October 4 - 9

Happy October!

I did well a few weeks ago, and then last week fell back into my old habits... random grazing from the fridge, take-out... it wasn't pretty. But I think I'm turning a corner and getting my ducks back into some kind of a row.
Here's the plan:

Sunday

Sausage, beer and cabbage soup -- I love this stuff.

Good bread for dipping

Monday

Pasta with beans and endive: based on a recipe from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home:

3 cloves garlic

1 onion

olive oil

endive

salt and pepper

1 can tomatoes

1 can cannellini beans

lemon juice

penne pasta

Start cooking the pasta. Saute the onion in the olive oil, then add garlic. Add the endive, season, and cook until it wilts a bit. Add tomatoes and beans, simmer. Add some lemon juice right at the end.
Serve sauce over pasta with grated cheese on top.

Tuesday

Meatloaf, boiled baby potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts. This is the meatloaf I planned to make a few weeks ago -- it didn't happen, so I'll try it now.

Wednesday

Pizza on Naan flatbread: Pizza sauce, then whatever pizza-ish veggies are hanging around: mushrooms, red pepper, sundried tomatoes, some artichokes from the jar in the fridge, maybe some zucchini, and mozzarella on top. If it's nice, I'll cook it with indirect heat on the grill. If it's not nice out, I'll bake it for 10 minutes or so in the oven at about 425 degrees.

Thursday

Fish tacos!

Season up some cod, saute in a pan.

Make tacos with whole wheat tortillas, fish, shredded cabbage (save a bit from the soup on Sunday), salsa, avocado, shredded cheese, etc.

Loving this fall thing...

Isn't it just so deliciously crisp and lovely right now? The beautiful blue sky and the cool nights and the leaves beginning to change and the Lions... well. Anyway. I'm even okay with waking up at night with camping hand -- when you leave the window open at night even though the temperature drops to 40 degrees, and that one hand that sneaks outside the covers slowly freezes until you wake up and have a near-frozen hand. That's camping hand, although it happens more at home than camping, at least for me.

Speaking of deliciously crisp, bought my first Honeycrisps of the year just now! Had one for an after-grocery-shopping snack. Yuuuh-uuummm!

This is what we're eating this week. Happy fall!

Sunday

Breakfast for dinner!

Blueberry pancakes (or maybe banana-chocolate chip in homage to Alan & Rachel)

Canadian bacon

Orange slices

Monday

Salmon with Asian slaw

Tuesday

Roasted corn and goat cheese quesadillas (an old favorite)

Black beans

Wednesday

Sandwiches, grilled-cheese style, but with mozzarella, tomato slices, and basil

Thursday

Meat loaf

Boiled baby redskin potatoes

Broccoli, sauteed with garlic

Time to get back in gear

This new-job-get-home-and-stare-glassy-eyed-until-someone-orders-take-out phase has to end soon. There are too many styrofoam and cardboard containers in our lives right now. I miss vegetables. I have big plans to cook for real this week. But I'll try to go easy...

So here's our plan:

Sunday (the first football Sunday, even):

Barbecue sirloin and blue cheese salad

with good bread

And Phil's planning on making some decadent mid-afternoon snack for football watching, probably involving some sort of boxed cheese product, so we'll pretend dinner's healthy by calling it salad. With steak. And more cheese.

Monday

Grilled salmon

Lentils (I've been craving them lately) probably cooked then sauteed with a bit of onion, garlic, maybe red pepper?

Sauteed greens -- maybe chard, maybe spinach

Tuesday

Chicken and spinach soup

Yummy bread

Wednesday

Leftovers, probably. Or take-out, if the withdrawal is too much to bear.

Thursday

Gnocci with tomato sauce and sausage. I bought some gnocci at the Clarkston Farmers' Market a few weeks ago, and have been anxious to try it. It's spicy red pepper, so I thought it might be yummy with sausage. We have some spicy Italian chicken sausage in the freezer. We shall see.

That's the plan! Wish me luck...

There hasn't been much of a connection

What we've been eating lately and what I've been cooking lately haven't been very connected. I've started working at school (not with kids, just with the before-school-starts dusting, organizing, furniture-moving) and come home dirty and exhausted. So there's been a lot of take-out. Yay for sushi and pad thai...

But I also have been channeling a bit of the ant or grasshopper (can't remember which one) who was trying hard to prepare for winter. Not that I'm wishing for cold -- noooooooo! But I am trying to preserve/stock up on all the gorgeous stuff that's ripe right now. I organized the freezer we keep in the garage yesterday, and it's quite full already. Of what?

In addition to the last few savory bits of venison, some chickens I bought at the farmers market last week, and random seafood that was on sale, I've been chopping, blanching and freezing, in preparation for a fall and winter of pasta and soup. I love soup.

