We spend so much time renovating these days that it really qualifies as a part time job. I thought you might get a kick out of seeing the house where we are doing all this work. Keep in mind that it is far from finished, especially inside! But we are almost finished with the exterior painting and repairs and hope to have the trim work done and an extended porch in place by the end of October.

Yes, that is turquoise blue! The house was a dull gray and really needed (IMHO) something cheerful. I am not a person who is afraid of color.

House renovations really have an impact on what we are eating for dinner. It is difficult for me to muster up much energy for anything elaborate or time consuming on the days we are painting. If is is not quick, it has to be made in advance and ready to heat. (See Personal Chef Days)

Now onto dinners for this week. As you can see, Breakfast for Dinner is back on the menu this week since I never got to it last week.

Monday – General Tso’s Tofu with Rice
Tuesday – Macaroni and Cheese
Wednesday – Spinach Pie with Phyllo Dough and Greek Salad
Thursday – Breakfast For Dinner – Waffles
Friday – Leftovers or Pizza

What’s on your menu?

Sandra
P.S. If you come just to read the blog, I have a bunch of goodies on this web site. Vegetarian Recipes, Easy Picture Recipes for Kids (via my Bry-Back Manor site), and Super Sturdy Reusable Grocery Bags that I tie dye myself. Check it out!

I like social history and I like cooking so it just makes sense that I love to look at old cook books.

It is fun to see people were cooking (and eating!) 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. While I don’t go searching for old books, I seem to have a number of them in my cook book collection courtesy of my mom and others.

One of the books I got from my ex-mother-in-law is The American Woman’s Cook Book edited by Ruth Berolzheimer circa 1944.

I would advise skipping the section on Fried Hare, Pigeon Pie, and Roast Opossum.

What I found more fascinating is that there is a whole chapter dedicated to Vegetarian Dishes! The recipes are not just pasta based, but your back in the day beans and nuts variety. Peanut Chops, Baked Bean Roast, and Nut Loaf. (There is also a recipe for Baked Soy Beans in the Vegetable Chapter.)

Beans and Nuts – Healthy and Economical – Then and Now.

If you are curious, I found a free online version of The American Woman’s Cook Book complete with recipes!

Sandra

We all thoroughly enjoyed the soup and bread last week. A good thing, too, as this week we are back to summer temperatures and minimal cooking meals.

I have a lot of fresh basil right now, so I experimented with a Pesto bread. Sorry, no recipe, but if you are at all a bread baker you can probably use your own favorite bread recipe with the following add ins: lots of chopped fresh basil and olive oil in the bread. Top this right before baking with toasted pine nuts and chopped garlic and parmesan cheese. It went very well with bean soup and probably would be equally yummy with a nice tomato soup.

On the menu for this week:

Monday – Shepherd’s Pie
Tuesday – Tomato and Muenster Subs
Wednesday – Taco Casserole
Thursday – Breakfast For Dinner – Waffles
Friday – Leftovers or Pizza

My husband commented yesterday on how we seem to have just the right amount of leftovers for weekends (when I am renovating and not cooking). I was pleased to hear that I have achieved a good balance for cooking for three at last!

I was thoroughly enjoying The Happy Honest Atheist Homemaker blog for a while and I see that it has disappeared. If anyone out there knows the author, tell her to please come back!

What’s on your menu?

Sandra
P.S. If you come just to read the blog, I have a bunch of goodies on this web site. Vegetarian Recipes, Easy Picture Recipes for Kids (via my Bry-Back Manor site), and Super Sturdy Reusable Grocery Bags that I tie dye myself. Check it out!

I am no longer a Quinoa virgin! The Quinoa last week was a big hit. I decided to leave it plainish but not completely unadorned so I could get the real taste. I tossed it some tomatoes and parmesan and it was quite satisfying.

I ended up with a lot of leftovers last week because my husband put in some long days so we are starting out the week with cleaning out the fridge. I also noticed a few things in the fridge that I should use and I have a handful of snow peas (And I do mean a HANDFUL) and some cucumbers from the rooftop garden that I want to use. So I am planning my menus around things I need to use this week.

