menu for two

Want to know the funny thing that happened when I started writing about our menu? I stopped being motivated to make a menu! Weird, right? So I've been feeling very stifled and uninspired and disinterested about dinner lately which isn't good for us (this sort of thing eventually evolves into ice cream meals and Greek chips for breakfast).

So this will be my last menu for two. If you're using the menus or finding them helpful and don't want them to go, I could definitely figure out an alternative. Let me know in the comments!

This week was asian-style cuisine week as I was on my own until Friday.

{the menu}

monday: beef with broccoli

tuesday: vegetable spring rolls with leftover peanut butter dressing for dipping

wednesday: stir-fried chicken with ketchup and quinoa

thursday: mushroom ichiban

friday: ginger beef and rice

saturday: gyros and all the fixings

sunday: baked hotdogs and a salad

what really happened

{monday} This was so good and tasted like the real thing -- only fresher and better cuz it's homemade. The only thing I really did differently was the omission of the sherry and addition of some chopped almonds. I was reading about cashews in the comments, and I thought that would be good, but alas. I only had almonds. I was really worried about the broccoli being undercooked, but it turned out so right. Not raw, not soggy, just right.
{tuesday} I wanted to get some extra vegetables for these, so I walked over to Save-On foods, and got what I needed for veg and then I remembered there was something else I wanted for my wraps. I wandered around trying to think of it, but I just couldn't. Agonizing. I figured it must not have been that important, so I trudged back home. While I was making them, I remembered that it was shrimp or fake crab or some sort of seafood I wanted just to round out the meal. So basically, I had carrot and cucumber sticks wrapped up in rice paper (I even forgot about adding noodles!) for dinner which I dipped into the leftover dressing from Sunday (I prefer this a lot more than the hoisin dipping sauce. Hoisin makes me queasy after a while). And after eating my veggie wraps (I had six of them!) I was still so hungry, I had two bowls of rice krispie cereal and some dates and almonds and then (not surprisingly) I felt completely sick all night. Smooth.
{wednesday} I was originally going to make an orange chicken recipe I found, but I realized I didn't have any oranges or orange juice on account of Idle Husband not being here and me not thinking to buy that stuff cuz he's not here. So I decided to guinea pig myself and go with this strange concoction. For some odd reason, I went into the recipe thinking there would be something more than ketchup to make the ketchup not taste like ketchup and when there was nothing else, I thought I'd ruined some pretty nice looking chicken. But no! Ketchup fried chicken was so. friggin. amazing. If I had more, I would eat it right now while typing this. I would spread the sauce on sandwiches. I would dip chicken fingers into it. I would serve it as a side to steak. The ketchup morphed from that typical ketchup taste and turned into something magical. And don't get me wrong. I love the taste of ketchup. I once had a roommate from the states and that's all she ever joked about. Oh you Canadians and your ketchup. But I don't think I'm as extreme as some. Blech to ketchup chips (yes; those exist) and never to ketchup on chicken. Well. Consider me converted. And did you think the quinoa was a weird addition? So did I while I was making it, but it worked surprisingly well. The quinoa bits coated each chicken piece, making them feel a little more substantial and it tasted great with the sauce mixed in. And since quinoa is so filling, I was really satisfied and full afterwards (and I had less chicken than the recipe called for). I'll definitely make this again especially since this whole meal took about 15 minutes to prepare and would easily make anyone think you'd been marinating and combining ingredients all day.
{thursday} This was good and all, but I probably won't do it again. I just didn't love it. I used dry mushrooms, washed them, and softened them in hot water which gave me a mushroom broth. And I used that along with water to cook the noodles. It was filling, but nothing to write about. Needed more salt.
{friday} Idle Husband's back for dinner. Good thing we've already established that he likes ginger beef! This was actually pretty darned close to real ginger beef. Unfortunately, mine was sweet with no hint of spice like proper ginger beef should have. I guess I really have to buy some chili pepper flakes. It's starting to get desperate. There's also a LOT of sugar in this recipe (I realized as making it), so I probably would cut down on that so it's slightly less sweet and I'd have liked the sauce to be thicker. It was like water which bugged me. Presentation-wise, this looked exactly like ginger beef. And aside for my addition of snow peas instead of peppers and red wine vinegar instead of rice vinegar and optional wine, I followed everything else to the letter and served it over rice. Oh and it took a long time to cook all of the meat, but I was going in with everything partially frozen so that probably had something to do with it.
{saturday} Gyros! God. I made this recipe back on January 30th and we're still eating it. This is the fourth and last meal we'll get. Pretty good, I think.
{sunday} I just wanted to get the last of the hotdogs and buns out of the freezer and gone. The baked hotdog excitement is starting to wear off, honestly. Probably because we never have tried it with proper chili and because last night I realized we didn't have an ounce of cheese in the house. I used Cheez Whiz (we bought a tiny jar one time when I found out Idle Husband had never had it before) and it just wasn't the same. Plus I overcooked them slightly, so the buns were like crunchy croutons.

