Meatball Marinara with Carrot "spaghetti"

So, veggie noodles are all the rage, I'm sure you know. I've had a spiralizer on my wish list forever.  Haven't bought one yet, but someday.  Need more kitchen space first.

In any event, a few months ago, I found carrot noodles in the freezer section at Trader Joe's, and put them in my cart.  They went in to the freezer.  And sat there.  And stared at me, every time that I opened the freezer.  One of the reasons I bought them is because I thought they'd go well with marinara and meatballs, or Asian style dishes.

I'd seen bolognese with carrots on Stone Soup, and it got me thinking.  But not doing.

Fast forward a few months, and I decide to cut out wheat.  I haven't been feeling all that well, and from the google, and friends, and relatives - I start to suspect that my issues are either with wheat (gluten), or dairy, or both.  I've never had an issue before, but I realize that these things can develop as you age.  Anyway, I decided it was worth a try.

Given the choice between giving up wheat or dairy, well, I don't really want to give up cheese.  So I started with wheat.  This has caused some difficulties.  Namely: no pizza, no regular pasta, no bread.  Some of our regular meals are easy - beans & rice, tacos, lentils & rice, meat and veggie stir fry.  I can always skip pizza night, but pasta became a problem.

My husband makes a lot of one-pot pasta in the Instant Pot.  My option on those nights was polenta.  I buy the tubes and fry them up.  That is kinda of messy, and it adds a difficulty in that we can't make the pasta in one pot.

Today I decided to dig out those carrot noodles and give them a try.  So I made a 3/4 batch of one pot pasta - basically, I set aside 1 cup of the marinara for myself and used the rest for the family dinner.

Today's sauce recipe:
1 T olive oil
1/4 c chopped red onion
1/2 c shredded zucchini (leftover from making muffins)
1 cup marinara
8 meatballs
a handful of sun dried tomatoes
salt, pepper, dried basil, garlic powder.

Cook up the onion and zucchini in the oil until soft.  Add spices and cook 30 seconds more.  Add remaining ingredients, bring to boil. Reduce heat, and simmer till warm.

The carrot noodles recipe called for heating in olive oil in a pan on the stove.  4 minutes covered, 4 uncovered.  It took me a bit longer.

It was delicious!  I topped a cup of the "noodles" (which were very mild) with meatballs and sauce (half) and parmesan.  It felt like eating spaghetti.  I saved the rest for later this week.

I may  have to either get myself a spiralizer to make my own carrot noodles, or buy more of these.

This is what they look like:

http://www.whatsgoodattraderjoes.com/2017/05/trader-joes-carrot-spirals.html

You Can Put Anything in a Taco

So, guess what week it was??  Yes!  Husband traveling week.  Easter was chill- back in our pre-kid days, we would have big holiday dinners (particularly Thanksgiving, but also Christmas and occasionally Easter) and invite over friends.  There always seemed to be a group of 20-something or early 30-something people with nothing to do.

Fast forward, and we're too tired for that.  And we're not in our 30's anymore.  And everyone has kids or their own plans.

So I bought a ham on sale and we cooked it.  I didn't make a mass of sides, either.  I bought some day-old rolls at the store and made a salad.  I think. It was a week ago.  It was probably a salad.

Then husband abandoned me for a few days with the boys.  I decided to make tacos with the leftover ham.

The filling here is sauteed onion, diced ham, and some frozen chopped spinach.  A little cheese.  I topped it with Greek yogurt because our sour cream was old.  It was still good.

We even had tacos this weekend too.  Great, and really easy recipe from my neighbor.

In a crockpot:
Tri tip roast
Pour over a jar of salsa
Add some black beans (I used one can, probably would do 2 next time)
Cook all day on low

Very easy for this mama!

Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Saturday was grill night!  This week we experimented with pork tenderloin.  I used a dry rub from America's Test Kitchen Family favorites and followed their grilling instructions...success!

We got a boatload of parsley this week. As big as my  head.  So I looked up parsley recipes and settled on chimichurri.  I mixed a couple of recipes together...you know, I winged it.  I started here, but added cilantro instead of oregano and used less olive oil.  I used garlic from our CSA.  LOOK at the size of this clove. 

This is one clove.  It's the size of 10 regular cloves.  I chopped it into 9 pieces to put through the press and saved the extra in a container in the fridge.  It went into today's Indian Butter Chicken (crockpot).