The menu this week:

Monday – Veggie Ribs and Leftovers
Tuesday – Bean Soup and Bread
Wednesday – Caesar Wraps (Use that Lettuce!)
Thursday – Sesame Salad (Peas and Cucumbers!)
Friday – Leftovers or Pizza

I have been missing soup and some good home made bread. When I saw that the high temperature for tomorrow in our area is only going to be in the seveties, I couldn’t resist. Soup and bread! Hooray!

What’s on your menu?

Sandra
P.S. If you come just to read the blog, I have a bunch of goodies on this web site. Vegetarian Recipes, Easy Picture Recipes for Kids (via my Bry-Back Manor site), and Super Sturdy Reusable Grocery Bags that I tie dye myself. Check it out!

No Favorite Things post this week – I was just not inspired.

This week has put me a bit off-kilter. My teacherman husband has been putting in long days getting ready for the new school year. My daughter’s summer camps ended last week and she has been home all this week with no routine. As a mom of a special needs daughter, I am aware of the importance of routine for her. But, I think moms rely on routine just as much as the kiddies. At least I feel more together when things are going along some sort of schedule. I am honestly looking forward to school starting next week!

A hornworm ate one of my pepper plants on my rooftop garden. (Yes, I know that hornworms are moth babies and a moth can fly up to a roof, but still!)

And I have been bombarded with blog spam.

The latter is partially my own fault. I downloaded a WordPress spam filter and have yet to install it. Spam (not the canned sort!) is such a puzzle. I guess enough of it gets through the various filters elsewhere to make it worth while, but I moderate my comments and all the comment spam never sees the light of day. I wonder why folks bother at all. Goal for the next week: install the spam filter! (I also saw that I could change my preferences so that comments are closed after two weeks – that should help, too!)

Something else that amazed and amused me this week was the news report stating that a 18% of the persons polled recently thought that President Obama was a Muslim. It shouldn’t completely surprise me that so many people in the country are misinformed, but it still does. I guess the scoop is that the rumor is spread by anti-Obama folks. Bu,t I would like to think that it shouldn’t matter one whit what religion is practiced by an elected official. Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Agnostic, or Atheist – I don’t care! Is he or she doing a good job at representing me? That is what should matter most, I think.

I hope you have some cheese and crackers (a nice smoked gouda and some multi-grain saltines) to go with all my whine!

Sandra

Everything went according to plan last week EXCEPT the Beans and Weinies so it is on the Monday menu this week.

I have a shocking confession to make. I have been a vegetarian for 20 years and have never made Quinoa or even tasted Quinoa. When I was in a local Health Food store the other day, I decided it was high time to try this reputed super grain. There were a couple of interesting recipes on the box, but I am opting to make it plain – at least for the first time.

I see so many other menu planners out there in cyberspace who strive to be frugal or super couponers. Another confession I would like to make is that I am not a frugalista.

There was a time I was a serious penny pincher because I HAD to be. I gloried in the generic section of the SuperFresh (anyone else remember the plain black and white BEER cans?). I bought white bread, white rice, white macaroni because they were CHEAP!

Fast forward a number of years and I am grateful I don’t HAVE to be a penny pincher any longer. Now, don’t get me wrong. I still coupon on occasion and I look for sales and I use my grocery store cards. But, I buy the whole wheat goodies. I buy Olive Oil. I buy the Romaine lettuce, not the iceberg. And so on. We eat for flavor and we eat “good” food.

And since I am only cooking for 3 these days, if you subtract the dog food, cat litter, cat food, bird seed, sunflower seeds, and critter mix (!), my grocery budget is still not completely out of control. Hooray!

The menu this week:

Monday – Beans and Tofu Weinies
Tuesday – Tortellini and Pesto Tofu with Pesto
Wednesday – Veggie Ribs and Potato Salad
Thursday – Italian Sausage w/ Peppers and Quinoa
Friday – Leftovers or Pizza

What’s on your menu?

Sandra

P.S. If you come just to read the blog, I have a bunch of goodies on this web site. Vegetarian Recipes, Easy Picture Recipes for Kids (via my Bry-Back Manor site), and Super Sturdy Reusable Grocery Bags that I tie dye myself. Check it out!

