Meal Plan for the Week

I prefer fresh squeezed orange juice in the morning.

Finally, Thursday's Meal Plan For Ya'!

I've made the meal plan, done most of the shopping, and I'm wiped. Now I'll share with you all what I'll be cooking up this week.

One of the meals this week will be made for the Tried and Tasted Blog Event happening over at Fat Free Vegan. I'm going to make one of her meals, with my own modifications. Tried and Tasted was created by Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen. I'm excited to finally participate in a blog event, especially since I love the recipes over at Fat Free Vegan. The meal I'm making from her is the Double Mushroom Miso Soup and Sesame Broccoli. Instead of using white mushrooms and buying dried shiitake mushrooms, I'm going to go pick up a bunch of locally grown mushrooms at Costco. The mushrooms come in a variety pack, and are somewhat expensive. However, they will be worth it. I don't buy mushrooms often, so I might as well go for the good local stuff.

Have I told you all yet how important it is to me to buy as much locally grown and produced food as possible? Well, it is an important part of my cooking philosophy. In fact, I just gave a presentation on eating locally and organically to help mitigate the climate crisis. If anyone would like to see the powerpoint and/or read my notes on this please feel free to e-mail me. I can also point you in the direction of some really great resources on the topic.

One great way to buy locally is to go to a farmers market. I've got an interview in front of me, from Parade Magazine, with Tom Wilsack the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture and former governor of Iowa. He said that he is working to make sure "that food stamps an be used at farmers' markets." (Parade, May 3 2009).

If there aren't any farmers markets near you, look for farm stands, roadside produce stands with honor boxes, and of course check your nearby grocery stores for locally grown produce and locally raised meat products. Even buying locally processed products is a good idea because they don't have to have as much packaging or refrigeration to get to the store as do products that come from half way across the country or globe.

I also promote eating fewer meat based meals each week. Last week was a bit meat heavy for us, with a lot of chicken in our meals. So, this week we're cutting back.

I'm sure you've been wondering when I'd get off my soap box and finally show you the meal plan, and since I've set it up so nicely now:

Thursday Dinner: Local Style Chili (contains local green bell peppers, local onions, and local ground beef, local Portuguese sausage, and all organic canned beans)

This is a chili based on the chili sold at Zippy's restaurants and in the grocery stores here in Hawaii. This makes a ton, and will be good for the meat eaters who are dining here tonight. Plus, the leftovers will help restock the freezer.

Sunday Brunch: Mother's Day

• Scrambled Local Eggs
• Buttermilk Biscuits (gluten-free of course)
• Roasted Local Zucchini with Local Onions
• Local Strawberry, Local Blueberry, Local Banana and Organic Yogurt Parfaits (no granola)

Friday-Wednesday (minus Saturday as we'll be out and about)

• Double Mushroom Miso Soup, Sesame Broccoli, Brown Rice
• Channa Masala (didn't get eaten this week)
• Crockpot Honey Lentil Soup (I'm bulking this out to refill the freezer)
• Gim-Bahp Korean Sushi
• Crispy Sweet and Sour Tofu

Shopping:

6--Onions*

1lb--Spinach*

4--Zucchini (yellow and green)*

16oz--Strawberries*

1 pint--Blueberries*

2 small bunches-Bananas*

1 bag--Organic Carrots

2--Green Bell Pepper*

1lb--Ground Beef

2 bags--Lentils

12oz--Tofu*

2--Portuguese Sausage*

1 carton--Pasture Raised Eggs*

2 cans--Organic Kidney Beans

2 cans--Organic Chili Beans

1 can-- Organic Garbanzo Beans

1/2 gal--Organic Milk

1 qt--Organic Nonfat Vanilla Yogurt

1 1/2 qt--Organic Ice Cream

2 bars--Chocolate

1 Toblerone (impulse buy)

Total=$89

* indicates locally grown, produced, or raised

I still need to buy the mushroom, and I'm not sure how much they'll cost. I'm also doing my Costco trip early this month and getting some tomato paste, laundry soap, and salsa. Although, I am considering making my own salsa. It will be more expensive, but it will cut back on snacking on tortilla chips.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Orange Desserts

Orange Cupcakes

Tuesday night was a crazy night. Somehow I missed 2 ingredients I needed for the beef curry, so I had to pull some food out of the freezer. Luckily I had cooked up some brown rice to go with the curry. Dinner turned out tasty, and very healthy, but not what was planned. We ate homemade chicken soup with brown rice and a delicious salad with homemade dressing (a basic vinaigrette).

