Planned Leftovers
..........pairing up what's on sale and what I have on hand

Wednesday: Roast Chicken and Individual Apple Crisps

• crockpot-roast a whole chicken, with added mushrooms, onions and some root vegetables
• with my not-so-crisp apples I will make two individual custard cup-sized  apple crisps.
  
• put the stripped chicken bones and skin into my large crockpot with celery, garlic, water
  spices and onions to  cook overnight. 
• in the morning cool it, take the fat off the top and chill 

Thursday: Chicken Pasta Soup and Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

• tonight heat up what is needed for soup to pour over the leftover pasta 3-bean casserole.
• add leftover chicken to last few minutes of heating up the soup
• for dessert make a pineapple upside-down cake using rice flour, fresh pineapple
  and strawberries to put inside the pineapple rings.

Friday: Ground Turkey Stir Fry and Cucumber-Orange Salad

• cook up two night's of rice---one for tonight, one saved plain for Sunday
• zest orange peel very finely, about 1 teaspoon then juice the oranges to use in a sauce
  to mix with the rice
• add some soup broth to the rice if needed for sauce 
• use ground turkey and lots of veggies: mushrooms, broccoli,
  celery, cabbage, onion, and cauliflower and some pineapple to make a stir-fry.
• when it is done add raw chopped tomatoes to it on the plates
• mix thinly-sliced cucumbers in small custard cups with a quick sprinkling of
  soy sauce mixed with green onion and a splash of raw apple cider vinegar and orange zest.
• no salad tonight---we have lots of raw and crisp-cooked veggies.

Saturday: Shrimp Egg Rolls with Egg Drop Soup

•  add  last night's leftover stir-fry to a tiny bit of leftover rice
• add a handful of cooked, cleaned shrimp cut into tiny pieces 
• save two of the shrimp to add to egg drop soup. 
• add chopped shrimp to the rice/veggie mixture and use it to fill egg roll skins
• fill the wrappers, seal and fry the allowing them to drain on a paper towel when done
• put them in the oven to keep warm.
• take some of the chicken broth made earlier bringing it to a boil
• while this is coming to a boil whisk raw egg mixed with a little flour and drop it
  into the boiling broth
• pour into bowls, add a few cooked, leftover sliced mushrooms
  and some fresh green onions cut on the diagonal.
• float a shrimp on to of soup 
• add a few match-stick sliced carrots and float a few leaves of spinach or cilantro
  
• before bed put any kind of meat  you like---beef or pork, ground or stew-type meat
  in crock pot with water, curry or turmeric, onions and diagonally-sliced carrots

Sunday: Malay Curry Dinner and Apple-Cinnamon-Choclate  Egg Rolls

• before church put cool and put cooked meat sauce in refrigerator
• after church heat up meat sauce
• warm leftover rice
• in bowls dice into separate bowls:  raw tomatoes, green onions, pineapple, green or red
  onions, cukes, olives. Add also unsweetened coconut, sliced olives, avocado, bananas and
  raisins and nuts or seeds.
• to serve pour sauce over rice and top with ingredients in bowls
• top with a little yogurt if you wish
• for dessert chop apples, pecans or walnuts, add chocolate chips, cinnamon and raw sugar or
  another healthy sugar.
• fill egg rolls skins with mixture and fry
• let drain on paper towel
• serve warm or cold

Monday: Grilled Ribs and Pineapple with Purple and Green Salad and Leftover Jumble Dessert

• make barbecue sauce for beef ribs that I had in my freezer
• grill, adding more sauce as needed
• serve with my Purple and green salad (recipe to follow in a couple of days!)
• add leftover fruit, dried fruit, nuts, seeds, plain rice and coconut to yogurt earlier in the day and freeze
  in a glass bread loaf pan 
• soften a little before serving with chocolate chips, coconut, nuts and sliced strawberries on top

If there are little tidbits of leftovers, freeze them or toss them into something that sounds good.

Hope this thread helps you!

Enjoy!

