Shen’s Kitchen

Weekly Menu Aug 30th

The school year isn’t crazy yet, but just wait! It’s starting up with the parent meetings, back to school night, homework will be kicking in one of these days. This week has back to school night, and temps in the 90’s again. Bring on the crock pot and the grill. The long labor day weekend also means extra time with the family, and the weekend looks gorgeous!

Monday: Halibut with Tomato Basil Sauce. This looks like a great use of the end of summer bounty. How do you go wrong with tomato and basil?

Tuesday: Pork with Mushroom gravy Crockpot pork roast and leftover mushroom gravy from last week. I’ll mash some taters and it will be good.

Wednesday: Grilled Seafood Packets The link is for my inspiration. No one here likes clams outside of chowder, and I’m allergic to shrimp. Fortunately individual packets means individualized dinners with no worries!

Thursday: Chicken and Lentils Best crock pot meal ever! So easy, so good. Throw it all in the pot, have some bread on hand at dinner time, and everyone can serve themselves when they’re hungry. It’s great for those nights when chaos is reigning.

Friday: Vegetarian Pizza night Home made bread and everyone makes their own personal sized pizza. Everyone wins by choosing their own toppings.

Saturday: Lemon-oregano chicken another backyard bounty recipe. My oregano is growing wild.

Sunday: Italian Marinade Salmon A simple but tasty meal.

Back to school- Bring on Indian Summer!

This is back to school week for us. While most of the country has been sweltering all summer, here in California we’ve had unseasonably mild temperatures. So for the first week of school, the fog abandoned us and it is going to be HOT 95° - 100+° this week. This is what I remember from my childhood. Freezing summers and just in time for school to start - we roast. It was totally unfair.

However it also means I really don’t want to heat up the house by cooking inside. Enter the grill! Over the fall we remodeled the back yard and have an outdoor kitchen with a grill connected to the natural gas line on the house. No more worrying if the tank has enough gas. It’s brilliant! So the menu this week is designed to keep the house cool, check it out:

M Trout w/ garlic and onions (grill baby grill!)
T carne asada tacos this inspired me. I’m going to put it in the crock pot
W grilled garlic chicken w/ roasted veggie linguini — We’ll roast the veggies on the grill with the chicken
T grilled veggie sandwhiches
F Tilapia and fresh herb butter fresh veggies and salad
S steak with broccolini and sweet potato gratin. It should cool off by the weekend for me to bake the gratin. If not, crock pot!
S chili-lime chiken un-kabobs Un-kabobs? Yeah. I think I have the only kids that don’t like meat on a stick. So I just grill the chicken breasts and the veggies and serve it up.

That’s what we’ve got! How do you keep the house cool for dinner?

Menus! Two weeks in one.

I didn’t post my menu last week. Not because I didn’t make one, I was just a busy girl. I got called into Jury Duty! Of course everyone (who didn’t find a way out of it) knows what that means. Your entire schedule is up in the air! So just in case, EVERYTHING on my menu last week was of the quick and easy variety. Either crockpot or thrown together in 30 minutes or less. Even if you don’t have Jury Duty looming in your future, these are great recipe ideas to keep on hand for days you KNOW are going to be slammed.

This week for us is the last week of summer. Kids go back to school well before Labor Day this year, so our lazy days of summer are at an end. We still have some great summer foods on hand though so here’s the menu for this week:

M Shish Tawook Chicken I modify this for dairy free since I can’t have yogurt.
T Zuchinni “crab” cakes The Maryland girl in me likes this one, because Maryland blue crabs are very hard to come by out here!
W Fish Tacos
T Turkey Stroganoff A great knockoff idea using turkey instead of beef.
F Trout with onions and garlic
S End of the hockey season party. Playoffs finish up, so a celebration is in order.
S Black Bean Burritos

And for those curious about last week, all these throw together fast and simple. I had dinner on the table in 30 minutes or less for each meal.:
8/9-8/15

M SW chicken salad (super fast with either leftover chicken or grab a whole rotisserie chicken on the way home)
T Spaghetti and Meatballs
W Cashew Chicken (stir fry is a fast way to a meal)
T Lentils and Sausage (Crock pot al lday)
F Salmon with Mango Salsa (make the salsa in the morning to let the flavors blend)
S Black Bean Burritos
S BBQ! Ranch chicken

Weekly Menu Aug 2

My menu did not want to make itself this week. But in a moment of cuteness by (almost 10 year old) daughter chimed in for Veggie sandwiches, her favorite. When I said she always wants Grilled Veggie Sandwiches, she replied

“Yes, because they are grilled healthy yumminess.” HA!

