April 24 - 29

Happy Easter! Happy Spring! This is my new attitude -- I'm going to pretend it's warm and springy and maybe it will be, eventually. So the electric blanket got put away, along with the tall boots and the thick black tights. I'm wearing open-toed sandals in 40-degree weather, but I'm sure that if I think warm thoughts, the weather will follow, right?

And I'm carrying that philosophy into dinner, too. Enough with the slow cooker and the soup for a while. (But I love soup, right? So I'll probably be back to it soon, craving heavy all-day-cooked stuff in, say, July. But oh well.)

So this is the plan:

Sunday

Dinner is mainly to recover from brunch. Oh, that damn dessert table!

Shrimp Cobb Salad

Monday

City Slicker Omelets: There's this little breakfast place up north in Alden, MI, that has these lovely omelets. They're called City Slicker omelets, but they're basically just filled with tomato, onion, and feta cheese. I get a little crazy and have them add mushrooms too. So tonight I'm having a City Slicker omelet. Can't speak for what Phil will choose to put in his, but I'm pretty sure tomatoes won't be there. :)

Tuesday

Grilled chicken breasts (maybe with barbecue sauce!)

Grilled green beans -- put them in foil with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. Leave the top of the foil open so they don't just steam, then put on the grill for 10 minutes or so, tossing them from time to time so they can get sort of browned and lovely.

Salad

Wednesday

Sole with capers: Put a piece of sole on foil, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper (yes, just like yesterday's green beans -- it's my fall-back grilling method) and sprinkle capers all around it. Grill it on fairly high heat so the bottom gets a little brown and the edges a bit crispy. Drizzle fresh lemon juice at the end.

We'll have grilled zucchini and tomatoes to go with, and also salad.

Thursday

Probably a leftover night... nothing too exciting!

Friday

Don't usually post Friday night dinners, because it's often random take-out, but I'm planning this one already. I have my last really long training run (in preparation for the Bayshore Marathon) on Saturday, and my pre-race/pre-long run dinner is pizza... (as many carbs as spaghetti -- or so -- and more delicious!).

And I'm loving the crust that I make in my Kitchen Aid -- it's my best crust ever -- so I'll be making homemade pizza Friday night.

The crust is crazy easy: Dissolve 2 and 1/4 tsp. yeast in a cup of warm water, then add a half teaspoon of salt, 2 tsp. olive oil, and then 2 and 1/2 cups of flour (I do an even mix of white and whole wheat flour). Mix for about 4 or 5 minutes in the mixer with the bread hook, then put in a greased bowl to rise and cover for about an hour.

Punch it down and spread it on a baking stone (I put a bit of oil and cornmeal first) then add toppings:

• pizza sauce
• Italian chicken sausage
• red onion
• roasted red pepper
• mushrooms
• spinach
• any other available veggies (asparagus, artichokes, broccoli, etc.)
• mozzarella (my favorite is to get a ball of it -- someday I will learn to make this! -- and slice it in thin pieces and spread it all over.

Bake for about 20 minutes at 450 degrees.

Have a great week!

April 17 - 21

I'm so ready for it to be spring for real, but it just doesn't seem to be sticking. So as I'm sitting on my couch watching the wind whip around the bare branches in the yard, I'm thinking that a week full of grilling might not be the best plan. But deep down, that's what I want.

and so, instead...

Sunday

Pasta! I'm craving fat noodles (at least linguine, if not pappardelle). I'll make a sauce like this: Saute a chopped onion. Add some Italian turkey sausage, cook until browned and crumbly. Add some sliced mushrooms, garlic, a bit of red bell pepper, some canned tomato. Season as needed (salt, pepper, maybe some red pepper flakes for a bit of bite). Stir in a bit of pesto (ours is in ice-cube squares -- we make a bunch in the fall and then freeze baggies of the cubes) and some spinach leaves. Mix in the cooked pasta with a little bit of pasta water (the starchy water helps everything stick together) and let it cook down for a minute or so.

That's it.

Monday

This is one of my new favorite things, and I bought a bunch of sweet potatoes last week, so why not?

(The recipe is for spinach-stuffed baked potatoes, but I use sweet potatoes, just because orange food is fun.)

Spinach-Stuffed Potatoes

Tuesday

Okay, I have to let the grill have a little bit of action. Couldn't handle the thought of a whole week cooking on the stove...

Grilled salmon (there will probably be a bit of barbecue sauce on it, because that's been happening a lot lately)

Sauteed veggies (onion? mushrooms? red pepper? green beans?)