menu for two

{the menu}

monday: meat pies

tuesday: leftover meat pies and Chinese food (ginger beef, deep fried shrimp/egg rolls, mixed vegetables with shrimp and pork, sweet and sour ribs, and stir fried rice)

wednesday: leftover Chinese food

thursday: tuna pasta salad

friday: pizza

saturday: roasted chicken

sunday: peanut noodle slaw

what really happened

{monday} OMG this recipe is to die for! I'm so glad I didn't ditch it out of laziness. Some notes, though. I didn't realize it was instant yeast, so I had to adjust accordingly for my traditional yeast (which really only meant adding all of the water instead of a quarter of it). I also didn't have the pomegranate molasses which was really annoying, because it's not like it's some strange ingredient I couldn't find. I've seen it. I know where to get it (the Italian market). There's no reason I couldn't have it other than that I forgot it. I also didn't add any parsley or pine nuts, and I used only one tomato (one tomato each day, otherwise I run out too early. I have to ration those babies). I'm sure Idle Husband would have been really happy with some red pepper flakes, but I don't have them seperate from salt. Also, I'm not going to listen to the part where you use parchment or a silpat on the pan again. I used my stupid silpat, and I totally didn't think about the hamburger juices flowing everywhere. So the juices ran under my silpat and burned up the corners of both my (beautiful brand new nonstick) pan and the silpat. That's going to take some cleaning (and silpats are a total pain to clean). Had I used my brain a little more, I would have used tinfoil with a spritz of nonstick cooking spray. And I rolled out 15 dough balls, but I only got 12 meat pies (and I used a whole pound of ground beef). I'm thinking three tablespoons of meat per pie is over-doing it. I cooked the last three just as pitas/dough circles. The meat pies taste delicious just as they are with some plain yogurt (as instructed). Idle Husband wants these weekly.
{tuesday} I was gone, so Idle Husband was on his own for dinner which is why I planned to make the whole meat pie recipe on Monday. There were still six leftover for him to eat and they were easy for him to prepare since he just had to pop them in the toaster oven for 10 minutes to heat them up again. I had take-out Chinese food. I always have Chinese food of some sort when I'm with mom and IH is not around. I originally just wanted some ginger beef and maybe some noodles, but mom insisted on ordering a dinner for four which was ridiculous considering she wasn't eating it either. So I had it for dinner and I had it for breakfast the next day.
{wednesday} And then I drove that Chinese food home, and we had it for dinner. I'm proud of Idle Husband for giving Chinese food a second chance. He really loved the ginger beef (which is sad for me since that's pretty much my favourite thing ever). He actually ate quite a lot of it, and what was left was starting to taste a little old (blech green peppers in the ginger beef and soggy sliced onions and celery), so we ate what we could and I froze the rice (why do they give you so much rice?) and tossed the rest (it was mostly sauce, don't gasp).
{thursday} tuna pasta salad: good; idle husband not particularly hungry (and completely disinterested in a non-meat meal): bad. I had cooked the last of the rotini but didn't use all of it for the salad, so I put it in a freezer bag and froze it for some other day. And good thing, too, cuz I pretty much ate this whole thing myself between this dinner and tomorrow's breakfast and lunch. I did. I hate it, but I did (I keep telling myself it was mostly salad with a sprinkling of noodles).
{friday} Always well received. Always good. I did have a ball of frozen dough in the freezer, but I opted to make fresh dough. I thought I'd be happier with two frozen pizza doughs in the freezer instead of one and besides, I had the time. I did, however, use one of the two tubs of cooked ground beef and bacon I had frozen from the last pizza (I had a lot of meat topping leftover since half the pizza was vegetable).
{saturday} I chose to do a roasted chicken only because I wanted leftover chicken for Sunday's meal. It also just happens to be one of IH's favourite dinners. So... win/win, I guess. Same as usual with salt and pepper, but I also added some lemon juice to give it that flavour and I diced some potatoes to go around it. I hoped that they would soak up the little pool of lemon juice and turn into delicious lemon potatoes (a Greek specialty), but they kinda didn't bother and chose to adhere to the pan instead. Oh well. The pieces we could pull off were pretty delicious, and I got my leftover chicken!
{sunday} I was on my own for dinner, so of course I wanted to do something asian (that's my go-to alone food!). I didn't use leftover spaghetti. Instead I used some of those cheap itchiban-type noodle packages (Double Happiness brand, Dongguan rice stick, in the red package). For the salad, I chopped up some lettuce, threw in a few handfuls of spinach, and added some carrots and green onions. The dressing for this salad is so delicious and with the noodles thrown in there, it was just so good. I think I'm going to have to start a recipe card just for delicious salad dressings. I'm totally making this one again.