I also did a repeat of the Moroccan Carrot Salad.  This time with baby carrots because I hit Trader Joe's during stock up hour and they were out of the regular carrots.

And I followed it up with this crockpot bean dish.  I got this recipe from a cooking class and I love it.  But...I think I ate too much of it.  Gave me some tummy issues later.  From now on: 1/2 cup of beans is fine.  A full cup is pushing it!

The great steak caper

We grilled steak again.  Made extra.  Sliced thin and froze it.  It's destined to be lunches next week or the week after. 

My lunch and dinner plans are evolving.  Don't get me wrong.  I love my job.  I love to cook.  I love my family.  All three together are challenging.  I need 1.5 hours to get out the door in the morning, what with waking, nursing the baby, pumping, showering, eating breakfast, feeding the kiddo....  And in the evenings, there's a fussy baby, a fussy kiddo, a tired mommy, and too many people/things needing my attention.

The reason why I chose to return to work half time and early was to get into the swing of things.  I am learning what works and what doesn't.  Making all our lunches on the weekend so far is working.  We made 7 bean, veggie, cheese burritos on Saturday and froze them.  We are eating them for lunch during the week with leftover sides. (and supplementing with Trader Joe's).  Next week we will either do steak and rice - half Mexican style and half Asian style, or sandwiches.  The week after will be the other.  Then it will be pasta week.

Dinners I am still figuring out.  I get home around 2 pm, nurse the baby, do household chores then pick up the older kid at school at around 4:30.  When my hours go up, I will lose those 2.5 hours, so I'm experimenting with how to get dinner on the table because I'll have a hungry baby and a cranky 6 year old on my hands.  Today, it's the crockpot.  I think that might be my savior for the next year.

So weekend: make a big casserole, roast, or pot of something.  Enough for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Tuesday: microwaved vegetables and baked chicken.

Wednesday: crockpot meal, enough for Weds, Thurs, Friday.

We'll see how this works out.  I have three weeks to perfect it.  Last night I spent so much time cleaning up after dinner and prepping for tonight's dinner and packing lunches and dealing with a cranky baby and a crankier 6 year old.  It was awful.  I need to change things up so that my time after work is spent on homework with the kiddo, baby feeding, and minimal chores.

Anyway, on to the steak!

We grilled steak:

pink!

Oh and I also made hummus:

...and baba ganoush, salsa, and potato salad.  But who's counting?

Beef...it's what's for dinner.

So...I was feeling social this weekend.  It's been awhile since I've felt up to hosting folks at my house, what with a new baby and all.  I invited friends over, and ended up with TWO dinners at home, one on Sunday and one on Monday.  Lucky for me, the Monday dinner friend (our oldest friends in Santa Barbara), offered to bring dinner.  So she provided the ribs and green beans, I provided bruschetta with some pretty sucky French bread, because I was too lazy to walk the extra block to the fancy grocery store from Albertson's.  My bad.

Anyway, we have these big grass fed steaks.  My friend/coworker and her husband buy grassfed beef in bulk from a local place, but don't have enough room to store it.  So I benefit.  The great thing about buying in bulk in the price.  I got 10 lbs of steak for $6 a pound.  Now, we generally don't eat much steak, and in fact, don't really know how to cook it well.  But even the local beef at the farmer's market is $7/lb for GROUND beef, nevermind steak, which is way higher.

In any event, grassfed steak is tricky.  It's very lean and is very prone to overcooking, and overcooking = leather.  Johnny dropped it off and said "6 to 8 minutes a side, trust me on this".  So the first time we tried, it was very rare, and by the time we tried to recook, we got leather.

This time, my spouse mentioned that he thought it was still partially frozen the first time.  So I defrosted it a day earlier, and marinated it.  I googled "steak marinade" and got this recipe, which was great, but I subbed balsamic vinegar for Worcestershire sauce, because I didn't have any.  And I used bottled lemon juice because I was down to 1/2 lemon, and I was using it for my bubble water drinking.  I made 1/2 a recipe for a 1.25 lb steak.