Rice pilaf

Wednesday

Fried rice with chicken and veggies:

I'm sure my fried rice method is far from authentic, and equally far from what happens at take-out places. But I like it:

Cut up a whole bunch of veggies (red onion, celery, carrot, bell pepper, mushroom, zucchini, maybe cabbage or some edamame). One ingredient at a time, saute them in a big pan. I start with the toughest veggies (onions, carrots, celery) and work my way to the most delicate. Get some tiny pieces of chicken in the saute at some point as well. When everything's cooked, add some pre-cooked brown rice, some soy sauce, some chile paste or Sriracha. Maybe a bit of rice wine vinegar for zip. Chopped green onions on top to garnish.

Thursday

Big old salad night! Woo hoo! With yummy toast for dipping, and maybe feta cheese and sunflower seeds in it.

April 10 - 14

Our menu is back on track! (We hope, anyway...) A few weeks of crazy nights, then broken internet, then vacation means I haven't visited this page in a while. But after a week in Florida eating tourist food (you know -- things that come with french fries and cole slaw), I'm ready for some actual cooking and actual veggies.

Sunday

It's gorgeous and around 80 degrees, and so we'll put the grill to work tonight.

Chicken kebabs (marinating chicken breast chunks in white balsamic vinegar, olive oil, sriracha, salt and pepper -- will skewer it up and grill it!)

Grilled veggies (we're making lots of extras, so we can put them on salads and things all week... baby portabella mushrooms, hunks of zucchini, giant sweet onions, grape tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, and lovely asparagus)

Bread

Monday

Big old salad topped with lots of leftover grilled veggies from last night. We'll also add some cannelini beans and parmesan. Balsamic vinegarette.

Tuesday

Bacon and Cabbage soup (from Irish Farmers' Market cookbook)

It's an Irish cookbook, so the measurements were in grams and ounces. I've listed the ounces in the recipe, but I'm figuring I'll just eyeball everything, like I usually do with soup anyway. Just keep adding good stuff until the pot is full!

2 oz butter

3 1/2 oz diced bacon

4 1/2 oz potatoes, peeled and diced (Karen's note: I don't peel potatoes. Just because.)

2 garlic cloves, crushed

3 1/2 oz onions

10 fl oz hot stock (chicken or vegetable)

10 oz chopped fresh tomatoes (though I'm thinking I'll use canned since it's December and fresh tomatoes taste like straw)

10 oz cabbage, shredded

salt and pepper

Melt butter, stir in bacon, potatoes, garlic and onions (can you imagine this smell?). Cook about 10 minutes on medium heat, covered.

Add stock and tomatoes, bring to a boil. Add cabbage, reduce heat and cook for about 5 minutes until veggies are tender. Season with salt and pepper and serve with gorgeous bread.

Wednesday

Barbecue Portobello quesadillas

Corn, black bean, red pepper, green and red onion salad

Thursday

Spinach salad with strawberries, grilled chicken, red onions, and blue cheese

Why I Have This Blog

So, I've been doing this dinner blog for a couple of years now. And the idea came from a conversation with friends over dinner (Them: "We hate deciding what to cook." Me: "It's my favorite thing to think about!" Them: "Then just tell us what you're making!").

But the bigger idea of blogging in the first place? The willingness to put my too-full-of-dashes writing out there for anyone to see? That came from someplace else.

Four years ago, I joined the National Writing Project by taking part in Oakland Writing Project's summer institute. And everyone said it would change my life. And I pooh-poohed that, because, really, most life-altering events don't seem to take place in a conference room between the hours of 9 and 3.

But the thing about Writing Project is that it has a way of affirming the fact that the best kind of professional development is teachers learning from other teachers. That even though we haven't published books or spent time on the national speaking circuit, we still have lots and lots of valid and important things to say. And the whole process works in such a way that it's kind of this snowball effect: you're learning more about the world around you, and you're learning to express your thinking about it through stronger writing, and that pushes you to learn more and think differently and seek out new resources and better practices.

And it changes your life.

And so, while most of my Writing Project-related personality flourishes show up in my day job at school, I also came to embrace the idea that if I'm writing about LOTS of things I'm truly interested in, I'm going to be a stronger writing teacher. So this blog is my little non-education-related outlet for that.

So I'm sharing this, instead of this week's menu, because this weekend the National Writing Project is holding a Blog for NWP weekend. At first I wasn't going to participate -- most of the blogs are about smart things going on in classrooms. But when I thought about it, I realized that this silly dinner blog is here because of NWP too.

See, despite the evidence that NWP is a program that works, a program that raises achievement of students in classrooms of NWP teachers, funding has been eliminated at the federal level. And I understand the need to cut back and save money -- I do. But it makes no sense to me to remove funding for this program that offers such a HUGE bang for the buck simply for the sake of bragging about cutting earmarks. Doesn't it make more sense to invest in programs that have the best return on that investment? Huh...

So, anyway, this is my contribution to the weekend of blogs. I'll return to my regularly-scheduled dinner commentaries and recipes soon (trying a pad thai recipe tonight I'm excited about). But I wanted to get this out there. If you want to know more, www.nwp.org is a good resource. And it wouldn't hurt to let your legislators know your thoughts, either.

