30 Days of Dinner - Week Two

Week two of our challenge has come to an end, and it ended on a great note - Beef Tenderloin Steaks and Kimchi Mash. This week's grocery list was a little more expensive, because there was more meat, including the beef tenderloin. Here are my thoughts for this week, followed by our favourite recipe.

Banana Spice Cupcakes

I decided to see how the cupcakes would be with banana instead of apples. For the recipe I used the same one here, except I substituted one cup mashed bananas (about 2 medium bananas) for the one cup shredded apple.

Brent says that these cupcakes are just like muffins, however, he also says muffins are just cupcakes without icing. Because I usually put chocolate chips in my banana muffins, I decided to make a chocolate cream cheese icing.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing
- 1/3 cup butter, softened
- 1/3 cup cream cheese, softened
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups icing sugar
- 1/2 cup cocoa

In stand mixer or bowl, beat butter and cream cheese together, add vanilla and icing sugar and cocoa. Beat until well blended and smooth.

These turned out pretty good, I think I'll be bringing some of them to study group tonight because I cannot be eating cupcakes every day!

30 Days of Dinner - Week One

Week one of our September challenge is complete, and it was great. As mentioned earlier, for the month of September we are following the Canadian Living 30 Meals for 30 Days. We printed out the grocery list and have followed the calendar for the week. The groceries for this week were about $100, and that gave us dinner each night, with leftovers for lunch. Here are my thoughts for the first week, along with our favourite recipe from the week.

Apple Spice Cupcakes

Molly and I are headed to a friends place for lunch tomorrow. I hate showing up empty handed, plus I've been looking for an excuse to bake, so I said I would bring dessert. This recipe is adapted from the September issue of Canadian Living.

Apple Spice Cupcakes
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup almond milk (the recipe called for buttermilk but the almond milk worked well)
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp each cinnamon, ground ginger and ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp salt
- pinch ground cloves
- 1 cup grated and peeled apple (about 2 apples)

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing
- 1/3 cup cream cheese, softened
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups icing sugar

In bowl of stand mixer, or large bowl, beat butter until smooth. Beat in brown sugar. Add egg and vanilla and beat. Stir in almond milk until combined. In separate bowl whisk together dry ingredients. Stir into butter mixture along with apple until just combined. Spoon into 12 paper-lined muffin cups.

Bake in 375F oven until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean, 17 - 20 minutes. Transfer to rack and let cool. At this point you could pretend they're muffins.

For icing, beat cream cheese with butter until smooth; beat in cinnamon and vanilla. Beat in sugar until smooth. Pipe or spread over cupcakes.

You could probably substitute a cup of mashed banana for the apple and they would still be pretty good. Either way, Brent and I taste tested them and they are a great fall dessert.

1 Grocery Bag 5 Lunches

This article in Canadian Living promised that you could 'shop only once for an entire week of easy and deliciously different lunches the whole family will love'. Here is a rundown of our experience.

Day 1 - Fresh Orange Chicken Salad

This was a pretty easy salad to put together. The croutons were a nice addition that I normally wouldn't have bothered with. The instruction about the orange was a little confusing, and I had part of the orange down the garburator before I should have. Luckily I had purchased a couple of extra oranges so had enough to make the dressing. Red onions are nice, but maybe not so much if you are at work.

Day 2 - Cold Chicken Noodle Salad

In order to only have to grill chicken once, I had the two chicken dishes in a row, so this was technically Day 3 in the article. This was a really nice salad, even though I used a green pepper instead of a red. I also used very thin vermicelli because I had it on hand, but I don't think it changed the dish much at all. The dressing was a little garlicky, I felt like I had to brush my teeth 3 times before going out that afternoon. Again, maybe not the best for work.

Day 3 - Tomato and Chickpea Salad

We make chickpea salad quite often in our house, but this one was nice, again a little garlicky. The tomatoes were a nice addition because I would not usually add them to my chickpea salad.

Day 4 - Quick Vegetable Curry

This was a really nice dish, I used hot curry powder and mixed the yogurt and diced cucumber with a little lemon juice. It was a very nice addition to the dish. After the first 3 days I decided to use half the garlic, and it worked well.