menu for two

{the menu}

monday: no dinner

tuesday: filet mignon

wednesday: chicken fingers

thursday: greek panzanella

friday: pork souvlaki

saturday: honey mustard chicken

sunday: carrot ginger soup

what really happened

{monday} We were out thrift shopping (yay!) and had a late lunch at Red Robbin, so I didn't make anything for dinner. That place will fill you up no problem. I really think Red Robbin has the best burgers and the steak fries are great. I've never been disappointed with them. I had the Banzai Burger and Idle Husband had the Bacon Cheeseburger with yam fries. Their tower of onion rings was really tempting us, too, but we both knew we'd never be able to finish it plus a burger and fries. Secretly, I want to order just the onion rings if we go again. I feel an onion ring craving starting to build up (stupid onion ring picture).
{tuesday} We stopped at Superstore casually the other day just to get some Greek chips (bad), and we happened to come across the motherload of beef tenderloins. I haven't seen them there since I found that one for Idle Husband's birthday. We bought two just so we'd be guaranteed to have plenty of filet mignon steaks around just in case we wouldn't find tenderloins for another 6 months. We also decided to forgo vegetarian Tuesday so we could properly celebrate the renting of our old house. Huzzah! We collected our first month's rent. Anyhoo, I also threw together a sort of onion and mushroom topping to go with the steaks. It was all very delicious.
{wednesday} homemade chicken fingers as scheduled! I did not bow to temptation and bake up some more of the store-bought ones. I also used up an old potato for some baked fries. Doesn't it make you sad to cut up a potato that's happily growing on your counter? It kinda makes me sad. Poor potato. He never saw it coming.
{thursday} I bought french bread this time instead of baking it myself. It was less hassle and I didn't feel guilty about it since crusty french bread is only $1 at Superstore. I did, however, feel like the salad was too bready. I used the right amount, but the bread overwhelmed the salad portion. So I either didn't use enough vegetables or I should reduce the amount of bread cubes next time. Also I friggin' love that salad dressing recipe. It's just oil, vinegar, and dijon, but I love it so much more than store bought. I've been trying to find a good dressing lately, and anything I try, I get so sick of after a couple weeks of using it. I think I'm going to start making my own.
{friday} Idle Husband wanted to give me a vacation from making dinner so we had beef Shawarma (the only one worth having, just fyi). I had actually planned for the souvlaki dinner, so I put all the marinating ingredients with the pork and shoved it in the fridge for Saturday.
{saturday} Pork souvlaki is the best thing ever! I must've cooked more pork this time, I don't know what happened, but we didn't finish all of it. There were only about four large chunks left, but it was just really surprising that we didn't stuff it in. They were really great cold as a snack at lunch, though!
{sunday} I decided to scrap the honey mustard chicken. I can make that some other day, and besides, I was really not in the mood for chicken. Unfortunately, that meant that I didn't take out any chicken stock to make carrot soup. Did I tell you that when we moved, I went microwave-less? Yup. We had a big one that took up half my counter space at the old house and when we decided we were moving, and everything was a done deal, I started keeping track of exactly how much I used the microwave each month. Quite honestly, some months I wouldn't use it at all. Sure, I'd have weeks where all I did was defrost things in there, but those weeks were few and far between. I don't like cooking in it (that was mom's go-to appliance. Sorry, mom, but you kind of scarred me for life with microwaved brussel sprouts -- though her microwaved BBQ chicken was pretty good) and we rarely have leftovers, so I decided to only use my toaster oven for reheating instead. Dilemma! All my stock is in plastic containers and I didn't think it would be very smart if I put plastic in my toaster oven (that sucker gets super hot, even when it's just on toast). I put it in a double-boiler type contraption at first until Idle Husband expressed concern over melting plastic, so I abandoned that for submersing the container in boiled water instead. It worked like a dream. The rest of this soup was easy. Four carrots boiled in the stock until they softened, some ginger slices, puree, serve. My carrots weren't that tasty, so I added some sugar to the soup. Carrot soup should taste sweet in my opinion.

menu for two

{the menu}

monday: meatloaf and sweet potato salad

tuesday: grilled cheese

wednesday: baked hotdogs

thursday: pizza

friday: apricot roast chicken and vegetables

saturday: gyro

sunday: applesauced pork chops

what actually happened

{monday} My regular meatloaf recipe, good as usual, except I didn't use a whole pound of pork, so it didn't stay together as well. The sweet potato salad idea came just because I've had a sweet potato sitting around on my counter for way too long. The salad itself was really delicious. I never have cilantro, so I used up all of my green onions (which were starting to look sad anyway). I also used red wine vinegar instead of cider as that's something I don't have either. Also, for myself, I added one quarter of a preserved lemon peel. Idle Husband doesn't like preserved lemon (I can sneak them successfully into flatbread, though!) so I didn't add it to the entire salad. I really like that pop of citrus with sweet potato so I kept it on my plate and added it as I needed it. I think it's nice, but it took me a while to embrace the flavour. It's a lot different than what you know lemon peel or zest to taste like, it's definitely an acquired flavour.
{tuesday} We had a few slices of meatloaf leftover, so I sandwiched them between bread and cheese with a squirt of ketchup and grilled them up the same as grilled cheese. Best idea yet. I swear, they tasted like little burgers. I actually started calling them flatburgers. It makes me want to make a meatloaf, cool it and slice it, and just keep it in the freezer for flatburgers. You don't need buns (something I never have), the meat is in a loaf shape so it fits the entire bread (none of that weird, now I'm eating bread and ketchup experience you get when you put an actual burger between bread in a no-bun situation), and I used the flat plates on my grill to squish them down and cook them which left a really delicious crispy exterior and everything was cooked together so we didn't experience any meat or cheese sliding out of the bread. I honestly think that if you add all the condiments in this including tomato and lettuce and then grilled it, it would be the best thing ever. I might put flatburgers on the menu one of these weeks to test my hypothesis.
{wednesday} This is the first day of Idle Husband's vacation! Don't be surprised if you notice more meat and more go-to, easy dinners for the next week or so. It's harder for me to plan and cook new meals now, so it's easier just to go with the dinners he really loves instead of taking chances with... eggplant meatballs (for example). I really felt like hot dogs and Idle Husband had bacon on the brain, so I combined baked hot dogs with a slice of bacon. I couldn't really taste the bacon, honestly, and I used chicken hot dogs, so it wasn't a case of pork on pork. I also bought a can of beans for myself and added those to the tops of my hot dogs only. It was good and filling. I could only eat two.
{thursday} I still wanted to be true to vegetarian day, so I made half the pizza using these salad pizza ideas (which I've wanted to try forever) and the other half I covered in meat and bacon as per Idle Husband's request (also known as the usual pizza we always have). My salad pizza was really good. I topped my side with tomato sauce, cheddar, purple onions, broccoli, a little garlic, and tomato slices. After it came out of the oven, I added thinly sliced lettuce, a little dab of ranch dressing, and some veggie spice. Delish!
{friday} I used this recipe as an idea for dinner. I didn't print it; I didn't follow it. I just remembered jam and did my own thing. So I spooned some peach jam directly over the chicken and rubbed it all around with some salt and pepper. I thought it was delicious. It wasn't a strong jammy flavour, it just had a mild sweetness to it. Idle Husband didn't like it as much. I don't know why. We also had salad (as usual) and I roasted up the last of the cabbage with the chicken. The peach jam really added to the roasted cabbage making it extra delicious.
{saturday} I was going to do vegetarian until I got the stink eye. Gyros it is.
{sunday} This was just an excuse to get rid of my last container of apple sauce. Originally, I was going to sear the chops in my cast iron pan, and let them finish in the oven while I made an onion/garlic topping with the apple sauce, but Idle Husband wanted to make them himself, so I had him cook the chops completely right in the pan instead. Then I served the applesauce as a condiment. He didn't try it, but I liked it. I did realize that I'm not a huge fan of applesauce. It's good, but I'm definitely not inspired or interested in it at all. I guess it's nice to have around if you want to use it as a substitute in baking, but I can never plan far enough ahead for that.

