Yum! I eat my big meal at lunchtime so I had a really nice black bean and pumpkin soup today. I love getting cookbooks for Christmas.

Well, I've discovered how much I love chicken thighs, so been trying lots of new recipes for these. Tonight (actually cooked on Sunday) I had these little hunks of delight cooked in a sauce with Five Spice Powder, garlic, grn onion and a bunch of other stuff. Very tasty. Also had a spinach salad and a carrot pineapple salad. Oatmeal cookies finished me off. Oh yes, the chicken stuff was over rice.

k

mmmmm...daaaark meat!

Your carrot pineapple salad intrigues me.

We ended up making a spinach lasagna tonight. My sous chef stirred up a rather fresh tasting tomato sauce. I love tomatoes.

Black bean pumpkin soup sounds good, too. I wonder if I could adapt it to use up that raw squash I've had sitting in the freezer.

absolutely, Mark...sweet potatoes work too. tonight was chicken picata over rice, spinach sauted (very little olive oil) in garlic, carrots, and a salad...Gerwerztiminer too....sigh...

Playoff weekend leftovers -- Dungeness crab in Thai curry sauce, my favorite. Served with medium-dry sparkling wine and fresh fruit (cantaloupe and honeydew).

Ok, I'll share my secret recipe: Put chicken thighs in casserole dish. Mix together 1 tin mushroom soup, approximately the same of miracle whip salad dressing, juice of 1/2 lemon and curry powder or paste to taste. I like Patak's curry and use about 1 heaping TBSP. No need to brown chicken, just put into oven at about 350 for an hour or so. Very forgiving recipe and I haven't met anyone who didn't love it. Serve with rice and frozen peas and chutney. If you want to get really fancy, make papadums.

I like this salad, although the flavor was not what I expected. It really doesn't taste like carrots and the pineapple flavor only comes through slightly. It is worth making IMO.

3 cups shredded carrots
2 cups unsweetened, crushed pineapple, drained
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/3 cup mayo
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/3 cup unsalted sunflower seeds

Tomatoes a big fav here too, but only when they're out of the garden. Until then, I only use canned or my frozen ones for sauce. Love tomato sauce.

Dark meat - usually a white meat person here, but I do indulge sometimes............

I agree with the 'elf'...never touch a tomato from the produce section. Sounds like a good salad.

Dave

Where do you guys find the time (or organizational skills) to put together such nice meals during the week? I'm happy with noodles with pesto sauce. A salad is nice too, if I have greens that aren't in several stages of decay.

Truth be told, a 12" sub is good for two days.

The trick is to cook lots on Sunday and then eat leftovers for most of the week. I like to cook, but only once a week. I have no idea how people with children and families do it. Cooking complete meals everyday would get old fast.

Moonbeam

Staples, staples, staples and a file of favorite recipes. We keep the pantry stocked with the canned and dried things and some versatile things in the freezer that can be defrosted quickly. A brainstorm during the day can trigger a stop at the store on the way home for fresh meat or produce to add to it. Next to the refrigerator is a wipe erase board with three sections: Menu ideas, grocery list, and things we should remember we have that should be used soon, e.g. that last fennel bulb. We only get a couple of cooking magazines, watch a bit of Food TV and try to remember what's in the dishes we find when dining out. The result is a semi-annual ritual of buying bigger pants.

Staples?

Would that include shredded white and yellow cheese, chicken noodle soup and frozen shrimp? Oh, I did buy a box of spaghetti noodles the other day. Guess that's a staple. I've got one potato and a half a loaf of 99 cent bread.

Tea is the only thing I really need.

Have to go to the store though, the dogs are out of treats (they eat, I forget).

Oh, oh, oh, I've got 3 or 4 containers of yogurt too. Yeehaa, I do have a well stocked pantry.

Lest anyone think I'm a total loss in the kitchen, I did make home made spaghetti sauce the other day. And yes, I do in fact know how to make it correctly.

I am not as organized as Shades. We do have some pantry items on hand- pastas, beans and the like. I always have meat in the freezer. Ground turkey, pork and chicken- looks like we eat tons of white meat. We always have milk & eggs on hand. We eat so many eggs & chicken breasts the DH said he was going to build a coop and raise chickens. I told him I would call the cops on us from a pay phone if he even bought the lumber.