This time...success!  A perfect pink in the middle and tender and delicious.  I wish I took a picture.  But the reality of trying to get dinner on the table with 4 adults and 3 boys (6, 2, and infant, who doesn't eat at the table), means I was just happy that the food was all hot at the same time.  Well, the steak had to rest longer, because the rice wasn't done in time, so I tossed it in the pressure cooker, and then overcooked it.  I used this recipe, but next time will cut the tomato sauce in half and replace with water - it was too tomato-ey.  I left out the onion because my friend hates onion (I KNOW!!)

We also made burgers.  Because we were worried we'd ruin the steak, we had a backup plan.  In the end, I ruined the rice.  Go figure.

So tonight, we still had 4 of the six burgers left.  They were good, even without the onion. ;)

I didn't know what to make as a side.  It's Tuesday, and we're getting low on veggies from the CSA.  We had cucumbers and carrots, and some broccoli from Trader Joe's.  I opted to use nap time #1 to make this Moroccan Carrot Salad recipe from Casual Kitchen that looked good to me.  And...it was delicious!  And so easy!  I microwaved the carrots instead of boiling.  And I topped mine with feta, because I found another recipe with feta, and avocado, because I have a ripe one, and I had to do something with it.  For a laughably cheap recipe, this was a real keeper.  Except my kid thought it was "too spicy" (the lemon juice? the vinegar?  I cut the garlic to one clove already.)  Being a good mom, I rinsed his portion in the colander and let him eat the plain steamed carrots.

On a side note, trying to lose weight and count calories when you are nursing...sucks! I'm starving!  At 2300 calories a day!

Pork sliders and kale chips

I love kale chips.  You know it.  Had them for dinner today.

Busy weekend with a trip to the zoo - as we left they were setting up for Zoo Brew.  Lots of youngun's with pretzel necklaces and beer cups.

Today we took a trip up north to pick blueberries.  I wanted to go before I was too close and going to risk early labor.  We picked 6 lbs of blueberries, got 4 bottles of wine (I am a member at a winery, and it turns out I've missed 2 pickups in December and March...gee, wonder why?), and came home with a really sore back.

Then I did some work.  I worked quite a bit on Saturday...we bought a docking station for our laptops and large screen.  We canceled cable TV and upgraded our internet to faster.  It's great that I can work from home more easily...and it's bad that I can work from home more easily.  But today the network at work was slow, and it was an exercise in frustration, so I gave up early.

We've been busy washing and freezing blueberries for later this summer.  For dinner, I winged it.  I bought some small King's Hawaiian rolls from the discount rack at the grocery store.  I defrosted some pork loin and some enchilada sauce from the freezer.  I made up a concoction of the pork, black beans, onions, zucchini, enchilada sauce, and peach/mango salsa (to sweeten it up).  Served on the rolls with some avocado.  Quite delicious for just making stuff up.

As I was looking for the enchilada sauce in the freezer, I found a container labeled October 2010.  It had ice crystals.  I tossed that, along with some frozen persimmon that was probably from the same year.  Gotta do better at keeping up with the random freezer stuff.

Teacher Appreciation Week - aka, Potluck recipes

This is teacher appreciation week at my son's school.  Each day, a different grade's parents are to bring food for a potluck to appreciate the staff and teachers.  I signed up for salad, but it didn't look like there were many signups.  So, last minute, I signed up for a couple more things. It wasn't clear if we were supposed to be there during the potluck or not (turns out, not).  We did drive down anyway because we'd forgotten to drop off a couple of items, and that gave us the time to say hi to our little guy at lunch and have lunch together anyway.

I apologize for not having any pictures, but it didn't occur to me.

The following is an example of  how you can feed people frugally - and the more work you are willing to put in, the cheaper it can be.  I made bean salad, turkey and ham sandwiches, and I took a veggie tray.  They asked for enough food for about 15 people.

The veggie tray: purchased at the store for $10 (last minute add-on).  Total cost to make it myself:
1 bunch celery: 0.89
1 lb carrots: 0.79
1 pint cherry tomatoes: 2.29
3/4 cup ranch dressing: 1.50
Total: $5.47 if you make yourself.  Can save $4.53, or 45%

The sandwiches: made from items from the store (last minute add-on).  If I had purchased pre-made sandwiches, they would have been $50-70.
13 sub rolls (from the day old bread rack, which is where I buy my bread too): $3.48
1.75 lb turkey and ham (at $9/lb):  15.75
1 head lettuce: 0.99
3 6-oz packages sliced cheese: 6.00
1 container mustard: 1.49
Total: $27.71 for 26 servings (each serving is 1/2 sandwich): $1.07 per sandwich.  In reality, I didn't know if they'd have enough, so I cut each sandwich into thirds so it would stretch farther.

