Day Seventy-one--Pasta with Leeks and White Beans

I'm going to try to get this posted before I lose all sense of putting words together. I'm sure next week I'm going to go through these posts and find all kind of grammatical errors and trains of thought that make no sense. I might fix them. I might not.

When I made the menu up last week I completely forgot that the kids would be in camp and that I would be volunteering at said camp. Tonight was a pasta meal. I usually make my own pasta. I kind of wimped out tonight. When we were done with camp we ran to the store and I picked up a box of spaghetti. The pasta was supposed to be fettuccine but I couldn't find organic fettuccine. It all worked out in the end.

Tonight's dinner:

Pasta with Leeks and White beans

I was kind of dreading getting started with this meal, but it actually came together fairly easily. I cut up the leeks and soaked them in water to clean them and then sliced them up. I threw them in a hot pan with olive oil in it. The leeks cooked with some salt and pepper until soft. Then I put in some chicken broth and some cannelloni beans with some dried sage. At this point I took a potato masher and smooshed (good technical term, right?) most of the beans to make the sauce thicker. This cooked for a while and then I put in some lemon juice, some half n half (was supposed to be heavy cream, but I didn't have any) and some fresh grated Parmesan cheese. At this point the sauce was getting nice and creamy and smelling delicious. When the sauce was all done, I drained my spaghetti and put it into the sauce. Dinner is served.

This ended up being a really good dinner. All four of us liked it and I have a lot of it left over. I think that is all I have for now. I hope that this is readable and understandable. If not, I'll fix it later. =)

Day Thirty-six--Beans and Cornbread

I'm back in the saddle again. I am posting right after dinner instead of passing out and blogging the following morning. *fist pump*

Seriously though, dinner was a keeper. I call it our "cowboy" dinner. It actually worked today for a couple of reasons. The main reason was the weather was crappy today. It was damp, grey and cold. This dinner was warm and comforting. The other reason is because Connor and I worked pretty much all day on a social studies project (the last one of the year) about the gold rush. He had to draw a map of one of the major trails that led to California. He chose the Oregon-California trail. He had to draw the map and then put at least 3 landmarks on it. He put the major stops on the trail and the Rocky Mountains and a couple of rivers. Then he had to pretend he was a prospector riding on that trail and write a journal describing his travels. It had to be at least 2 pages long. It took us all day and he ended up turning in a 4 page journal with pictures. It was a lot of fun though. Both of us learned a lot and we've decided we want to go see some of the ghost towns left behind.

So, now that I've explained why this dinner was perfect for tonight, let me tell you what we had. We had a big pot of beans and cornbread.

Pinto Beans with cornbread

This dinner evolved from a quick conversation I had with my mom last week. I had the misfortune (for them) to call them just as they were sitting down to dinner and I asked what they were having. They were having beans and cornbread. It struck me as really weird because not ten minutes earlier Tim had said he had been wanting some cornbread. I think I've made cornbread 2 times in our nearly 11 years of marriage. It just all came together at once. The universe aligned, if you will.

Remember when I mentioned yesterday when I said I was procrastinating when I was making menus? Well, I googled beans and cornbread and The Pioneer Woman popped up. This is the blog that I knew my mother watched and I ended up pouring over her blog. It's like eye candy. She is so talented and I'm so jealous. Anyhow, I grabbed this recipe and a couple other ones for this week.

This meal was so easy and dare I say cheap? It was two bags of dried pinto beans and one ham steak. I got the ham steak at the dairy and it was from a local farm that raises healthy little piggies. I just chopped up the ham steak and threw it in the pot with the beans and water. It sat on the stove cooking for a couple of hours. I walked by once in a while and stirred it and added water a couple of times. That's it. Oh, I did throw some salt and pepper in at the end, but that was all. The cornbread came together really fast. I made it in my cast iron skillet. Nancy picked us up a cast iron skillet last year at an auction. I had searched tag sales all summer to find one and couldn't and then she scored one. Thanks Nancy. We use it every day. The cornbread was super easy to make and I loved the crazy sizzle it made when I poured the batter into the hot skillet. I imagined my grandmother making her cornbread the same way.

Cornbread fresh out of the oven.

The dinner was enjoyed by most. We all loved the cornbread (although I will admit it was a little too salty and will use less salt next time) and three of the four of us liked the beans. Connor (shocking) didn't particularly care for the beans. I think part of it was because he knew there were fresh brownies cooling on the counter and wanted to get to dessert. I have a ton leftover so I know what I'll be having for lunch.

I also wanted to share my thoughts about the 5 Minute Artisan Bread book that I got. I've only made two batches of this bread so far. The first time I had to tweak the recipe because I didn't have enough white flour and I had to use whole wheat. It still rose and it tasted alright. It was really salty though. It makes me wonder if our tastes are changing. I usually don't have issues with salt. It's starting to bug me when things are too salty now though. I guess this is to be expected though when we aren't eating any pre-packaged foods anymore. For the second batch, I cut back the salt and had enough flour. The bread is amazing. I've made a fresh loaf of bread every day this week. The dough sits in a container in the fridge and you grab a wad of dough and let it rise for about 40 minutes and then you bake it for 30 minutes. Out comes a beautiful crusty loaf of bread. The crust is so crispy and the inside is so soft and chewy. We are finally starting to go through some of my jams that I made last year.

Fresh out of the oven.

So, all in all, it was a good day to have the oven running because it didn't really get warmer than about 52. It warmed the house up and made it smell so good. Dinner was delish. Blogging done same day. Good day!! Until tomorrow, happy cooking!

