Menu July 26- Aug 2

This will be my last MPM post for a couple of weeks. We are driving cross-country for my husband's 50th birthday, which happens to be two days before his sister's 50th wedding anniversary. My kids haven't been back to see their aunts and uncles in about 5 years and will meet quite a few cousins for the first time.

My menu plan this week will focus on using up everything in my fridge. The ham from last week got pushed forward to Monday as a result of our unplanned asian dinner.

Monday: Ham, Scalloped Potatoes, Green Beans

Tuesday: Turkey Panini's with Sun-dried Tomatoes, Fruit Salad

Wednesday: Tamales, Red Rice

Thursday: Beef and Vegie Kebabs, Foil Packet Potatoes

Friday: Ham and Beans, Corn Bread

Saturday: Almond Stuffed Chicken, Noodles tossed with any leftover vegies

Sunday: Family Reunion for my side of family in Buffalo

Monday: Anything Still Left In Fridge

I do not love eating out while on the road. Fast food and truck stops = serious intestinal distress. I prefer to pack a cooler with sandwiches and snacks. I will compromise with my husband and eat one restaurant meal per day (breakfast is all my first choice.) We'll be driving thru Kansas City, so a great Bar-B-Q joint would not be out of the question.

Any leftover ham will become ham salad for the cooler. My daughter is an excellent baker, and will bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies to snack on. Fruits and vegies and granola bars will round out our food requirements for the drive there.

To further my goal of cleaning out the fridge, I whipped up a batch of my favorite cheese spread, Fromage Fort. It is a french recipe created specifically for using up odd pieces of cheese. (Many French recipes really are incredibly frugal.) I use a recipe (more of a guideline) from Jacques Pepin. Combine 1/2 pound of assorted cheese, one or two garlic cloves, and 1/4 cup of sherry or other flavorful liquid in the food processor and pulse it into submission. I usually go heavy on strong cheeses like gruyere or aged swiss, with a little parmesan (too much gives the spread a grainy texture.) I rarely salt the mixture, but that is personal taste. I always add a healthy dose of pepper, again, personal taste.

The spread is best on top of slices of crusty bread, melted under the broiler. I had leftover crabmeat this time so I processed it with everything else.

This spread can be tweeked to highlight whatever your favorite cheese happens to be. After our last trip east we brought home some wonderful Wisconsin aged cheddar and apple brandy from Huber Orchards. We served the hot toasts with slices of apple, amazing. The spread holds in the fridge for several weeks, depending on what cheese you used the flavor can get very strong the older it gets.

What's your favorite "clean out the refrigerator" recipe?

For more great menu ideas Visit Laura for more Menu Planning Monday.

Impromtu Chinese

Friend: I'm feeling kinda blue. I really need to get out of the house.

Me: I'm home all day. We should hang out.

Friend: Sounds great. We should make chinese.

Me: Awesome! See you at 3:00.

Seriously, that's how this plan started. We got together and looked through my pantry and fridge and decided to make Vietnamese Summer Rolls, Lo Mein, Pork Lettuce Wraps, Steamed Dumplings, and Rice. I do not recommend making this type of decision in the late afternoon. We made a quick trip to the grocery store, which turned into two grocery stores because we couldn't find refrigerated chinese noodles and really thin Ginger Snaps at the first store.

Now it's 5:30. We started the prep work for our summer rolls, which is pretty easy, you just have to cut all the vegies into tiny strips. We made vegetarian rolls with carrots, cucumber, avacado and basil (from the garden) and shrimp rolls with shrimp, carrot, chives (from the garden) and cilantro. It took a couple times but we got the hang of rolling them up neatly and only destroyed two sheets of rice paper in the process.

Now it's 6:45. We made spicy hoisin and soy and garlic dipping sauces for the rolls. We taste tested the rolls and sauces with one of the less attractive rolls, toasted our efforts with an adult beverage and moved onto steamed dumplings.

The recipe called for tofu, but neither one of us care for fermented soy products, so we substituted a small amount of the ground pork we had thawed out for the lettuce wraps. (That's right, at 4:00 pm I took items out of the freezer for this adventure) We began assembling the dumplings when I noticed that we would have lots of wrappers left over and since I had crabmeat on hand, we whipped up crab and cream cheese stuffing for fried wontons.

