Bad Food Blog | A bad blog about good food | Page 3

- Easter Recap
  
  Posted at 9:54 pm by Rachel, on April 25, 2019
  Happy Easter! My holiday was filled with good food and good company; I hope that yours was too! A few days ago, I shared my Easter menu plan. I want to revisit that post to recap what I actually made, the cooking timeline, and which recipes I will make again.
  
  This is the list of food I shared in my previous post:
  1. Crudités and fruit
  2. Roasted eggplant dip (from How to Cook Everything and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)
  3. Good cheese and crackers
  4. Good bread and butter
  5. Meatballs (the sauce and the meatballs)
  6. Kolokithokeftedes (zucchini fritters) with tzatziki
  7. Lamb cake
  8. Sugar cookies
  Of that list, we made or purchased everything except for the sugar cookies. It was just a bit more work than I wanted to take on – I try not to spend the whole day in the kitchen on holidays. We ended up with quite the spread and a good bit of leftovers!
  
  My husband did the shopping on Friday, and I started cooking mid-morning on Saturday. I didn’t have plans to be out of the house so I took my time. As I mentioned, the sauce I make simmers for 6 hours in the oven, so that is the first task I tackled. (It was an unseasonably cool and rainy day here so having the oven on all day was nice.) My kids helped measure ingredients to make the sauce – they loved seeing the peeled tomatoes and smelling the different spices and herbs. I took a little break and then made the meatballs. If you try these meatballs out, I find my food processor to be a big help. I use the standard chopping blade to mince the onion, finely chop the parsley leaves that have been removed from the stems (I chop extra for the sauce at the same time), and grate parmesan.
  
  I took out the butter and eggs for the lamb cake, ran the dishwasher since I used my stand mixer’s bowl to make the meatballs, and took a long break.
  
  Later in the afternoon, I started back up again with the tzatziki. I only did a half recipe because I was only cooking for my family, and even half the amount was more than enough to last us several days. This is an excellent make-ahead recipe that even recommends mixing and letting it set in the fridge for a while to let the flavors meld. I used Greek Gods Traditional Plan yogurt; it was nice and thick so I did not have to strain it. I used a combination of dish towels and paper towels to squeeze the water out of the cucumber, but I think for the cucumbers you could get away with using just paper towels. This was extremely easy to whip together and it ended up tasting as good as anything I have had at a restaurant. The next day I just took it out of the fridge, gave it a stir, and it was good to go.
  
  Next up was the roasted eggplant dip. I preheated the oven and put the eggplant in to roast while we were eating dinner. After dinner I peeled the eggplant skin off by hand (it was quick and easy), finely chopped the flesh, and added the other seasonings. All in all I think it took about 10 or 15 minutes, and then I covered it and set it in the fridge overnight.
  
  The last dish I prepared on Saturday was the cake for the lamb cake. As you may recall, I used Rose Levy Beranbaum’s recipe for Perfect All-American Chocolate Butter Cake from The Cake Bible (if you do not have a copy of The Cake Bible handy, you can find the cake recipe here). Once the butter is soft and the eggs are at room temperature, this cake does not take a long time to mix. I followed the directions that came with my cake mold and only put 3 cups of batter into the mold (I baked the rest in a 4-cup Pyrex container to make a small cake), and then baked the cake at 375°F for 45 minutes. I’m not sure how long I was *supposed* to leave the cake in the mold to cool, but the mold was too hot to touch for a while so I ended up leaving it overnight.
  
  So again, at a fairly relaxed pace, I prepared the meatballs, tzatziki, roasted eggplant dip, and cake on Saturday. If you are looking back at my list, there are still a bunch of things not accounted for, but most are quick and easy and do not involve cooking. When I got back to work after church on Sunday, I took out butter for the lamb cake frosting, washed and cut up the crudités vegetables (we had fruit but I forgot about it), and cut a few slices of cheese and arranged it with some crackers. My husband sliced some nice store-bought bread.
  
  Then I started on the kolokithokeftedes (zucchini fritters). Now I do not say this lightly, but this is the best new recipe I have made lately! I did not expect to be this wowed by zucchini, but this with the tzatziki was phenomenal. I always worry that new recipes will take 3 times as long as they promise. Fortunately this was not the case. Squeezing the water out of the zucchini took 3 or 4 dish towels – and you’re definitely going to want dish towels and not paper towels for this one – but it did not take more than a couple of minutes. Literally the only potentially negative thing I can think to say about this recipe is that you can’t really work ahead here. It is fried, and you will lose that crispy exterior if you don’t serve it immediately. We did have leftovers which we reheated in the microwave, and they were not as crispy as the fresh fritters. Still very flavorful though!
  
  Last up was the coconut frosting for my lamb cake. It was not my first time making this frosting, and I am sad to report that it did not turn out as well as in times past. I think the root of the problem was the coconut milk I used to make the reduction, which I started after lunch. The recipe notes that the “coconut milk will boil up high in the pan,” but mine never did. The end result looked kind of wet, gelatinous, and grainy – really not appetizing. When I opened the coconut milk, I noticed that it was a lot more watery than previous times, so maybe that had something to do with it. In case you are curious, this time I used Goya coconut milk whereas I previously used Thai Kitchen organic coconut milk with excellent results. The frosting still tasted amazing, but it was a bit wetter than it should have been. Unfortunately I realized this when a big chunk of frosting fell off the back side of the cake… twice! Oh well, the cake was still a delicious pairing of rich, dark chocolate and sweet, creamy vanilla and coconut. Lessons learned! By the way, I did end up making a double batch and I used almost all of the frosting!
  