Day Twenty-Eight--Black Beans and Rice

Gonna be a short post tonight. It's been a long day and I'm beat. In continuing with our "eat out of the cupboards" this week we had black beans and rice. This is a really easy dish to do. It's my mother's recipe and I love it.


Black Beans and Rice

At first I freaked out because I realized I had used my last onion last night in the spanakopita. Then I remembered I had like 3 separate containers in the refrigerator that had halves on onions in them. I dug them out and chopped them up and fried them up in olive oil. Along with the onion was garlic and a green pepper. Once they were all soft, I added cumin and chili powder and then two cans of black beans. Then they simmer while the rice cooks. Speaking of rice, I'm in trouble for a dinner later in the week. I ran out of rice with this meal and need it for one more meal this week. I am hoping that somewhere in the depths of my cupboard I might have a bag of brown rice somewhere. I usually buy big bags of basmati rice at our Indian market, but it's all gone now. If I can't find rice, I'm going to have to get creative with my meal. I guess you'll have to wait and see what happens.

So, the beans were served over rice. I shredded a tiny bit of cheese that I picked up at the dairy over the weekend. It's from a local farm. It's a softer cheese than I'm used to and had a really mild flavor. I'm used to cheeses that have flavor that almost bite back. This cheese was good on top of the beans though. Tim likes to put sriracha sauce on top of his for a little heat. This was an eight thumbs up meal. Everyone ate it and there were little leftovers for tomorrow. Good thing I made bread today so we can have sammies.

I think that is all I have for now. Until tomorrow, happy cooking.

Day Twenty--Steak with beans and zucchini

Wow. Twenty days. That's pretty cool. I know that for the most part we are all feeling better and I'm happy because we aren't throwing our money at crappy fast food places any more. How many days left? 345. Hmmm, I don't have a problem with cooking for all of those days. I'm kind of enjoying the cooking process now. What is killing me is trying to come up with menus. Also, the cost.

Ok, here comes my rant that I've been working on for two days. Produce. I was mentally keeping track of my produce as I weighed and put my labels on my produce. Two red peppers=$4.51. Four or five small sweet onions=$6.37. My produce consisted of: cabbage, potatoes, romaine lettuce (not pre-cut and bagged), red peppers, organic lemons, avocados, asparagus, organic tomatoes, onions, organic carrots, a red onion, and organic apples. Cost for said produce: $58.40. Granted, I did get a couple of organic things. The apples were only twenty cents a pound more for the organic. The bag of organic carrots was only 2.39. What killed me were the avocados and the asparagus. Come on, asparagus is in season now. Shouldn't that be cheaper? I can't wait until our farmer's market is up and running again. It will take some getting used to with making menus and shopping lists out earlier, but I am hoping things will be cheaper. I'm also planning on buying extra in season items so that I can freeze or can them to enjoy in the off season.

Tonight's menu was supposed to be grilled tuna steaks on top of beans and zucchini but again, the cost issue made me mad. The ahi tuna was $20.99 a pound. I needed four tuna steaks and they looked to be good sized steaks and I figured it was going to cost me close to 80 dollars for tuna steaks. Uh, no thank you. I left the seafood counter disgusted. I'm thinking we aren't going to be eating a lot of fish. I didn't pick anything else up to replace the tuna and I wasn't sure what I was going to do. Tim suggested that we get one of the many steaks out of our freezer and grill that up. That is what we did.

Steak with beans and zucchini

The recipe was a Jamie Oliver one and super duper simple. The cannelloni beans were just cooked with a little bit of olive oil and a clove of garlic. The zucchini was grilled and then tossed with a tiny bit of olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. It was delicious. Aidan liked the steak, but said the beans were too "beany" and he took one bite of the zucchini and gagged. Connor, on the other hand loved it all and ate most of the zucchini. Tim and I both liked it all. I can't really remember what the rest of this week holds as to menus. I'm hoping they are mostly vegetarian because I'm kind of getting sick of meat. Tonight was supposed to be tuna, but we made the best out of it. Thanks to the grill master Tim for the grilling duties again and a huge thanks to Dad B and Laurie for the most impressive grill. We are using it a lot. Happy cooking!

Day Four--Cool Mexican Bean wraps

Tonight we were cooking in a different kitchen. We got into Olean this afternoon and then went food shopping for tonight's dinner and tomorrow nights dinner. It's always interesting shopping in grocery stores that your not used to. For one thing I found the Stevia that we used to always buy and was discontinued at Wegmans. I scooped up three bottles of it for 38.00. Expensive...yes. It's worth it though. We use it in KoolAde for the kids. We try not to use any chemical sweeteners and Stevia is all natural. I was happy to find it.

Anyway, on to dinner. Tim helped me again. Actually, I thanked him because he has pitched in each night so far and not only is it a huge help, it's fun for both of us to be working together. We went the Mexican route tonight:

Cool Bean Mexican Wraps ala Jamie Oliver

We've made these before so they are a repeat for us. They are awesome. I made guacamole and picked up a container of fresh salsa from Tops. I'm usually not one for store bought salsa. That being said, every time we are in Olean I have to get a container of it. I don't know how they do it, but it is so good. So, we enjoyed a bean wrap with some Corona and I'm pleased that instead of eating out on vacation, we cooked real food.

Not much else to report. Until tomorrow. Happy cooking!

**edited to add cost of meal...Total cost was $33.85. It served 6 so cost per person was $5.64. Not too bad for orgnaic beans and tomatoes. That is about what you would spend for a Value meal and it wouldn't have any nutritional value.