Sunday, August 8, 2010

Meal plans and the week ahead

We're looking forward to more fun things this week. This morning, we'll be going to church for my cousin Megan's daughter's baptism. Marty, Megan, and Haleigh live in Virginia now, but they wanted to do Haleigh's baptism here in the church they've gone to for a long time with their friends and family. This will be our first time meeting Haleigh, so we're very excited to be a part of such a special day! After church, we'll be going over to Marty's dad's house for a lunch celebration. Monday night, we'll be going out to my Aunt Jeri's to get together with just our family to spend some more time with Marty, Megan, and Haleigh. Tuesday I'm going to Zumba. Wednesday is Kevin's mountain bike night. Thursday, my cousin Jessica will be stopping over so I can show her where everything is and the routine with the animals since she'll be staying with Jet and Denver for a few days while we're in Colorado. We don't have any plans on Friday, other than picking up our CSA order. Saturday we'll be heading over to Forrester, a little town on Lake Huron in the Thumb for the re-marriage of my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Jim.

As for extras this week, I'll continue to preserve as much as I can. Last week, I froze beans, zucchini, carrots, celery, onions, and bell peppers; lacto-fermented salsa, sweet pickles, and more beans; canned tomatoes, salsa, and cream of celery soup; and dried lots of herbs - purple basil, green basil, rosemary, celery leaves, german thyme, sage, oregano, tarragon, and parlsey. I need to freeze more corn this week - both on and off the cob. I'm planning to make one of the sourdough cakes that are coming up in this week's Sourdough E-Course. And I'll be canning some more cream of celery soup and trying out a new pasta sauce recipe to can using the celery and tomatoes I'll be picking up with our CSA on Friday. I'd like to do another few quarts of the lacto-fermented salsa, too. And I might attempt creamed corn at some point, as well.

Sunday - Haleigh's baptism
(feed sourdough starter; make water kefir and dairy kefir; make crispy walnuts in dehydrator with soaked walnuts)
B: omelets with yogurt cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, and avocado
L: Haleigh's baptism after-party
D: grilled salmon; raw corn and avocado salad; grilled zucchini; honey rock melon

Monday - family get-together to see Megan, Marty, and Haleigh
(feed sourdough starter; make dairy kefir)
B: hard-boiled eggs; cheese slices
D: at my Aunt Jeri's

Tuesday - WAPF meeting; Zumba
(soak flour for sourdough cake; make water kefir and dairy kefir)
B: kefir fruit smoothies
D: crockpot split pea soup; zucchini yeast rolls from freezer

Wednesday - Allen St. Market; Kevin's mountain biking night
(make sourdough cake; make dairy kefir)
B: rhubarb banana rosemary muffins from freezer
D: leftovers or salads

Thursday - Jessica coming over
(make lacto-fermented salsa; make water kefir and dairy kefir)
B: scrambled eggs with veggies
D: quiche with ham, spinach, and whatever veggies I have on hand

Friday - pick up CSA order
(make and can pasta sauce; make dairy kefir)
B: kefir fruit smoothies
D: pork souvlaki; corn ceviche; roasted cauliflower and cabbage; applesauce

Saturday - wedding in Forrester
(make and can creamed corn?; make water kefir and dairy kefir)
B: scrambled eggs with pesto
L: stuffed peppers; fresh fruit
D: wedding reception

2 comments:

The Voogts said...

Nice work on all the canning/fermenting. I'll really need to get going on that when we get back! We've already got tons of tomatoes from our garden. I'm packing the freezer so I can make sauce when we get back. I can't believe it's August and I haven't canned a single thing yet! All of your meals sound great. Are you making the chocolate sourdough cake? Seems to be the talk-of-the-town on blogs lately :) I'll have to try it for sure. Did you watch that surf 'n' turf ceviche video? Looks good! Are you taking the course? It sounds good, but I'm not spending the money on it right now.

I see you're making a raw corn salad. Sounds so good! I actually tried raw corn for the first time last week. We had some on our salads on Wed. (when I decided to not do much cooking b/c it was so hot). Wow! I never knew it was so good raw. So sweet! I'm actually realizing how good so many veggies are raw. The last couple days I've been feasting on raw zucchini, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and avocado. Mmmm :) Everything except the avocado is from our garden. I love summer.

Sounds like your dairy kefir is going ok now? I'm glad I've finally been able to eat/drink it again this past week. I've had smoothies for breakfast the last 3 days :) Gotta get some good bacteria in my gut before we leave :)

I'm anxious to hear about your creamed corn. I haven't had any in ages. I used to love it. Sounds really good right now.

Have fun at your festivities.

Sara said...

I'm not sure if I'm going to do the chocolate cake this week, or the spice cake. I think probably the spice cake, but we'll see what I feel like when the time comes. I have the ingredients for either.

I have not watched that ceviche video yet, but I've seen mention of it on so many blogs. Guess I should go watch it. I want to take that e-course, too... but don't want to spend $100 on it.

I LOVE raw corn. I've been making my normal raw corn salad for my lunch quite often... which actually I just went looking for right now and see I never did post it last summer... I thought I had. The corn ceviche is a raw corn salad, too. I love all the raw veggies this time of year, too. Makes me wish I lived in a warm climate so I'd have them year round! Your tummy must be handling the raw veggies better now?

Yep, the dairy kefir is going better now. I finally did some reading about about two weeks ago and figured out I was using way too many grains. Only need a little bit for only a cup of milk that I've been doing. So once I reduced the grains back, it has been going much better. I'm hoping to get a post up tomorrow about it - as part of the fermentation week for Preserving the Summer's Bounty. We'll see... I still need to take some pictures, though... :)