  So what would I make again? The meatballs were already a favorite, the lamb cake has become a family tradition, and the kolokithokeftedes with tzatziki were the star of the day. Of all the foods we had, if I had to cut one from the menu, it would be the roasted eggplant dip. Don’t get me wrong, it was good, but it was not life-changing either. It was kind of an awkward addition to the spread because I didn’t make something specifically to go with it. I thought we might dip veggies in it, but we loved the tzatziki so much that we just dipped in that instead. I could see making it again if I had an eggplant that I needed to use up, but I probably will not go out of my way to make it again.
  Posted in Menu Plans, Uncategorized | 2 Comments | Tagged appetizer, dessert, Easter, holiday, kid-friendly, recap
- An Easter Menu Plan
  
  Posted at 8:00 am by Rachel, on April 18, 2019
  
  So let’s talk Easter. If you recall, I have been trying to decide between a more traditional Easter dinner à la Easter Dinner on Two Sheet Pans, or go the small plates route like we did for Christmas. And after a lot of hemming and hawing, we decided to go non-traditional again. I know that classics are classics for a reason, but there are so many more foods that we would rather be eating than ham and potatoes right now. As an added bonus, this most of this menu can be made ahead of time, and that means more family time on Easter.
  
  OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
  
  1. Crudités and fruit
  
  I usually do sliced cucumbers, bell peppers, cherry or grape tomatoes, and olives for my crudités. I might throw in some baby carrots or celery – we will see what they have at the store. For fruit, my kids are partial to blueberries and strawberries, so I will try to get those and maybe a melon.
  
  2. Roasted eggplant dip
  
  I still have eggplant on the brain from last month, and saw recipes for a roasted eggplant dip in a few cookbooks when I was flipping through looking for ideas. This will be a new recipe for me. Really I’m going to try a mashup of two recipes – I will use the seasonings suggested in How to Cook Everything but the cooking method from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Consensus is that this dip is good with crackers or bread, but I am kind of curious to try it with some of my veggies too.
  
  3. Good cheese and crackers
  
  It’s time to put away your Kraft singles and pick out something from the fancy cheese section! Same goes for the crackers 😀 And in that same vein…
  
  4. Good bread and butter
  
  No further explanation needed.
  
  5. Meatballs
  
  I’ll be making the same meatballs I talked about in My Postpartum Menu Plan. Start with the sauce – this recipe takes 6 hours to cook, so I will be doing this on Saturday. Once the sauce is going, prepare the meatballs. I ignore the instructions for sauce in the meatball recipe and make all of the meat into meatballs, and add them to the 6-hour sauce after broiling. This recipe yields me about 32 meatballs and a bunch of sauce, surely more than we will eat on Easter, so some of these are going into the freezer.
  
  6. Kolokithokeftedes (zucchini fritters) with tzatziki
  
  I’ve not tried these before but they look good! Always nice to have a veggie recipe in the mix, and the tzatziki will also go well with the crudités.
  
  And now for dessert…
  
  A lamb cake! I made this for the first time last year, and while my piping job is definitely not professional-quality, we all really enjoyed how it turned out. My kids are particularly excited to have another lamb cake this year. If you are interested, this is the cake mold I used. The mold needs 3 cups of batter. Unfortunately I do not remember the exact recipe I used last year, but this year I am going with the Perfect All-American Chocolate Butter Cake from The Cake Bible. (As an aside, if you have an early edition of this book and measure by volume, know that you will need 16 tablespoons of butter, not 12! If you measure by weight then the recipe is fine as written.) If you don’t have a copy of The Cake Bible handy, you can find the cake recipe here.
  
  For the frosting I used this recipe for coconut frosting. Actually, the frosting plus that cupcake recipe is really good, but I digress… I really like the flavor of it and it was just the right color for the lamb’s wool, even if it did get a bit melty in my warm kitchen at the end of piping. And speaking of piping, applying the frosting with piping tips uses A LOT of frosting, so I’m going to go ahead and make 1.5 or 2x the original recipe. If you read the whole recipe before you begin, you’ll realize that you do NOT need to make double the amount of reduced coconut milk in order to make a double batch of frosting. Learn from my mistake!
  
  Really the lamb cake should be enough dessert for our little family, but we had a lot of fun making sugar cookies with the kids at Christmas, so I might put together a batch of cookie dough too. Maybe.
  
  Posted in Menu Plans, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged appetizer, dessert, Easter, holiday, kid-friendly
- My April Menu Plan
  
  Posted at 8:00 am by Rachel, on March 31, 2019
  My kids keep reminding me that April will be here on Monday! And Easter is in April! All that to say that we are very excited for April. Here in Georgia, things are finally heating up, so I’m starting to pull out some of my favorite warm weather foods. I’m looking at you, dinner salads! I tried to keep the meals pretty simple for this month, so there is a lot of low-prep, make ahead, and some store-bought favorites.
  
  I still haven’t finalized an Easter menu yet. A couple of years ago I made Easter Dinner on Two Sheet Pans, and while it was a very satisfying meal, we really enjoyed our Christmas meal of appetizers and sides. Ahh, decisions! Either way, I’ll be making another lamb cake, and maybe some other sweet things since we like sweet things.
  
