The weekly menu

Saturday night was an easy one – sushi!!!!

We had birthday parties (yes, plural) and swimming class which took up the whole day so cooking wasn’t happening.  Plus the weather was gorgggggeous, I wanted to be outside not in the kitchen.

Sunday we went shopping for the week’s groceries (minus the stuff I got at WF later in the week) but otherwise was a mellow day.  We hit up the park in the late afternoon with some friends but didn’t stay long because Kyle was BBQing our dinner.

On the left is perfectly grilled chicken (I marinated it in olive oil with both lemon juice and herbs from the garden).  On the right is heaven in a bowl.

The chicken was paired with this AWESOME salad that I would make again and again.  Kyle loved it too.  Totally recommend!

It’s from the blog A Family Feast which I had never heard of before, but found via pinterest when I searched for broccoli and cauliflower salads.

The produce portion of the winter vegetable salad calls for broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and peas, so I just used two mixed veggie bags from TJs (steamed in a pot – not the bags), then added frozen peas.  The dressing sounded slightly random but was totally delicious.  I mean, I am a mayo FIEND so of course that part sounded delicious, but the combo of herbs and sriracha gave me pause.  But I can happily report it was fan-damn-tastic.  I used plain lactose free organic yogurt instead of sour cream because I had it on hand, but otherwise followed the directions exactly.  Way good.  Make this asap!

On Monday I made Jessica’s chopped BLT salad with corn, (goat) feta and avocado.  It was on hold because I wasn’t eating soft cheeses for pregnancy, but I have been for the past few weeks because, meh, I don’t know.  I’m over pregnancy.  As you can see (above – and over the past 9 months of my documenting on HHH) I have been eating raw fish in sushi as well.  I trust the sources so that’s that.  Judge if you want.

Per usual I swapped the olive oil in the dressing for the bacon fat that rendered while I cooked it.  I also used romaine instead of arugula.

Chopped all fine.  So yum.

Next up Asian chicken salad from my head.

I baked and sliced the chicken breasts and then tossed them in a teriyaki sauce (some plain chicken was set aside for P).  The rest of salad included romaine, carrots, cashews, mandarin oranges, and green onions.  More teriyaki sauce as dressing.

Not very complicated.  Salty and therefore perfect.

I prepped this ragu the night before and left the whole crockpot in the fridge overnight and then started it first thing Wednesday morning.

Then after 8-9 hours I shredded it with forks and let it cook another couple hours until dinnertime.

His was over pasta and hers was over polenta (as the Pinch Of Yum recipe serves it).

I’ve made this recipe before but haven’t tasted it because it is part of my postpartum prep (meaning it’s portioned out and frozen in our stand up freezer for later).  It smelled insaneeeeeeee last time it cooked in the crock and my mouth was watering as I packed it up without a single taste.  This time I used pork shoulder instead of beef because WF was having an awesome deal on it.

P tried some when we had it as leftovers on Friday and was iffy on it.  He is more of a plain food (without seasonings or in an assembled dish) kind of boy so I wasn’t sure what he’d think, but I encouraged him to just try one bite, which he did.  I didn’t push any more on him after that.  Hopefully eventually he will eat assembled meals (for now eating all the deconstructed ingredients is good enough).  🙂

Ok, so back to the menu.

Patty-cakes’ favorite at the moment – hamburgers.

I made them plain again (with 1 lb organic grass fed ground beef, 1 egg, salt and pepper) and served a Brussels sprout Caesar on the side.  Kyle requests Caesar salads every week and it makes me happy because I love them too and they are sooooo easy to make.

I went bun less, per usual, and then had cornbread on the side.

As I mentioned before, we had leftover ragu on Friday, which was good because I spent all 2+ hours of Pacman’s nap in the kitchen using up as many lemons from the yard as I could.

First, I froze a bunch of fresh squeezed juice into ice cube trays.

Second, I made lemon curd (with coconut oil, eggs, stevia, lemon juice and zest).  I’ll let you know how it turns out later (I’m off stevia during pregnancy).

Third, I made fresh lemonade.

Meyers are amazing.  The house smelled like heaven all day from the juicing and zesting.

Totally messy, but 100% WINNNINNNNNNG.

I was going to skip the straining step of the curd recipe, but then I went and scrambled the freakin eggs (whoops!) so I obviously had to strain it to get the whites out.  Doh!  Clearly I wasn’t patient enough stirring on a low temp.  Either way, it looks thick and awesome now so the end result seems to be worth it.

Ok now for the dessert section of the week.

I got both these from TJs for the first time.  I had high hopes for the dark chocolate covered potato chips (because I loooove a sweet/salty combo) but it was just okay.  I don’t think I’ll buy them again, but I’ll certainly enjoy them while we have them now.  I mean, they are still chocolate after all.

The coconut bonbons are freakin’ out of this world.  They taste like coconut chocolate heaven and I would eat the entire box in one sitting if I didn’t know the calorie/sugar content in each serving size (which is a measly 2 pieces).  Sigh.

These are what my dessert plates start out as…and then I go back for seconds because I am in denial about how much chocolate needs to be in my life.

Kyle also got these one night as a surprise.  I adore Theo but he’s not as big of a fan (this was my first time trying the ginger, although I’ve had pretty much every other flavor).  In all fairness, the chocolove bar was better.  But of course it was…almonds…sea salt…dark chocolate…that’s a menage a trois of awesome.  I also restocked my candied ginger stash at the co-op and it’s the spicier kind, which is my preference.  I paired that with TJs pound plus chocolate bar (with almonds) on every night not pictured above.

Yesterday I made mocha almond fudge ice cream but we haven’t tried it yet so I’ll share that once we do.  I have a feeling it will be good.  😉