A Week in Dinners

I plan our meals out at the beginning of the week and only shop for the ingredients needed for those meals. I post everything to the bulletin board in our kitchen (see the making of the bulletin board here). Most of the recipes I get from Real Simple, always looking for fast and seasonal. I try to use my crock pot as much as possible, usually at least one meal a week. And finally, I always make at least one soup a week, that way there are always easy leftovers when we don't feel like cooking. I've been lucky the last month because Christian has been off and cooking all our meals. He goes back tomorrow, so I will have to take back over. These are all his creations:

Sunday:

Purple cauliflower

Wednesday:

roasted cauliflower, butternut squash, and beets  

Friday:

leftover chicken from the night before 

Find the recipes here:

Steak with mushroom sauce and cauliflower puree

Bean and chicken sausage stew 

The Finished Piece

Well I was able to wait almost 24 hours before reassembling the dresser and moving it back into it's place. You'll remember that I wanted the finished piece to look like this. I think overall it was definitely a success and served it's purpose to brighten up the bedroom. Here's the final transformation:

Before:

After:

See the process here.

Planting the Seeds

After 2 months of growing in the makeshift greenhouse, our sprouts were ready to plant. We bought some burlap from the hardware store to use as a barrier between the city soil and our hummus + fertilizer mix. This is yet another year we have resisted the seemingly mountainous project of building raised bed boxes. We're probably making it a bigger deal than it is, but maybe if these plants take we'll be ready to build raised beds by the fall for some year round vegetable growth.

Burlap is cut, placed over the bed and the bed is covered first with hummus (compost soil) and then with fertilizer. 

            Hummus collected from the compost and the sprouts, ready to leave the greenhouse.  We planted sunflowers in each bed because they are said to pull heavy metals out of the soil. Urban gardens are notorious for lead (not a good mix for an edible garden)

The mint that lasted all winter; it has really taken off in the last few weeks, pictured a month ago here 

tomatoes, cucumbers, and sunflowers 

rainbow bell peppers, jalapenos, and sunflowers

herbs: parsley and basil (the only seedlings that took)

I really hope all these plants take. Once I got them into the ground, they looked much weaker than they had in their incubator. I'll keep you posted.

What's left to do:

1. Plant some bee attracting flowers.
2. More herbs

Dreams for the near future:

1. A year round garden
2. A bee hive
3. Chickens 

Sundays are for cooking

Every Sunday I spend most of the day prepping meals for the week. Here's what the usual list looks like.

• chopping veggies for at work snacks
• using the week's scraps to make stock
• planning out meals for every day
• making beans to be paired with rice 
• usually baking a chicken 

However, last week I got way ahead of myself so there are still a lot of left overs. So this week, I made stock with left over chicken bones (in the freezer) and whatever veggies were in the fridge that needed to be cooked fast. The recipe is simple:

Any vegetables, but some highlights include carrots, garlic (skins included), onions (also with skins), celery leeks, and so on. I usually save scraps of veggies that don't go directly in the compost for this purpose. The last few weeks I have also been adding chicken bones and bits left over from the baked chicken. To season I use whatever whole herbs I have on hand, and add peppercorns and corse salt to taste. I used to add ground spices, but found that they created too much sediment in the finished stock. 

All the ingredients go into the biggest pot you have. We are lucky enough to have a stock pot with a mesh insert, way less messy that post straining with cheese cloth or a colander. Fill with water, I usually do 18-24 cups. 

Turn the heat on high and bring to a boil. Boil for a solid 30 min. Reduce the heat to simmer and simmer for 2 hours. Strain and let cool. You can freeze in ziplock baggies and store a couple of cups in the fridge to use for rice or a quick soup later in the week. 

I have yet to figure out a less messy method, I am open to suggestions 

yielded 4 freezer bags full. 

Here's what else I made today:

Chicken and Rice Soup with broccoli and carrots

1. Boiled the chicken in a full pot of water.

2. Picked all the meat off the chicken. The bones went into another pot to collect for stock making, and the meat went back into the pot of water. Vegetarians beware, the following is graphic:

3. Add precooked rice (about a cup)

4. Added carrots and broccoli (from the Hollygrove box last week) and spices.