Meal Plan: Leftovers

For the first time in a long time - we didn't go shopping on the weekend. I've always got a few weeks of food stored, so we shouldn't starve. Choosing to do this does, however, greatly limit my experimentation. It also means I'm using a some prepared foods (Hamburger helper, and the taco mix) that have sat in the house for a long time. The funny thing is - after this week I'll still have plenty of food in the house.

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Chicken Fajitas

Take out: BBQ chicken, french fries & cold slaw

Marinated butcher-block steak, romaine salad with red wine vinagrette

Hamburger helper, carrots & celery sticks

Chicken provincial and steamed green beans over brown rice

Chicken fried rice

Vegetarian cassoulet for 6

Saturday
Lunch: Chicken and hummus sandwich with romaine lettuce on a whole-wheat bagel.

Dinner: I went to a friend's house to cook. Fortunately (for me) he had olive oil as I forgot to bring mine. I fried up the trimmed chicken thighs in a bit of olive oil, then added the strips of bell pepper and 1/2 the onion to the pan. When the onion was translucent I added the seasoning and 1/4 cup of water. When the mix was incorporated, I added 3 tablespoons of medium salsa and stirred well. Then I took the pan off the heat. The mix was served on flat-bread with more medium salsa, cheese and sour cream.

Sunday
Lunch: Leftover Chicken Soba soup.

Dinner: It was a quiet day and neither of us felt like making dinner - so we ordered in. A local place does an amazing rotisserie chicken and it's almost as cheap as buying it from the grocery store. The meal was good, and as I said - we were lazy.

Monday
Lunch: Out with a friend.

Dinner: The butcher-block steak had been marinating since last night. It was sitting in a mix of 1 cup red wine, 1/2 cup olive oil, 3 tablespoons steak spice and 1 tablespoon thyme. We barbecued it until it was no longer red in the middle. It was served with a salad of romaine lettuce, a yellow bell pepper, and 2 oz cheese. The dressing was 3 tablespoons red wine vinagrette, 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, 3 shakes of pepper.

Surprisingly there's enough steak left for a sandwich or two.

Tuesday
Lunch: Lentil-barely stew (from the freezer)

Dinner: Hamburger helper.
Other than a few minor changes (smaller portions, extra-lean ground beef, more careful in removing the fat) -- this is the same orange box I cooked from when I first moved out. I served it with a crisp spinach and romaine salad and a tart vinagrette to try and round out the meal.

Wednesday
Lunch: Lentil-barely stew (from the freezer)

Dinner: Chicken provincial and steamed green beans over brown rice.
This recipe is surprisingly simple and quick. Other than taking a pulsing hand blender to the sauce (to make it creamy instead of chunky), I make no changes to the recipe. Often the main course is done just before the rice. If I have enough, I like to cook the brown rice in homemade fat-free chicken broth as I find it greatly improves the taste.

Thursday
Lunch: 1/2 Chicken breast Parmesan with extra sauce (from the freezer) and small salad

Dinner:Chicken fried rice
This, for me, is the penultimate way to get rid of leftover cooked chicken. I often double the amount of chicken that the recipe calls for. My frying man is an absolute mess when I'm done, but it tastes so good. We miss the salt, so I've begun adding a bit of Chinese 5-spice powder on top.

Friday
Lunch: PBJ, yogurt, and fruit

Dinner: Vegetarian cassoulet
There wasn't much left of this one - so I'm calling it a success. It's not quite a cassoulet (no meat, and it took only a bit over an hour to cook); but it is easy and very tasty. We served it with fresh belgian bread and additional paremsan cheese. I've got some garlic crutons left over; wo I'll have good things for salads next week.

Groceries

Meal outlaw: Test

Meal Outlaw, a review

Meal outlaw is a good example of a web 2.0 site.

It relies completely on user-entered data; providing only a format in which to display your data, and ways to distribute it. There are several such services, but the others tend to associate with large databases of recipes. This one does not.

I discovered Meal outlaw through a link provided in the comments of a post about menu planning. To use Meal outlaw, you have to join. You can either sign up with your facebook account, or create a Meal outlaw account. The creation is a simple process, akin to all the other web 2.0 signups, except it asks for a security question and answer for password retrieval.

According to the about page, the idea for Meal outlaw came from Matthew Amster-Burton's blog Roots & Grubs. Mr. Matthew Amster-Burto is a food writer living in Seattle. In the article that inspired Meal outlaw, explains the inspiration for listing what he's eating this week as:

Aside from the purely voyeuristic element, hearing about what other people are making for dinner gives me ideas for what to cook myself.

When I entered my first week of menus, I went to the calendar, clicked on a day, clicked on "add a meal to this day" then entered the information. It was a lot of clicking for adding a title, some tags, a link and any notes. But when it was done, I had a week-long calendar of meals that I could print either from the screen or into PDF. There is a quicker way to add data - right from the front page in fewer page-refreshes and clicks.

