Mendolonium

Oh the weather outside is frightful…

OK. Not exactly, but tonight’s low is predicted to be 48 degrees and here in southern California that means fall is finally here. I, for one, am thrilled. Late fall/early winter is my favorite time of year. One of the main reasons I love this time of year is the myriad of excuses (holidays, gatherings with friends and family, the house is cold, I am cold) to cook and bake up a storm. This week is all about soup. I had a hankering for minestrone soup this afternoon about 4:00 this afternoon. Unfortunately, I have never made minestrone soup. I pulled out my cookbooks and was quite disappointed in all of the recipes; none were vegetarian, they all included copious amounts of cabbage (one of my least favorite vegetables), and it seemed that they were going to turn out too watery for my taste. So I put the cookbooks back on the shelf, thought “what the hell”, and started to improvise. After some slicing, dicing, and simmering, the result turned out fantastic. And the best part is the tomatoes, herbs, zucchini, and carrots were all from our very own little farm.

Wednesday

• Thick and Hearty Minestrone Soup
• Grilled Provolone Cheese Sandwiches

Thursday

• Veggie Burgers
• Roasted Rosemary Potatoes
• Corn on the Cob

Friday

• Penne with Spicy Marinara Cream Sauce and Chevre

Saturday

• Butternut Squash Ravioli with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce

Sunday

• Black Bean Soup
• Cornbread

Monday

• Baked Potatoes with Steamed Broccoli, Carrots, Butter, Sour Cream, Chives, and Cheddar Cheese

Tuesday

• Out to Eat

About 50% of the meals I planned out last week, still sounded appetizing to me on the night I was supposed to cook them.  Given that I’m pregnant I’ll call that a success!  This week’s plans are:

Tuesday

• Spicy Penne with Broccoli

Wednesday

• Slow Cooker French onion soup.  This is a new recipe I am trying.  I really love a good French onion soup so I hope this one is good.
• Baby Lettuce Salad

Thursday

• Seasonal Vegetable Stir Fry
• Brown Rice

Friday

• Black Bean Burgers
• Oven Roasted Rosemary Potatoes

Saturday

• Thomas’ 2nd Birthday Party!
• Build-Your-Own Bagel Sandwich
• Bulger and Wax Bean Salad
• Black Bean and Corn Salad
• Berry Medly
• Homemade Baked Yukon Gold Potato Chips
• Turtle Cake

Sunday

• Seasonal Veggie Fajitas

Monday

• Thomas’ 2nd Birthday!
• We’re spending the day at Disneyland so we’ll be going out to dinner.

You might have noticed that the weekly menu hasn’t been around for weeks.  Blame this little guy (or girl).

I have been so nauseaous that I haven’t been able to figure out what I want one hour before dinner, much less one week before.  Sadly, one of my strongest food aversions has been tomatoes, a fruit I love in my non-gestating state.  We got over 400 tomatoes off our our plants and I think I have had less than 10.  I could barely stand to look at them as food much less eat them.  They did not, however, go to waste.  Besides the valiant efforts that Jeff made eating them fresh I was able to make liters of sauce as long as I treated it in my mind as simply a “procedure” to be followed, akin to doing a chemistry lab, rather than as making food.

Mercifully, at 17 weeks pregnant, the nasuea is finally dissapating and I feel up to the weekly menu challenge again.  This week we’re eating:

Wednesday

• Sloppy Lentils
• On homemade hamburger buns using this bread recipe divided into one loaf of bread and 6 buns.  They turned out really well and are much cheaper than the ones I usually buy.  I’ll definitely be making a habit of doing this myself from now on.

Thursday

• Farmer’s Market

Friday

• Shahi Paneer
• Brown Rice
• Nann
• Mango Lassi

Saturday

• Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper Spread (a spread I canned from our tomatoes and peppers earlier this summer) and Chevre

Sunday

• Black Bean Soup
• Cornbread
• Salad

Monday

• Baked Potatoes with Cheddar Cheese, Sour Cream, Green Onion, and Steamed Brocolli and Carrots

Tuesday

• Takeout or Out to Eat

Apropos of nothing, a quick story: We got home from a dinner out last weekend and Jeff announced to Thomas that he was going to “start a bath” [for Thomas].  Thomas replied “Dada draw Thomas bath”.  Jeff and I both laughed and looked at each other perplexed.  Jeff wondered out loud when Thomas had picked up English mannerisms.  Then I noticed Thomas standing with his crayons and paper drawing water with a blue crayon.  Ah, now we see, he wanted Jeff to draw him a bath.  Now on to the menu.

Thursday:

• My rheumatoid arthritis has seemingly been flaring this past week and I just wasn’t up for the walk to the train for the farmer’s market so Jeff suggested dinner at one of our favorite restaurants.  I was a bit concerned about how Thomas would do.  This is a nice restaurant – the kind with a wine cellar and without a kid’s menu – and it was already 7:30 pm.  But he did great – a perfect dining companion!  Thomas noshed on the fruit from a fruit and cheese platter, tried olives, and enjoyed some of Jeff’s mashed potatoes.

Friday:

• Seasonal vegetable and chevre calzone

Saturday:

• Black bean burgers
• Corn on the cob
• Peach cobbler

Sunday:

• Spicy potato stuffed peppers
• Nann and paneer “pizzas”
• Mango lassi

Monday:

• Seasonal veggie fajitas

Tuesday:

• Breakfast for dinner.
• Pancakes
• Veggie “sausage” patties
• And if I am feeling ambitious – a tofu and veggie “frittata”

Wednesday:

• Vegetable pot pie with cheddar biscuit crust