menu for two

{the menu}

monday: meat pies and salad

tuesday: mushroom risotto

wednesday: salt and pepper pork chops

thursday: chicken fingers and fries

friday: gyro

saturday: steak and salad

sunday: chicken parmasan and ceasar salad

what really happened

This week, I was so uninspired and bored with food, I honestly didn't write up the menu past Tuesday and only jumped into it again on Friday.

{monday} I don't know where the time went, but I was doing a bunch of stuff around the house and taking pictures and washing dishes and cleaning when all of a sudden, I noticed it was 5 and I hadn't started preparing the dough yet. I could have done it, but I didn't have enough rising time including making and kneading time, so I decided to scrap it. I made hamburgers with a tiny bit of leftover ricotta cheese mixed in and cut up a potato for fries. We couldn't really taste the ricotta, but boy those burgers were juicy.
{tuesday} I made all that stock last week, so I was excited to make something with it. But around noon, I realized I'd forgotten to take the stock out of the freezer to thaw and so I scrapped this one, too. I thought about it all day and decided that brinner could be pretty good -- I could make fancier pancakes or something -- but Idle Husband had to unexpectedly work late past dinner, and I found myself lost for what to make just for myself. I ended up trying the quinoa that's been in the cupboard forever. I didn't know what to do with it before and honestly, I still don't. I first tried cooking it, and when that turned out ok, I searched quickly for some ideas. I couldn't find anything interesting enough aside from salads and using it as rice, so I just did what I could remember from this article about quick caramelized onions (which I really didn't finish all the way as I was getting too hungry and tired) and added some mushrooms. It was pretty good. I love the texture of quinoa. Anything that reminds me of tapioca is a-okay in my book. I'll have to do something better with it next time.
{wednesday} It's turning into a pretty glamourous menu this week. I completely threw something together for this night. Pork chops with salt and pepper on them, cooked in the toaster oven. Salad and the leftover quinoa. Admittedly, I ate all the quinoa almost before Idle Husband got home. For some reason, having quinoa cold and straight out of the tupperware with some vegetable seasoning on it made it so super delicious, I couldn't stop.
{thursday} I was out all day and apparently, Idle Husband had no idea I was going to be out in the first place. I told him in advance, plus he saw me up and dressed appropriately for going out, and it honestly never occured to me to retell him where I was going to be all day. That meant an entire day of him wondering where I was, eventually worrying so much he thought I'd thrown my back out at the old house and was just lying there crumpled on the floor. So he left work at 4:30 to come find me and checked home, checked the old house, and I arrived home when he was on his way back, so technically we got home at the same time. I certainly couldn't make some mushroom/pasta/risotto/non-meat thing for him after all of that now, could I? I didn't have any bread, so I couldn't go for grilled cheese, so yes. We ate the store-bought chicken fingers and fries again. Those are turning out to be mighty handy.
{friday} I made bread and flatbread, so I took out six pieces of the previously made gyro meat and unthawed them. Then Idle Husband had to unexpectedly work late again, so I had a gyro by myself with some sliced tomatoes and cucumber (not done up greek-salad style). It was good (as usual), and I saved the rest for Idle Husband when he got home.
{saturday} I'd been experimenting with dragon age donuts in the kitchen, so I just quickly cooked a couple steaks in the toaster oven with salt and pepper and whipped up a salad. Ho hum.
{sunday} I like this recipe for chicken parmasan because it's so easy and fast and I don't have to dirty a frying pan. I always cut it in half (two chicken breasts fill us up just fine), and this was the first time I've made it without making bread crumbs. I used panko instead (for quickness and due to lazyness) which worked well (like, when doesn't panko work? It's the best). I did manage to make my favourite tomato sauce as usual. Just some notes on the sauce:

