Food and stuff
Jun. 6th, 2019 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqI imagine I will find other things to fill my days as I ease more into retirement, but for now the main thing that is filling the gap from my old job is planning meals and cooking.
I think that I mentioned my meal planning spreadsheet here earlier. I have made a few tweaks to it, and I think I've got it in a pretty good state for now. If I change anything going forward, it would be to shove the whole thing to a SQL database and build a new front end.
For the first while I tended to steer toward familiar dishes, with a few forays into new things. I made the mistake early on of picking new recipes that were designed for 4 instead of 2, so we had a lot of leftovers. With me not taking lunches to work, our freezer started filling up with frozen lunches, and I got some push-back fromatara to just stick with known meals.
Lately I've been experimenting again, but I've learned my lesson and I'm picking recipes that scale well. Hopefully you will forgive me if I start posting a bit more than normal about food.
This week's plan was:
Mon: Mushroom Tagliatelle Paglia & Fieno
Tue: Berkshire pork chops with sides
Wed: Grilled lemon-garlic shrimp skewers
Thu: Dine out
Fri: Leftovers or self-serve
We always try to do at least one vegetarian meal every week. I usually do those in Tue or Wed, but since the recipe I found called for oyster mushrooms, I moved it up to Monday because they just don't keep in our fridge for some reason.
Monday's dish was not as fancy as it sounds. It was just oyster mushrooms and parsley with pasta in a garlic/wine sauce. I modified the recipe on the fly as I was making it. It called for tagliatelle, but I figured fettuccine would work just a well. It called or 1/2 a chili pepper, and I substituted red pepper flakes (though next time I'll halve the quantity). Finally, though the recipe specifically called for Chardonnay, I was loathe to open a bottle just for 1/4 of a cup, so I used Bristol Cream, since I already had a bottle open, and I figured it would probably pair well with the mushrooms anyway. Prognosis: success. Will do again, with minor adjustments.
Tuesday was just cooking things we'd picked up on the weekend. We had bought a couple of boneless pork chops from a local vendor at the farmers market, and some tomatoes, bocconcini and asparagus at a different local market. I grilled the chops whileatara broiled the asparagus and tossed together a caprese salad. Won't bother with a prognosis since this is a pretty typical summer meal for us.
Wednesday: Since the forecast was for grilling weather all week, I decided to try my hand at making shrimp kabobs for the grill. I've never grilled shrimp, so I tossed about for recipes until I found one that looked good. I put shrimp, red pepper, sweet onion and zucchini on the skewers and brushed them with a lemon/butter/garlic mixture. I served those with a side of rice that I fancied up with coconut milk, slivered almonds, parsley and enough turmeric to give it a nice colour. Prognosis: Bit hit. Will do again. Cheaper than I was expecting too - the whole lot came out to under $20 for the meal.
I think that I mentioned my meal planning spreadsheet here earlier. I have made a few tweaks to it, and I think I've got it in a pretty good state for now. If I change anything going forward, it would be to shove the whole thing to a SQL database and build a new front end.
For the first while I tended to steer toward familiar dishes, with a few forays into new things. I made the mistake early on of picking new recipes that were designed for 4 instead of 2, so we had a lot of leftovers. With me not taking lunches to work, our freezer started filling up with frozen lunches, and I got some push-back from
atara to just stick with known meals.Lately I've been experimenting again, but I've learned my lesson and I'm picking recipes that scale well. Hopefully you will forgive me if I start posting a bit more than normal about food.
This week's plan was:
Mon: Mushroom Tagliatelle Paglia & Fieno
Tue: Berkshire pork chops with sides
Wed: Grilled lemon-garlic shrimp skewers
Thu: Dine out
Fri: Leftovers or self-serve
We always try to do at least one vegetarian meal every week. I usually do those in Tue or Wed, but since the recipe I found called for oyster mushrooms, I moved it up to Monday because they just don't keep in our fridge for some reason.
Monday's dish was not as fancy as it sounds. It was just oyster mushrooms and parsley with pasta in a garlic/wine sauce. I modified the recipe on the fly as I was making it. It called for tagliatelle, but I figured fettuccine would work just a well. It called or 1/2 a chili pepper, and I substituted red pepper flakes (though next time I'll halve the quantity). Finally, though the recipe specifically called for Chardonnay, I was loathe to open a bottle just for 1/4 of a cup, so I used Bristol Cream, since I already had a bottle open, and I figured it would probably pair well with the mushrooms anyway. Prognosis: success. Will do again, with minor adjustments.
Tuesday was just cooking things we'd picked up on the weekend. We had bought a couple of boneless pork chops from a local vendor at the farmers market, and some tomatoes, bocconcini and asparagus at a different local market. I grilled the chops while
atara broiled the asparagus and tossed together a caprese salad. Won't bother with a prognosis since this is a pretty typical summer meal for us.Wednesday: Since the forecast was for grilling weather all week, I decided to try my hand at making shrimp kabobs for the grill. I've never grilled shrimp, so I tossed about for recipes until I found one that looked good. I put shrimp, red pepper, sweet onion and zucchini on the skewers and brushed them with a lemon/butter/garlic mixture. I served those with a side of rice that I fancied up with coconut milk, slivered almonds, parsley and enough turmeric to give it a nice colour. Prognosis: Bit hit. Will do again. Cheaper than I was expecting too - the whole lot came out to under $20 for the meal.