  Sandwiches
  
  My kids have trouble eating most sandwiches beyond a PB&J or grilled cheese – it is hard for their little hands to hold it all together! I usually serve them the sandwich components on a plate – it keeps them happy and is just easier for everyone.
  
  As with all recipes, if you want great results, start with high quality ingredients. Don’t skimp on the bread! I’m serving these up with oven fries – probably going to alternate between Russets and sweet potatoes, throw some different seasonings on them – these look pretty tasty.
  - Caprese sandwiches – fresh mozzarella, sliced tomatoes, fresh basil, and a balsamic reduction on some good bread
  - Black bean burgers – It’s been a while since the last time I made these. I am guessing that at least one of my kids will not want to eat the black bean patty, so I’m going to reserve some plain, unmashed black beans for them just in case.
  - Roasted Sweet Potato Wraps with Caramelized Onions and Pesto – These are SO GOOD and they freeze phenomenally. Even better, my local Target now carries Simply Balanced tortillas (no hydrogenated oils!).
  - BLTs
  Eggs
  
  Eggs are moving to Mondays for April! These are a great, easy meal, so perfect for a weeknight. I want to make the quick quiche from Ellie Krieger’s You Have It Made one night. It is nice to change things up from time to time and this was a solid recipe.
  
  Pasta
  
  I’m keeping things fast and easy this month. All of these pastas are easily served with or without sauce, and two of them (bowties with pesto and tortellini with red sauce) I’m just going to buy at the grocery store. My sometimes picky eaters will eat the Lemony Broccoli Pasta without modifications and sometimes like to dip their pasta in the sauce.
  - Penne with Arrabbiata Sauce
  - Lemony Broccoli Pasta
  - Fast and Easy Pasta with Blistered Cherry Tomato Sauce – If you’ve never tried making a homemade tomato sauce, this is an excellent recipe to start with! It is so easy but still so flavorful. One or two times and you’ll be able to make it by heart.
  - Bowties with pesto
  - Tortellini with red sauce
  Meat
  - Maple mustard chicken thighs – Already prepped and in my freezer! I’m going to try these in my slow cooker.
  - Slow Cooker Shredded Balsamic Beef – I always like to try new slow cooker recipes, and I thought that this one sounded pretty good. I want to sear the meat before putting it in the slow cooker, and other than that I’ll follow the recipe as written.
  - Huli Huli Chicken from The Complete Slow Cooker – My husband has requested this again! It’s so good and the leg quarters look so impressive when they come out from under the broiler. I’m no grilling expert, but I suspect you could finish this up on the grill instead of using the broiler.
  - Orange chicken – I plan to make the sauce and cut up the chicken ahead of time and stick them in the fridge until dinner – just a bit more manageable than trying to get it all done at dinnertime. I might try making it in my wok this time.
  Pizza – For our weekly pizza I use this crust recipe with this sauce.
  
  Salads/Bowl Meals
  - Polenta with roasted veggies and pesto – I’m linking this recipe so you can get the general idea and see a picture of what the end result looks like. The pesto and polenta recipes they include are probably great, but I have not tried them – I simplify a bit by using store-bought pesto and this polenta recipe. Also, tomatoes and zucchini are delicious, but feel free to sub in whatever veggies you like.
  - Greek salad with broccoli and sundried tomatoes – This looks like less prep work than my previous go-to Greek dinner salad, and it has sundried tomatoes, which we recently rediscovered at a friend’s house.
  - Southwest salad
  - Asian chicken salad
  Posted in Dinner, Menu Plans | 0 Comments | Tagged beef, chicken, Dinner, kid-friendly, Lent, Menu plan, pasta, salad, sandwich, soup, vegetarian
- Freezer Cooking for Baby #3 and My Postpartum Menu Plan (Part 4)
  
  Posted at 2:00 pm by Rachel, on March 15, 2019
  This is the last part of a four post series on filling your freezer before adding a new baby to the family. Revisit Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
  
  Well we have made it to the last post in my series, and this one is about all of the “extras.” Side dishes, breakfasts, and desserts may not cross your mind when you start planning a freezer menu but oh, they should!
  
  A lot of these foods are quick to get going. I made many of them, such as rice, quinoa, breads, and pancakes, while I was waiting on a main dish to cook. Use what may otherwise be dead time to get stuff done!
  
  Side Dishes
  - Cornbread (double batch, wrapped in foil)
  Breads freeze very well. I’ve been freezing the cornbread from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything since 2014 and it has never failed me!
  - Sweet Potato Casserole (single recipe, 2 8×8 foil pans)
  Let me start by saying that while this froze well, I would tweak this recipe more if I made it again because I found it to be sweeter than I generally care to eat for dinner. I froze mine without the topping because I was afraid it would get mushy when it defrosted. The first time we ate it, I did a half batch of the topping (since the pan was half the original recipe) and it was way too sweet. The second time, I halved the sugar and it was a lot better. Both times the topping was pretty scant – I guess that’s what happens with a “lighter” recipe.
  - Buttermilk Loaf (double recipe, wrapped in plastic wrap and foil)
  Wow that was good! I just made the basic recipe, but this was so tender and delicious, even after freezing, that I feel like I need to try all of the variations. Overall this was very easy to make and very easy to double so long as you have two loaf pans.
  - Mashed White Beans (quadruple recipe, 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)
  I always double this recipe when I make it because it is never enough. I did the quadruple batch this time to get it all cooked at once, but I think next time I will do two double batches. There was just so much liquid and reducing it took a very long time. They do freeze very well.
  - Rice (multiple batches, 4 gallon-sized freezer bags)
  I had heard about freezing rice before but this is the first time I actually tried it. I watched the rice closely and turned off the heat when there was still the slightest bit of moisture in the pot so that it wouldn’t be dry after reheating.
  - Quinoa (multiple batches, 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)
  Reading that rice freezes well inspired me to freeze some quinoa too. I made mine with chicken broth and – just like with the rice – watched carefully to make sure it did not dry out. This came out so well; it did not taste like it had been frozen.
  