I don't ever measure the butter in this sauce anymore and I almost never use butter anymore. I'll use softened margarine, and I'll just grab a scoop with my wooden spoon. I'm sure it never amounts to 5 tablespoons; it's always less. I seriously hate it when butter is measured in tablespoons. WTF is with that? Does American butter come with tablespoon measurements on the wrapping? Cuz ours does not. I really hate digging into butter (or margarine) with my tablespoon and scooping it out with my finger. The tablespoon is always still covered in a ton of butter that I can't get off and my finger is covered in butter, everything covered in butter. I hate washing grease off of things. I'd like to take my butter out of the fridge, cut off what I need with a knife, and throw it in the pot. It's less messy and definitely easier that way. Maybe one day, when I have a bunch of softened butter, I'll work out what a tablespoon weighs (warm and cold), but when I'm normally confronted with this irritation, I figure out how many millilitres (ml) that is (there's 15 ml in one tablespoon) and use the measures that come printed straight on the butter wrapping to get it into cups (I actually tore off the ruler from a Crisco box at one time, and I use that. It's got a more accurate ml measurement on it). And please don't throw out the onions in this sauce recipe if you try it. That's my favourite part! I usually eat them as soon as they're cool enough to touch.

I ran out of fresh tomatoes for our usual salad which is why I decided to go with caesar salad (that was actually the initial prompting for chicken parmasan in the first place). I always make the salad completely as instructed (save for the romaine leaves. I chop them up like a normal salad), but I decided to skip making the garlic bread croutons since I still had some store-bought croutons left from the one time I bought them for a stuffing recipe. So I skipped that step and added the minced garlic directly to the dressing. I think I added a touch too much lemon juice. The salad turned out with a little more tang than usual, but it was still good.

menu for two

{the menu}

monday: spicy oven-fried chicken, roasted vegetables, salad

tuesday: grilled cheese and salad

wednesday: sausages and rice

thursday: eggplant meatballs with mushroom polenta

friday: beef roast and salad
saturday: spaghettini with garlic butter roasted mushrooms