Kathi~

 

To Town Finally
.......grocery shopping day

Monday is hardly ever my shopping day either in town or locally. But my usual shopping day last Thursday didn't work out----I believe I was iced in the driveway with no way to get to my car. Friday, my husband moved my car in front of the rock walkway, away from the ice so I could do the shopping. I was heading out when my husband called to suggest that we run down south of here to see our daughter with her husband and 8 children at a trade fair advertising their business. So I went back in the house and waited for my husband who was on his way home from a job site near here. We had a good time seeing the kids and talking to people. We all went out for pizza near here afterwards and had a great time, then we went to the grocery store across the highway and did my what's-on-sale shopping and went home.

I considered shopping Saturday and decided against it since by the time I finished the things I had to do it was getting pretty late. Our daughter called just as I was about to force myself to leave. I decided that visiting with her and hearing our granddaughter's new toddler words and noises was far more important than going to town. I was relieved not to be able to go on this particular Saturday anyway. I was sure that being the day before the Super Bowl that everyone and their football-loving mothers would fill the roads, aisles and parking lots shopping for snack-y food, beer and decorated cakes. I do not like crowds.

Sunday was out because we never shop on the Lord's Day unless it is an emergency---which it hardly ever is!  We had a marvelous Sunday.

So, the lot fell, so to speak, on today. I got a late start but didn't end up spending as much time as I thought I would have. I have some birthday gifts to buy, a few things for the kitchen and myself so decided it would be best to go in again at the end of the week to do those things  and just do grocery shopping today.

It was pleasant in town, not too crowded.It had gotten more cloudy but was around 50 degrees. I even opened my window when I stopped at signals. Costco was my second stop. I ran into a family from church there and the wife and I visited which is always nice!

I had a sort of disaster at Costco. I picked up one of those heavy bags of organic cane sugar not knowing it had a six inch gash in the back. I was stopped down the aisle by a young couple who told me I had a leak in something. I looked down to see sugar pouring over the floor. I looked back and saw that everywhere I had stopped on that aisle was a pile of sugar. Where I had walked the sugar had trickled out----what a mess! I was afraid someone would slip on the sugar crystals. A kind woman said she'd grab an employee to tell them about it while I watched and warned those coming down the aisle so no one would fall. I told the young men who came to clean up where I had put the ripped bag of sugar and that someone had left a deli salad on that aisle. I was going out to report the un-refrigerated Caesar Chicken salad when the couple told me I was leaking!

After that I went to our natural foods store where I ran into a long-time friend and her husband whom it was a blessing to see again. When I was done there I stopped to get gas and headed home.

The soup wasn't quite done but sure smelled good when I walked in. My husband noticed that too he said, when he got home. It was nice to come home to a cozy house with my husband waiting on the porch to carry in the groceries and  with the fire going and the wonderful aroma of homemade soup wafting through the house. I had purchased stuff to make sandwiches at the natural food store. I let the soup continue to cook, it is cooling now and will be put in the fridge for tomorrow night instead.

I compared what was on sale with what I have on hand still and formed a new meal thread of leftovers. I hope to accomplish many things this week so am going to use up a few of my "freebies" in the freezer.

Today as I cleaned and organized the refrigerator I pulled things out to add to my Monday soup. There is a med-sized piece of round steak that was on sale that I thawed last night, new mushrooms, frozen sliced onions from our garden, organic tomato paste, back-of-the-refrigerator frozen carrots, last of the bag of broccoli, my favorite go-to spice from Costco and the last of the kale from the week before last.

Tomorrow we will have the soup and I'll make some rolls or drop biscuits. My husband tolerates soup just fine as long as I have some kind of delicious bread with it. And since we had  lemon chicken basil sandwiches and broccoli salad tonight we won't have soup and sandwiches Tuesday as we usually do.

I'll post the new meal thread tomorrow. Right now I am very tired, the still-dirty dinner dishes are calling me from the kitchen where they are soaking. I have put all perishables away in the refrigerator but the rest is going to wait until tomorrow! Don't tell anyone----I'm sure NO one else ever does this!

Wink, wink.............

I hope you all had a great Monday. I did.

Goodnight,
Kathi

Spicy Soup and Drop Biscuits

See what it looked like after it cooked!
Not all the orange stuff is carrots, some of it is winter squash.
Just slightly spicy and really flavorful.

Drop biscuits are yummy and turned out great without a recipe.

Custard---strange-looking, not sure why, but creamy and good anyway.
Goodnight.
Kathi~

Monday's Soup Thread
......everything-but-the-kitchen-sink soup!