Have a good weekend!

Wishing for Spring...

We're sort of tired of winter food around here. At the same time, I'm feeling a need to do some spring cleaning, and when I went through the freezer, there was a LOT I had forgotten about. So the theme this week is "Getting rid of stuff that's been in the freezer for a while." So when the spring weather really DOES show up, we won't still be trying to use up soup bones and stuff like that.

Sunday

Chili. It's snowy, and blowy, and cold. This is our favorite chili recipe:

All American Chili

and we'll have some kind of bread for dipping.

Monday

Fried rice with veggies: Yummy, and per-er-er-er-fect for using up lots of odds and ends:

Saute veggies, one at a time (cook one, then add the next) in a bit of oil: onions, celery, mushroom, garlic, red pepper -- and whatever sort of makes sense from all those bags of frozen veggies hiding out (you know -- the ones with about a half cup of veggies left in the bottom). Add pre-cooked brown rice. Add some soy sauce and chili paste or sriracha. If we're feeling sassy, we'll scramble an egg right at the end and add it in.

Tuesday

Sort of inventing a recipe here, but it's based on pretty basic stuff:

Lamb and lentil soup

I'm thinking:

Brown lamb bones in a bit of oil, add to slow cooker. Add chopped carrots, celery, parsnip, onion, garlic. A jar of tomatoes, some water, some lentils. A few bay leaves. A bit of salt and pepper.

Cook all day.

That evening, pull the bones out, chop any lamb that needs chopping, and mix it all together. Season if necessary, and eat. I'm thinking it will be good.

Wednesday

Spaghetti squash with pesto and veggies and maybe scallops: saute veggies (whatever's around, but I'm sure onion and tomato and mushroom will be involved), add pre-cooked spaghetti squash (another thing from the freezer: cooked a bunch in the fall and froze it in 2-serving packages), some scallops, some pesto (again, from the freezer... starting to think I might have a hoarding issue) and mix it all together. Top with a bit of parmesan cheese.

Thursday

Grilled salmon with barbecue sauce

Roasted sweet potatoes

Sauteed green beans

And next weekend? Admire all the open space in our freezer...

Quick Dinner Week!

Not much cooking going on this week... Sunday night was leftover salad from Rachel's baby shower, and Monday we went out to the Union Woodshop in Clarkston. (Fabulous, by the way. You should go. And invite me to come along.)

So this is what I'm planning for this week:

Tuesday

I've got some barley cooking right now for Barley and Sweet Potato Salad, from Amy Pennington's Urban Pantry, a book that's right up my alley. It's a mix of recipes, good ingredients, preserving your own stuff and just being efficient in the kitchen. Here's the deal with the salad:

1. Toast a cup of uncooked barley in a dry pan for a few minutes, then add 3 cups of water and bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer for 50 - 60 minutes. Drain and cool.

2. Cube a sweet potato and saute in oil with a bit of salt and pepper.

3. Mix the potato, barley, and about a half cup of chopped fresh herbs. Dress with a bit of olive oil and champagne vinegar or lemon juice.

We'll have some green salad with this.

Thursday

Big salad with all the veggies still hanging out in the fridge (I'm especially excited about the roasted red pepper, cucumber, a little feta -- not a veggie, I know -- and mushrooms. I like to cook the mushrooms a bit before adding them to salad.)

Fry an egg and put it on top

Oven roasted potatoes on the side

So, a tiny little food week. But it should be good, nonetheless.

February 14 - 17

Happy Valentine's Day! We're cooking food we LOVE -- Pizza!

(Really, it's because we were gone this weekend, and haven't had a chance to go to the grocery store, and we can make pizza with pretty much anything around the house. But also we love it. So there's that.)

Monday

Pizza with homemade crust:

Make crust with my lovely KitchenAid mixer -- half white, half whole-wheat flour

Sauce it and top with whatever's available. I know we have half a red pepper and some onion. We also have half a ball of mozzarella, so that'll be yummy. And I bet we can find more stuff to put on it when we start searching.

Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes.

Tuesday

Stuffed portobello mushrooms (from The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen)

Saute chopped onions, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes. Mix with chopped parsley, basil, bread crumbs and keep cooking. Add half a cup of broth, stir and heat. Stuff into mushroom caps and drizzle a little more broth on top. Put in a baking dish, cover with foil and cook for 45 minutes on 400 degrees. Sprinkle with pine nuts.

I'm thinking I'll make a little pasta and serve this over pasta and tomato sauce.

Wednesday

Lentil soup -- I'm choosing between an old favorite recipe and a new one that sounds good. Will update when I decide.

Thursday

Grilled sole

Roasted veggies

Have a good week!