Day 5 - Perfect Tuna Salad Sandwiches

Tuna salad is not something I normally like to bring to work, but I was eating at home so didn't worry about it. I did like the idea of putting the toppings on the sandwich at work so that the bread doesn't get soggy. I never would have thought of adding black olives to tuna, and it was actually really nice.

Overall the recipes all worked out well. Although I'm at home, it was nice having lunch prepared in advance every day. That way when I had a few minutes it was easy to grab and eat. There were a couple of things that I did want to point out though:

• Grocery list should include at least 1 or 2 packs of gum, many of the dishes would not be great if you work with clients or have meetings.
• The hands-on and total time for preparation was completely undershot. We quickly realized that if you had all the ingredients prepped (ie. carrots chopped, tuna drained, bread cubed etc.) then perhaps the prep time was accurate.

We are pretty good at packing lunches as it is, but it was fun to explore some different lunch ideas. I would definitely recommend this for anyone who finds themselves eating out 2 or more days a week. It definitely kept us on track.

Back To School

It's that time of year again, back to school madness is all around us. And this year it is back to school for me. With a 5 month old and a part-time MBA program, it helps to get organized, especially when it comes to meal times. With that in mind, I have decided to undertake two small challenges, that I found in the September issue of Canadian Living. The first is an article '1 Grocery Bag 5 Lunches'. So I sent Brent off to the grocery store, and day 1 lunch was great (Fresh Orange Chicken Salad). I will blog about the entire experience at the end of the week.

The second challenge is again from the same issue of CL: 30 Meals for 30 Days. With downloadable calendars and shopping lists, we will be following the meal plan for the entire month of September. This is the plan, and we'll see how it goes. I will keep blogging throughout.

In the meantime, here is a great way to start getting yourself organized. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has struggled with the dreaded spice rack. I have tried so many different contraptions, and different ideas on how to manage this, and every one has inevitably failed - until the latest. This idea came to me from my sister-in-law, and it is great. I love the way it looks, and it is easy to manage. It really makes me wonder why it took me so long to do this.

I've organized my spice rack using mason jars and labels. So simple. Another bonus, it forces you to purchase spices in smaller quantities. They don't last forever, so if you can find a bulk store that sells spices it's a great idea to start purchasing them as you need them. No more falling spices and sneeze attacks every time I'm looking for something.

Happy cooking!

Thai-Style Lentil and Coconut Soup

Brent got me this great cookbook a few years ago: The Complete Book of 400 Soups . Now, it would be great if June meant that soup season was over, however for those of us on the Wet Coast, summer seems a far off dream right now. So yesterday I opened up this book to try and find a soup that was a little different from anything I've made before. This soup is from the Hot and Spicy section, and I made a few modifications. Overall, a great lunch time soup for this dreary Juneuary.

Thai-Style Lentil and Coconut Soup
- 2 tbsp sunflower oil
- 2 red onions, finely chopped
- 1 chilli, seeded and finely sliced (the recipe called for a 'bird's eye' chilli, I just grabbed a random one, may have been a jalapeno?)
- 1 inch piece fresh lemon grass, outer layers removed and inside finely sliced
- 1 inch piece fresh ginger, chopped
- 1 cup red lentils, rinsed
- 1 tsp freshly ground coriander
- 400 ml coconut milk
- 3 3/4 cups liquid (I used half vegetable broth, half water, recipe just called for water)
- juice of 1 lime
- 3 scallions, chopped
- 1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
- salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in dutch oven and add onions, chilli, garlic, lemon grass and ginger. Cook for 5 minutes or until onions have softened but not browned, stirring occasionally.

Add lentils and spices. Pour in coconut milk and liquid, and stir. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 40-45 minutes, until lentils are soft.

Pour in lime juice and add scallions and coriander, reserving a little of each for the garnish. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

The original recipe did not call for ginger, but it just seemed like a natural addition to the flavours. I was also out of paprika, but don't think it missed the 1 tsp, although feel free to add it.

The soup is great, now if I could just find something to do with that second stalk of lemongrass I have!