The Week Ahead

I did some serious cleaning in my freezer and fridge over the weekend. I wanted to start with a clean slate for my meal planning. On tap for the week is...

Trio salad plate- egg salad, tuna salad and chicken salad on mixed greens
Lemon pepper roasted chicken, green beans w/ shallots
Steamed veggie dumplings w/ a honey-chile dipping sauce and egg drop soup
Three-cheese quesedillas w/ salsa, tortilla soup w/ leftover chicken
and this recipe from http://tammysrecipes.com/spinach_tortillas , for spinach wraps.
I have been snooping around www.tammysrecipes.com for quite some time and I just don't know where to begin!! You should check it out, too.

Happy cooking

Tales from the Pantry

Well you've seen my pantry. Now these are some of the things that come from it:

salad dressings-bleu cheese, vinaigrettes

Buffalo style wing sauce

pasta dishes/pasta salads

pancakes

waffles

biscuits

scones

quick breads

cinnamon rolls

Red Velvet cake

Angel Food cake

lemon/lime curd

muffins(peanut butter, spice)

tacos/taco salad

soups-black, veggie, roasted red pepper

potato dishes-scalloped, mashed, hashbrowns

sauces

gravies

quiche

casseroles-tuna, salmon

salmon patties

cookies-sugar, peanut butter

crackers-peppered, mustard seed

dipping sauces-chili

These are just to name a few. I'm sure if I sat down and took my time, I would come up with more. Any ideas you see?? Hope this inspires you.

By the way... dinner tonight was stuffed bell peppers w/ flavored rice. I made lemon bars for dessert. Have a happy weekend!!!

The Great Steak Out....

Sorry, I couldn't resist the pun. Dinner today was another quick one. Chipmunk requested steak so I did a little shopping, in the freezer that is. I had purchased some New York strips to have for dinner one night but we ended up eating somethinge else.

Tonight we ate grilled New York Strips, creamy three-mushroom sauce and smashed potatoes w/ a small salad on the side.

It's What's for Dinner...

Tonight we ate three-cheese quiche( Parmesan,Cheddar and Romano), green beans w/ shallots and crescent rolls. Didn't have to make any emergency trips to the store because everything I needed was in the pantry. Man, that felt great to say!

The quiche recipe was from my Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book that was given to us as a wedding gift, many, many moons ago. But you can also go here, http://www.bhg.com/ and search under recipes.

Happy cooking!!

My Pantry Essentials

So my goal for at least five of the seven days is to cook our meals at home. This will hopefully save us on eating out. Right now, we don't eat out that much, but I would like to get our eating out down to about twice a month, then down to none-yeah right!

Here's my list of pantry essentials. Again, this is my list, yours will definitely be different:

milk

lemons

heavy cream/half and half

limes

unsalted butter

flat leaf parsley

eggs

celery

grated Parmesan cheese

potatoes

bacon

onions

cheddar cheese

shallots

mozzarella cheese

garlic

flour tortillas

canned biscuits

baggeg salad-mixed greens

crumbled blue cheese

sour cream

plain yogurt

vanilla-flavored yogurt

chili powder

frozen broccoli

ground cinnamon

frozen corn

ground cumin

frozen chopped spinach

grill seasoning

nutmeg

dried oregano

paprika

canned black beans

red pepper flakes

canned tomato paste

ground red pepper

tomato paste (tube variety)

dried thyme

canned salmon

dried rosemary

dices tomatoes

sea salt

canned tomato sauce

kosher salt

tuna, packed in water

coarse black pepper

chicken stock,low sodium(boxed)

white sugar

brown sugar

turbinado sugar

short-cut pastas

all purpose unbleached flour

long-cut pastas

fast acting yeast

white rice

baking soda

brown rice

baking powder

hot pepper sauce

dijon mustard

Worcestershire Sauce

roasted red peppers

peanut butter

mayonnaise

bread crumbs

olive oil

blended oil

unfiltered, organic honey

vinegars-red wine,balsamic, cider, white

lemon juice

red wine

white wine

Now, with all of this in my pantry, dinner doesn't take that long to get ready. With proper planning, we are usually eating in about 30 minutes.

Dinner tonight was leftover sliced boneless leg of lamb over mixed greens with a vinaigrette dressing, something along these lines, http://www.vinaigretterecipe.com/.