So while I was rather wishing for a personal chef this week to just write my menu for me, I finally worked out the menu.

8/2-8/8
M Indian Fish Curry, indian saag
T Grilled Veggie Sandwhiches
W Grilled Bruschetta Chicken
T French Dips, 3 bean casserole
F Lentil Tacos
S Garlic Trout, Wild Rice Salad
S Southwest Chicken Salad

Summer is still in mellow mode, but school is starting up soon and I have to start considering lunch options for the kids, myself and my husband. I may start playing with menus to make sure I have lunches for husband and myself for work days.

Weekly Menu 7-26

The great thing about menu making is the flexibility. I’ve got a plan, but I don’t have to follow it exactly. There are weeks where, such as this week, we got to have an impromptu dinner for two when both kids happened to be absent at dinner. Things get shuffled around, and what is still nice, is that I have the ingredients still for That Which Did Not Get Made, so it just gets moved to this week. An easy start to menu planning.

This weeks challenge was that my husband will be gone on a business trip all week. I tend, as most moms tend I guess, to cater a bit more to my kids when the husband is gone. Less fish because my son doesn’t like fish, no real new dishes, instead sticking with things I know my kids basically like. I still try and maintain some standards! It’s not like I resort to hot dogs and macaroni. shudder So the plan for this week:

M: Black Bean and Corn Quesadillas
T: Garlic Grilled Chicken
W Loatian Eggplant with Tomatoes and Mint
T Raspberry glazed chicken
F Out for family birthday dinner
S Gourmet Backyard Burger Buffet with friends
S cornmeal crusted tilapia w/wild rice salad

I think it’s a good balance, I’ll still post the wild rice salad recipe when I get around to that meal. I gotta use the salsa I bought for it, so it will get made this week.

Vacation recovery mode

I’ve been a very bad girl. It’s been way too long since I’ve posted, but I am working on being more active here. Balance has not been easy for this busy mom. I’m trying though.

At the end of this absence has been a 3 week vacation. We stay with family, lake side on the east coast. Now, I’m a California girl. I freely admit it. I eat WAY differently than most people in the rural area I stay at. Compounded by the fact that a: I’m not in charge of the menu and b: we have to cater to two grumpy old men with picky palates, my diet while here has not, shall we say, been the best.

So I’m home, and the menu is all about DETOX! Or, at least eating better and getting back to more whole fruits, veggies and grains, much of it raw. Before I had left on vacation, I had talked with my husband about working our diet around to a plant based diet. Not vegetarian, or even vegan, but a diet where the meals are centered on the plant based options, not the meat. So I am working towards devising menus where the vegetables and grains take center stage, and the meat becomes the side dish. I’ll be posting menus here weekly as my reminder as well as the kids responses to the change. I’ll be making these changes gradually, not instantly. I’ll be starting by planning in advance all the side dishes as opposed to saying OK, tonight is ranch chicken and decided what will go with that when I get to the store.

So my welcome home menu for the remainder of this week has been planed as such!

W Roasted Veggie Linguine
T whiskey tenderloins w/ raw broc-cran salad, garlic potatoes
F Grilled Veggie Wrap
S cornmeal crusted tilapia w/wild rice salad
S Ranch Chicken w/ green beans, quinoa tabbouleh

So there we have it! A nice balance of fish, vegetarian, chicken and beef, with whole grains and veggies. I think the flavors of everything will blend nicely together. When I make the wild rice salad, I’ll post the recipe of what I threw together and how it complemented the dish. As always, I’ll include the kids opinions in the reviews.

Creamy Asparagus Soup

Spring has Sprung!! Spring time means Asparagus. My in-laws heading to Hawaii for a week means they left me with two big bundles of fresh asparagus! Did you know Asparagus is a member of the lily family? I didn’t either, but it’s true!

Great for your heart, filled with folate, potassium and low in sodium, Asparagus is also a natural diuretic. So ladies, if you puff up like a blow fish certain weeks out of the month, have some Asparagus soup.

Soup is a fast and easy way to deal with an abundance of this lovely veggie.

2 bunches of Asparagus, chopped into 1 inch bits.
One onion chopped
Garlic if you like it
5-6 Cups of vegetable broth

Toss it all in a pot, bring to a boil, then simmer about 15 minutes or until the Asparagus is soft. Use a handy immersion blender (stick style blender) to blend it all together in the pot. If you don’t have an immersion blender, use your food processor or regular blender. Keep the batches small, and the lid vented so the steam can escape.

