Meal Planning

One of my favorite things about Sunday afternoons is when I have the time to sit down and create a meal plan for the week. I make a shopping list as I go, and when I'm done I rewrite the list and organize it according to area of the grocery store. I pick up everything I need for meals and when I get home I try to clean out the fridge, wash the produce like fruit that we might snack on, and even cut up some of the veggies to make meals easier later in the week.

I love to cook but working full-time and trying to make it to after-work commitments like exercising, volunteering, or happy hour with friends leaves about zero time to go to the store on the day of. Making the meal plan in advance also gives me a chance to think about what we have going on the next week and just kind of get prepared for the week. When I travel it throws off my Sunday and we end up scrounging around in the pantry and eating out all week.

Next weekend the Farmer's Market opens and I'm planning to go down every Saturday morning possible... this will change up my Sunday schedule but my plan is to shop for farm-fresh veggies and organic meat at the market and fill in the holes and plan the menus on Sunday.

So that's my philosophy on managing my kitchen! We always get the basics: coffee, milk, eggs, cereal, sandwich bread, peanut or almond butter, and Bonne Mamam strawberry preserves. I like to keep Amy's Organic Kitchen soups in the pantry, too. Those things get us through a LOT of unplanned hunger strikes!

Here was the menu from this week.

Monday:Indian-Spiced Broiled Wild Salmon (Cooking Light)
Indian-Spiced Okra (Cooking Light)
Whole wheat couscous with slivered almonds, olive oil, and parsley


Tuesday:Parmesan and Eggplant Souffle (Cooking Light)

Wednesday:
Spicy Asian Marinated Flank Steak (Cooking Light)
Sauteed red bell peppers, red onions, and yellow squash
Whole wheat soba noodles with sesame oil and soy sauceThursday:
We both ate Mexican food out with friends

Friday:
Mudbug Madness downtown at Festival Plaza!
Saturday:
We went blackberry picking in the morning and also picked up some freshly picked squash, zucchini, and tomatoes at the farm. Dinner was AWESOME!
Grilled chicken with Apple BBQ Sauce (locally made, picked up at the farmers market last year)
Grilled tomatoes with fresh basil, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar
Sauteed squash and zucchini with fresh basil and oregano topped with fresh grated parmesan
Blackberry crisp (Earthbound Farms cookbook)

We're about to get on the road to Sulphur Springs, TX to meet up with our newly married friends S&J. Hope you are all having a fantastic Memorial Day weekend!

Chocolate + Cherries = heaven

I made this recipe yesterday and it was soo good - rich and chocolaty and the fresh cherries (which were half-off price at the grocery store!) were the perfect accent. David couldn't believe there was no milk in the recipe, it was that rich.

(From Cooking Light. I omitted the extra sugar on the cherries and used Splenda instead, and I wonder if next time I could use Splenda in the main recipe, too. There is certainly plenty of sugar from the cherry preserves. )

Ingredients

• Sorbet:
• 3/4 cup red cherry jam (such as Bonne Maman)
• 1/2 cup Dutch process cocoa
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups water
• 
  Compote:
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 pound fresh Bing or tart cherries, pitted and halved

Preparation

1. To prepare sorbet, combine first 4 ingredients in a heavy saucepan, stirring with a whisk. Gradually add 2 cups water, stirring with a whisk. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring well with a whisk. Cool to room temperature; cover and chill overnight.

2. Stir sorbet mixture with a whisk. Pour mixture into the freezer can of an ice-cream freezer; freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. Spoon sorbet into a freezer-safe container; cover and freeze 1 hour or until firm.

3. To prepare compote, combine 1/4 cup sugar and cherries; toss well. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour. Serve compote with sorbet.

Nice little Saturday morning

David was on-call last night at the hospital, and although he had to stay up there all night, he didn't actually get called and so he got a full night's sleep. When he got off it was a beautiful morning and he came home and roused me out of bed to go down to the riverfront!

This is the hierarchy in our house... Otis in the front, me in the back

Otis always gets super excited about riding in the car

We parked at the Stoner Rd. boat launch and walked about two miles to downtown Shreveport, where we watched the kids playing in the fountains and let Otis get a drink of water, then headed back. It was hot and humid but there was a nice breeze and most parts of the trail are pretty shady. Still, we were tired when we got home and maybe David didn't really sleep THAT well on the lumpy bed at the hospital:

haha!

Oh and on the dining room table you can see the pretty flowers that my sweet husband of three years brought me on Wednesday. He had to study for a test that night but we managed to celebrate anyway, with a bottle of nice champagne (courtesy of his parents) and a delicious meal of salmon and ribeye on the grill. We used our new silver forks and knives that I bought to commemorate our third year together. Happy three years to us!

First Post

I love reading my friend's blogs. I love seeing their pictures and feeling like I know what goes on in their day-to-day lives. Since we're far away from many of our friends and family I thought it might be fun to share some of our day-to-day stories and photos with yall. We're both notoriously bad at following through with long-term projects, so... I'm not promising much. But here we go!