Savings: $32.29 (assuming $60), or 54%

Further savings can be had in those expensive items.  By buying Costco meats and cheese, or cooking and slicing yourself, you can save big time. But the decision to do this was made with less than a day's notice, and I didn't feel like driving 12 miles to Costco to save a few bucks on meat and cheese.

The bean salad: this was the frugal item.  Could make more frugal mostly by using dried beans
2 cans black beans: 1.78
3/4 bag frozen roasted corn: 1.50
1/2 c. red quinoa (pre-cooked amount), cooked: 0.50
1/3 c. salsa: 0.50
3 cloves garlic: 0.15
1/2 pkg cherry tomatoes, halved: 1.25
3/4 of a red bell pepper, diced: 1.00
1/2 of a red onion, diced: 0.25
1/3 c. olive oil: 0.70
juice of 1 lime: 0.33
3 T. rice vinegar: 0.32
S&P to taste
Total:  $8.28 for 10 cups, or 20 1/2-c servings.  $0.41 per serving.

I don't know what you'd pay for this, but at a salad bar, it would be $6-7 a pound.  So 1/2 cup is about 4 oz (1/4 lb), or $1.50.  So maybe you're saving $1.09, or 73%.  But that's just a guess.

Lack of Meal Plan and some pics

Well, after all that cooking for the week, I didn't really make much of a meal plan more than a couple of days out.  But then - surprise - I got one day's notice of spouse's trip to El Paso. So, I didn't really need a meal plan.  There are enough leftovers of the beef and frittata to last me the week.  Last night I made Trader Joe's turkey burgers with steamed artichokes and stir fried baby bok choy.  It was awesome.  My camera battery was dead.  Sorry!

Since it's the "get on the scale" week, I am going with a few days of low carb.  Helps make sure I'm not retaining a lot of water.  Breakfast today was cottage cheese, strawberries, and breakfast cookies (almond butter, eggs, coconut, dried fruit, nuts).

Lunch was a little bit of quinoa/rice, topped with beef and a LOT of mushrooms and zucchini.  I'm a big snacker too, mostly fruit, nuts, cheese, yogurt.  Today was apple with cheese, and nuts with a piece of dark chocolate.

Dinner was frittata and raw vegetables with the peanut lime dip.  YUM!

Boy the baby's been moving like crazy today.  I hope he lets me sleep.  It's funny to watch the belly move.

I'm sad that I'm missing out on 3 workouts this week because of the travel (2 swims and an elliptical/lifting day).  But tomorrow is walk to school day, so I'll get in 1.5 miles of a walk over a BIG hill at least.  Friday I may try to swim in the evening instead of in the morning.  Thursday...probably out of luck unless I squeeze in a lunch time walk.

Cooking and Prep for the Week

In general, I have been (in the past), a master of cooking and prep for the week.  I spend a few hours each day on the weekend cooking, baking, chopping, preparing 2-5 dishes so that lunches and dinners are taken care of, at least until about Wednesday.  Funny that as I keep in contact with friends from high  school, college, and all over via facebook, I've noticed that it's definitely a theme for the working parent.

Or just the working person in general - my sister (no kids) also does a lot of cooking on the weekend.  It's efficient.  I am constantly impressed by how Biz cooks and preps for the week - not only for herself, but also for others.  She's so organized!!  My neighbors (husband and wife team with 3 girls under 6) seem to seamlessly cook on Sundays for the entire week.

Enter pregnancy, work stress, and lack of sleep.  I still enjoy cooking on the weekend, but I tire more easily.  What I notice first is the aching feet, legs, and back.  I can only really stand to be on my feet for about an hour.  So that means my prep has suffered.  This means that I cook more often during the week, and by the time spouse gets home - dinner is ready, but I'm beat.

This weekend I'm trying something new.  I am still doing my cook and prep, but I will do it in 1 hour increments, then I will rest. 