  Other Stuff
  - Buttermilk Pancakes and Pumpkin Pancakes (store in gallon-sized freezer bags)
  These are great for a quick breakfast. My kids love when I make pancakes, and sticking them in the freezer makes this a doable breakfast any day of the week. It actually took me a few times to get as many pancakes into the freezer as I wanted to because my kids and husband kept eating them! 😄 I prefer using buttermilk in my pancakes, especially for freezer pancakes, because the texture is far and away superior. To freeze pancakes, cook as normal, cool completely, and store in a large freezer bag.
  - Breakfast Burritos (single recipe, gallon-sized freezer bags)
  This is my husband’s favorite breakfast item for the freezer. I love having a savory fast breakfast option in the mix, especially in the early nursing-around-the-clock days. We make them with bacon instead of ham.
  - Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins (3 or 4 dozen, gallon-sized freezer bags)
  I am not one to say no to chocolate for breakfast. I honestly do not remember how many banana muffins ended up in my freezer as I made more than one double batch, and I know I have made more since the baby was born. I do know that they freeze like a dream. I use the banana bread recipe from How to Cook Everything – one loaf pan translates to one dozen muffins.
  - Pumpkin Muffins (double recipe, gallon-sized freezer bags)
  Sometimes I do half whole wheat flour so I can feel a little better about my breakfast (I also make them without the icing). My kids ate these faster than anything else we put in the freezer, and I have actually made them several times since the baby was born because my big kids love them so much.
  - Brownies (store in gallon-sized freezer bags)
  New moms like chocolate, or at least this one does, so these were a must-have on my cook list. After baking the brownies, let them cool and cut them into squares. Freeze them in a gallon-sized freezer bag. We generally microwaved these and ate them warm, but the fudgey interior pieces are pretty delicious straight from the freezer.
  - Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (double recipe, 5 dozen dough balls)
  This was my first time freezing cookie dough. We are a big sweets family, and warm cookies are my husband’s favorite dessert, so it was bound to happen sometime. It was so easy! I’ve been suggesting it to everyone I know! Mix the cookie dough and shape it into balls as usual, then flash freeze on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet for one hour. Once the dough is frozen, transfer to a gallon-sized freezer bag. You don’t defrost the dough before baking – put it into the oven straight from the freezer, just add a minute or two to the normal bake time.
  
  Finally, if you are still looking for something else to stick in your freezer, here are a few things that I planned to make but I ran out of time and energy before I got there:
  - Veggie Packed Freezer Ready Breakfast Sandwiches
  - Blueberry muffins
  - Pumpkin pie and apple pie
  - Hearty Black Bean Quesadillas (for lunch/snacks)
  - Easy Calzones (for lunch/snacks… I like the pepperoni ones)
  This concludes my series on freezer cooking for a new baby. What are your favorite freezer foods? Tell me in the comments!
  Posted in Menu Plans | 0 Comments | Tagged breakfast, dessert, freezer friendly, kid-friendly, Menu plan, side dish
- Food Journal #6: Farmhaus Burgers
  
  Posted at 2:00 pm by Rachel, on March 11, 2019
  
  Last month, my husband and I celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary and decided to splurge with some Farmhaus take out. We make most of our meals at home these days, and while I genuinely enjoy cooking, sometimes it’s just nice to have a night off of cooking and dishes. When we do eat a meal out (or get take out, as the case is here), I really want it to count, especially on a special occasion like this one.
  
  We first heard about Farmhaus Burgers more than a year ago on a visit to the Augusta area. Friends of friends spoke very highly of it, and we added it to our “must try” list. Since then, several other people we’ve met have sung Farmhaus’s praises. My research taught me that Farmhaus is actually owned by the same people as Frog Hollow Tavern, another local restaurant where we dined over the summer. With all that hype (and an awesome experience at Frog Hollow Tavern), this seemed like a solid choice (spoiler: it did not disappoint).
  
  I am pretty indecisive, so it was hard to choose what to get. As much as the BLTC grilled cheese was calling my name, I really wanted to try something off of their curated burger menu (as opposed to a build your own burger) to get the full experience. I ultimately decided on the Wild Turkey. My husband chose the New Mexico, and we shared sides of Haus Cut Russet Fries with Split Creek Farm’s Feta Dipping Sauce, Hausmade Sweet Potato Tots, and Fried Pickles with a buttermilk ranch dipping sauce. There was also a third mysterious sauce, and I wish I knew what it was called because was my favorite of the three. The mystery sauce was orange and tasted similar to Chick-fil-A sauce.
  