Dinner tonight? It's Monday. So, it's soup night!

I thawed a small (3/4lb.) pasture-fed chuck steak which was $6.98/lb. (remember, I buy by the serving, not the pound), selling price was $4.71 and it was $1.00 off. So, $3.71 was the total.

I added it to my 7qt. crockpot with the last bottle of that horrid beer I've been getting rid of in cooking for over a week. Letting it marinate for a few minutes while I searched for other ingredients to see what direction this soup was going to take.

My scavenger hunt around the kitchen looking for anything that was almost gone and not saved for a different recipe, started in the refrigerator. There, I found and added torn pieces of raw kale, shredded green cabbage, a little juice from some fermented pickles that were gone, a couple spoonfuls of  naturally-fermented sauerkraut and some small carrots that had frozen.

My digs in the freezer unearthed cilantro and a small chunk of red sweet bell pepper. I also found some unrecognizable items that I did not label because I was certain I would know what they were later. Well, I do not. I've got to stop doing that! I saved those mystery items for a later date when I have more time to figure them out. From our garden I had frozen overgrown green onion tops and bulbs, a large Poblano pepper. The theme of this soup was beginning to be obvious with what I was finding! Spicy!

Peppers, cilantro and big onion tops (and various other things) are easy to break apart or crumble to add to recipes as long as they don't thaw first. I add the carrots whole because they are small and the over-grown green onion bulbs (which were cut from the tops before freezing) are pinched at the little end forcing out each layer so there are  interesting long, skinny mild onions in the soup.

My cooking style is a little rustic because it is fun, easy and it makes mistakes look planned! Some may consider that deceitful and lazy but I prefer "creative".................

As I crossed the kitchen to add my finds to the crockpot I passed a bowl of the few onions we have left from our garden so I grabbed two very small yellow ones to slice into the pot. I spied my salad dressing container almost empty sitting by the sink waiting to be washed so I can start another batch. There was about a tablespoon or two of balsamic vinegar and olive oil thickened with spices mixed in it at the bottom. So, I poured a little water in the container, shook it a bit and poured that into the soup. The acid of the vinegar not only compliments the other flavors in this soup but helps bring out the flavors of other ingredients. I do not like to waste anything!

Now for the spices. I added garlic, basil, my general go-to spice from Costco, chili powder and a little curry. I also grabbed a small can of organic tomato paste because it seems to me that soup using beef or game meat is always better with a tomato base.

It is starting to smell really good in here now. Spicy soup will taste really good on this dreary day.
I will add some oven-steamed garden winter squash to add more bright colors, flavor and to thicken it. Any extra squash will be pureed to be  baked with eggs, milk, honey and cinnamon for a custard dessert.

This will feed us tonight with some homemade drop biscuits flavored with some herbs and a sprinkle of Parmesan in the batter, served with a mix of coconut oil and butter--- and honey for my husband. And of course we will each have a raw veggie salad.

Most of what I used was either given to us, from our garden last year, or the last of things I didn't want to throw away or just give to the chickens. The only thing I used from this week's food budget was the meat. Even the salad ingredients are what's left from last week's shopping trip.

And there was very little work. I did not cut up the steak since it will be falling apart by meal time anyway. I only cut our garden onions and the shredded cabbage. Other things were crumbled or torn and the carrots and other small items were added whole. The steamed winter squash only has to be scooped out once it is steamed after it has been cleaned. If I can keep our cats out of it,  the inedible parts---- the skin, stringy stuff and seeds----will be given to our chickens. The top woody stem will be added to the kindling bucket and I will go through and pick out the mature seeds to dry and replant this season.

The thread for this week is: soup tonight, tomorrow we will have leftover soup that I've put in the blender and added a little cream or half and half to in mugs with some kind of sandwich or wrap. I will also use the soup for lunches.  When there is not much broth left I will drain the other ingredients, use some of the broth to make a kind of sauce or gravy (cornstarch and cold water), mix it with the veggies and meat. Then I'll add this to a pie plate or shallow glass pan and top it with the leftover drop biscuits which I will butter the bottoms of to keep them from getting soggy, cover this and stick it in the freezer. If there is broth left I will use it to add to a spicy sauce  since it is a spicy soup.

It's a small thread but goes a long way economically. I hope this helps you.

Kathi~