sunday: chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese

what actually happened

{monday} I love this recipe. It's not exactly the taste of fried chicken, but since we never eat commercially fried chicken, this really fills that void without all the extra calories and fat. I use chicken pieces (4 legs/thighs and 4 wings) and I remove the skin. I skip the thyme and hot pepper sauce, I use panko instead of bread crumbs or crackers, and I don't put butter on them before baking. Those are really the only changes I make to the recipe. Apparently, you can marinate them for only 3 hours, but I've always started them the night before I want to have it. It's nice to know I could get away with it in a pinch. I still had enough vegetables left to do another pan of various roasted veggies. I timed them better this time and they were less burnt with more caramelization. I also cut up a potato into fries and added that along with the veggies (I made sure they were seperated to one side of the pan) just for Idle Husband (though I had some, too. They turned out really well).
{tuesday} I should have gone shopping, but if I miss my window of time, I feel like there's no point. Going to superstore later in the morning will almost always end up putting me in a bad mood. There was also a piece of chicken leftover from Monday that I ate for breakfast, so I really wasn't all that hungry by dinner. I made some grilled cheeses for Idle Husband. One with tomato and another with some leftover chicken I had frozen from a previous night. I had grilled cheese with tomato and pesto. (I know this was vegetarian night, but I had leftover chicken spilling out of my fridge this week and I just wanted to get rid of it.)
{wednesday} Still no groceries (sometimes, I have this little contest with myself to see how far I can go. It makes me get really creative). I was so sick of chicken and all I had in the freezer aside from chicken was sausages. I didn't really know what to do with them. I thought about doing brinner (breakfast for dinner) and then I thought about a jambalaya of sorts and settled on that. But like a stupid, I started cooking rice in the rice cooker and realized that's not how to do jambalaya, so I had to improvise after that point. It ended up turning into a kind of sausage and rice chili with chopped tomatoes and mushrooms and the rest of the leftover chicken (finally). I had doubts as to how well received this would be, but surprisingly, Idle Husband gobbled it right up. I guess it was meaty enough for him and when I gave him the cayenne pepper, he really dug in.
{thursday} Disaster. The directions have you slice the eggplant and bake in a 450 degree oven on a sheet pan with only a drizzle of oil and some salt and pepper. Well, looking at the pictures again, I can see now that they meant super thick slices. With just the printed directions in front of me, I had no idea what that meant so I went ahead and got as many slices out of that eggplant as I could. Obviously, only the thicker pieces survived baking. I also think 450 is crazy now, but at the time, I remembered that eggplant is not a vegetable you can eat raw (which I've accidentally done and suggest you don't), so I really did want to make sure it was fully cooked this time. Anyway, at least three of the slices (and whole slices, not end pieces) were completely burned and all that was left were their sad charred outlines on the pan. There was still some that was salvageable, and I went back and forth about just scrapping the whole plan, but I decided to forge ahead and decrease the other ingredients by more than half. The result was not bad but not delicious. They looked disgusting (no joke, we were calling them little turds) and they were like dry chewy puffs of vaguely eggplant tasting disks (ketchup to the rescue). It was entirely my fault, though, so I'm not blaming the recipe on this one. Polenta. Stupid stupid polenta. This is the third time I've made it and it's the third time I've been really pissed about it. That recipe has gone in the garbage and I'm never making it again. It tastes like nothing. And it's enough nothing to feed an army and for some odd reason, I always forget that fact and keep forgetting to halve it (probably because it doesn't sound like that much at first. A cup of polenta. That seems reasonable). So after making this stupid slop, putting a ton of dried mushrooms in it (what a waste), we both had the equivalent of four tablespoons and that was it. Idle Husband suggested happily that I eat it tomorrow. A whole 4 quart pot of gelatinous polenta (as it gets like that about 5 seconds after you take it off the stove). Yeah. I'm so sad about the mushrooms but I had to chuck it. I don't want to walk around with a belly full of disgusting polenta goo all day, thankyouverymuch. And I've seen that you can cool it and slice it and fry it and don't even comment about that cuz I've tried it and it was even more disgusting than in its original form. I'd never heard of polenta until I started reading American food blogs and it seemed like such an interesting fancy alternative to rice or pasta which is why I tried it in the first place. But you know what? Polenta is gross and we don't like it and that's that. Smack me on the face if I ever say, 'maybe I can put that on a bed of polenta!' again.
{friday} After thursday, I wanted to do something basic. Like, really basic. Same as for a roast chicken, all I do is defrost, salt and pepper, 350 degree oven till done. Delicious. Can't go wrong. Comforting safety recipe.
{saturday} This mushroom recipe was so amazing, I really wished I'd have purchased capers cuz I'm pretty sure that would have made it even better. I used about 10-11 ounces of button mushrooms which I cut in half no matter their size. I then kept all the other measurements the same since I planned on mixing it into the spaghettini as a sauce. I also didn't have any parsley, so I substituted some green onion. It was very garlic-y and mushroom-y and delicious. A vegetarian dish on the weekend and Idle Husband loved it. I think I'm going to do more mushroom dishes like this for vegetarian night. And I could have gotten away with a bit more than 200 g (about 7 ounces) of spaghettini since we were both still a little hungry after.
{sunday} With the amount of chicken we'd been eating, I had quite the collection of chicken bones hanging out in the freezer, so I made stock. It's really easy and if you've got a crock pot, you don't have to babysit it at all. I put the bones of two chickens (at least -- this time, I was maxing out at four) into my crock pot, add an onion, a couple carrots, some smashed garlic cloves, a couple bay leaves, and a sprinkling of a rock salt with chili peppers mix that I have. Add enough water to cover the bones and leave at the high temperature until you can smell the chicken. Then I strain the bits out, and put the stock in the fridge to cool so I can remove the fat later (it floats to the top once cooled and you can easily skim it right off). For some reason, I used to think that everything that came out of the pot was pretty much spent when it came to taste and I think that usually applies to the vegetables, but if there is any meat left on the bones, go ahead and pick all that meat off. It's delicious! I missed out for a few months there. Anyway, from that, I usually get about 6-8 cups of stock and I'll only use 4 cups for soup as that seems to be a good amount for us. The rest of the stock I measure out and put in yogurt containers (any plastic containers I have saved actually), write the amount that's in there and the date on them, and freeze them for later. I used to make all that stock into a humongous amount of soup and freeze that, but it's so much better to have the simple stock in the freezer because that can then be used for a lot of different meals instead of just soup. To make the soup, measure out 4 cups of stock, add your chicken back in, add vegetables if you want (I chop up the stock carrots and add them back), let it come to a boil and add whatever pasta you want. I really like broken pieces of spaghetti and random noodle bits (broken lasagna is nice). It gives variety. Serve once the pasta is cooked to al dente.

menu for two

{the menu}

monday : gyro, pita, tzatziki, and greek salad

tuesday: skillet lasagna

wednesday: sweet spicy BBQ ribs and coleslaw (recipe halved)

thursday: grilled cheese

friday: honey mustard chicken and salad

saturday: fireplace meat with all the greek fixin's

sunday: taco salad

what really happened

{monday} This is probably the closest we've come to having gyro at home. It's a really easy recipe and I especially like that there are enough leftovers to get at least three more gyro meals out of it. Monday was a busy cooking day for me as I had to make pitas, I had to mix all the meats for the gyro and precook it, plus I had to make tzatziki. Usually it's not so haggard because I'll have the pita and tzatziki on hand before I decide to make gyro, then all I really have to do is the meat part which is fine cuz I can make it ahead of time and pop them in the oven for a few minutes before dinner. It was entirely my fault for scheduling it when I didn't have the other important sides, but I did it so it would force me to finally turn the strained yogurt (that had been in my fridge for almost a week) into tzatziki. Next time we have this it'll be simpler.

{tuesday} I started making this as directed, honest, but as soon as the tomatoes went in the skillet, I didn't think there'd be any way the rest of the ingredients would fit. So I changed it to a vegetable lasagna (in a baking pan) by slicing the leftover acorn squash and sweet potato really thinly on a mandolin and adding them as layers to the lasagna noodles. On hindsight, I should have put the sweet potato slices on the bottom of the dish and the squash on the top so their juice would soak down and help cook the potatos. After an hour, the potatoes were still a touch crunchy and they were (oddly) the only thing Idle Husband complained about. I thought he'd notice the squash right away but that didn't phase him at all.