Overall the service is a nice one. It allows you to subscribe to your calendar of meals - or anyone else's via RSS or iCal. You can also add comments and photos to your meals, and comments to everyone else's.

The creator of the service, J.R. Tipton, welcomes suggestions and even provides his own email address on the about page. I completely concur with Mr. Tipton's statement that there is a wide proliferation of threads, web sites, and blog posts about what to make for dinner. I'm glad I found Meal outlaw, but it made me wonder about all the other ones out there.

Menu for the week of March 1, 2008

Saturday	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Meatball soup (for 6)	Beans and rice (for 6)	Pork chops & salad	Chicken Piccata & salad	Steak sandwiches with spicy cheese on fresh baguettes & tomato soup	Broiled lemon-pepper fish and steamed corn	Vegetarian cassoulet (for 6)

Updates from the week that is

Saturday
The meatball soup was well received. Everyone enjoyed it and I even had enough left-over for the following day's lunch.

Sunday
Beans and rice. It was actually bland. All those aromatics and it was bland. I cooked all the aromatics with the white kidney beans. I used 2 serrano peppers and I suspect my cayenne pepper is dead. Everyone liked it, but several folk reached for the african-heat spice shaker to try and give it more of a kick. Next time I'll go for the stronger smoked ham, a fattier ham-hock, possibly spicy sausages and/or more chilies.

Monday
The pork chops I bought shrunk quite a bit when cooking; but overall tasted very good. There really is no recipe for this - I sprinkle the chops with pepper and throw them into a grilled pan to cook a few minutes on each side. They were served with a fresh romaine and grape tomato salad with a red wine and olive oil vinagrette. Simple, fast, and delicious.

Tuesday
The meal didn't get made. I grabbed something from the freezer and heated that instead.

Wednesday
Steak sandwiches on fresh bread with sharp cheddar cheese and jalapeños Monterey jack cheese. Yum.

Thursday
Broiled lemon-pepper fish and steamed corn

Friday
The gang canceled, so once again I relied upon the contents of my freezer. I pulled out a pound of hamburger and made ... well ... hamburgers. :)

17-March-2008: Updated with the day-by-day results of my eating.

Meatball soup

Originally from the Relish! menu planning website, I modified the recipe to reduce the salt. I picked the recipe originally because it seemed straightforward and probably could be modified to work with the crock-pot. My first test of the recipe was a resounding success.

Version: 2.0
Serves: 6 (1 1/2 cups each)
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 35 minutes

Equipment

• Measuring cups & spoons.
• Cutting board & knife.
• Dutch Oven.
• Ladle.
• Stirring spoon.

Modification/Notes
The original recipe used canned beef broth and onion soup mix. Both taste good, but I wanted something lower in salt. So, I switched to chicken broth and real onion. I also reduced the amount of butter down to a tablespoon (from 2). I had 2 cups of rice (cooked in chicken broth) in my fridge - so I added it to the soup to positive effect.

Ingredients

• 38-ounces frozen meatballs
• 1 onion, minced
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 4 carrot(s), thinly sliced
• 2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
• 26-ounces (6 cups) chicken broth, fat removed, low-sodium
• 28-ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 3 tablespoons Italian parsley, chopped
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano (or 1/2 teaspoon fresh)
• 1 teaspoon dried basil (or 1/2 teaspoon fresh)
• 1 bay leaf
• coarse salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, freshly grated

Instructions

1. In a Dutch oven over medium heat, melt 1/2 the butter.
2. Sauté the onion until the onion begins to become translucent.
3. Add the carrots and celery, and continue to sauté for 4-5 minutes or until softened.
4. Add all the other ingredients except the meatballs and the cheese.
5. Bring to a boil.
6. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.
7. Add meatballs; cover and simmer meatball soup 10 minutes longer.
8. Remove the bay leaf before serving.
9. Serve topped with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano.

Taco seasoning mix in a jar

I found this recipe on a website about Gifts in a Jar. It’s a nice mix that keeps well for 6 months or longer if stored in a well-sealed mason jar. This mix can also be made fresh.

Version 2.0
Serves: 5 (Yields about 2 cups)
Preparation time: 5 minutes.
Cooking Time: None.

Equipment required:

• Mason jar and funnel
• Measuring cups & spoons

Modifications/Notes
Add pasta to create Hamburger helper.
Chili mix seasoning is slightly different, but I like the taste of this mix so much that I often use it instead.
The original recipe called for 1/4 cup of salt. I removed it and found the recipe tasted a lot better.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup dried minced onion
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 1 tablespoons dried oregano
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch or whole wheat flour.
• 2 tablespoons red pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin

Instructions

1. Pour the ingredients into the mason jar.
2. Mix well.
3. To use: Add 2 - 3 tablespoons of the mix to 1-3/4 pounds hamburger and 1/2 cup water for tacos.