  The Wild Turkey, which the menu describes as “Ground Turkey Patty, Avocado, Lettuce, Tomato, HAUS Pickled Onions, Sriracha Mayo,” surprised me in a few ways. I hate to say that I expected to be kind of disappointed by my order, but you know, it was a turkey burger and sometimes turkey burgers are dry and bland. This one was not that! It was well-seasoned and moist, and it actually had a pleasant heat to it, which I really did not anticipate – I guess I forgot that Sriracha is spicy, whoops! All in all, I did not spend the whole night wishing I had gotten beef. I almost forgot about the bun! This burger came on a whole wheat bun, and unlike lackluster grocery store finds that taste like spongey pillows of nothingness, it had body and flavor and I actually enjoyed eating it.
  
  Burgers on the good china – life is good
  
  I shied away from the New Mexico, which the menu describes as “Hatch Green Chiles, Pepper Jack Cheese, Lettuce, Duke’s Mayo,” but luckily for me, my husband wanted to try it. I like spicy food – or at least I did before I had kids. The flavor combination sounded delicious, I just worried that it would be too spicy for me these days. Anyway, my husband tried it and loved it. He is not into super spicy foods and he pegged this as only mildly spicy, so next time this is probably what I will order.
  
  Now let’s talk about the sides. The Fried Pickles were normal fried pickles – crispy outside, delightfully sour inside. The buttermilk ranch was a little gritty but overall a satisfying pairing. Next up we had the Haus Cut Russet Fries with Split Creek Farm’s Feta Dipping Sauce. If you’ve had Five Guys fries, that is what the Haus fries reminded me of. They were obviously hand cut with a crispy exterior and perfectly salty. I read in another review to try the feta sauce with these fries, so I gave it a shot – it was unlike any dipping sauce I have had before. The feta sauce is bright, lemony-minty, and lightens up the flavor of the fries.
  
  The Hausmade Sweet Potato Tots were my favorite side item, and were especially delicious dipped in the mystery sauce. Really just dip everything in this sauce and you won’t regret it. But I digress… Technically I think these are croquettes and not tots, because the centers were quite smooth, not the shredded potato chunks you would find in a tot. Whatever they are, they are slightly sweet and a nice change of pace from french fries. And we all know that I can never get enough of sweet potatoes, so there’s that.
  
  So there you have it. If you’re in Augusta and wanting to try a local burger place, check them out!
  
  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged Augusta GA, burgers, Dinner, restaurant review
- Freezer Cooking for Baby #3 and My Postpartum Menu Plan (Part 3)
  
  Posted at 3:00 pm by Rachel, on March 8, 2019
  This is the third part of a four post series on filling your freezer before adding a new baby to the family. Revisit Part 1 and Part 2.
  
  Before we go any further, I need to emphasize that 8 weeks of food is a lot to take on, especially towards the end of pregnancy. I had a lot of back and abdominal discomfort towards the end of my pregnancy that made standing for long periods of time difficult. If you want to pack your freezer, plan ahead – don’t wait until you are 39 weeks along! I started one month before my due date, and just kept cooking things and adding to our stockpile until a few days before my due date. If you have a helper, use them! Without my husband helping this would not have gotten done.
  
  As far as supplies go, I like to store my freezer meals in slider top freezer bags. I used to use Ziploc brand, but as far as I can tell they discontinued the slider top freezer bags. Don’t use the non-freezer bags in the freezer, as they periodically break and leak while defrosting. Ask how I know. And I really like a slider top so I know that the bag is closed. The Up&Up brand bags from Target have been pretty good so far (available in gallon- or quart-sized). Bags are good for slow cooker meals, soups, muffins, and anything oddly-shaped. Store them FLAT in the freezer so you can stack them or file them on their sides. Some meals freeze better in a casserole dish, and I use disposable foil pans for those meals. I have noted how I stored each food below for easy reference. However you store it, label your food with what it is, the date, and cooking instructions so you don’t have to dig them out later.
  
  Main Dishes
  - Tuscan White Bean and Garlic Soup (double recipe, 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)
  I usually use Great Northern beans and dried sage when I make this. While I have not noticed it in the past, the cream separated from the rest of the soup upon reheating. This was more of an annoyance than anything else (it just made for a lot of extra stirring), but next time, I’m going to wait to add the cream until right before serving the soup.
  - Roasted Butternut Squash Soup (double recipe, 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)
  I didn’t notice any separating with this soup, but it doesn’t hurt to leave the cream out until serving. Read my full review of this soup here.
  - All-American Beef Chili (single recipe, 3 gallon-sized freezer bags)
  This recipe is from The Make-Ahead Cook: 8 Smart Strategies for Dinner Tonight, which I borrowed this book from my library. This recipe on Brown Eyed Baker is the same, but half the amount the book recipe yields.
  