{wednesday} So I was literally doing nothing, hanging this stupid garland, and somehow I pinched a nerve in my back, almost blacked out, and then spent the rest of the day in bed (I think my sink was full of water with the dishes I was washing pre-accident until Thursday evening). So Idle Husband picked up some french fries and he made store-bought chicken fingers (er, store-free. I just happened to spend over the specified amount the last time I went grocery shopping, so they gave me a family-sized box of them for free -- I would never buy these premade, mine are better; and honestly, I was just a little annoyed I even had to stop what I was doing and go back through the store to find them, free or not) and we ate dinner in bed. Good times.

{thursday} Because of Wednesday, I deleted grilled cheese day and the ribs took its place. I'd much rather have ribs. Besides, Idle Husband stayed home from work to take care of me, so I had him make them instead (everybody together now, awwww!). I don't make this recipe as directed anymore. The full cup of brown sugar is highly unnecessary and creates a huge smokey fire hazard (I also don't have a clue as to what ribs I'm buying or how closely matching the amount is to what the recipe calls for. That could be why the sugar was burning all to hell the first time I made it). Instead I use about a 1/4 cup or less and use my own judgement for the spices. I also only cook it at the high temperature for 30 minutes, flipping them over after 15 minutes instead. Then I carry on as instructed, although sometimes they're done before the second hour is completely up. I also think ribs taste better when they're with something cool and creamy so I'll usually do a one potato salad, but I still had almost a full head of cabbage so I decided to do slaw instead. I cut the slaw recipe in half and then I halve the miracle whip and the sugar again. I don't like it that creamy and I almost never have the motivation to measure out chopped cabbage anyway.
{friday} This was an easy recipe to put together but it didn't taste like honey or mustard, it tasted mosty like tomato. I also cooked it in the toaster oven instead of on a grill. It was nice to do something different with chicken breasts, though. We also had plain rice as I anticipated having more sauce from the chicken, but there wasn't much to be used for that. It always annoys me when recipes call for a measly tablespoon of tomato paste for some inane reason. We don't have tomato paste in a tube. I might have seen it once and swooned over it, but I couldn't justify the cost in comparison to the tiny cans. Normally, I'll just avoid recipes like this, but I decided to freeze teaspoon sized dollups of the leftover paste on a cookie sheet so I'd have it all ready to use in other recipes later. Another handy hint, if you are opening a can of tomato paste, open both ends then push the lid into the can from one end, pushing the tomato paste out the other. It's a lot cleaner and I can usually get almost all the paste out at one time.
{saturday} Fireplace meat is so easy and so delicious. I could easily get away with making double this amount and we would be able to eat all of it. But I try to keep portions down as much as possible otherwise we'd definitely end up stuffing ourselves silly, and I'd rather be a little empty than too full.
{sunday} I promised Idle Husband I would never try to trick him into eating beans and if beans were supposed to be in the dish, I'd omit them and put them in a seperate bowl just for me. Since then, he'll actually eat anything I make that sounds even vaguely mexican. He lived in the states for a while so any mexican sounding dishes are immediately associated with beans. When I think of tacos, I think of spicy ground beef, maybe some onion and garlic, and that's it. I'm not a huge fan of beans on their own and I'm especially not a fan of refried beans. So my tacos only consist of ground beef, sauted onion and garlic, and some spice (yes, the packaged type. We also don't eat mexican food all that often, so I don't keep any of the proper spices stocked). I don't usually bother with a shell or wrap and just pile it all on top of a salad, but sometimes I crave a flour tortilla. I've made my own tortillas before, but I just didn't find it worth the effort. IH doesn't like them and when I'm the only one eating them, and very occasionally at that, I don't feel like bothering myself with it. I shouldn't be eating tortillas anyway, so when I do want them, I'll just buy the small ones for myself as a treat (I think I get a craving for these exactly once a year). I'm also making the meat even spicier than I would for myself as Idle Husband has really developed a taste for extreme heat. To make it more enjoyable for me, I cool mine off with some plain yogurt. I know most people would probably think sour cream for this, and that's fine and all, but if I purchased a tub of sour cream, I'd use a few dollups of it and it would just sit in the fridge and rot if I didn't go searching for recipes that specifically called for it. In my opinion, plain yogurt's just more versatile than sour cream. I can get a bigger bang for my buck if I keep yogurt stocked in my fridge instead since it can be used for more dishes either sweet -- if you have a baking recipe that calls for sour cream, you can substitute yogurt -- or savoury. I think they both basically taste the same anyway.

menu for two

I thought I'd start regularly posting our weekly menu as a way to keep track of how we're actually eating. I also thought it might be interesting to show you what recipes are on my radar each week, what I'm experimenting with, and whether it was a success or a failure. I also know how hard it is to cook for two people especially when one of those two does not like eating leftovers. So most of the time, I have to figure out portions just so we don't end up with any leftovers and I have to come up with something different every night (a tremendous feat just by itself).

I also think it'll help give you ideas for dinners for two (or one, with leftovers). Especially for those times when it's really hard to find recipes and ideas (November and December I'm looking at you. My usual go-to places for recipes explode with Thanksgiving sides and desserts at this time and as much as we'd like to eat a pound of Christmas cookies or a casserole fit for an entire family gathering for dinner, it's not really a smart thing to do).