We've got broccoli in the garden, so if it's ready, but we're not ready to eat it, I blanch and freeze. I've been buying cabbages (1 or 2 at a time -- any more than that and the farmers would be suspicious of me, I think) and slicing and blanching and freezing -- that'll make great soup. Same thing with corn... I'm a sucker for the 13 ears for $4 or whatever it is, so I'll buy 13, then we'll eat 2 and save the rest. Again, I blanch in boiling water for about 2 minutes, cool, cut off the kernels, and freeze, 2 cups to a bag. Also green beans, peas, and lots and lots of zucchini. I've experimented with the zucchini this year -- I never blanched before, just chopped and froze. This year I tried some of each, so we can be scientific about it.

The tomatoes are going nuts right now, but especially the little guys -- the grape, the yellow pear. I think I'm going to try some "sun" (a.k.a. food dehydrator) dried tomatoes. I'll dry them, dip them in vinegar, put them in a jar with some garlic and basil, and fill the jar with olive oil. If I have any extra tomatoes, I'll just put them in a bag in the freezer and add to the oil jar as room becomes available. Haven't tried this yet, but most things I've read said this would be a good way to go.

Oh -- and I ordered a new canning rack to fit inside one of my stock pots. Apparently, there are some issues with traditional canners and ceramic-topped stoves, so I'm having to improvise.

So, really, all this is just fair warning that there will be lots of talk about cabbage soup over the next few months. You're now duly warned.

More random food blatherings...

I went back into my classroom this week for the first time. New job, new school, new classroom, lots to do. But it's starting to get me back into the "get my act together and be an organized person" frame of mind. And I know that soon, we'll need to start planning meals again instead of just sauteeing whatever's looking good from the garden.

But that's not happening quite yet. We're still aimless summer eaters, but I wanted to share what we had for dinner last night:

Venison chops from Phil's deer, sauteed in a bit of butter for just a minute or so

Corn on the cob FROM OUR GARDEN! It lived! It actually grew ears of corn! (Last year we weren't so lucky. Our neighbor told us we need to plant more than one row so it can pollinate.)

Green beans, including some that were purple -- do you just call them purple beans? We got them at a farm stand up north last weekend.

And the cutest little baby carrots you've ever seen. We grew them, and they're just adorable. They're the size of my tiny stubby fingers and tasty as candy. This is them:

Aren't they cute?

July 26... and the eatin' is good.

I seem to be spending a great deal of time lately thinking about, picking, washing and eating food. I'm a sucker for anything that's fresh, or just picked, or ripe and lovely. And so, last week I went off to the orchard (Spicer Orchards) to pick 4 quarts of the most giant raspberries I've ever seen...

I went back another day and got almost 11 pounds of blueberries. I froze most of them, but I'm experimenting with a few in the food dehydrator to see how they turn out. And I saw a recipe in the Detroit Free Press for a Blueberry Galette, so 3 cups went to that. I think I'll go back next week and get more, because the thought of it being mid-winter and me being out of blueberries in the freezer makes me nervous. I'm a blueberry hoarder. This is what the galette looked like out of the oven:

But we can't live on berries alone, right? The farmer's market had squash blossoms yesterday... I've seen so many recipes for them, but always hoard the ones on my own zucchini plants (I have enough trouble coaxing squash from them to begin with). So I bought some. And they'll be dinner tonight:

Fried squash blossoms

Squash blossom soup

Toasted bread

Blueberry galette for dessert!

And we have a sort-of plan for the week... the goal is using all the veggies I keep buying (and the ones actually growing in our own garden! Whee!)

Monday

Fish (either salmon or sole -- both are in the freezer), probably grilled

Saute green beans and baby carrots and onions

Boiled baby potatoes, salted and chives sprinkled on.

Tuesday

Grilled zucchini, sliced tomato, mozzarella, basil on toasted bread. Maybe balsamic vinegar drizzled on top.

Wednesday

Steak

Corn on the cob

Broccoli salad

Thursday

Grilled pizzas on flatbread... with all kinds of good stuff on them.

And of course, we have a crazy cucumber plant. So, sliced cucumbers for snacks and appetizers all week!

There's stuff in the garden now!

Just got back from 2 weeks up north, and the garden that was looking just lovely at the end of June has exploded. So now I'm trying to think about using it... while dealing with the fact that there are very few other groceries in the house...

Here's what I came up with for tonight:

Grilled turkey tenderloin (found one in the freezer -- bonus!)

Marinated zucchini (from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home):

Slice zucchini diagonally, saute in pan with a bit of olive oil, drain on paper towel. Add some garlic to the pan, saute. Put zucchini and garlic in a bowl, sprinkle chopped herb (I'll use basil) over the top, pour vinegar (I'll use balsamic) over everything, sprinkle with salt. Serve at room temperature.

Salad with raspberries (Did I mention I went to pick raspberries today? They're goooooorrrrrgeous!) and feta.

For dessert, I'm trying to make cherry sorbet. I cut a quart of cherries in half to take out the pits and froze them. I boiled a cup of water and dissolved a half cup of sugar in it. I'll chop up the frozen cherries in the food processor, then blend in the sugar water and some lemon juice. Dump it all in the ice cream maker, and see what happens!

No plans yet for the rest of the week. Just taking things one day at a time right now. Can't wait for the tomatoes to ripen!