This week's Eats

Doubling up on the veggies this week after a trip to the farmer's market, and a reinforced cholesterol check.

Monday- Artichoke and kale shrimp with quinoa
Tuesday- Roasted vegetables with chickpeas
Wednesday- Mushroom chicken with pasta, carrots, and peas
Thursday- Scalloped potatoes with kale and sausage
Friday- Fish with roasted veggies and salads

Frittata

The other day I told Chris I was making a frittata for dinner. When it came out of the oven in all its glory, he looked at it and said, "Oh, you made a quiche." To which I replied, "No, I made a frittata."
While we conversed back and forth about what to call it, we both agreed that it was tasty.

This is one of those loosey goosey recipes that pretty much involves using up leftovers in our house. A little bit of this? A little bit of that? Typically I plop them into a soup, but this time I went with a frittata.

The idea is simple. Eggs, veggies, herbs... whatever you want.

This particular frittata involved:
6 eggs, beaten and seasoned with salt & pepper, with a splash of milk
1/2 cubed potato
1/4 c. chopped sweet peppers
1/4 c. chopped onion
1 c. frozen broccoli
1 sprig of rosemary, stripped and chopped finely
1 sprig of sage leaves, chopped finely
1 sprig of parsley leaves, chopped finely
the last handful of sad old salad; spinach and arugula, chopped
a bit of shredded cheese

I sauteed the potato, peppers, and onion in a cast iron skillet until they were softened up. Then added the eggs straight into the hot pan with everything else and mixed it up. Baked at 350 until a toothpick inserted into the center came out clean. I want to say 20 minutes? I didn't really time it; just checked it when it started to smell good.

The cool thing about making everything in the skillet is that when you add the eggs to the hot pan, it kinda forms its own crust.
The other cool thing is that you can serve this type of dish for breakfast or brunch or dinner and it pretty much fits the bill.

P.S. If we had it readily available [aka leftovers], I would have added sausage and fresh tomatoes.

P.P.S. The Frittata vs Quiche debate, resolved.

This week's menu

Back at it!
This week's menu: Based on what meat I could locate in the freezer, and the fresh produce that was already in the fridge. Aimed for a very low grocery bill this week. Lacking creativity for a meatless meal... good thing those ravioli Ash picked up for me are GF!

Monday- Ravioli with tomato pesto (from a jar- no shame!) and broccoli
Tuesday- Roasted chicken with sauteed sweet potato and cauliflower
Wednesday- Chicken tortilla soup
Thursday- Sauteed shrimp and any remaining fresh veggies into a stir-fry type of thing. Maybe with brown rice?
Friday- Originally planned on leftovers but might have friends over so I'll have to think of something to cook... I'm thinking Chris should grill some already seasoned chicken that I know is in the freezer somewhere, plus a link of the deer sausage... and those awesome grilled baked potatoes. And blackberry cobbler for dessert. There. Done.

Last week's menu

Sorry, for the hiatus, Ash.
Yes, we've been eating! It's just been random and uninspired. Last week was pretty cool, though.

Monday- Pesto Chicken with zucchini noodles
Tuesday- Turkey & cheese roll ups (recipe still in progress) with glazed carrots
Wednesday- Meatless chili (ie: bean soup with veggies) with cornbread
Thursday- Grilled steaks and potatoes with broccoli. LOVE it when hubs does this. Plus the baked potatoes he makes are pretty bomb. He coats them with olive oil, course salt, and pepper before wrapping them in foil and grilling them.
Friday- Fish with sauteed sweet potato

Notes:
Everything went pretty much the way it was planned, except hubs pointed out that I made 2 "MRE" meals (Pesto chicken and vegetarian chili) and I guess that's a bad thing. I thought they were pretty tasty but after months and months of repetitively eating shelf-stable versions of these dishes, I suppose I'd get pretty tired of the taste, too.

The roll ups were good in theory but the Pillsbury GF pizza dough I used was pretty old so it didn't rise and the dough was pretty yucky. Will try again. Because my sweet sister bought me 2 packages and I froze one. Which is also a gamble but we'll try it!

Friday I came home without an appetite so I had cornbread with lots of butter and Chris ate leftover steak. Plus I don't really know where the fish is- I'm assuming it's in the outside freezer but right now it's essentially a giant block of deer meat so good luck finding it!

Clever Leftovers: Granola edition

This isn't so much a leftover recipe as an "I have too much of this and I need to use it up" recipe. See, my mom found Chex gluten free oatmeal on super sale (we're talking 79 cents a box), so she bought 10 of them. Ten boxes of instant oatmeal. Now, I like oatmeal, but I don't eat it every day. Or even once a week. It doesn't really keep me full. I know, weird.

Yesterday I organized my pantry and I was reminded that precious real estate was being taken up by these 10 boxes of oatmeal. So I made a quick apple crisp, and that used up... 1 packet. Quite a ways to go.

Enter: Granola!

