Menu Plan: Week of September 30

This week starts the 30-day plank challenge and Husband Jeff is doing it with me. I signed up for the website's updates so I was able to print off a tracker sheet to keep tabs on our progress. I highly suggest you try it, too! 

• Monday - salads, carrots from the farmers' market, slow cooker cheese ravioli
• Tuesday - Husband Jeff and I start the plank challenge, salads, green beans from the farmers' market, and the BBQ tempeh sandwiches that I planned for last week but we didn't actually have.
• Wednesday - eye of round steaks, Brussels sprouts from the farmers' market, salads
• Thursday - hard boiled eggs and sweet potato pancakes
• Friday - ?
• Saturday -  Husband Jeff and I are attending Ron & Rachel's wedding in the evening so we're covered with dinner there.  My friend Renae will be in town at some point in the weekend, hopefully I'll get to see her! 
• Sunday - Sonny D and I will hit the north side farmers' market as per usual.  In the afternoon my best friend's kids are coming to visit while she's in town. I also wouldn't mind catching a little of the Packer game. 

Another Fitness Challenge: Holding a Plank

I enjoyed the virtual climb up Mount Corcovado that I did in August and September (finished just after Labor Day) so when I found this 30-day plank challenge, I decided I would try it.  I can already hold a  variety of plank positions and I do them regularly in my Saturday morning Core Fusion class, but it would be fun to challenge myself to advance to longer holds and more difficult versions. 

I like that this starts on October 1 and is only a month long.  I like the specific amount of time for the challenge.  I am worried that I'll forget to do it, so once again, I'll set my phone to remind me each day. 

Try it with me!  Check the plank challenge page to see the examples, it starts with the easiest and tells you how to make it harder if you need it.  Push yourself to see what you can do!  Holding the plank position is great for your abdominal muscles, so you'll get a good mini workout. 

Silky Baba Ghanoush

We grew eggplant in our garden this year and I have found I love it!   The eggplant Parmesan was great, I made it two times in one week.  So I wanted another dish that involved eggplant, and you can't get any more "pure eggplant" than baba ghanoush since it's eggplant puree, similar to hummus.

Inspiration

Slender Kitchen baba ganoush (eggplant dip)

This recipe normally calls for tahini (sesame paste), since I had to recently throw my super-expired jar out, I figured I would replace it in the same way I did when I made homemade hummus, by adding sesame seeds and sesame oil, but in this recipe it didn't work so great.

Ingredients

• 1 eggplant
• 1Tb sesame seeds
• 1Tb sesame oil (I wouldn't use this, made it too "Asian")
• 2Tb lemon juice
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tb EVO
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Fresh black pepper

Directions

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  

spritzed eggplant in the oven.

The recipe calls for throwing the whole eggplant in the oven, but I was afraid it might blow up even after poking it with a fork, so I cut them into quarters lengthwise and put them on a baking sheet.   I thought they might need a little help to brown, so I added a spritz of coconut oil.

Browned eggplant.

Roast the eggplant for 20-25 minutes or until it's soft and gushy.  Scoop the flesh out of the skin and put the eggplant innards into a food processor with the rest of the ingredients.    Process until smooth.

Eggplant puree.

Verdict

Creamy and good, but too Asian.

I liked it, but the sesame oil was too much, it was quite "Asian" in flavor.  I've already browned my eggplant for my next batch and I will definitely leave out the sesame oil.  I eat the dip with slices of red bell pepper, it's a fresh and healthy snack and surprisingly quite filling.

Korean Ribs in the Slow Cooker

I threw this recipe together with the intention of cooking the ribs all day in the slow cooker and then finishing them off on the grill.  I couldn't find the recipe I've used previously, so we skipped the grill step and just ate them straight from the slow cooker. 

Inspiration

Savory Sweet Life authentic kalbi
I cut this recipe down to one third the original amount since I was marinating my ribs in a bag, which allows you to remove the air and the marinade touches more of the meat.  I also reduced the amount of sugar since I don't like sweet combined with meat, this was sweet enough for us.  I wasn't sure if the red pepper in the recipe was the standard-pizza-topper crushed red pepper or Korean gochujaru.  I went with the Korean version since this is a Korean recipe, plus it's not too spicy. 