  Wow, what a great chili! It’s a bit too spicy for my kids (although they did enjoy the toppings and cornbread that we served up with it), but I thought it was a good amount of seasonings for grown-ups.
  - Easy Chicken Noodle Soup from a Leftover Roasted Chicken (2 single recipes, 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)
  Do not freeze the soup with the egg noodles! You can add egg noodles once you reheat the soup, but this soup is also delicious without them. I prepped this soup twice, each time after I made a whole chicken.
  - Onion-Butter 2-Step Chicken (double recipe, 2 8×8 foil pans)
  I highly recommend cutting large chicken breasts into smaller pieces so they bake more quickly. I forgot to cut up the giant chicken breasts I bought and it ended up taking about twice as long to cook them all the way through.
  - Mini Garden Turkey Loaves (double recipe, 2 dozen mini meatloaves in 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)
  I have made this recipe several times now and we love it. The mini meatloaves freeze so well and they reheat quickly in the microwave. However, be forewarned that the prep time listed on the recipe is way off. Especially for a double recipe, I think it took me about a half an hour to cook off all of the liquid from the vegetables.
  - Dijon-Pecan 2-Step Chicken (double recipe, 2 8×8 foil pans)
  Again, cut large chicken breasts into smaller pieces so they bake more quickly. My kids really enjoyed this one!
  - Slow Cooker Maple and Dijon Pot Roast (double recipe, 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)
  I like the flavors in this pot roast recipe. Usually I only use 2 onions, and add about a pound of carrots, peeled and chopped into 1/2 – 1 inch chunks. I made it with bacon for the freezer, but I usually just throw some olive oil into the pan before searing the meat.
  - Ginger Peach Chicken (double recipe, 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)
  This is one of my favorite dump meals for the slow cooker. I’ve made it with fresh ginger and ground ginger and both versions were excellent. Mix everything in the freezer bag EXCEPT for the frozen peaches. Add those in for the final 30 minutes of cooking or they will turn to absolute mush. I also recommend slicing the onion VERY thinly (I use the 4mm disc on my food processor).
  - Slow Cooker Taco Chicken Bowls (double recipe, 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)
  - Tender and Juicy Slow-Cooker Meatballs (single recipe, 4 gallon-sized freezer bags)
  These are the meatballs I used for pasta and meatball night as well as for meatball sandwiches – they are my husband’s new favorite meatballs. However, it is important to note that I did not follow the recipe for the sauce, and instead added my meatballs to a single batch of the Best Slow-Cooked Tomato Sauce. I started the sauce first, prepped the meatballs, and popped them into the Dutch oven once they were out from under the broiler. Also, I used all of the meat to make meatballs (instead of making a meat sauce), and ended up getting about 32 instead of 16, great for stretching this into a few meals.
  - Baked Penne with Roasted Vegetables (single recipe, 3 8×8 foil pans)
  I love this recipe, although I’m still working on convincing my kids that it’s okay for different foods to touch each other. I freeze before baking, and I cook the pasta for about 3-4 minutes less than what the box instructs. Use a high-quality sauce with a flavor you enjoy.
  - Vegan Tuscan Pumpkin Pasta Sauce (double recipe, 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)
  I wanted to throw different sauce into the rotation and landed on a pumpkin sauce. My neighbor used to make the most delicious pumpkin sauce with sage, but many recipes warned that they would separate if frozen and I did not want to deal with that issue. Finally I found this delightful recipe. It is vegan so no cream and no separating. Its flavor reminds me of a cinnamon raisin bagel, but is not so sweet that it felt weird putting it on pasta. You really just have to try it to understand – it is so good and so fast to make.
  
  Next week I’ll be wrapping up this series with Part 4, all about freezer-friendly sides, sweets, and extras!
  Posted in Menu Plans | 5 Comments | Tagged beef, chicken, Dinner, freezer friendly, kid-friendly, Menu plan, pasta, slow cooker, soup, turkey, vegetarian
- Recipe: Slow Cooker Unstuffed Cabbage Soup
  
  Posted at 3:00 pm by Rachel, on March 4, 2019
  Unstuffed Cabbage Soup has been my family’s St. Patrick’s Day dinner for as long as I can remember. I could not tell you whether or not it is actually traditional Irish fare, although my Irish-American mother has always insisted that it is “more Irish” than corned beef and cabbage. I do know that cabbage is heavily featured in Irish food, and this is delicious. It goes well with potatoes; my personal favorite pairing is potato cakes, but mashed or even roasted potatoes would do the trick quite nicely.
  
  I adapted my mother’s recipe so I could make it in the slow cooker because, if you hadn’t noticed, I prefer to use my slow cooker when given the choice. The recipe just about fills my 6-quart slow cooker. If that’s too much for you, don’t worry, the leftovers freeze beautifully.
  
  The honey and raisins put this soup is on the sweet side – it is definitely the sweetest of any soup I make. If you prefer something less sweet, you could reduce the amount of honey. I suppose you could also reduce how many raisins you include, but then you would miss out on the joy that is plump little re-hydrated raisins.
  
  Ingredients:
  
  For the soup base:
  - 1 large onion
  - 2 lb head of cabbage, preferably Savoy
  - 1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
  - 1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
  - 1 cup water
  - ¼ cup honey
  - ¼ cup lemon juice
  - ⅓ cup raisins (or currants)
  For the meatballs:
  - 1 lb lean ground beef
  - ½ cup uncooked rice
  - 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
  - ½ tsp salt
  - Freshly ground black pepper
  Directions:
  1. Dice the onion. Core and dice the cabbage. Place both the onion and the cabbage into the crock of a 6 quart slow cooker.
  2. Add the other ingredients for the soup base into the slow cooker. Stir to combine.
  3. In a separate bowl, add all of the ingredients for the meatballs. Gently mix with your hands.
  4. Roll the meat mixture into small, bite-sized meatballs, adding them to the slow cooker as you go.
  5. Fold the meatballs into the soup, taking care not to break them apart.
  6. Put on the lid and cook for 8 hours on low. Serve with potato cakes, mashed potatoes, or whichever starchy carb you prefer!
  Posted in Dinner | 1 Comment | Tagged beef, cabbage, Dinner, holiday, recipe, slow cooker, soup, St. Patrick's Day
- Freezer Cooking for Baby #3 and My Postpartum Menu Plan (Part 2)
  
  Posted at 8:00 am by Rachel, on March 1, 2019
  This is the second post of a four post series on filling your freezer before adding a new baby to the family. Read Part 1 here or continue onto Part 3.
  
