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Monday, January 24, 2022

What's For Dinner

This was the plan for the week. It was not a particularly wonderful food week here, but I had everything on hand and knew I would not have to go to the store for anything unless I just decided I wanted to shop. This week 46% of the covid tests given in Alabama were positive, so I decided rather quickly, other than going to ThePig for free stuff, I did not need to go shopping. Most likely I am going to do the same thing this week though "they", whoever they are, predict that the positive numbers will track down. I am tired of staying in and really do need to be around people!



This was planned:
1. White chicken chili, coleslaw, cornbread (This is your fault, Kim)
2. Chicken roll ups, Brussels sprouts, Waldorf salad
3. Sloppy Joe's, caulitato salad, "fried" pickles
4. Lentil soup, tossed salad, crescent rolls
5. Takeout
6 Tacos with fixings,  guacamole, 
7. Eggroll in a bowl

 This was real life:

Monday: I had already made the sloppy Joes on Sunday, o I pretty much knew we would have them on Monday. I had everything on hand.
Sloppy Joe's, caulitato salad, plain pickles (I do still intend to air fry some one day)

Tuesday: I had a little less than half a bag of Pepperidge Farm corn bread stuffing left from our Christmas brunch casserole. I just wanted to use it and have one less things crowding my overstuffed pantry. Once again, I had I needed for meal prep (including one apple that had to be used right that minute)
Chicken roll ups, Brussels sprouts, Waldorf salad

Wednesday: This was a day I got to play a little mad scientist game. A couple of years ago I had soaked, cooked, then dehydrated some navy beans. I stuck the dehydrated beans in a ziplock bag in the freezer and forgot about them. I decided I would get them out and rehydrate them, just to see how they worked. I did put them in a pyrex bowl and covered them with boiling water. About 2 hours later I started the chili so I tossed them in the soup pot with the broth and chicken. Success!
White Chicken Chili, cornbread

Thursday: I had cooked some extra ground beef when I made the sloppy joe's and stuck it in the freezer. Since I had a head of cabbage and carrots in the fridge, along with onions, garlic, and ginger root, I had the makings of another meals.
 Eggroll in a bowl 

Friday: How glad are we that dried beans and lentils have an insanely long shelf life. I buy them, stick them in the freezer for a couple of weeks, then put them in jars. They will stay perfectly fine for a long, long time. I did have to buy kale when I went to The Pig on Monday. Other than that I had everything I needed.
Lentil soup, crescent rolls

Saturday: We ate a late breakfast, then a late lunch. When dinner time came I deferred to Campbells.
Tomato soup, oyster crackers

Sunday: I was cleaning the fridge Saturday and found a pack of sausage in the meat drawer that I had forgotten about. Since I was in a clean out mood, I also looked through the crisper for any odds and ends that needed to be cooked. Dinner planned itself.
Chicken sausage*, with cabbage, onions, carrots, corn

And now on to this week's plan: (Using as much as possible from food storage)
1. Chili, coleslaw, cornbread
2. Chicken tamale casserole, broccoli
3. Steamed shrimp, new potatoes, tossed salad
4. Mac and cheese, broccoli, Waldorf salad
5. Leftover lentil soup, cheese biscuits
6. Take-out
7. Conecuh sausage one pan meal (onions, peppers, potatoes and cabbage), corn bread

This week I need a head of lettuce and cabbage, bananas and mandarins and that should do it. I am trying to decide if I want to go to ThePig today for the two free items (with a 10 dollar purchase) but I already have extra dishwashing liquid and several bottles of salad dressing in the pantry. I guess it will just depend on how my day shakes out.

*Product review: This is strictly my own personal review of Trader Joe's Spicy Jalapeño Chicken Sausage. I have tried and enjoyed a lot of products from TJ'S. This is not one of them.
I have mentioned before that I am a tactile eater and if things do not feel good in my mouth I do not like them. To me this sausage had the "feel" of Vienna sausages which is like eating something akin to baby food in a casing. The minute I took a bite I knew I was not going to like it, no matter what it tasted like__and I didn't. TheHub is not texturally averse to foods like I am, but even he asked that I not buy it again. Don't get me wrong, it was not inedible. We ate it, but did not enjoy it at all. I have enough left over for lunches a couple of days and I am not looking forward to it. 


