Food Saving in Portions

Sweet potatoes are good keepers, so there’s often little point to canning or freezing them. This week, though, Thadd made a very special Sweet Potato Pie using roasted potatoes, and I am not one to waste oven space. So, I stuck 8 sweet potatoes into the oven.

Perfect Roasted Sweet Potatoes

-Wash and dry potatoes

-Pierce with a fork. Smaller potatoes 4-5 times, larger up to 9 times

-Brush with a light coat of olive oil.

-Please directly on wire rack in 400 degree oven for 45 minutes. (Note: put something such as foil on the tray below the potatoes to catch the drippings, or you’ll have all kinds of smoke).

-Turn off oven, allow to cool until you can easily handle the potatoes.

This yields some of the creamiest sweet potatoes ever, a great substitute for the charring method our friend Dave introduced us to (which we still do, but we weren’t using the grill for anything this time). In fact, I am going to use some of them to make gnocchi in the near future.

I packed the oven full of 8 potatoes because I don’t like turning on the oven and using that much energy for one thing. So, the rest of the potatoes that didn’t go into the pie were mashed, portioned into the one-cup blobs on a wax-papered cookie sheet you see above, and the sheet was put into our deep freeze. Once the blobs are frozen, they’ll go into Food Saver bags for later use in gnocchi, pie, or other things.

We do this saving-in-portions thing with a lot of foods. It makes it easier for us to cook, meaning we’ll stick to our meal plans more readily.  Just grab and go!

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An Old Towne Time, and On the Menu

This week will be the first meeting of my neighborhood’s cooking and nutrition class. It’s just an informational type meeting, to introduce myself, see what folks are interested in learning, and go over some basics; but, I am really looking forward to it. A healthy community is a safer, more successful community, and it bleeds out into a healthier society. Which the US desperately needs right now. I’ll let you know how it goes.

In other news, our greens and radishes came in hard and heavy from the greenhouse these last few weeks. so we’ve been enjoying a salad with almost every meal. I love sorrel–if you hadn’t, go find some. It’s worth the search. This ties into the On the Menu segment because you can just assume we at a fresh, crispy salad with every one.

On the Menu

Dinners

Sunday: Jambalaya with cornbread. I wanted to try out a new recipe before I gave it to my clients. I have a perfectly good jambalaya recipe, but this one had a few advantages. It was fabulous. Jambalaya is a great way to stretch seafood, sausage, and/or chicken. I left out the chicken in this case, and it still made a huge amount.

Monday: Stuffed garden stand cannelloni. This tried-and-true recipe is from one of my favorite organic cookbooks. My clients were going to get it this week, and I was going to have a pile of leftover lasagna noodles, so I made a batch for us.

Tuesday: Catfish with couscous and roasted cauliflower. Thadd’s night to cook, and since he’s at the end of his semester, it’s got to be fast. We like catfish, his go-to side is couscous, and roasted cauliflower is a favorite in this house. It works just as well frozen as it does fresh.

Wednesday: Cannellini au Gratin with roasted olives and grapes. I know, it sounds weird. But, it’s a rich mix that even meat lovers seem to fall in love with. The roasted grapes and olive idea wigged even me out when I first ran across it, but it works incredibly well.

Thursday: Grilled flank steak with charred sweet potatoes. We owe the charred sweet potato idea to our friends Dave and MJ, who introduced us to them last year. They’re so creamy and sweet. The grilled flank steak will be marinaded with…well, whatever I throw in. I tend to whip a lot of my marinades up on the fly.

Friday: Thai peanut noodles with tofu. Thadd’s been bothering me about having this dish again, and since we have a plethora of Twin Oak’s tofu in the freezer, I figured I’d go ahead. It’s really easy to make, but I can’t stand crappy tofu; so, it only gets made when I’ve got a supply of the “good stuff.” Which is, incidentally, cheaper than the crappy stuff.

Lunches are, of course, leftovers mostly. We plan it that way. Breakfasts this week will be a variety of: scrambled eggs w/greens & veggies, toast, Greek Yogurt, granola, strawberries, oatmeal.

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Healthy Eating and On the Menu

This week, try to skip simple carbs for two meals. Replace the bread with a vegetable, a potato for a sweet potato or brown rice. Why? You’ll stay fuller longer,  you’ll increase your fiber intake, and you’ll help control your blood sugar. All these things also make it easier to maintain a healthy weight, so it’s a win all around!

So, what are we eating this week?

Monday-Garden Cannelloni with green salad. Whole wheat lasagna noodles, no ricotta cheese (no one ever misses it, anyway), lots of spinach, low-fat cottage cheese, roasted garlic, bulgar, and canellini beans in homemade red sauce. Yum!

Tuesday–Black bean burritos, with dirty rice. I already did the black beans up in the slow cooker, so all that needs to be done is reheating and assembly.

Wednesday–Goose & vegetable kabobs over whole wheat couscous. We need to use up the rest of the frozen goose breast, and it’s fabulous on kabobs.

Thursday–Falafel with homemade flat bread and mujadera. We both love Middle Eastern food, and we have some chickpeas to use up. It also gives Thadd a chance to make some whole wheat flatbread.

Friday–Shawn’s Shape It Up Meatloaf, with whipped sweet potatoes and a TBD veggie. My meatloaf has spinach, black beans, lentils, rice, and some other stuff mixed in with the meat. It stretches the meat, makes the dish healthier, and adds a lot of flavor.

Saturday–Bean and lentil bolognese. We love this hearty, meatless dish. It’s easy, quick, and filling. Oh, and frugal!

Sunday–Black bean and yam chili. We are going to be gone all day, and needed a slow cooker dish. This is spicy and rich, so should be perfect after a day of light fare and wine tasting with friends.

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