Now, I like a nice granola. Sprinkled on yogurt, eaten as a cereal, even as a topping for oatmeal. (oats on oats on oats!) Granola gets eaten quick. A big batch can be gone in no time, which makes it perfect for using up these oatmeal packets.

I've made granola before, and I feel like I've simplified the process pretty well. What I've got is not so much of a recipe as a guideline... as most of these "leftover" recipes go... and you only use 1 bowl, and 1 cookie sheet and 1 spoon.

Chex GF Oatmeal- Granola!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In this particular batch, I dumped into a bowl:
instant oatmeal
slivered almonds
coconut
chia seeds

At this point you will have a bowl full of granola ingredients. The next step is to drizzle in some olive oil or melted coconut oil. Use enough to moisten all of the ingredients.

After the oil is mixed in, taste-test. With pre-sweetened instant oatmeal, I don't have to add any sweeteners. A big dash of cinnamon and a large pinch of salt get mixed in to give it a little oomph.

The mixture gets dumped onto a foil-lined cookie sheet and spread out. Sometimes I drizzle a little bit of honey over the mixture to encourage cluster formation. Then it goes into the oven for 20 minutes- stirring once after 10 minutes.

Note: Keep an eye on it. It can go from toasty to burny very quickly, especially if your oven is old and the temperature likes to fluctuate randomly like mine.

After it cools on the counter it will get crunchy, and then it's GRANOLA TIME.

Cherry cream cheese tart

Yes, there is a layer of cream cheese under those cherries.

Most of my ideas start out while I'm laying in bed just after waking up in the morning, in that groggy twilight sleep. This time, the can of cherry pie filling popped into my head. I'd bought for some random reason several months ago, as cherry pie filling is not normally something I keep on hand. But it was there, in the pantry, calling out my name. Cream cheese then popped into my head, and started dancing with the pie filling. At that point, it was time to get out of bed before things got out of hand.

I started with my cinnamon roll dough. Then I layered on cream cheese and topped with pie filling. It was actually pretty easy. Looks like I spent more time on it than I actually did. For the record, there is none left.

Cherry Cream Cheese Tart

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then gather ingredients.

Dough Ingredients:
2/3 c. milk
1 t. sugar
1 pkg fast-rising yeast

1 egg
1/4 c. oil (this time I used melted coconut oil)
1 t. vanilla

1 3/4 c. gluten free flour
1/4 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt

Filling:
1 8oz block of cream cheese, softened in the microwave until spreadable. Tip: use the defrost setting
1 can of cherry pie filling (CHECK to make sure it's GF!)

Topping:
1/3 c. brown sugar
1 1/2 t. cinnamon

For the dough:
Mix the sugar into the milk. Warm it to 100-110 degrees. I use a thermometer because I have not yet mastered the art of being able to tell otherwise. You can get candy thermometers for a couple of bucks. Mix in the yeast and set it in a warm place to proof. Meanwhile, grab two bowls: 1 small, 1 big.

Large bowl: Beat the egg. Add the oil and vanilla and mix well.
Small bowl: Mix the flour, baking soda, xanthan gum, and salt.

After you have done this, check the yeast. It should have bubbled up and will smell yeasty. If not, throw it out and try again.

Pour the yeasty mixture into the large bowl with the egg, oil, and vanilla. Mix well to get any lumps from the yeast out. A couple small ones are ok. Add in the flour mixture from the small bowl and combine well to form the dough. The dough will be very soft. It's okay. Don't panic.

Dump the dough straight onto a greased cookie sheet. Spread the dough into an oval/ rectangular shape using the back of a wet spoon. (Warm water works best.) Work slowly. If it sticks, dip the spoon back into the water and keep going. Adding more flour will result in a dry, tough dough, so resist the urge!

Filling:
Spread on a layer of cream cheese, leaving a bit of space around the edges to fold up. Do the same with the pie filling. Err on the side of overfilling, and make sure the edges get enough-- nobody likes dry filling-less edges.

Topping:
Once the fillings are spread, bring the dough up over the sides to form a bowl-like structure. Sprinkle the edges of the dough with cinnamon/sugar. Bake until the crust is done; about 10 minutes or so.

After removing it from the oven, let it sit for a minute to cool and allow the fillings to set up a bit. Slice with a pizza cutter and enjoy with coffee. Go back for seconds. Resist going back for thirds, and instead grab a fork "just for another quick bite."

This week's Menu

It's supposed to be a cold, rainy week and my work schedule is all weird to cover shifts of coworkers who took vacation days. That means: crock pot!

Monday- Vegetable soup
Tuesday- Pork loin and wine with herb gravy. In the crock pot.
Wednesday- Beef stew. In the crock pot. Before heading out to drink champagne with my sister and hope we stay up until Midnight.
Thursday- New Year's Day! Egg rolls with cabbage. This was a tradition for a few years when I was a child. Bringing it back. Going to try them with these GF wrappers.
Friday- Whatever leftovers I feel like eating b/c it will just be me for dinner.

We went to the store today and got a ton of food. Restocking the pantry, lots of veggies, etc. So there will be a vegetable with every meal, I just don't know what will go where.