31 comments:

  1. I guess I need to get more into planning my menu like this. We pretty much eat whatever idea I come up with, depending upon what is on sale at the store that week and what I have in the freezer already. I tend to be a more spontaneous cook rather than a menu planner. But your ideas sound so good, and with a little planning I might be able to accomplish some of these! LOL. Thank you for the ideas. Thanks for the warning about the TJ's spicy jalepeno chicken sausage. We don't have a Trader Joe's here anyway, but even if we did that doesn't sound good to me any way you shake it! LOL. Have a blessed and wonderful week, and stay healthy. We are just getting over the bad bug and are so very thankful to be on this side of it.

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    1. I am so glad you are on the other side of the very bad bug.
      I have to look through the fridge and freezer to see what I have. I am still trying to stay away from people since so many people are testing positive for covid.

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  2. I'd be curious to get your eggroll in a bowl recipe! Never heard of it but it sounds wonderful!

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    1. I don't have a recipe but I can tell you how I make it.
      An onion julienne sliced
      Small head cabbage shredded
      Couple of carrots, grated
      3 or 4 cloves garlic, minced
      about 1/2 inch knob of ginger, minced
      olive oil for sautéing

      Cook the onions until they are soft, toss in the cabbage and carrots and cook till crisp tender. Add the garlic and ginger and cook until they are soft but not brown.

      Stir in a couple or 3 tablespoons sesame oil and mix well. Add soy sauce or tamari, about a teaspoon brown sugar, and a cup and a half of cooked ground chuck (mince?)cook until everything is piping hot, put it in a bowl and enjoy. If I have them I add beansprouts and grated bamboo shoots to the veggie mix, but I do not always have them.

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  3. I want the recipe for the chicken roll ups, those sound good, and I have so much chicken, and also a box of stuffing mix I got free at Thanksgiving.

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    1. Recipe? Surely you jest! I mix the stuffing mix with chicken broth until it hold together kind of like play dough. The stuffing is so salty the only thing I add when mixing it is a little more sage and a pinch of nutmeg. Then I take chicken (usually boneless skinless things) pound them kind of flat and put a glob of the stuffing in the center of the chicken (1/3 cup maybe), roll it like a jelly roll, stick a toothpick or two to hold it together, stick it in an oven safe dish, pour a little melted butter over it, shake a little seasoning (I use Harding poultry seasonings but any will do) Bake at about 350 until the chicken is done. I live dangerously and do not use a meat thermometer. I just poke it to see if it is done.

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  4. I was given carrots, pears, apples and leftover sausage and biscuit, and various other things. . I have eaten the pears, and the sausage and biscuit, I am cooking the carrots, along with sweet potatoes I had in a can, and a baked potato. Guess I will have a veggie supper. I stayed double masked at work and try to stay safe. I have no idea what else I may eat. I don’t like corn dogs but that was in the free package so I may eat that one night. I am not one to waste food. Cindy in the South

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    1. I would eat a corn dog for dinner. TheHub buys them sometimes when he is doing recreational shopping. He eats them mainly for lunch on the weekend, but sometimes we have them for dinner.

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  5. I was like that with a vegatarian TJ sausage once. Daughter bought by accident as they weren't vegan as they had egg whites. Normally I like most meatless versions, but not this. I hid them cut up in something and probably threw out.

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    1. We ate them and I will eat them for lunch because I hate food waste, but I will not enjoy them.

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  6. I was going to experiment, too, with the same idea. So, the beans were fine, needing no cooking for a long period? Now, I won't need to wonder.

    Since things either absorb moisture or dry out, I do the opposite of you. I put the beans in quart jars, freeze them for two days or two months, take them out and put them on the shelf. I don't know which is better, but logically appeals to me. I try not to leave the beans in the freezer so long, but my mind forgets them in the freezer.