I don't like having to pull food from the freezer because it means there is less in there for times when we really are having a food emergency, and it pulls from the lunch supply. It also means that I have to somehow make more food for the freezer out of the recipes for the week without going over budget.

Last night we finally had the curry, but I used green bell peppers in place of the red bell peppers. Since it was a Thai red curry the red bell peppers would have been tastier. Silly me also went to the grocery store yesterday and forgot the fresh basil for the dish because I didn't write it on the board. I ended up using dried. The meal still tasted delicious, but it certainly wasn't pretty enough for me to think of taking pictures of it.

I used the green bell peppers because red ones aren't in season here yet, and the ones the grocery store had are from Mexico and didn't look ripe enough. I know that green bell peppers are simply unripe red peppers, but I had just been listening to "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and so I also would have felt rather guilty buying peppers from Mexico when there were perfectly good looking green peppers from Hawaii sitting right next to them.

As you can see from the picture at the top of the post I am not a food photographer, but there was something worth taking a picture of. In fact, there will be two pictures in this post. The picture at the top is from Tuesday night. I whipped up some orange cake cupcakes from Karina's Kitchen. Silly me didn't want to wait for the cupcakes to cool, nor did I chill the frosting, so it just slid right off. It didn't even completely act like a glaze. However, the icing was so good that it didn't end up in the garbage. In fact, I ate 3 the night I baked them, bargained for half of one from the Nerd after lunch yesterday, and had one last night. When there are gluten-free baked goodies around I can't help myself. It's probably a good thing that I don't bake that often or else I might turn into a giant cupcake.

The recipe can be found here, along with a much prettier picture.

Karina's Kitchen- Recipes from a Gluten-Free Goddess: Orange Creme Cupcakes - Vegan and Gluten-Free

Last night's dessert was beautiful, delicious, and healthy. The Nerd's sister brought over 2 medium size pumpkins which I should have taken a picture of. They were allowed to sit for nearly 10 months after being picked, so the flavors really had time to develop and the pumpkin sweetened nicely. The pumpkins were supposed to become a side dish for the curry, but I decided to make a second dessert out of them. This was probably a good idea because the cupcakes were very sweet, so it was a good step up from spicy curry to super sweet cupcakes.

Pumpkin Puddin'

Pumpkin Puddin'

by AmandaonMaui

Dairy-free, Gluten-free

• 2 medium sized pumpkins, smaller than basketballs
• 1/2 cup of soy milk
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• a pinch of nutmeg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Unsweetened Coconut Flakes (optional)

Cut around the stem on the pumpkins and remove the top.

Cut the pumpkin into smaller, easier to handle chunks.

Scrape the seeds and stringy parts off of the pumpkin flesh. Discard, or save the seeds for roasting later.

Chop the large chunks into 1-2 inch pieces, leaving the skin on.

Put the pieces into a large stockpot and cover with water, at least one inch over the pieces.

Place the pot on the stove and bring the water to a boil over high heat.

Once the water reaches a full boil, lower the temperature to medium and let simmer until the pumpkin flesh is tender.

Drain the water off of the pieces by using a large colander.

Let the pumpkin pieces cool for a few minutes until they're still warm, but cool enough to handle.

Take each piece by the skin, and scrape off, or squeeze the flesh off of the skin into a blender or food processor.

Continue this process with the rest of the pumpkin. This should equal about 4 cups unpacked cooked pumpkin.

Blend the pumpkin until it starts to become a smooth consistency, and add in a little of the milk at a time, continuing to blend after each addition, until the pudding is at a consistency you like.

Add in the rest of the ingredients, and blend until all of the ingredients are well incorporated.

Pour into a large bowl and chill until dessert time.

Serve in dessert cups or wine glasses, or whatever you have available.

Top with unsweetened flaked coconut, crushed pecans, or whatever toppings you like on pumpkin-y treats.