were rather out there for him, but easy to avoid.

The pot sticker salad and salmon were the most successful. The salmon was probably the beginning of something good, the Lemon Brown Sugar glaze was both too sweet and not enough flavor for me, but I liked the sort of quick seer, finish in the oven technique. Now about the Pot Sticker Salad...I did start looking at the recipe, but it quickly went its own way. We tend to fry our pot stickers before finishing them by steaming, adds more flavor with sesame and chili oil. So after the cooked on one side and the package called for a few tablespoons of water to finish them via steam I also threw in the sugar snap peas and carrots, 3 minutes later all done and the veggies barely cooked, so much better. Kid and I, not fans of the cooked carrot; these were just right for not raw. The "steamed" veggies were served over bean sprouts which was pretty good, but I think tossed with veggies might have been better. New dressing recipe is definitely called for; I prefer the sesame in pot sticker oil, and too much soy, maybe a little rice vinegar or some thing would help. I'll write up my version when I find the right dressing.

Menu Plan:

A lot more old favorites, perhaps because it is back to school week and no one wants to think too hard. Also the kid deserves some equal time, so lots of his favorites. The two that are not old reliables are from realsimple.com, but we've had each one once before; Chicken with Potato, Bacon & Cabbage and Salmon with Gingery Green Beans & Bok Choy. I recall them being good, this will be the keeper test.

What's for Dinner Returns

Finally updated the What's for Dinner sidebar, but I'll source it over here. It is the end of the year and it is a mix of new favorite sources and old reliables already recorded elsewhere on the site. Also the days will be in a slightly wonky order, Tuesday to Monday. Not quite the calendar version of the end of the year, but until the Ducks play in the Rose Bowl it will 2011 in my head. If the beginning of the week looks like it lacks change next week you'll understand.

Old favorites:

Crock Pot Split Pea & Ham Soup: the ham bone was already here after Christmas.
Spicy Black Bean Turkey Chili: we had leftover Fritos from teenage nerdfest the day before, so it was nearly Frito Pie. Both recipes are already posted under the soup tag.

Favorite Sources:

Pan Sauteed Chicken w/Garlic Spinach & Sweet Lemon & Soy Salmon from dinnersforayear.blogspot.com. Also found in my links list. We love so so many of her recipes, tasty and often fast and can be made from what is on hand in the pantry and freezer. This one wasn't a huge success, but I think it may have been more me than the recipe.

New sources:

Sweet Lemon & Soy Salmon, Chicken Satay, Pot Sticker Salad, all new to us recipes, all from the realsimple.com website. We had great luck with their month of easy dinners that I downloaded their app this week.

I am going to move the blog to more of what we loved than what we tried. I'd like it to grow as a resource for collecting favorites and planning meals; more results posts and maybe more pictures.

Update, err Corrections: I was going too fast. This weeks Salmon dish was from dinnersforayear nor real simple. My mistake.

Try, Try Again: The Gadget Nerd Version

So this year has been shockingly un-bloggy. Apparently that farm box structure may have been essential to my blogging consistency. Now on a new coast, CSAs or farm boxes are rarely year round and a bit more exotic (the service, not the offerings). Well I'll try something new. We are still eating dinner, and I still, ideally, have to plan for it and to help the kid's lack of mad organization skills we are all giving the Rembember the Milk (RTM) App & Website a try. So maybe I can re-build blogging into my routine. Actually I meal plan on Google Tasks, this way it shows up on the calendar, but I am migrating my shopping list to RTM.

I am hoping for three post to end the year; this re-launch, the annual holiday cookie plan and a last 2011 menu plan. Hopefully these will get the rust off, and regular at least weekly blogging for the new year will commence.

The new menus may be of a slightly more health aware bent; as always Y & I could shed a few pounds, my cholesterol level is getting the stink eye from my new doctor, and I have a vitamin D deficiency (yeah not in California anymore, where it comes from the sky). Now vitamin D & cholesterol recommendations are almost diametrically opposed; egg yolks would help and milk and yogurt, do NOT eat more than 2 yolks a week. I can only shrug my shoulders and try to eat fresh whole food, maybe a little less beef and cheese, more fish, take my crazy prescription vitamin supplement and add some Omega 3, 6 and fish oils to the mix. Sadly there will be less baking after the new year, and I'll miss it, maybe it will return one day. We have some very nice farmers markets nearby and I have a lead on a nice local CSA, so maybe that will return before too long. If the blogging mojo returns maybe I'll add a lunch plan, my daytime eating could certainly use the structure. Yikes, I've nearly made resolutions and I don't make resolutions.

Anyway Happy New Year to All! Here's to a happier, healthier 2012.

The Rest of The Week

So this is a week of experimentation brought to Chez Plaidsneaker by Real Simple. The current issue has four weeks of weekday meals and I have kind of cherry picked it down to a solid two. So first if something listed in the plan sounds good checkout the source. I'm not going to log the recipes unless I think we find a keeper for at least semi-regular rotation. But I thought I might review the experiments anyway.

Last night we had the Salmon with Ginger-y Green Beans & Bok Choy, which honestly could have been more flavorful. The salmon was fine, but basic. I'm not sure if the error was mine or the recipe but for all the ginger and garlic I threw in that pan before the veggies, I would have expected the more zing in the taste department. This is not an uncommon concern for me with magazine recipes, cautious with the bold flavors equals boring and bland.

So the rest of the week is already off. We ran to Five Guys Burgers and Fries tonight. I had to have wrist x-ray-ed this afternoon for a possible break that I have been attempting to ignore as a sprain since Thursday. Now that my right wrist is all wrapped up, I have kind of lost interest in powering through a bunch of chopping, stirring and dishwashing. I'll have stronger meds tomorrow so perhaps I can recover my macho/pioneer woman mojo and get back to Chicken with Bacon, Potato and Cabbage.