Kitchen Notes Prep Wordk- Day 7 Apple Sauce and Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage

So I'm having a Pork Chop tonight with Sauteed Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage and Apple Sauce and Sunday I'm having Beef and Bean Burritos and a Green Salad.

I made the apple sauce this morning. I put a couple of pieces of lemon peel in it some cinn. and some ginger candy that I get in the Oriental section, and some agava for sweetening.

I had some Ajuki beans in the freezer. I noticed them when I did my inventory yesterday and also some hamburger. So I sauteed the hamburger with my whole made Taco Seasoning and then added the beans. I'm using this to fill Burritos tomorrow. I really don't know much about Burritos, I don't usually make them, but I have some low carb tortillas I'm trying.

I also made a green salad to go with the Burritos.

Edit-After a little rest I made coffee custard.

I prepped my red cabbage and some red onion for the Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage. I basically saute the onion to carmalize and then add the cabbage and when it's about half done I add some Balsamic vinegar for the sweet sour component. I add a little at a time so that it continues to carmalize and not steam. Yummy.

I'll probably add another veggie to the Pork Chop dinner, maybe some frozen broc I have.

I also prepped the pork chop by seasoning it with some Bay seasoning I got from Penzeys and S&P.

I sliced up some avocado for my burrito dinner and I'm marinating it in lemon juice, will add to the salad probably.

My dd brought me some lovely raw milk yesterday and I thought about making a custard or pudding but got tired. Maybe I'll make that later today.

So my meals are ready to go not only for today, but for tomorrow and the kitchen has been cleaned. I still want to inventory my small freezer out in the garage and the chest freezer, but I'll probably do that next week. It's a big project.

Kitchen Notes- Prep Work Day 6 Mixed Fruit

Well I'm having left overs today, but I did make some mixed fruit. I like to squeeze orange juice over it to add some sweetness and some juice and help keep it from turning brown. My dd is coming over and we are trying some new tea she has so she can have her choice of fruit or chocolate mousse.

I started doing a new inventory of freezer this morning during my prep time. I have 2 small freezers and 1 med sized chest freezer. I have so much in them it's hard to find anything. I want to make sure I use a lot of it before the new growing season. The Ratatouille did not look good after I defrosted it, too slimy so I won't freeze that again. I'm learning that some vegs. just don't freeze as well unless you are putting them in a stew or soup. They really break down and esp. if they have been cooked.

Kitchen Notes Prep Work Day 5 Tuna Salad and Baked Apples

I had some of that good tuna left over and so I decided to make a tuna salad and popovers. I mixed the tuna with red onion, celery, hard boiled egg and capers. I made a dressing with mayo, some dijon mustard, dill and a dash of vinegar (one of my wholemade herb ones), S & P. I will make the popovers later. I'm using the recipe in Fanny Farmers. FF is my go to standard cookbook.

I'm also making baked apples. I also looked in FF for a recipe. I'm using SF DaVince syrup caramel instead of sugar. I put in a lemon peel and a cinn stick in pan along with a little tea I had left over. The recipe called for water and so I though why not use my tea. You cover with foil and bake for 30 at 350 or til done.(edit-it took an hour) I'm using two different kinds of apples to see how they do. One is Fuji the other is Pacific Rose. I normally would use a baking apple, but this was what I had.

I cleaned out frig today and checked out my left overs to see if I had ignored anything. I may freeze the rest of the soup. I might want it tonight, so I'll wait and see, but I'll freeze whatever is left tonight.

Kitchen Notes-Prep Work Day 4-Chicken Veg. Soup

I've been putting my gd's to work the last two days when I do my prep work. This morning I decided to make soup. I'm calling it the kitchen sink soup. I started with chicken broth and some leek ends that were left over and frozen for future soup. I added some water and I'm letting that cook for a while. My gd cut up celery and carrots for me. I also took out of the freezer sauted leeks, green beans and zucchini slices. I plan to add some garlic too. I will take the leek ends out and add the other ingredients and some herbs and seasoning and just let it simmer for a while. Hopefully it will be good.