I also skipped the green onion since I didn't have any, but otherwise I had everything else on hand to make this marinade. 

Ingredients lineup

Ingredients

• 1/2 c soy sauce
• 2T brown sugar
• 2T sesame oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 onion, slices
• 1T sesame seeds
• 1/2 tsp gochujaru (Korean red pepper flakes) or 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• 4.45 lbs pork spare ribs

Directions

Put the marinade ingredients in a gallon freezer bag and the meat.  It's that easy! I let mine marinade overnight in the refrigerator.

My ribs with cauliflower mash

In the morning, I dumped everything from the bag into the slow cooker and cooked it on low all day.  I served it with cauliflower mash.

Verdict

The ribs were great, a little sweet and super flavorful.  I wish I could have found the recipe I've used previously where you finish the ribs on the grill, but this was great.  I loved the end pieces that stuck out of the cooking liquid, they were brown and dried out a little and perfectly chewy.  All three of us really liked this.  I can see the appeal of ribs, they were so tasty, but I don't like all the fat.  I would definitely use this marinade on pork in the future, maybe a pork tenderloin on the grill. 

The cauliflower mash was a neat match-up with the ribs since they weren't American-flavored ribs, but rather Korean.  I think maybe next time I would try the cauliflower mash with some parsnips and horseradish for a way to cut the sweet and richness of the meat. 

Menu Plan: Week of September 23

This should be a relatively quiet week except Husband Jeff is going to be away for dinner for a couple evenings so I get to wrangle Sonny D all by myself (god bless the single parents, I don't know how they do it!). We're also trying to plan a date night since we haven't had one in a while. 

• Monday - I bought a fresh lemon to make creamy crockpot lemon chicken and I figured I had better hurry up and use it while it's still good. I'll serve it on pasta along with salads. 
• Tuesday - Jeff is away for work so I think I'll make pesto fresh from our garden with pasta since it's one of Sonny D's favorites. I'll also make hot dogs (one of my favorites, I like light Kosher dogs) along with sweet potato fries.  On Thursday I'm participating in a potluck for a coworker's promotion and I want to make a vegetarian chickpea pesto soup for my dish to share but since I'll be busy on Wednesday, I want to make it tonight.
• Wednesday - Jeff is away again during dinner time and I've got PiYo class so I'm going to make a quick dinner of a frozen broccoli and beef Asian meal for Sonny D and I. 
• Thursday - Jeff and I are planning a date night at Dobhan to use a discounted restaurant gift certificate.  
• Friday - I'm going out for a moms' night out at Pasqual's and I figure Husband Jeff will opt for his usual meal choice of pizza.
• Saturday - During the day we're going to Applefest with another family. I'd like to try making BBQ tempeh sandwiches for dinner.
• Sunday - We'll go for our usual morning visit to the north side farmers' market and then over lunch/early afternoon our adoption social worker is throwing a big party at a local farm because she's retiring. We'll be taking our own lunch but since I've never done a cooler weather picnic, I'll need to reasearch ideas for what to pack for us.  For dinners on the weekend, I always have trouble deciding what to make.  Usually by the end of the week I'd prefer to have a really simple meal of something like soup and melt sandwiches, but the weekends are also the time when I get a lot of time to prep dinner and let it cook for a while.  This might be another simple day, or it might be something a little more involved.  We'll see what happens when Sunday gets here!

Eat Your Vegiges in a New Way: Cauliflower Mash

When I made Korean ribs for dinner I needed more to go with it. Lately the veggie of choice has been salads, but we were out of greens so I dug in the freezer to see what our other options were.  I went with a bag of butternut squash and a bag of cauliflower. I didn't like the microwaved butternut squash, it was just a gloppy mess. But the cauliflower I turned into cauliflower mash.

I've got other recipes bookmarked but I those were all for fresh cauliflower and all I had was a bag of frozen.   So that's how I ended up with this recipe.