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    1. I put the beans in the freezer right after I buy them to kill any little lingering critters. After that they live in a mason jar on the shelf until I cook them.
      The beans did need to cook a little in the chili but only as long as the flavors were developing. It was more to add the flavor to the beans.

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  7. I had a similar experience with Aldi chicken sausages. Some blogger had raved about it a few years ago, so I decided to try it. Yuck! I hated it and threw it all out. Yes, I did. I'm an extremely picky eater. Flavor is very important to me.

    I do the same thing with dry beans - freeze it first.

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    1. I live in bug country, so I freeze nearly everything for a couple of weeks.

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  8. I'm curious about your dehydrated beans. Did you think the effort in making them saved you enough time on the other end to do it again?

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    1. I will do it again, but you have to cook them like you would whether you were dehydrating or not. I mainly did it as an experiment, and in the dehydrating process the beans split a little. I probably will do it again at some point and time, but the time savings was only because I did not have to cook them to add to the chili. I am at home a lot and as long as I remember to soak them before hand it is not a big deal to cook them.

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  9. Whether you stick to your menu or not, everything you make sounds delicious to me.

    Love,
    Janie

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    1. Some days the food is good and some days it is fodder. We eat not matter what and we are not picky about flavors so with the exception of beets, bananas, and liver, I will cook just about anything.

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  10. I had to ask Captain Google about Sloppy Joes. It is not a name we use here.
    I am sorry about the Chicken sausage - and admire your fortitude in eating it. I am not sure I would. Waste or not.

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    1. The sausage was not good and TheHub will not eat them again. All I do at lunch is just shovel whatever is leftover down, so I will finish them.

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  11. We have access to lots of COVID tests at home (it's an attachment to your phone), so we test everyone regularly & it still gives me angst every time we do it. Negative, for today at least.

    That sausage does not sound good at all. I keep wanting to make caulitato salad, but haven't gotten around to it yet. One day!

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    1. Glad you are negative!
      I actually prefer the cauliflower version to real potato salad and I always have a cauliflower in the crisper.

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  12. Your meal plans always sound so good! Last week's meals worked well for me; need to come up with a plan for this week. There will be chicken and there might be some soup; other than that, I've no idea!

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    1. I always look at your meals and my mouth waters. They are so exotic!

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  13. I never thought about freezing dried beans to kill the bugs; never thought about bugs in them. Would rinsing and cooking deal with that? The caulitato salad sounds interesting; just googled some recipes. I do a dressed cauliflower with a curried cheese sauce that has become a favorite. I found a beef roast that had been in the freezer for >1 yr so this week is beef dip, beef stroganoff & probably a soup using up the last of it. I enjoyed a beef & onion sandwich for lunch the other day. There's a corn salad and the remains of a hash brown casserole in the fridge.

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    1. I just figure since dried beans are an unprocessed product with occasional stones and dirt in the bags, there is a good chance some latent critter eggs are in there too. I stick flour, cornmeal, oatmeal, pasta, etc in the freezer fro a couple of weeks.

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  14. My boring daily meal plan for one. 9:00 AM Slim Fast, 11:00 Zone Cinnamon Roll Bar, 1:00 Schwan's frozen dinner or pizza, 3:00 Honey Crisp Apple, 5:00 left over lunch, 7:00 Sugar Free Jello with Cool whip lite. You can see how exciting reviewing your daily plan is to me.

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  15. Your menus for the week always sound good to me. Best to stay home!!

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    1. I am staying home, but I am really getting tired of it. I need contact with others

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  16. We had a similar experience with cheese queso sausage, bought it once and neither my son nor I liked it. I think I tossed that last one out. But I wonder if it wouldn't work in a soup - I don't think you'd have the same texture issue...maybe?

    I love your recipes...a little of this and a bit of that and a lot of whatever happens to be on hand. I've never heard of freezing beans though I suppose that's probably a good idea.

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