I also made a small salad for tonight. I was planning to have the pasta and Ratatoulli, but my tummy was kind of upset last night so I may have the soup instead.

Kitchen Notes-Prep Work Day 3-Chocolate Mousse

This morning I didn't have to do prep for tonight dinner. I did it yesterday. I'm making Chicken Fried Rice. So I decided to make a dessert. I made my dd's recipe for Chocolate Mousse. Here is a link to her White Chocolate Lemon Mousse I couldn't find the Chocolate one, but you just leave out the lemon and use bittersweet choc. instead of the white choc.

I also thought about what I want to make tomorrow and I want to use some leftover pasta. I love to make a big pancake of pasta and fry it until crispy on each side so I was thinking about what I could serve with it and I remembered I had Ratatouille in the freezer, so I took that out to defrost.

KItchen Notes-Prep Work Day 2-Nicoise Salad

I ate left overs on Sunday and so I didn't make salad, so I made it this morning. I had romaine lettuce already washed and cut up to that I added my cooked gr. beans, potato and hard boiled egg. I also put in the nicoise olives and tomato. I add my tuna later. I get a more expensive good tuna for this. The dressing I'll add just before I eat it. A Lemon Vinaigrette with Capers.

I also had some left over chicken, veggies and brown rice, so I cut up the veggies and chicken for a stir fry on Tues.

I can see one of the benefit of this prep is remembering to use left overs. I have a lot of pot roast left, but I've eaten it twice so I froze the left overs this morning in freezer bags.

Kitchen Notes- Prep Work-Pot Roast

I'm going to start trying to develop the habit of prepping in the morning for the meals later in the day. I'm going to do this for 30 days and hopefully by then it will be habit. Sundays will be exempt. I'm going to do it right after breakfast. I'm using this blog to keep myself accountable. So all the posts should be labeled Prep Work for those who don't want to read them.

Day 1- I bought a chuck roast the other day fairly cheap, so I was thinking about how I use to make a pasta sauce with chuck roast. Basically you cooked you made a meat sauce and added the chuck roast whole and cooked them together. The roast was cooked until it fell apart. I don't have ground meat for a meat sauce and so I decided to just try and do an Italian pot roast. So I sauteed onions and garlic, then seasoned the meat with S&P&Italian Seasoning. I browned it with the onions on both sides. Then I added 18oz. can tomato sauce and 1 8oz. can of diced tomatoes. I also added about a 1/2 can of water. I added more seasoning and I cut up a green bell pepper and added that just because I like bell pepper. So I'm cooking it in my enameled cast iron large pot on top of the stove, at a low simmer for 3 hours and will be checking it along the way to make sure it doesn't need more liquid. Edit-Didn't need more liquid, but cook for another hour.

I'm going to make Nicoise Salad so I steamed some green beans and some yellow potato. I'm having it tomorrow, so I still have to hard boil an egg and then I can just put the salad together at the last minute.

The Perfect Recipe-Beef Stew

I tried another recipe from this book and I thought it was going to turn out really good, but there were several things I didn't like about it, so I'm giving up on this book. I'm going to try and find another one to cook from.

Granddaughter's Tea

Everything was great. I especially liked the shrimp salad. My gd brought the mushroom brie and crackers.

Shrimp Salad

spinach (about 2-3 cups)

1 scallion chopped

1 cup pea pods steamed and chilled ( you could just do them raw)

1 avocado sliced.