Fresh version
This takes longer, so I only make it this way when I have time and a good reason (like people coming over for dinner).

Ingredients

• 1 onion, finely minced
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 1/2 tablespoon oregano, fresh minced
• 2 tablespoons whole wheat flour.
• 2 tablespoons red pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin

Instructions

1. In a hot skillet, with a little bit of olive oil, cook the onions until they are translucent. Stir frequently. If the skillet smokes, reduce the heat.
2. Add the garlic and stir. Cook only until the garlic is fragrant.
3. Add the spices, and stir to incorporate.
4. Add the flour, and continue to stir.
5. Remove the mix from the pan, and set aside. Cook your meat in the pan, and drain it well.
6. When the meat is cooked, and drained, return the mixture to the pan, and add 1/2 cup of water. Stir well.
7. Cook until the liquid is mostly incorporated, then remove the pan from the heat. The mixture will thicken as it cools.

Updated. Modified the recipe according to John Eddy's comments.

Plan B. Improving what I eat

So, it seems I'd best try planning out all three recipes a day to try and reduce all the extras.

Last weekend's grocery receipt (compared against a few older ones) shows a few things I regularly get.

• Baguettes.
• Hot cereal mixes.
• Snack bars.
• Instant meals.
• Flavored yogurt.
• Drinks (chocolate milk, juices, sodas, etc).
• Taco mix, or sauce.
• Junk food.

Most of these things I can either make at home or just do without. Breaking the soda habit is a hard one. We're going to try to wean ourselves off both soda and junk food. This is not going to be easy; and to help I have to come up with interesting snacks for daily consumption that are portable.

Step 1. Sauces
I have a great recipe for taco mix. I need to make that up this weekend. Fortunately I have most of the ingredients.

I'll have to make more chicken broth next week (as this Friday's meal will probably take all I have). And I should make up some Diabetic vegetable stock as I'm all out.

Step 2. Snacks
I read somewhere that you should always reward yourself. When trying to stay healthy - that does limit my choices.

Snacks for this week:

• 100mL sugar-free fruit yogurt + ground flax seed
• 1/4 cup frozen berries + 1/3 cup cottage cheese - just me
• 1 oz Cheese + small fruit
• 2 sticks Celery + 1 tbsp natural peanut butter
• 4 Carrot sticks
• 1/2 cup Fruit salad (apples, pears, bananas, grapefruit, melon)

Menu plan
Check out Meal Outlaw for my menu plan.

Breakfasts
I barely know which way to go to get to the kitchen in the morning; so instead of setting a specific meal for a specific day, I'll just list the options here in three categories: Planned (must prepare the night before or get up early), backup (used most often when I sleep in), Quick (for when we're running late).

• Planned: Eggs and chicken bacon
• Planned: Cream of wheat & cinnamon sugar & fruit salad
• Backup: Oatmeal & fruit salad
• Quick: Cold cereal, milk & bananas
• Quick: Toast, natural peanut butter & bananas

Lunches
Same categories as for breakfast. Most lunches are planned, but we don't always have leftovers (even if I plan for them), so sometimes I need to use a backup and sometimes there's not even time for the backup.

• Planned: Leftovers, small salad, 15ml dressing, fruit, 257mL diet soda
• Backup: 1/2 Chicken sandwich (on whole wheat with light mayo, pepper & lettuce), carrots & celery, soup
• Quick: PB&J, carrots & celery, 257mL diet soda

Grocery list
Grocer

• Celery (snacks)
• Pears (snacks)
• Bananas (snacks)
• Melon (snacks
• 2 green bell peppers or red bell peppers (Mexican pie)
• 1 jalapeño pepper (Mexican pie)
• 1 Parsnips (Vegetable stock)
• 2 Leeks (Vegetable stock)
• 1 Celery root (Vegetable stock)
• 1 (10 ounce) package red pearl onions or white pearl onions (Vegetarian stew)
• 5 large sweet potatoes (Vegetarian stew)
• 1 head cauliflower (Vegetarian stew)
• 0.67 lbs (0.30 kg) ground chicken (Mexican pie)
• Sugar-free fruit yogurt (snacks)
• Cottage cheese (snacks)
• Eggs (breakfast, Mexican pie)
• Buttermilk (Mexican pie)
• 1 can low-salt tomato sauce (Mexican pie)

Butcher's

• Chicken bacon
• 1 pk chicken thighs (Chicken stew)
• 1 roasting chicken (Sunday)
• 1 pk chicken breasts (Chicken Provencal)

Deli

• Cheese (snacks)
• Dried minced onion (Taco mix)
• Chili powder (Taco mix)
• 1/3 cup (80 mL) black olives (Chicken Provencal)