Also, I walked 1 mile (up over a big hill) to the grocery store first (and back), then started cooking.  I left my shoes on when I got  home.  It seems to be helping.  I am up to 1.5 hours on my feet right now, and I'm still okay.  Maybe I need the cushion with the extra 32 lbs.  I'm not sure how much longer I can make that big hill.  But last weekend I sucked it up and bought a maternity swimsuit.  I have 9 weeks to go.  If I wear it 3x a week for the next 9 weeks, I can get it down to just over $1 per wear. :)

So here is what I am prepping for the week.  I am trying to go lower carb/ more paleo to stem this weight gain.  Hence the trip to the store for even MORE vegetables. 

I made this delicious beef roast in the crockpot yesterday (45 mins of prep - not "a dump and press go" recipe by any means).  I bought a large (6.5 lb?) roast (organic and free range) for $50 from my coworker "beef source" (she buys in bulk).  She recommended the crock pot.  The recipe came from my America's Test Kitchen Family cookbook, and was a southwestern roast recipe (in honor of Cinco de Mayo).  If you can't have a margarita, might as well make tacos, right?  The only thing the roast needed was more salt.  I used homemade stock, so my food is always under-salted.  2/3 of this went into the fridge, and the rest into the freezer for a later date.

Now, I know this soupy runny beef would taste GREAT over some rice.  But I want to limit my carbs a bit.  So I cooked up some white rice and red quinoa and put 1/2 cup in a container for lunch.  But I am also cooking up a bunch of zucchini and mushrooms, and will use that as the primary base for the lunch.

In summary:

Beef roast (tacos!)

White rice/ quinoa

Mushrooms and zucchini

Bacon, chard, beet green, turnip greean, onion, zucchini frittata (that's dinner, with a salad).

Peanut lime dipping sauce (for my carrots, snap peas, and colored peppers).  Or maybe this one.  Or a combo.

I made hamburgers!

I never make hamburgers.  Usually I pay $7 a pound for the local, free range beef and then STREEEETCH it as far as I can in a soup or casserole (chili with beans, 1/2 oz meatballs, etc.)  But I started feeling like burgers last weekend.

My husband is the burger guy.  He has this great recipe from the lone cookbook he brought to our marriage - Better Homes and Gardens. Well, that's not really true.  He had 2-3 more, but I got rid of most of them.  Just couldn't get into the Joy of Cooking.

Anyway, I was all set to do stir-fried greens and have him make burgers yesterday.  It was a busy day that started with my Sat morning walk to the farmer's market (2.7 miles), and I was actually pretty speedy and less waddle-y yesterday.  My neighbor caught me on the way there and offered to give me a ride home.  So yay!  After that it was 2 kids' birthday parties, and that's when disaster struck in the form of a sprained ankle.

So, we spent some time in urgent care and my spouse spent some time on the couch with a bag of frozen peas on his ankle.  So making the burgers was up to me.  Turns out: they're pretty easy.

Better Homes Burgers:
1 egg, beaten: 0.25
2 Tbsp milk: 0.05
2 Tbsp onion, minced: 0.05
1 clove garlic, pressed: 0.05
1/2 tsp dry mustard: 0.05
1/4 tsp each salt and pepper: 0.02
3/4 cup homemade fresh breadcrumbs: 0 (I just save bits and pieces of old bread).  Much less if using dry storebought.
1 lb ground beef: $7
Total: $7.47 for four 1/4-lb burgers.  $1.07 per burger.

Mix everything except the beef really well in a bowl.  Add the beef and mix well.  Form into four 3/4-inch thick patties or six 1/2 inch patties. We always make four.

Broil 3-4 inches from the heat for 15-18 mins (I did 20), flipping part way.  I use the toaster oven.

I was so happy to have them done and hungry that I forgot to take a nice picture of the competed project, so here's a picture of the lone leftover burger.  Of course, when you add the bun (0.25 each) and condiments, it comes out closer to $1.50 per burger.  Still, delicious and higher-quality beef than (the still very yummy) local burger place, which is about $3.

Enchiladas, A REALLY GOOD SALAD RECOMMENDATION, and my son's concoction

My son must be a food blogger in the making.  On our last night of the soup last week, he turned it into his own "creation", and wanted me to write down the recipe and take a picture.  So here it is, in all of its glory:

I can't find the recipe card, but it's basically the last of the soup, a cracker, and a piece of cornbread with honey all mixed together.   Yummy huh?  Well, he liked it.