Steamed Dumplings

We continued to prep the vegies and sauces for the pork wraps and lo mein, and by 8:30 we had everything pretty much ready to cook. At this point, I looked around for my dear husband, who is the wok master and could not find him. After I tracked him down on a neighbor's porch we were ready to stir-fry.

Spicy Pork Lettuce Wraps

Fried Wontons with Crab and Cream Cheese

Chicken Lo Mein

To get authentic stir fry flavor, we hook up the burner from the turkey fryer, and heat the wok up to a ridiculous temperature and cook everything very quickly. This eliminates the greasy texture that homemade Lo Mein has when I try to do it in a regular skillet on a standard burner.
Meanwhile we turned on the steamer and fried the wontons. It was about this time that I realized, we forgot to cook rice. We figured nobody would miss it. We were ready to sit down on the patio and enjoy a lovely chinese dinner at 9:30.

Yup, that's my husband sneaking a taste out of the bowl, with his fingers, before everyone else sits down.

Summer Rolls that we almost left in the fridge at dinner time.

As soon as I knew we were fixing dinner I decided to start something for dessert. I had fresh, ripe peaches in the fridge and made a quick ice cream custard and infused it with some ginger. I added pureed peaches and let it sit for a few hours. I didn't want the ginger to be overwhelming, and didn't add a lot. When we tasted the finished product before we went to the store, we both agreed the ginger didn't really pop. We served the ice cream with a couple tasty, thin ginger snaps and the meal was complete!

We had a late dinner, but really enjoyed spending a day in the kitchen. We each found our niche in the kitchen. We laughed at our mistakes. At the end of the day we were tired, but happy and stuffed.

The lo mein and pork wraps were outstanding, the steamed dumplings tasted great, but the wrappers were mushy. Next time we'll use the same filling but turn them into pot-stickers. You heard right... at 11:00 we were planning the next big feast

menu July 19-25

MPM on Monday for a change!

This wee'ks menu is fairly simple. It's the last week of summer school, but I have taken on a tutoring job that requires quite a bit of extra time, so I'm trying to keep other chores easy.

Monday: Fresh walleye, hushpuppies, deviled eggs
Tuesday: BLT's, salad
Wednesday night at the Nic picnic dinner: Shrimp salad rolls, chips, homemade pudding
Thursday: Grilled chicken, baked beans
Friday: Pasta Carbonara, salad, garlic toast
Saturday: Sausage and potatoes in foil packets
Sunday: Ham, scalloped potatoes

The ham will make several appearances in the future as ham sadwiches for lunch, ham and bean soup, and ham salad for our upcoming cross-country road trip.

Fresh walleye is one of our favorite summer treats. We fix it very simply with a recipe we originally used camping. Dredge the fish in egg/milk wash and then in crushed saltines. Pan fry and serve. It's never greasy and 97% of the time we have everything on hand to make it, wether we're camping or at home.

For more recipes and menu ideas visit Laura at orgjunkie.com!

Menu July 12 - 18

With the holiday and continuing computer issues, I did not post a menu last week. I did stretch the meals I cooked as far as I could.
I grilled a whole, cut up chicken, saving the back and neck for stock. I picked the leftover chicken and served in on greens from the garden (yeah!) hardboiled eggs and homemade dressing. I roasted the back and neck, along with the bones I saved after pulling the meat, before putting them in the pot to simmer for stock. After I strained the broth and divided it into 2 cup portions for the freezer, I cleaned the rest of the chicken from the back, wings and any other bones that still had any meat on them. This meat was heated up with salsa and turned into chicken quesadillas.
I also cooked a roast in the crock pot for French dip sandwiches. We used all the stock left for jus to dip the sandwiches, so I pulled an oxtail from the freezer and simmered it to make a rich beef broth and added the leftover roast and various vegies I had in the fridge to make a big pot of vegetable beef soup. We had it for dinner and some of the leftovers for lunch. The rest I froze for an quick dinner option, probably when I have forgotten to pull anything from the freezer.

Menu July 12 -18
Monday: Fish and chips
Tuesday: Grilled pork chops, homemade apple sauce, garden salad
Wednesday: We're going to the rodeo, so we'll be eating Fair Food!
Thursday: Stuffed Peppers
Friday: Grilled chicken sandwiches, garden salad and fruit
Saturday: Braised beef ribs
Sunday: Dinner at Mom's.

Pictures and links wil return when I upgrade my computer. That has to happen before school starts again.

For more menus check out the Organizing Junkie.