Inspiration

 The Clothes Make the Girl mashed cauliflower

I switched out the coconut oil for butter and used regular milk. 

Directions

Cook the cauliflower in the microwave as directed on the package.  I added a splash of water and actually used the auto-cook feature on my microwave that is specific for frozen veggies.

Frozen cauliflower in the casserole dish.

 After cooking, I drained the bit of water off, added some garlic, herb blend, butter, fresh black pepper and a splash  of almond milk.

Cooked cauliflower with garlic, salt, pepper, herb blend, and butter.

Then I whipped it up with the blender attachment for my immersion blender.   Added a sprinkle of salt and tasted it, a dash more salt. Serve!


Sonny D helped me make this.  I thought it was going to be a huge mess splattered all over our kitchen using the immersion blender in the baking dish because usually I need to use a container with tall sides, but it was actually fine.  

Looks like mashed potatoes.

Ribs and cauliflower mash.

Verdict

Sonny D loved this so much he had two servings. I liked it a lot too.  Husband Jeff ate it, but didn't love it even though he normally likes cauliflower. 

You can't really try to pass it off as mashed potatoes, to me it still obviously tasted like cauliflower, but it's a nice way to eat it. And we ate a lot more than I expected, there was only about 1/3 cup leftover, which was still good reheated. 

Tangy Ancho-Jalapeño Lime Jelly

My scribbled recipe that I refined as I worked. 

After my first jelly-making and canning success, I was so excited to make more!  I wasn't sure what my next project would be until Husband Jeff mentioned we have a ton of peppers in the garden that we needed to harvest.  In the past we've grown peppers, but then we end up without any plans to use them, and they go bad, so I felt particularly guilty until I realized a spicy pepper jelly would be a great way to take advantage of the surplus of peppers.

He picked all the good peppers and brought them inside, we had so many that they overflowed the cake container I put them into.  Unfortunately this recipe only used four big ancho peppers and four small jalapeños, but I made another batch later to use up another eight peppers.

This was my first low-sugar pectin recipe.  After tasting it, going the low-sugar route is totally my preference since it's not as tooth-achingly sweet as when you use regular pectin, which needs a lot of sugar to gel up. 

Inspiration

Ball canning pepper jelly
You Grow Girl zippy mixed pepper and lime jelly

Ingredients

• 4 big, non-spicy peppers, about 2 cups chopped (I used Ancho San Martin since that's what we grew but standard bell peppers would be fine too.)
• 1/4 c chopped onion
• 4 spicy peppers, chopped  (I used jalapeños)
• 1 c cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup lime juice (2 limes)
• 1 c sugar 
• 1/2 c honey
• 1 1/2 tablespoons low-sugar pectin

Directions

Jars in boiling water to sterilize.

Wash and sterilize jars.

Chopped peppers and onions.

Chop peppers and onion in food processor.  Since I didn't know what our peppers were like, I tasted each one as I cut it up so I knew what I was working with.  I was glad I tried them because I added another jalapeño since a couple of the others weren't too spicy.  

Vintage citrus juicer and limes.

Add the chopped peppers and onions to a large sauce pan and add cider vinegar and lime juice.  Add pectin and bring to a full rolling boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Add sugar and honey and return to fill boil.  Boil hard for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.  Skim off any foam if necessary.  

Peppers, onions, cider vinegar, lime juice. 

Put jelly in jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe rim and add lids.  Screw on bands to finger tight. 

Tangy jelly mixture, ready to go in the jars.

Process jars for 10 minutes in the boiling water.  After the 10 minutes are up, turn off heat and let the jars sit in water for 5 minutes. Remove from the water and place on two kitchen towels on the countertop.

Verdict

So cool! I've been so excited to make jelly and then can it.  Unfortunately this jelly wasn't spicy, but I like the tangy flavor.  It's not extremely green pepper flavored, which is nice because that can be too assertive of a flavor.  It's good on buttered toast.  I tried it on a roast beef sandwich but it was a little too sweet.  But it's certainly not as sweet as my wine jelly recipe, which is good.  I'm going to continue with making jellies with  low-sugar pectin since there's no reason to use all that sugar.