Yummmmm. I also like kale, yellow raisins, and walnuts.
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Not sure what dinner will be. Yesterday I made pumpkin pancakes for “brunch” as I wanted something other than cereal. It was good but only used 1/3 of the can of pumpkin. My original intent was to take the other 1C of pumpkin and freeze it in 1/2C portions, for the pancakes.
Said to heck with that this a.m., again, I’m hungry and cereal doesn’t appeal. I have “pumpkin bread” in the small oven baking. Had a hard time finding a recipe that didn’t use 
. Since there’s only 2 of us and we’ll probably eat it in 2 days or so, 4 eggs was a bit much. I finally found a recipe using instead!
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I often do spinach, dried cherries, almonds, blue cheese and tomatoes all drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Yum.
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Ener-g egg replacer is my best friend! It works in almost all recipes and I tend to use it even when I have eggs on hand because it’s barely anything per “egg” vs 29c or whatever. Plus I can adjust up if I want. Even in something that I want an eggy flavour I’ve sometimes gone half and half.
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I’ve got Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer, which is soy flour I think. Is it the same?
This is a combo of starches and leavening agents. I’ve never used the bob’s; but soy flour seems less useful?
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Tonight’s dinner and part of my marketing was determined by what was a freebie at the farm and on salvage at the market. At the farm? I grabbed about 2 lbs of spinach. At the market, I got 2 bags w/2 each artichokes.
The spinach + avocados (on sale) are the base for my usual cold spring soup. Per person: 1 avocado, approx. 1/2 lb spinach, 2 cups water + 1/2 the amount of better than bullion or 1/2 broth/1/2 water, about 5 drops tabasco. Wash spinach, separate stems from leaves, but don’t discard, unless discolored. Remove flesh from avocados, put avocado in the bottom of a large blender jar. Add about 1/3-1/2 of the spinach leaves/stems, shredding a bit as you go. Add 1/2 the water/broth mix. Put on the lid. Buzz til smooth. Add the remaining spinach and liquid. Put the lid on, tightly.
Buzz again until smooth. Sprinkle in tabasco, buzz or stir in the hot sauce. Serve!
We had an artichoke bush in the back yard where I grew up. No avocado. A neighbor had a huge avocado tree, you could see it from the street. It grew avocados the sizes of grapefruits. I was always envious. They now own a winery and I wonder if the tree was an influence?
Anyway, I love the cold avocado/spinach soup. It isn’t mine, but I can’t find the cookbook authors/title to put it here, sorry!
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I’ve been chipping away at emptying my freezer and it’s as close to empty as it’s going to get! I have a lot of space I’m itching to fill. I have been trying a different strategy each time I start over, last time I did freezer chili, freezer corn chowder, falafel, arancini, and I think that’s all? It was mostly pre-made food with less space for meat. I reached for the chili a lot because it’s so versatile. Please share your hearty soups (I don’t care for lentils and I want a soup with meat)! I think I want to reserve the rest of the space for meat sales since I’ve been buying larger quantities during sale times to compensate for the rising prices. It’s working, too, I haven’t increased our budget so far. Coming in right around $100 each week, around $120 when we also get household goods. So I’ll have less convenience meals in the freezer this time around…I might have to get some for the pantry then. Other than instant noodles, which I am always rich in.
And this was tasty, it’s super spicy chicken (homemade dry rub) and garlic, fresh salsa, and underneath is rice and beans (cooked from dried with ham hock). I scored big on ham hocks for my last HMart order!
once alone and once with some friends. So far 35 is v tasty!
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I am very jealous of your restaurant food, especially those enchiladas!
Do you like minestrone? That is one of my favorite soups to prep and freeze. I load it up with ground beef, Italian sausage, kidney and cannellini beans, it’s so good!
I also really like to prep and freeze chicken + sausage gumbo, though I leave the okra out when freezing it because it tends to really get slimy upon defrosting. I just add it in after heading up.
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I do love minestrone! That’s a good idea. GUMBO though. Now that sounds perfect actually. I haven’t made it in soooo long and I love it. Do you use a written recipe?
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Honestly I kind of wing it every time. In my family, gumbo is more of a soup/stew consistency than some of the thicker gumbo recipes that are out there. Sometimes I make a roux, sometimes I don’t…but usually it’s just about 2 pounds of chicken thighs (boneless skinless) cut into whatever size chunks you like, 1 pound of smoked andouille…brown those up then remove from the pot, brown 1 chopped onion, 1 chopped green bell pepper, a few stalks of chopped celery in the fat left from the chicken/sausage. I add a healthy dose of Tony’s at this point (1-2 tbs?? haha), a heavy sprinkle of thyme, and a bay leaf. Once that is nicely browned/soft, I add the roux in (if I made one) then the chicken/sausage, enough stock to cover ( 8-10 cups? Depends on how brothy you want it). I simmer it for 1-2 hours, until it’s a consistency/flavor I like and add the okra in the last 30 min or so…if I was freezing I’d leave it out. Serve with lots of gumbo file!