We also decided that (maybe due to our age?) eating meat every night feels a little heavy on our stomachs, so I try to have Tuesdays and Thursdays as "vegetarian" nights (seafood, eggs, cheese is ok) which has also presented its own set of problems (especially when one of us doesn't like beans). I've also never cooked or eaten much vegetarian food myself (I grew up on a cattle farm, eh hem), so I have to get more creative and more adventurous because of that (especially since we've both decided tofu's just not doing it for us).

{this week's menu}

monday: baked hot dogs

tuesday: garlic soup with grilled cheese for Idle Husband

wednesday: naked ravioli

thursday: "sausage" patties with salad

friday: meatloaf with salad and mashed potato

saturday: pizza

sunday: roast chicken, roasted vegetables, and salad

what really happened

{monday} no, I still haven't tried these with chili. I just didn't have any other options for dinner since we were completely out of everything and this seemed like the best meal to eat without vegetables.
{tuesday} I still hadn't gone grocery shopping, so I omitted the wine (1/2 cup more of stock), heavy cream (milk and butter instead), french bread (ends of my own bread), bay leaf (I season my own stock), and gruyere. Overall, this recipe just didn't taste very much like garlic (let alone outrageous garlic). It was more like a slightly garlic-y onion soup. Also soup is a complete meal for me so I'm cool with having it alone (or with a salad), but I always have to make at least one grilled cheese for IH.
{wednesday} I ground my own pork (change number one), omitted the parsley, butter, and sage leaves, and I was honestly just too lazy to bother browning butter. I also went with spaghetti cuz I didn't want to buy bow-tie pasta when I had a huge bag of spaghetti sitting unopened in my pantry. The kitchen scale has proved invaluable for everything (not just macarons). Since spaghetti is hard to portion, I cook about 160-200 grams and it ends up being just perfect. Idle Husband unexpectedly had to work late, so I didn't really finish out the rest of this recipe. I forgot about the frozen peas which bummed me out so much as I've been wanting to get rid of that ice rock in the freezer forever. I chopped in 3/4s of a tomato that had been sitting on the counter since Tuesday, and I stirred in some salted margarine (I love pasta and margarine). I wish I had put some seasoning into the pork balls themselves. They were tasty but more on the tasty meh side of things. I also had a lot leftover, so I froze it for an emergency.{thursday} I didn't have the specific spices that were called for so I used what I thought would be good and kept the measurements the same. Once it was all combined and ready for shaping, I thought that it could easily go horribly wrong. The mixture was so sticky. It helped to wet my hands, but I kinda settled into the idea that they were going to gum up, fall apart, and stick to everything. I made them in the morning and kept them in the fridge on a baking sheet (uncovered) all day before cooking. Thankfully, they easily came off the pan and cooked up fantastically! The recipe only made 10 small patties and I wished there had been 10 more. I'm definitely making it again, but I'll be doubling it.
{friday} I talked about this meatloaf here. Now I always personalize it with my own spices and I double up on the carrots and onion instead of spinach. I also sprinkle brown sugar on top and squirt some ketchup on and mix it around to make a glaze. For me, meatloaf has to have a sweet ketchupy glaze. I also almost never do mashed potato for this, but I happened to have it and one potato boiled and mashed is the perfect amount of mashed potato for both of us. It really compliments meatloaf. It almost makes it taste better, you know?


click to enlarge



{saturday} I usually do pizza on Fridays, so I have the time (aka I'm not as lazy) to make the dough, but if I have a frozen pizza dough ball, then I'll do it on the weekend as a quick dinner (especially Saturdays because I find that's our busiest weekend day). I had those leftover pork meatballs from Wednesday, so I used them as a topping. Pizzas are great cuz you can get rid of leftovers in one meal and your husband won't even notice cuz they're on a pizza. We also prefer Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce to tomato sauce, and I piled on a bunch of mushrooms and some sliced ripe olives which I bought just for this pizza. I know it sucks to open a whole can of olives for only a sprinkling, but I spread the rest out evenly on a pan and froze them. They freeze really well and unthaw with lightening speed. I added my favourite pizza dough recipe since I don't think I've posted it before and I can't remember where I got it. When you're adding the flour, you're kneading the dough, just so you know. This one's so good, I don't even consider other dough recipes when I see them. It makes enough for two pizzas which is a lot nicer when you're putting the time in to make it. Don't skip sprinkling the pan with cornmeal. That's the secret to pizza. (I went searching through the archives to see if I had ever posted it before, and I completely laughed my ass off at this post I wrote a while ago).

{sunday} AlI I do for a whole roast chicken is unthaw it, pop it on a foil lined pan, salt and pepper the heck out of it, and place it in a 350 degree oven till it's done (when a meat thermometer placed into the thickest part reads 180 -- that's another invaluable kitchen tool). Usually, as soon as you can smell it, it's just about cooked completely. I always do a salad with this (for me, no meal is complete without one), but I've been craving roasted vegetables like a crazy person. So I chopped up fresh brussel sprouts, beets, broccoli, acorn squash, carrots, sweet potato, and cabbage (just enough for me and some if IH wanted to try them), drizzled some canola oil on them, salt and pepper, a few cloves of garlic, and some chunks of bacon (IH looked at me sadly in the morning and said, I'm really thinking about bacon. So the rest of the bacon was draped over the chicken just for him). Then I roasted them on a seperate pan at the same time as the chicken. They could have come out a little earlier than they did, but they were so good, I only had one chicken leg and filled up on the roasted vegetables instead. Gawd I love roasted broccoli and cabbage! So delicious!