Meal Plan - 2/8/16-2/14/16

Hi Everyone!

I hope you've had a fabulous week.  I made some updates to last week's meal plan blog post on reviews of the new recipes or ideas, so go check that out!

Here's the plan for next week:

1) Freezer Meal - Slow Cooker Barbeque.  I made this a while back and froze half of it or so, so we need to use that up.  So this will be a nice easy meal.  I'm going to make some tasty sweet dinner crescents to go with it. (Note: These rolls freeze very well so I will probably freeze half for later.)

2) Baked Potato Soup and Basic No Knead Bread - meatless meal for either Wednesday or Friday.  (Ash Wednesday is next week.  Can you believe it?!)  I'll leave out the bacon on the soup.  I'm excited about trying the bread, which is a new recipe for me.  I had it at my aunt's house and it was delicious.

3) Cheese Pizza - another meatless meal for either Wednesday or Friday.  I will use my regular pizza recipe but not put any meat on top.

4) Make up some of my grandma's house dressing and eat that on salads throughout the week for lunch.  I've been adding some lunch meat or whatever meat I have with some lettuce, tomato, and shredded carrots, and that makes a tasty lunch.

5) Need to make up some more chocolate chip muffins for the husband's breakfasts.

6) Last but not least, we decided to have some friends over for the Superbowl.  So, I decided I'm going to have fun with it and make some yummy things.  I've never tried these pretzel bites (though I have made regular pretzels before), but they sound delicious.  And then I'll make up some of those crescent wrapped smokies.  Should be yummy!  And then we will have some other easy snack foods to go with it.

I hope you have a blessed week!  Please comment below if you have any good recipes for me to try!

Nannie's House Salad Dressing

Nannie’s Vinegar and Oil Salad Dressing

1 clove minced garlic

2 T cider or red wine vinegar

1 t sugar

1 t salt

1 t dry mustard

½ t pepper

6 T canola or vegetable oil

Combine all ingredients in a jar and shake well.  Refrigerate.  

Basic No-Knead Bread

Basic No-Knead Bread

From Ann Byrne

6 cups bread or all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface

½ teaspoon active-dry yeast

2 ½ teaspoons salt

2 2/3 cups cool water

In a large bowl, combine the flour, yeast and salt.  Add the water and stir until all the ingredients are well incorporated.  The dough should be wet and sticky.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.  Let the dough rest 12-18 hours on the counter at room temperature.  When surface of the risen dough has darkened slighty, smells yeasty, and is dotted with bubbles, it is ready.

Lightly flour your hands and a work surface.  Place dough on work surface and sprinkle with more flour.  Fold the dough over on itself once or twice and, using floured fingers, tuck the dough underneath to form a rough ball.

Generously dust a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with enough flour to prevent the dough from sticking to the towel as it rises.  Place dough seam side down on the towel and dust with more flour.  Cover with the edges or a second cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours, until it has doubled in size.

After about 1 ½ hour, preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Place a 6-8 quart heavy covered pot, such as a cast iron Dutch oven, in the oven as it heats.  When the dough has fully risen, carefully remove the pot from the oven.  Remove the top towel from the dough and slide your hand under the bottom towel; flip the dough over into the pot, seam side up.  Shake pan once or twice if dough looks unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes.

Cover and bake for 25-30 minutes.  Uncover and bake 4-5 more minutes or until the crust is a deep chestnut brown.

Meal Plan - 2/1/16-2/7/16

Hi Everyone!  Here's my plan:

• Breakfast
• Pancakes and Waffles
• I will make enough batches to use 2 quarts of buttermilk and freeze most of them in gallon ziplocks.  Then when we need more breakfast food, I just take out and put in the fridge.  I use the microwave for the pancakes and toaster oven for the waffles.  Makes for easy breakfasts!  We usually also have fruit with breakfast.
• Dinners
• Jambalaya 
• My husband really enjoys this one.  It's on the weekly list.
• Cilantro Lime Chicken (Slow cooker recipe) 
• Will make 2 lbs worth.  I made this a few weeks ago and it's tasty!  I'm serving with warm tortillas (by placing tortillas in a wet paper towel or 2 and warming for 30 seconds). 
• Cilantro: I froze some cilantro the last time I made this by adding a little oil, blending it, and freezing in an ice cube tray.  I'm going to try using the cilantro ice cubes and see how that goes.
• Update 2/4/16: The frozen cilantro cubes worked out great!  And it kept me from having to buy cilantro twice and do all the work of removing the stems, etc.
• Lime Cilantro Rice 
• To go with the Cilantro Lime Chicken.  I use bottled lime juice.
• BBQ Glazed Meatballs
• This is a new one for me.  I'm excited to try it.  
• I will cut the recipe down to 8 servings to use only 1 lb meat.  I will also cut the brown sugar down by half per the first review.  Finally, I will use regular milk instead of evaporated milk.
• Update 2/4/16: The Husband really enjoyed these.  I thought they were pretty good.  I will probably double the sauce next time and also serve with rolls, per my husband's request =).
• Will serve with Ranch Roasted Potatoes (I use russets).
• Roasted Carrots - side one night.
• Superbowl food:
• Probably courtesy of Dominos! =)
• I will also need to make more yogurt at some point soon.  I make it about every 10 days.  I do sweeten it now, so I use my recipe above but then add 1/2 c. to 3/4 c. sugar and 2 vanilla (per 8 c milk).  I add these after heating the milk while it's cooling down, but before adding the yogurt starter.

Jambalaya

Copycat Zatarain's Jambalaya

Serves: 4

Adapted from: http://www.lifesatomato.com/2014/04/27/copycat-zatarains-jambalaya/

Ingredients

For the spice mix

1 c uncooked long-grain rice

1 t onion powder

1 T dried parsley flake

1 1/3 t beef bouillon granules

1 t minced dried chives

1 t dried celery flakes

1/2 t pepper

1/8 t cayenne pepper

1/2 t garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

For the jambalaya

2 cups water

Spice mix from above

8 ounces tomato sauce

1 pound smoked sausage, cut into rounds

Instructions

Combine all ingredients for spice mix in one bowl.

In a large saucepan, bring the water to boil.

Add the spice mix and stir.

Return to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 15-25 minutes or until the rice is tender.

In another saucepan, combine the tomato sauce and sausage and cook on low for 10 min., just enough to heat through.

Combine both pans and mix well. If the sauce is too thick, add a bit of water and stir.

Recipe - Buttermilk Waffles

Buttermilk Waffles

2 eggs

2 c buttermilk

1 t baking soda

2 c flour

2 t baking powder

½ t salt

6 T oil

Heat waffle iron while mixing batter.

Beat eggs well.  Beat in the buttermilk, baking soda, flour, baking powder, salt, and oil.  Beat until smooth. This is a thin batter.

Bake in hot waffle iron for about 5 minutes per batch.

Recipe - Buttermilk Pancakes

Buttermilk Pancakes

From Ann Byrne

2 eggs  
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoon sugar
2-2.5 cups buttermilk (use 2 ½ if use chocolate chips)
4 Tablespoons vegetable oil

Preheat griddle to 360°.

Combine flour, baking powder, soda, salt and sugar. Beat egg. Add buttermilk and oil to egg. Add buttermilk mixture to dry mixture. Whisk until just moistened - do not over stir! Add chocolate chips here if you want.... :)

For each pancake, pour about 1/4 cup batter onto a hot, lightly greased griddle. Turn pancakes when tops are covered with bubbles and edges looked cooked.

Yield: 16 (4 inch) pancakes