  Before I get into the specific items that went into my freezer, let’s talk about what didn’t:
  - Scrambled eggs – I make these every week because my kids usually eat them, they’re an inexpensive source of high-quality protein, and fast to make. Straight up scrambled eggs do not freeze well, but the prep and clean up are so fast that they really are not overwhelming to whip up for dinner, even with a new baby.
  - Roasted sweet potatoes – I love fresh roasted sweet potatoes so much, and it breaks my heart that they do not freeze well. I tried it a couple of different ways to try and make it work, but it really just does not work. The texture suffers. I cooked them a couple of times when I had the time to dice potatoes, but otherwise we made do without them.
  - Most pastas – Baked pastas freeze well, so in the past I have made a lot of them for freezer meals. However, my kids have been going through a “won’t-eat-foods-touching-other-foods” phase, and that makes casserole-style meals a struggle. Instead of fighting with them, I chose to make and buy different sauces for most of our pasta dinners (the exception being a baked penne that we really love). The meatballs with red sauce, pumpkin sauce, and baked penne with roasted vegetables went into the freezer; I could have added the pesto to my stockpile as well, but it was just as easy to buy it at the store as needed. Making just the sauces instead of pasta casseroles allowed me to serve sauce on the side for my kids and saved me a bunch of space in the freezer.
  - Pizza – We don’t have a great pizza place near us, and even if we did, ordering takeout every week can get expensive. Pizza dough actually does freeze well, but I have yet to master the art of stretching out pizza for a New York-style pie. What I do make about once a week is a Sicilian-style pizza. The dough for this pizza is so sticky that I have not found a good way to freeze it (if you have any insights here, please let me know!). However, it does refrigerate well! I experimented and learned that I could mix the dough first thing in the morning, let it rise for two hours, stretch it, then pop it into the fridge until I was ready to bake it. If you try this technique, make sure you stretch the dough before refrigerating, otherwise it will need to warm up before stretching – learned that the hard way! Pizza sauce would freeze well, I just never got around to making a big batch of it.
  - Slow cooker chicken thighs – It felt like a waste of a plastic bag to “prep” these for the freezer, seeing as how it would just be the chicken in the bag. My own very easy recipe requires so little prep work that it is easier to make it the day of than to freeze it ahead of time.
  Next up is Part 3, all about freezer-friendly main dishes!
  Posted in Menu Plans | 5 Comments | Tagged chicken, Dinner, eggs, kid-friendly, Menu plan, pasta, pizza
- My March Menu Plan
  
  Posted at 3:00 pm by Rachel, on February 27, 2019
  March is upon us! Lent begins this month with Ash Wednesday on March 6th. Because this is a penitential season, I decided to limit how much meat I put on this menu. Specifically, I’ll be cooking meat on Thursdays as well as the 17th (St. Patrick’s Day) and 19th (the Solemnity of St. Joseph). I intentionally chose Thursday as our main meat night, because Catholics abstain from eating meat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays during Lent. Our lunch is usually the previous night’s leftovers, so this will be an active reminder of the sacrifice for us every Friday.
  
  My other food goals for the month are 1) to eat some eggplant and 2) take my new wok for a spin. One of my kids asked to try eggplant recently, and we have already made it to serve on the side once, but I want to take advantage of her interest and make it a couple of more times this month. I used my wok once last month to make this vegetable stir-fry, and promptly destroyed the starter-seasoning I did. Whomp whomp. So I will be re-seasoning in the oven and then, more importantly, using my wok! If you have any interesting stir fry or other wok recipes, please send them my way!
  
  Eggs
  
  It was fun getting a little fancier with a souffle at the end of February, but this month I am back to basics. I will be keeping Sundays simple this month with scrambled eggs and roasted veggies.
  
  Pasta
  - Spaghetti alla Carbonara – I’m using the recipe from How to Cook Everything, the first place I usually look for basic recipes
  - Fast and Easy Pasta with Blistered Cherry Tomato Sauce – If you’ve never tried making a homemade tomato sauce, this is an excellent recipe to start with! It is so easy but still so flavorful. One or two times and you’ll be able to make it by heart.
  - Spaghetti Aglio e Olio – Another great basic – I will be pairing this with broiled eggplant
  - Skillet Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce and Eggplant – This will be my first try at this recipe. My husband requested a pasta topped with bread crumbs and my daughter requested eggplant – check and check!
  Vegetarian
  - Quinoa and Roasted Vegetable Salad – This salad is an offshoot of this recipe. The way I usually make it these days is pretty different from its mother recipe, but I still use that salad dressing. The original is great too, although it might be hard to find butternut squash this time of year.
  - Chipotle Portobello Oven Fajitas with Sweet Potato Cornbread – I will probably leave some of the fajita vegetables raw for my kids. As I recall, this recipe is more medium than mild spiciness, and they do not like spicy foods right now.
  - BBQ Sweet Potato Burrito Bowls – I know that this link leads to a recipe for BBQ Chicken Burrito Bowls, but I will be omitting the chicken to make it vegetarian. I usually roast up the zucchini with some cubed sweet potatoes. About half the time I forget or just choose not to include the chicken and it is always a satisfying meal.
  - Weeknight Enchiladas – I think the last time I made these I ended up with 3 or 4 pans of enchiladas because there were so many beans leftover. Great for stocking the freezer or sharing with a friend!
  Skillet/Wok
  - Chicken and Snap Pea Stir-Fry – As I mentioned, I am trying to break in my wok. This looks like a nice, simple recipe for a beginner like me.
  - Potato Kielbasa Skillet
  - Stir-Fried Chicken with Kale from How to Cook Everything
  - Beef tacos with Budget Bytes’s taco seasoning
  Pizza – For our weekly pizza I use this crust recipe with this sauce.
  