1-2 cups baby bay shrimp

Balsamic Vinaigrette

1/4 c. olive oil (this depends of how much spinach or greens you have)

1 T. balsamic vinegar (this depends on how sweet or tart your vinegar is)

S & P to taste

Actually the way I make my salad dressings is I drizzle on what looks like enough oil to coat the greens, but not too much and then I put in a splash of vinegar, bigger if the vinegar is mild and carefully if it is strong. I do tend to try and use milder vinegars. Then I add the sprinkling of salt and a few grinds of pepper. I was taught to put the oil on first and coat the greens. This method works best for me, but admittedly it takes a few times to know how much. If I'm adding mustard or other flavorings like garlic I do it in a small bowl and whisk it or in a shaker bottle.

Kitchen Notes-Granddaughters Lunch/Tea

I got the Chocolate Orange Custard made. It's very nice. I used the Fanny Farmer's recipe for Chocolate Custard and just added 2 tsp. orange zest and the juice from 1/2 a med. sized orange to the eggs and sugar mixture. I tried melting the chocolate in a double boiler and then adding it after the hot milk was incorporated. It worked better, but it still isn't totally mixing. It tastes good though.

I also made the Chicken Salad. She didn't want the curry and we decided to leave out the orange because I was putting it in the custard. So I added a little apple cider vinegar to the dressing to thin it out a bit and add a little flavor. I also left out the scallion because they will go in the shrimp salad. I added a little more apple and toasted almonds and dried cranberries. I tasted it and it is good. My chicken salad is better since I started using some dark meat roasted and I leave some of the skin on.

I went shopping and changed the Shrimp Salad to spinach instead of the romaine I was going to use. I realized the chicken salad has a creamy dressing and I don't want both salads to be creamy so I'm going to do a balsamic/ lemon vinaigrette and I did get avocado and the baby shrimp.

Instead of mixed fruit I'm making Fruit Kabobs with pineapple, pear, banana, kiwi and drizzled with caramel sauce (store bought, did you know it has HFCS in it, next time try to make it).

I'm making the Shrimp Salad and the Fruit tomorrow.

Granddaughter's Birthday-A Luncheon For Just The 2 Of Us

For gd's birthday lunch/tea I'm making my Chicken Salad without the orange. Shrimp Salad, Mixed Fruit and Chocolate Orange Custard. She requested the custard and the chicken salad.

For the Shrimp Salad I'm making a green salad and then topping it with shrimp, chopped celery and pea pods, scallions and a sour cream/mayo dill dressing. Oh I forgot I was going to add avocado, but I didn't buy it, so if I can get a ripe one tomorrow I'll add it.

The fruit is going to be frozen raspberries, banana, and apple.

I'm doing the Chocolate Custard I did before and just adding orange zest and a little orange juice. I think it will be good as long as I don't over cook it.

The Perfect Recip- Stir Fry with Lemon Sauce

I made the Stir Fry with Lemon Sauce. I liked the way she did her stir fry it's the way I was taught to do it. I'm not so sure about the lemon sauce, it's ok but not my favorite. She has a generic stir fry recipe and you just add the meat and veggies you want and then she has several different sauces, so I think I will continue to try other stir fries with other sauces.

I forgot how messy it is to make a stir fry. There is a lot of prep work. The cooking part is pretty easy.

Cooking With Pam Anderson's The Perfect Recipe

I've always wanted to really concentrate on one cookbook and cook everything in it that intrigued me so I decided to do it this year. I choose The Perfect Recipe by Pam Anderson and I'm starting with Stir-Fried Lemon Chicken with Snow Peas and Mushrooms. I don't feel I can post the recipes here because they are copyrighted unless I make it my own. I looked for it on line but didn't find it. I'm sure you could find her book in the library if you wanted to try any of the recipes. So I went shopping this morning. I only want to cook economically and low carb. The groc. store I went to didn't have snow peas and so I'm using peas instead. In the beginning of her section on stir fries she has several sauces and this recipe uses the Lemon Sauce. It should be good. I won't be making it until tomorrow. I have a habit of comparing recipes and then coming up with my own version and I may do that. When I looked this book up on Amazon it had a different cover, they may have updated it. Mine is an older copy.