It's menu time...

Rather than stay at home in the snow, I decided to get the weekly shopping done early. It took a while for Staci and I to put together this week's menu, but I'm happy with it. It may not be the best food for you, but it certainly is comforting food. The best part is I used my newly designed Meal Planner and Shopping List designed by Staci. It's got so much more writing space than the one that I was using previously. I was excited to get this week started, so I made homemade pizza again tonight. I won't post any pictures since we've made them before.

Sunday - Oven Fried Chicken and Roasted Potato Salad
Monday - Pressure Cooker Beef Stew
Tuesday - Chicken Boudine
Wednesday - Curried Chicken
Thursday - Chicken and Dumplings

Weekly Menu

It's another week, and another menu. This week seems pretty great, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the food if everything is as good as today's.

Monday - Grilled Portobello with Salad Greens
Tuesday - Salmon with Spinach in a Tomato, Dill and Mustard sauce
Wednesday - Creamy Cheese Rotini with Garlic and Oil
Thursday - Chicken Picatta

I'm convinced that if I could serve Portobello mushrooms to Staci every day, I could turn her into a vegetarian. Well, I like to think that I could, anyway. It's not the best time of year to find portobellos; I want to try this again in the spring when you can find the giant ones in the store. This was a simple recipe, something that was meant as an appetizer. I just increased the mushroom count to two medium per person. I sliced them and put them on top of some mixed spring greens, and added a touch of mozzarella. Simply delicious!



Grilled Portobello Mushrooms
From the Turn Around Program

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespooons soy sauce
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme

1. Mix all ingredients together. Marinate mushrooms for 10 minutes flipping often. 2. Grill mushrooms or cook under broiler for 1-2 minutes per side till warmed through.
3. While hot, slice mushrooms and serve over greens.

Try it! You might like it...or maybe you'll order pizza.

Homemade Pizza

We started out the new week right today by having homemade pizza. I bought the thin crust from the store pre-made. Staci and I coated them with olive oil, and a thin layer of tomato sauce, and then dressed them with some great non-traditional pizza items. We opted for fresh mozzarella, spinach, kalamata olives, canadian bacon, turkey pepperoni, and mushrooms. They were great, and much better for us than something that we could have ordered in from a pizza joint!

Next week's list is prepared and ready to go. I'm most excited for Tuesday, as I'll be trying to make Spinach and Mushroom Etouffee. Staci and I went to a Cajun place called Gumbo Ya-Ya's here locally. We tried a sample of their Spinach and Mushroom Etouffee and just fell in love with it. It was tasty, filling, and spicy - just like you want a good Cajun dish to be! I haven't been too successful in finding a similar recipe online, but I've found a couple of recipies that I'm going to try and tweak to produce a similar result.

Monday - Shrimp & Sausage with Red Rice
Tuesday - Spinach & Mushroom Etouffee
Wednesday - Spiced Pot Roast
Thursday - Greek Chicken and Spinach Rice Soup

All of these seem like very comforting foods. I can't wait to get started cooking them.

Try it! You might like it...or maybe you'll order pizza.

Bangers and Rice

Staci and I have our weekly menu planned, and I'm very excited! Monday is the only real cheat-night, as we're re-doing the lamb that we did last week. I'm trying a different cut of meat this time, an actual shank, rather than the rib. I'm going to make the same sauce again, and use less cucumber to see if it will end up thicker than last time. We're branching out a bit this week, but still some great hearty items.

Monday - Lamb Shanks and Greek Yogurt Sauce.
Tuesday - Marinated Swordfish with Skillet Greens
Wednesday Chicken Souvlaki with Tomato and Mushroom Couscous
Thursday - Pork Kabobs with Roasted Red Potato Salad
Friday - Dine-out Night.

I opted for the easy route today at lunch. Staci and I went out with family yesterday, and while we were shopping we saw these delectable chicken sausages with spinach. I made a group of them today, and I'm saving the rest for next week for an awesome recipe that we found. To jazz it up a little, I paired it with some spiced rice and a brown butter and sherry glaze.


Spiced Rice
ormaybepizza recipe by Alde

1 tablespoon of butter
1 cup basmati rice
1/3 teaspoon red pepper flake
1/3 teaspoon garam masala powder
2 cups chicken stock

1. In saucepan over medium heat melt butter and add red pepper flake and garam masala.
2. Add rice, stir regularly till basmati takes on slightly golden colour.
3. Pour in chicken stock, and bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer and cook till all liquid is absorbed.