If I can get the DH to write on the chalkboard he just inhaled all the capers its a miracle. I am married to a vaccum- a vaccum that can eat leftovers cold out of the fridge.

I check out the food section in the local paper and tear out recipes. My favorite site for finding recipes is All Recipes. That place totally rocks! You should check it out. I print out the ones I am making and if I hate the recipe gets thrown out, if I love it it gets put in a 3 ring binder.

Claire - another 3-ring binder person here. I have two of them since my collection of recipes as grown. It's so much better than the box method.

I picked up an organizer thingy at an office supply store that has a bunch of pockets for 8.5x11 sheets and a section for smaller ones. We labeled the different pockets for different categories and then sorted the recipes into that.

Another thing I've learned: Don't be afraid to write in cookbooks! I end up modifying most recipes I try and like to keep notes on what works and what doesn't. Occasionally I'll get around to rewriting the recipe but not very often.

I'm another one who modifies recipes and writes in cookbooks, assuming I even use a recipe rather than putting something together off the top of my head. For the most part, I rarely follow a recipe step by step. I look at it this way, I'm cooking for me, so I modify to suit myself.

My home has a lot of food stored in the cupboard: Tomato sauce, soup, canned vegetables, pasta (4 or 5 kinds at a time), white hominy (canned), beans, rice, and canned fruit. There also is usually frozen green giant (the ones with two or three vegetables in low fat sauce), ice cream, and occasionally veggie burgers in the freezer. Eggs are bought from the store except when the two chickens (Golden laced Cochin females - Margita and Thomasina) I have at my mother's place (Chickens are not allowed in the city limits and my mother and her husband live in the country) lay eggs. I think food is stocked up in the house I live in with my grandparents because they lived through times when food was scarce (I am still in college and lost my job in 2004 but am trying to get a new one). I usually just cook up some pasta, soup, or vegetables. It usually takes only twelve minutes at the most to make such a meal.

Enjoy!
Maryanne in WMass

The Secret to Good Nutrition

And for those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on
nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all the conflicting medical studies:

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart
attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer
heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausage and suffer
fewer heart attacks than Americans.
CONCLUSION:
Eat and drink what you like, speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Gracias!

Sigh. I make notes in cookbooks, clip recipies and file them in 3 ring binders with dividers, and make stuff off the top of my head. Yeah...I have a big head, but you all knew that. I also grew up on a farm a long ways from town so I always have staples and something to throw something together with....if I want to...but then the grocery store is less than 5 min. down the street, and on dh's way home.

Tonight: Chicken marsala. Only problem is that I can never figure out what other veggie to have with it other than broccoli.

How about green beans? Brussel sprouts?

Tonight is chicken enchiladas.

Tonight is roast chicken, brown rice with tomatoes, a spinach salad and chocolate cake. I love choc cake. I really, really do.

I love chocolate cake, too. But I never make it because then I'd eat it.

Tonight potstickers may be on the table. It depends on how much energy I have when I get home. Last night we lazied and got carryout pizza. Yum!

Two green veggies my family will eat: green beans and broccoli. Lettuce gets old...plus, I try to serve at least three veggies for dinner on the premise that dh and dd won't get many others throughout the rest of the day. Meg USED to like Brussels sprouts...she doesn't anymore. I only do fresh zucchini out of my garden or from the farmer's market in the summer...frozen zucs are icky. Cabbage, well that's a sometimes, and spinach I do fairly regularly....but I didn't have any on hand....I ended up having a big pile of carrots on each plate and saying "tonight there won't be as many veggies because I'm tired of trying to think up interesting (and nonfattening) ways of making the limited types of veggies you guys will eat." Sigh....

When I have folks over for dinner, I like to serve fruit as a side dish. I don't think people do this too often because everyone always snarfs it down like they've never seen it before. I really don't like the traditional "fruit salads" with jello or cream. I go more for things like:

sliced oranges with cinnamon, pwd sugar and rose water
mangos with fresh ginger and lime
I even made an orange, onion and black olive salad a couple of weeks ago that was a big hit.

I agree about veggies. I like them all, but have a hard time coming up with new ideas.