  Soup
  - Cheesy Cauliflower and Potato Soup
  - Vegetable Soup from Meals Made Easy
  - Unstuffed Cabbage Soup with Potato Cakes – My mom gave me a recipe for Unstuffed Cabbage Soup years ago and a few years back I adapted it for the slow cooker. Recipe forthcoming! Potato cakes are another family recipe. They are on the more indulgent side of ways one can eat a potato.
  - Creamy tomato soup – A solid recipe from The Complete Slow Cooker. My kids keep asking for it – no complaints here!
  - French onion soup
  Posted in Dinner, Menu Plans | 0 Comments | Tagged chicken, Dinner, kid-friendly, Lent, Menu plan, pasta, skillet meal, soup, St. Patrick's Day, vegetarian, wok
- Freezer Cooking for Baby #3 and My Postpartum Menu Plan (Part 1)
  
  Posted at 8:00 am by Rachel, on February 23, 2019
  This is the first post of a four post series on filling your freezer before adding a new baby to the family. You can continue reading Part 2 or Part 3.
  
  When I was expecting my children, I knew that the first few weeks would be especially hectic between getting acquainted with a new little person, less sleep, doctors visits, and everything else that having a newborn entails. I carefully planned and prepared as much as I could to ease the transition for my family. A big part of my plan each time has been freezer cooking.
  
  My first big foray into freezer cooking was when I was getting ready for my first baby. I did not have a separate freezer – only the freezer on top of our standard-size refrigerator. Still, I managed to pack the freezer with enough dinners to last us about five weeks, along with muffins, breakfast burritos, cornbread, and biscuits. Since then, although I do not always cook quite so much, freezer cooking has become a regular happening in my kitchen. When I was expecting my second baby, I made a plan to get us through the first six weeks, again with just one small freezer. So of course when I was expecting my third baby, filling the freezer was on my mind again.
  
  This doesn’t look like much, but it fed me and my husband dinner for five weeks!
  
  This last time around was a bit different than the previous two. For one thing, we have two opinionated toddlers to feed; for another, we now have a large upright freezer. The dramatic increase in storage space made the decision to cook more food easy.
  
  Our large upright freezer packed with food in preparation for Baby #3!
  
  For every day cooking, it’s easy to just double a recipe and stick half in the freezer. But when you are looking at several weeks of food, making a more detailed plan is essential. No one wants to be stuck eating chili every day for two months. If you want to fill your freezer, do not start cooking without a menu plan.
  
  I started my plan by choosing seven categories – I like using categories for my menu plans, especially longer-term menu plans, because it helps build in variety. You can categorize by mode of cooking (oven, slow cooker, pressure cooker, etc.), regional cuisine (Italian, Indian, Tex-Mex, etc.), types of food (pastas, casseroles, big pieces of meat, vegan, etc.), or really anything that you can conjure up. This time I chose:
  1. Soup
  2. Baked in the oven
  3. Eggs
  4. Slow cooker
  5. Pasta
  6. Pizza
  7. Leftovers
  I wanted to make enough food for eight weeks of dinners, so I planned four weeks of meals that could be repeated to make an eight-week plan. We have finally finished eating our freezer meals, and I am happy to report that this plan worked out very well for us. Granted, we also had Thanksgiving and Christmas thrown in the middle to mix things up, but there definitely would have been enough variety even without those holiday meals. In the past I have used six-week menu plans that were structured the same way (three weeks of meals repeated to make a six-week long plan), and that was enough variety for my family.
  
  After a lot of tinkering, this is the menu plan that I arrived at. We followed it more or less as written, occasionally inserting another leftovers night or swapping meals as needed:
  
  Check back next week for Part 2, where I share the foods that I did not prep for the freezer, and what I did instead.
  Posted in Menu Plans | 3 Comments | Tagged Dinner, freezer friendly, kid-friendly, Menu plan
← Older posts

Newer posts →
- Search for:
- Archives
  Archives
- Tags
  appetizer Augusta GA balakani beef Boston breakfast burgers cabbage cannoli chicken Christmas coffee Covid-19 dessert Dinner Earth Fare Easter Eataly eggs Finale food flops Founding Farmers freezer friendly Frog Hollow holiday hotel living inspiration juice kid-friendly kitchen tour Lent Life in Hawaii living small lunch Menu plan menu recap Mike's Pastry Navy Lodge Hawaii packing pasta pastry PCS pie pizza Prudential Center recap recipe recipe review Regina Pizzeria restaurant review salad sandwich side dish skillet meal Skywalk slow cooker soup St. Patrick's Day take out Tatte thanksgiving The Pie Hole travel turkey vegan vegetarian wok
- Categories
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.