Chicken Sausage with Brown Butter Sherry Glaze
ormaybepizza recipe by Alde

5 chicken sausage with spinach links
3 tablespoons of butter, divided
1/4 cup cooking sherry

1. In pan over medium-high heat, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and add sausage links. Cook until warm throughout and browned on the outside.
2. Remove links from the pan. Add in remaining butter and allow to melt in pan. Pour in sherry and reduce until alcohol is cooked out.
3. Arrange links over rice, spoon glaze over dish.

Try it! You might like it...or maybe you'll order pizza.

New Year, New Food

It's the new year! Time to put old things behind you and think about moving forward. For many that means new resolutions and promises to keep over the coming year. For my wife and I, this was no different. Our primary resolution was to eat healthier, expand our culinary horizions and try some different foods; to eat things that we don't normally eat.

I was greatly inspired by the cook, Nupur, over at One Hot Stove and her culinary marathon during the month of December. Why should we spend all this time looking at recipies, drooling over them, and bookmarking them if we're not going to give them a try. It seems pointless. So with her same courage, we are going to try and broaden our tastes, and eat new fruits, veggies and types of meals.

To start the project my wife and I poured over recipies for a few hours, looking for meals that were both healthy, and sounded delicious. We then dilligently arranged our picks into what we feel would be a good "meal plan" for the week and settled on the following:

Sunday - Greek Style Lamb Chops with Swiss Chard and Bacon
Monday - Stuffed Chicken Breast and Rice Pilaf
Tuesday - Barley Vegetable Soup
Wednesday - Meatloaf with Tomato, Zucchini and Mushroom Gratin
Thursday - Spicy Asian Marinated Beef and Asparagus Stir Fry with Rice
Friday - Roasted Chicken with Garlic Potatoes
Saturday - Shitake Chicken Stir Fry

We then made a corresponding grocery shopping list. The list was long, way long, but it was filled with items that we don't find in our fridge, cupboards or pantry that often. The grocery shop together was actually quite fun, and more like a scanvenger hunt, trying to find things like pearled barley, Asian five-spice, and swiss chard.

Tonight's menu was the Greek Style Lamb and Swiss Chard with Bacon. Both my wife and I are a sucker for Greek or Mediterranean food, but we're not much for thick leafy greens. I have to say that we were both very pleasantly surprised with how things turned out overall. I have never used the oven broiler alone to cook meat, but it did a perfect job on the lamb chops (minus the rolling smoke though the house from the melted fat). I'd definately recommend these recipes to anyone, and I'm sure that we'll eat both of these again, maybe soon.

Greek Style Lamb
Taken from the Weight Watchers TurnAround Program Cookbook. 4 servings.

4 lamb chops (bone in)
3/4 cup plain yogurt (fat free)
1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut up
1/4 cup of fresh mint
3 scallions sliced
1 garlic clove
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
pepper to taste

1. Move oven rack to 3-4 inches below the broiler, and set the broiler to high for preheating.
2. Lay lamb chops out on a greased pan to come to room temp. Season with salt and pepper on both sides and place in the oven. Broil each side for roughly 5 minutes. This should keep the meat a nice medium. Broil for longer if you want the meat more well done.
3. In a blender, combine the yogurt, cucumber, mint, scallions, garlic, 1/4 teaspoon of salt and crushed red pepper.
4. Serve lamb chop with sauce from blender spooned on top.

Swiss Chard with Bacon
Taken from the Atkins for Life Kit. 4 servings.

5 slices of thick-cut bacon
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
3/4 lb. of Swiss Chard, washed and chopped into 1 inch strips
1/2 cup canned beans, pinto or navy
1/4 teaspoon of salt
pepper to taste

1. Cook bacon over medium heat in pan till crispy. Remove from pan.
2. In same pan, add garlic to bacon grease till it starts to brown.
3. Add in beans and swiss chard to pan. As the chard starts to wilt, add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Serve once beans have heated through.

I didn't make any modifications to the recipes, though next time I'll maybe add red pepper flake to the chard, and possibly a bit more salt. I'll also probably cut the amount of cucumber in the sauce for the lamb, as it was a bit too runny, even with the cucumbers being seeded. With each recipe making 4 servings, we had enough for lunch tomorrow, or possibly a late-night snack.

Try it! You might like it....or maybe you'll order pizza.