I’ve loosely followed the Serious Eat’s recipe before because I didn’t grow up making a roux at home (my mom is anti-anything that starts with 1 cup of oil 
) but it looks like they also have done a version where you make the roux in the pot after browning the chicken/sausage, and then once it’s ready, you add the chopped veg to brown in there. I’m sure either way works!
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Wow, thank you! I’m saving all of this for reference. I want to make sure I can get real andouille. And I love okra, good to know on the freezer though- will add after.
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When I still ate meat I made a lot of Caldo Verde inspired soups, with sausage, kale and potatoes (1 russet and a couple of Yukon Golds).
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Ropa Vieja freezes well and might be up your alley? Really depends on what meats you’ve got for using up!
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I need to find a vegetarian way of making this. I know, that is probably heresy… though my vegan red beans and rice that I made last night turned out REALLY well.
I guess I could use vegan sausage, but I don’t like vegan chicken.
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I love Ropa Vieja!!!
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Do you have a good recipe? It’s been ages since I made it, but we have lots of roasts from our latest 1/4 cow.
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- 2 1/2 pounds (1.1kg) beef flank steak or other cut that shreds nicely
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 3 tablespoons (45ml) vegetable oil, plus more if needed
- 1 large yellow onion (about 15 ounces; 415g), sliced
- 3 red, yellow, and/or orange bell peppers (about 8 3/4 ounces; 250g each), stemmed, seeded, and thinly sliced
- 8 medium cloves garlic (3/4 ounce; 25g), minced
- 1 tablespoon (15ml) tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/2 cup (120ml) dry white wine
- 1 (14-ounce; 396g) can peeled whole tomatoes in their juices, crushed
- 1 cup (240ml) chicken stock, plus more if needed
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 medium carrot, halved crosswise
- 1 celery rib, halved crosswise
- 1/2 cup (90g) pimento-stuffed olives, sliced into thirds
- 1 small handful chopped cilantro leaves and tender stems (about 1/2 loosely packed cup)
- Cooked rice and pinto or black beans, for serving
Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Cut flank steak into large pieces that will fit on the bottom of a Dutch oven in 2 batches. Season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat until shimmering. Working in batches, add steak and cook, turning, until browned, about 6 minutes per batch. Transfer steak to a plate and set aside.
- Add onion and bell peppers to Dutch oven and cook, stirring and scraping up browned bits from bottom of pot, until onion and peppers are tender, about 8 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute longer; lower heat and/or add more oil at any point if ingredients threaten to burn.
- Stir in tomato paste, cumin, oregano, and allspice and cook, stirring and scraping, for 1 minute.
- Add white wine and bring to a simmer, scraping up any browned bits from bottom of pot. Boil until raw alcohol smell has cooked off from wine, about 2 minutes, then add canned tomatoes and stock. Return beef to pot, nestling it under the liquid among onions and peppers, along with any of its accumulated juices. Nestle bay leaves, carrot, and celery into pot. Add more stock, just enough to cover all the ingredients, if necessary.
- Cover Dutch oven and transfer to oven, then let cook until beef is very tender, about 1 1/2 hours.
- Remove bay leaves, carrot, and celery from pot and discard. Remove beef from pot and, using 2 forks, pull apart into very thin, long shreds. Return beef to pot, stirring to combine with vegetables and cooking liquid.
- Stir in olives, return Dutch oven to medium heat, and simmer until juices have reduced just enough to coat the beef in a rich, saucy glaze. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in cilantro, then serve with rice and beans.
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The soup last night yielded enough for 2 meals, so we’ll have some of that tonight too. Not sure what else? No more artichokes…
I also need to make some of my Dragon Scale soup for the freezer. It will use up most of the potatoes in the house and at least 1 of the bags of spinach. It’s a spinach/potato soup and can easily be made vegetarian if you want.
We had a big green salad with an avocado, cilantro/lime dressing. It’s good! I like the soup better, but the dressing was good and we ate all the salad in the bowl on the table.
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Thanks for the recommendations all! I think I will shoot for gumbo first 
which I’ll probably make the week after next so I can get everything I need.
Meal plan for this week:
Breakfast: Hash Brown Parmesan and Green Onion Frittata / Breakfast Tacos (corn tortilla, scrambled egg, jalapeno, pepperjack, cilantro, sour cream, hot sauce)
Lunch #1: Sausage Vegetable Soup Leftovers (this soup was just ok, not great, but I still want to finish it!)
Lunch #2: Kale Salad (parmesan, almonds, cranberries, croutons, italian dressing, crispy chicken skin, peppers) + Homemade Bread w/ Butter
Dinner #1: Pork & Mushroom & Carrot Dumplings w/ Lotus Root + Ginger Cabbage Slaw + Dipping Sauce
Dinner #2: Creamy Chicken Bacon Pasta (tomatoes, garlic, tomato sauce, parmesan, cream cheese, artichokes, bell peppers, red pepper flakes, other spices)
Dinner #3: Freezer Falafel + Ajvar Feta Naan
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