Yesterday I had a great girls' lunch with my buddy Maryanne.  We used to chat all of the time in the morning at work, and now...well, I quit that company 3.5 years ago, and she quit last year to stay at home with her 1.5 year old.  And now we never see each other.  It's terrible.  But on a positive note, our lives are so lame on the weekend that she can call me at 11:15 on a Saturday and we can go to lunch at noon. Yay!

Our "place" is CPK (California Pizza Kitchen).  She always orders the broccoli sun-dried tomato fusilli.  I could order for her.  I change each time, and this time I was feeling salad (about 75% of the time, I am feeling salad).  Eliminating deli meats and soft cheeses narrows down the choices for me easily.  The base salad (Roasted Vegetable Salad) I had, I believe, was vegan (I can't speak for the dressing), but I added shrimp.  It's "new" on the menu and is a roasted vegetable salad.  It's a dijon vinaigrette over romaine, and warm roasted veggies - asparagus, corn, peppers, eggplant, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes.  And avocado on top.  Delish! (and left room for dessert).  I just love it when I can eat out and fill up on many cups of vegetables.

Last night I made enchiladas for dinner.  I think the best enchiladas are made from leftover bits and pieces.  These were quite tasty and ... different ... because I used the easter ham, with potato, pinto beans, onions, hot peppers, and corn.  Served with our world famous kale chips!

I think I may try vegan enchiladas next time with potatoes, beans, and kale.  I still have that vegan cheese I bought accidentally. Should use it.  I should check to see when it expires.

On the Menu: spaghetti, meatballs, rice, lentils

I didn't have much in the way of leftovers from this weekend.  I was sick as a dog all weekend, and am still recovering.  I did get my wonderful husband to make meatballs from meat I bought at the farmer's market.  $7 a pound, but happy cows and so delicious.  It's a treat in our household.  The crushed red pepper made them a little too spicy for our son.  Every once in awhile you'd get a spicy bite.

I put them on top of skillet spaghetti and we had sauteed broccoli raab on the side.  The finished product: (my son's plate).

Spaghetti was definitely on the menu this week, as I also made cashew sesame noodles, to use up the cilantro we got from the CSA.  Love those noodles.  Still eating them for lunch.  And easy.  Boil pasta, make the sauce in the blender.  Toss.

Other nights were definitely meant to be easy.  I could have made them easier.  I made rice and lentils.  The lentils were from a pouch "Tasty Bite" Madras lentils.  The rice was just white rice in the rice cooker, but my son complains that he doesn't like rice.  He does, really.  But he likes "orange rice" (spanish/mexican rice at restaurants).  So I made the rice then sauteed it in a pan with onion, tomatoes (for the red), turmeric (for the yellow - makes orange!), and cumin, pepper, and oregano.

I topped this with avocado, and then made kale chips on the side.  My husband was LATE (he made our Costco run) and I had to do them myself this time.  They weren't bad!

Up tonight is leftovers, more kale chips, and some soup from the freezer (potato spinach).

Up this weekend is cook a ham on Saturday...the one day a year I cook a ham, and prep for the week.  Doin' the single parent thing next week, hubby is on a business trip.

Finally, a pork picture!

Yes, I defrosted the rest of the pork loin that I cooked a couple of weeks ago and we ate it this week.  A little bit over rice one night, in quesadillas the next night.  I've been a "nothing but brown rice" girl for years and recently bought my first bag of white rice.  I'm liking it on those days when you just don't have an hour to cook rice before dinner.  Brown still has more flavor.

Here I topped it with cheese, salsa, and sour cream.  With a salad on the side.  Our salads have been of the lettuce, radish, orange, avocado, cashew variety with rice vinegar and olive oil.

On an unrelated note, we spent 2 hours on Sunday making 3 kinds of cupcakes from scratch.  36 total.  Pros on cupcake wars we aren't.  But they were a hit at my birthday boy's class yesterday.

Oven Roasted Tri tip

Now, I didn't remember to take a picture.  Dinner was running a bit late.  But you know...it's tri tip.

I googled oven roasted tri tip, and got a few new recipes.  Wasn't sure where the old one was.  Most recipes call for roasting at 450F for a short period of time.  Brown on the outside, rare on the inside...yum yum.  Like on the grill.  2 problems with that:

1.  I'm pregnant.  Gotta make sure it's cooked through.
2.  If we cook meat in our oven at 450F, our smoke alarm goes off.  Every time.