If you like roasted garlic, roast it first, then added it to the soup just before blending.

You can top it with croutons, or toast some garlic bread to have with your soup. If you aren’t dairy sensitive, a dollop of sour cream makes a nice garnish.

It’s all about the Jerky!

We’ve been discussing jerky in the house hold. Talking about getting a dehydrator, then, eventually, never getting around to buying one. So my mom comes to visit and brings down the dehydrator she had and told us all about making home made fruit roll ups, dried fruit, jerky etc for the 4 of us kids as we were growing up.

That I don’t remember ANY of this is totally irrelevant. What IS relevant, is that I have a food dehydrator! Prepare for an onslaught of jerky and dried foods recipes! (please share your favorites too!)

So first was beef jerky. I went to the store and got beef. Completely clueless, I just agreed with the meat counter lady when she recommended London Broil for the meat. She sliced it thin for me and I came on home.

I totally forgot to blanch the meat. I’m pleased to say, none of us died from food poisoning.

I made the marinade from the booklet, which consisted of soy sauce, brown sugar, spices and liquid smoke. For spices I used your basic granulated onion and garlic. I only marinated the meat for about 30 minutes, and the 4 racks of meat took about 5-6 hours to dry. I rotated the racks every hour.

My son all but kissed my feet. My boys, they LOVE their beef jerky. 3.5 lbs of meat, reduced to however much jerky, gone in 5 days. I’ll admit to rationing the meat for my son, or he would have plowed through it in one day. Plus, we had started P90X and they recommend a high protein diet the first few weeks to help burn fat. This added some nice tasty protein.

My second endeavor was Turkey Jerky. Lower in fat, but just as tasty. For the marinade this time I did equal parts soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce and added garlic, onion and ginger. (not much ginger, so I didn’t really taste it.) I let it marinate over night in the fridge. I wound up dehydrating it over night as well the next day.

We have a winner! Everyone loved this! It tasted AMAZING! Seriously, we’ll never buy Jerky again. The 1.5 lbs of raw meat, dehydrated, lasted us 3 days. (keeping my boy in check, of course)

Tonight, I’m marinating in about 1 cup of pinapple juice, .75 cup soy sauce, ginger, garlic and coriander. The marinade was yummy, hoping the meat will be too. I’m letting it marinate over night again.

Weekly Menu March 22

Another crazy week. Hockey is in the home stretch, kids are picking up new lessons, everyone is busy! Busy mom’s plan ahead, so here is my plan!

Monday: Bruschetta Salmon
Tuesday: Pineapple Teriyake chicken (crock pot)
Wednesday: enchilada casserole
Thursday: Chicken & Lentils (Crock pot)
Friday: Lemon Garlic Tilapia
Saturday: Vegetarian Lasagna - Red
Sunday: home made pizza

It seems like a lot of cheese for this lactose intolerant household. But I have discovered the joy of Raw cheese! If you avoid dairy because of lactose intolerance instead of allergy, you might give this a try. After 20+ years of having to avoid cheese because of lactose issues, I can eat Raw Cheese with absolutely no side effects! Best yet, it doesn’t trigger the addictive “must eat MORE” reaction that pasteurized cheese creates. So I can eat a little and not fight cravings for the next week. This is a win all around! (and makes me wonder what the devil they do to pasteurized cheese. It’s a scary thought!)

Weekly menu - the protein plan!

This week, I took my nice happy routine menu planning and threw it in the blender. We started a new workout program here in Shenshome, and it comes with a nutrition program. I have to work this in and somehow eat more than I usually do, and WAY more protein than I usually do. We’ll see how this lasts. To add to the fun, THREE hockey games to attend this week, plus a school event at dinner time. It makes for some pretty crazy planning.

Monday: Broiled salmon with rice and asparagus
Tuesday: Broccoli Beef Stirfry
Wednesday: Veggie burgers with home made coleslaw
Thursday Chicken and Lentils
Friday: I went old school, traditional steak and potatoes. I hope it doesn’t rain!
Saturday: Conrad’s Porkchops. No I don’t know why they’re called that. I should ask my mom. Its an old family favorite recipe.
Sunday: Southwest Chicken Salad A kid favorite, you can find that in the salad section of this website.

Only one veggie night, and one fish night. I’m hoping by the end of the week I’m not going “I’m so sick of meat.” I’ll be glad when the high protein portion of this workout schedule is done. I need more veggies in my diet!