Okay, to be honest, this blog entry has very little to do with my favorite things this week.

I was thinking this week about food trends. Like everything else, something may be “in” this week and “out” a few months later.

If I remember my history, ice cream was au courant in the 18th century!

In my lifetime, I recall omelets (thanks to Julia, no doubt), fondues, and quiche were all that at one time.And let’s not forget the jello mold!

Not that I was personally effected, but there have been chiliean sea bass and salmon trends. And kosher salt/sea salt trends. Another trend of late seems to be organics – not terrible – and grass fed meat – sorry, for me dead is dead no matter how well raised. I love my cats, but I wouldn’t say that they have been spoiled long enough and now it is okay to eat them.

I couldn’t resist, however, checking out one of the trendy items I have been hearing about of late. Panko Crumbs. I bought a box to see what all the fuss was about. I used it  to coat my eggplant for the eggplant parmesan.

Sorry, I was not overly impressed. Granted, I was not deep frying. I bake my eggplant in a little olive oil. However, I didn’t see that the Panko Crumbs were any crispier than bread crumbs or more flavorful than bread crumbs and they were most certainly more expensive!

I enjoy developing vegetarian versions of carnivorous classics. As mentioned in my last Menu Plan Monday posting, I now have a vegetarian version of Moussaka in my recipes section. If you are an eggplant fan, it may be worth a try!

Sandra

I thoroughly enjoyed my Eggplant Parmesan last week! My daughter even had some! In fact, I went a little wild and took part of the eggplant to make a small pan of Moussaka to freeze for another time. I will be posting my recipe for Vegetarian Moussaka on Thursday.

I have mentioned before that my husband and I are currently renovating an old Victorian house. We are in the thick of painting the exterior so my menus this week may be subject to change (Veggie Burger anyone?).

Monday – Great Big Salad w/ Chick’n Patties
Tuesday – Mac and Cheese with Beans from the Roof Garden
Wednesday – Curried Seitan
Thursday – Beans and Tofu Weinies
Friday – Leftovers or Pizza

What’s on your menu?

Sandra

P.S. If you come just to read the blog, I have a bunch of goodies on this web site. Vegetarian Recipes, Easy Picture Recipes for Kids (via my Bry-Back Manor site), and Super Sturdy Reusable Grocery Bags that I tie dye myself. Check it out!

It is only August 2 and already it feels like the summer is winding down. My husband is starting to shift his focus to school related things (he’s a teacher) and my daughter only has one more week of day camp to go after this week. I miss the days when school started AFTER Labor Day!

Keilbasa turned into a big salad last week. Oh well.

This week I got inspired via Scrumptious to make some eggplant. My husband doesn’t care for eggplant so I don’t make it often, but I happen to love it.

So this week we’ll be eating:

Monday – Leftover Bean Salad and Corn on the Cob
Tuesday – Tomato and Harvarti Dill Subs
Wednesday – Eggplant Parmesan and Gnocchi
Thursday – Tofurky Keilbasa and Saurkraut w/ Peirogi
Friday – Leftovers or Pizza

What’s on your menu?

Sandra

P.S. If you come just to read the blog, I have a bunch of goodies on this web site. Vegetarian Recipes, Easy Picture Recipes for Kids (via my Bry-Back Manor site), and Super Sturdy Reusable Grocery Bags that I tie dye myself. Check it out!

I don’t bake desserts very often any more. But when I do bake I prefer to make something chocolate. And when I make something chocolate, I usually use cocoa.

When I saw Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa at the Food Lion, I had to give it a try.

Okay, it is too hot here for much baking. What to do? Make ice cream, of course!

I used my standard ice cream recipe with the cocoa and whirred it in my Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker. The result was extremely dark chocolate ice cream. The flavor was not as intense as I had expected, but very good. Think Oreo cookies.

I am giving Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa a thumbs up. I look forward to trying it in some Brownies or in my Pat Potter’s Wet Cake. Or maybe my next baking project (will I be baking before September?) will be to try the A&P Spanish Bar Cake recipe I found online. Mmmmmmmm!

Sandra