So I found a new recipe on allrecipes.com that called for low and slow and a dry rub.  350F for an hour.  I keep forgetting that my grassfed beef tri tip comes in a package of two.  You'd think I'd know that by now.  Anyway, I put on the rub on both and tossed it in the oven.

"Safe" is medium rare and 145F.  Medium is 160F.  Ours came out at 160F.  And you know?  It was tender and delicious.  I think.  Because I'm still congested.  And I can't taste anything.  But my boys gobbled it up.  And my son's not much of a meat eater (probably because I was mostly vegetarian when I was pregnant).  But he loved it.

Served with a winter favorite soup of potatoes and dark leafy greens.  Today spiced with parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.  Couldn't taste it either.

Pork and Rice

One of the leftover dinner nights was the pork chile verde over rice. When we finished the chile verde in the crockpot, it was very wet.  I separated it into the "meat" and the "juice/sauce".  When I made the rice tonight, I used half water and half "juice/sauce".

That, with leftover pork, cheese, avocado, salsa, and sour cream (you can see my packed up lunch leftovers here) was DELICIOUS!!  Good lord, I forgot how good rice and a little meat can taste.  Especially Mexican flavors.

Pork Chile Verde Tacos and Refreshing Salad

I was feeling like pork chile verde today.  I'm not sure why. I got a big shipment of tri-tip and pork (organic, free range), from my source at work.  The pork loin was HUGE (4.5 lbs - and $50), and frozen solid.  So I bought some non-frozen pork at Trader Joe's to try out a new recipe before committing the big loin.  Plus, something that big deserves a party, or at least more than just our family.  So, I'll see what I can do about arranging that.

I used this recipe, edited a bit.  I only had 2 lbs of pork, and I used a full can of enchilada sauce.  So I ended up omitting the beer, the salsa verde, and the green chiles and tomatoes.  I think it would have been spicier with all of that, but the family likes it mild.  Gotta figure out how to spice things up on the side for me.  Even though it was 75F today, I enjoyed using my crockpot.

I was on fire today, with grocery shopping, making chile verde, making bagels, doing a ton of quilting, and walking 2 miles to the park so my son could play.  Yay for me!

The cost of the chile verde was about $14.50 (filling only).  $12 for the pork loin, $2 for the enchilada sauce, about $0.50 for the spices.  I topped it with sliced green onions, sliced radishes from the CSA, cheese, and guacamole. I estimate it will be about 4 or 5 meals (lunches/dinners).  I saved the meat in one container and the juices in another to use to flavor cooked rice.  My boss and my coworker brought me avocados 2 weeks ago, and darn it if they all didn't ripen on exactly the same day.  So I have 5 ripe avos in the fridge, and hope they last for the next 5 days.

The refreshing salad had lettuce, arugula, macadamia nuts, tangerines from our tree, carrots, and a rice-wine vinaigrette dressing (vinegar, oil, pepper, garlic powder).

Chicken Spaghetti Squash Parmesan, and my first brisket

Chicken Parm

Last night's dinner was chicken parmesan.  Now, I've made versions of this from scratch before.  As in, debone the chicken breasts, pound them out, bread them, fry them, make the marinara sauce, etc. etc.

This was not that kind of chicken parmesan.  I did use spaghetti squash instead of pasta and had to roast the squash.  It was good, but the only pesto I have left in the freezer is arugula pesto, and it wasn't as good as basil pesto would be.

Spaghetti squash chicken parm
1 spaghetti squash
16 oz marinara
olive oil
1 small onion
10 oz sliced mushrooms
2 cubes frozen pesto
4 cloves garlic
mozzarella and parmesan cheese
frozen breaded chicken tenders (From TJ's)

Slice the squash in half and scoop out seeds.  Place face down in a pan coated with cooking spray. Roast 1 hour at 375F.  Let cool.  Remove strings with a fork.

Saute onion and mushroom in oil.  Add squash strands.  Add pesto and combine well.

Spray a 9x9 pan with cooking spray. Layer veggie mixture out.  Place chicken tenders on top.  Top with marinara and the cheeses.

Bake covered at 350F for 15 min.  Increase to 375F, remove foil, and bake for 15-25 more min.  Delish!

I roasted the seeds!

Brisket

I also bought my first brisket at the farmer's market. I found a decent crockpot recipe.  And...we didn't like it.  The sauce was good, but the brisket was way too fatty and chewy.  So, maybe we screwed it up (spouse did it today - he had the day off).  How can you screw up a crockpot recipe?  Anyway, next time I just go with pot roast.

We also steamed up some baby kale and cabbage leaves and I made a cream sauce with milk, parm, cream cheese, garlic powder, and lemon juice.  I don't have a final photo, but THAT was great.

Meatloaf

Last weekend, I bought ground beef at the farmer's market (Rancho San Julian), and my husband made meatballs.  But one lb of  beef doesn't make a lot of meatballs, especially when  you are me and you are trying to eat paleo for lunch (any kind of grain whatsoever at lunch makes me fall asleep an hour later, which is when my boss wants to discuss projects and strategy.  Yawning is not an option.)
So this week, I bought 2 lbs and made meatloaf.  I was inspired by an episode of Diners Drive-Ins and Dives that I happened to catch - where an Italian place made meatballs with sofrito.  It made me realize that I could add cooked celery to my meatloaf (I never can finish up my celery).  I really like the "Triple D" show.  As much as the food is usually over-the-top in calorie counts, the restaurants featured really do make their food from scratch, and that is inspiring.

So I found this recipe.  Made it a little larger because of the 2lbs of beef.  And there are enough leftovers to last most of the week.  We served it with the last of the Thanksgiving cornbread stuffing (don't worry, it was in the freezer), some TJ's vegetable samosas, and roasted broccoli.  Delish!

Grass fed Tri tip

I seem to be on a once-a-week trend of posting.  Considering my bronchitis and lack of sleep, I think that's to be expected.  Luckily, I do have a general menu plan, so I can be brutally honest about what's cookin' in the FHS household.
Last Sunday was tri-tip.  My friend Kelly is my source - she is 100% paloe/Atkins, and she and her hubby buy it in bulk.  That means I get some too at a bargain $8 a lb.  Each package usually has about 3.5 lbs and two small tri-tips.  This is easily enough meat for us to eat all week.  (Truly, it's more than we would normally eat.) 
This week's menu started with tri-tip, rice with veggies from the CSA, and kale chips.

 

The rest of the week involved more tri-tip and rice, skillet pasta (with or without the meat), burritos, more tri-tip with salad...you see the trend here.  Thursday night I made more rice and quinoa to go with the meat for lunch on Friday while I was cooking a dinner of chicken, salad, and cornbread.

Friday night was pizza (ordered in).  Saturday lunch was a friend's birthday party, where we ended up with leftovers.  And Saturday night was pizza.  So, the illness means we are cooking less for sure.  I just haven't been feeling like eating vegetables either.

On that note, the CSA is over for the year.  They extended the season for four weeks, but since we'll be gone that last week, we didn't sign up.  We do need to sign up for next year though.  I should check on that.  So my haul at the farmer's market was larger to make up for it.

This year we're not having turkey (long story), but I am roasting a chicken on a bed of delicious root vegetables.

Poor hubby.  He was supposed to play tennis today for the first time in weeks.  I awoke at about 5 am to a tinkling sound of rain.  No tennis for him.  We've both been slacking on our workouts.  With the inability to breathe, I haven't been swimming in four weeks.  My exercise involves 2 days a week at the gym, 30 mins elliptical, 15 min weights.  And one day walking 2-3 miles on the weekend.  It's gotta be enough to keep me going until I am healthy again.

Beef Stew-fry

That is not a typo.  We got a LOT of greens last week from the farm.  And I didn't even eat all of them yet.  Hopefully the tatsoi is still good.  But we had a big bag of "braising greens" and some mizuna from the week before.

My son doesn't like "stir-fry", so I made a stir-fry in the stew pot and called it stew.  It has local grassfed beef, greens, onions, peppers, tomato, a soy-sesame sauce, with some of our home canned tangerine marmalade to give it some sweetness.  It's almost paleo (except for the marmalade), and it was tasty.  I made it last Thursday and have a teeny bit left for lunch tomorrow.

On the health front, I still have an awful cough...I think I may have bronchitis.  So I will be heading to the doctor's office tomorrow and see what they can do for me.  Ugh.  I get winded just trying to walk more than a mile (I still do it), and I am coughing up lots of phlegm.  It's been 2 weeks!

The beef, onion, and peppers

The braising greens (kale, chard, etc)

The finished product