Posts filed under 'Meal Planning'
Recipe of the Week – Stuffed Pork Roast
(From The Other Meat Entrée Collection at emealsforyou.com)
Stuffed Pork Roast
We were planning a Sunday night dinner party for a friend and his family, as his parents were visiting, but the weather required a change to Saturday instead. As we arrived at the grocery a cloudburst was taking place. We ran into the store only to remember the shopping list for the party was still on the printer at home. Under the heading, practice what you preach, I was able to use my BlackBerry Curve to access my meal plan and the shopping list while in the grocery.
I made a minor change to the menu as I planned Artisan bread and due to moving the dinner up a day settled on French bread, which could be made in hours with no over-night rising process. The sign of a good meal plan is one that you can adapt quickly; ‘course it does make it easier if you are nimble on your feet and able to juggle all the tasks required. I think my best helper in the kitchen was the ability to prioritize what to prepare in what order; finishing everything just in time to sit down and converse with our guests over appetizers.
The menu was assorted crustini and dipping sauces, stuffed pork roast (recipe below) with gingered carrots and mashed potatoes, the above mentioned bread and carrot cake and a corn meal cake for dessert. I substituted oven roasted tomatoes for the sun-dried tomatoes in the recipe. Throw a little currant jam into the gravy to give it an interesting taste.
Stuffed Pork Roast
| Complexity: | Medium |
| Serves: | 6 |
| Category: | The Other Meat Entrée |
| Meal: | other (General) |
| 3 | lb | pork, boneless roast |
| 1 | tsp | salt, kosher |
| 2 | Tb | pepper, fresh cracked |
| 1 | lb | spinach, fresh |
| 0.25 | cup | sun dried tomato |
| 1 | small | onions, diced |
| 8 | cloves | garlic, minced |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
| 2.5 | oz | hazelnuts, toasted |
| 1 | package | cotton cooking string |
| 2 | oz | mushrooms, sliced |
| 1 | 10.5 oz can | beef consommé |
| 10 | oz | wine, dry red |
| 2 | oz | butter, salted |
Butterfly the pork roast. This is easier than you think. Start at the top make a cut down one side about 1/3 of the thickness of the roast. Cut down stopping the same thickness from the bottom; repeat on the other side. (think of an envelope with two flaps) Cover with plastic wrap and pound with a rolling pin to flatten the roast. Salt and pepper both the inside and outside of the roast.
Sauté spinach, onions, sun-dried tomatoes (chopped) and garlic in a pan until spinach is wilted. Salt and pepper to taste. Add hazelnuts and cool.
Spread the cooled spinach mixture on the pork roast. Roll the roast back to its original shape. Tie with cotton string in several places to hold it together. (see picture)
Brown in an oven-proof pan. Place pan in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes or until a thermometer registers 160 degrees. Remove from oven, remove meat to a platter to “rest”. Place mushrooms in the pork pan on medium, cook for 2 minutes. Add consommé and red wine. Cook for 3 minutes. Shirl in butter and pour over pork.
Add comment June 14, 2010
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Add comment June 11, 2010
Recipe of the Week – Frugal Entertaining – Try Small Plates
(From the Appetizers Category at www.emealsforyou.com)
Tomato Crostini
Coming off an extended period of cooking for company I thought it would be the ideal time to suggest scaling back on the food and saving money at the same time. In our house the term “small plates” refers to any number of small, colorful dishes (think tapas) that provide an interesting alternative to dinners, both large and small. My wife prefers several small options to one big meal, usually on Friday night.
Small plates are ideal for using up all the small containers of leftovers you find after a week of meals. Usually too little to provide a meal but when taken as a group will provide “ahs” from the crowd. For the cost of a baguette ($2.79 at Panara Bread) you can feed a large group when pairing the toasted bread with the leftovers in your frig. A basic salad, cut into smaller pieces, provides a wonderful and surprising addition. Yesterday I took the leftover pork chops from a dinner party and shredded them, added chopped onions, celery and garlic and wrapped them in flour tortillas. Cut them on the diagonal and you have another quick and “cheap” small plate. Plus you get the added smile of using those annoying plastic baggies and containers in the frig.
The bottom line here is to use your imagination. Leftover frozen ham becomes wonderful finger food when placed on refrigerator biscuits with a little pepper jelly added for zing. A container of olives become a great tapenade to spread on toasted slices of the baguette. The secret here is put a few on a serving platter, add a few more of another, bring out small dessert plates or even paper plates and you have an instant party or maybe an intimate dinner.
Fresh Tomato Crostini
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 6 |
| Category: | Appetizer |
| Meal: | Other (General) |
| 1 | medium | baguette |
| 24 | spritz | PAM |
| 1 | large | tomatoes, fresh |
| 2 | cloves | garlic, minced |
| 2 | Tb | onion, red |
| 3 | Tb | roasted red peppers |
| 2 | Tb | peppers, pickled rings |
| 1 | Tb | vinegar, red wine |
| 1 | Tb | parsley, flat leaf, chopped |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
Slice baguette diagonally in ½ inch slices. Spray both sides with Pam and place on a cookie sheet. Place in a 400 degree oven for 6 -8 minutes until lightly golden. Mince the garlic and place in a medium bowl; cut tomato, onion, red pepper, pepper rings and parsley into a small dice. Add to the bowl. Add vinegar, stir and add salt and pepper to taste. Spoon onto the toasted baguette and serve.
Add comment April 12, 2010
5-Day Weekly Meal Plans at www.emealsforyou.com
For those of you who prefer weekly meal plans we have 20 weekly plans for you to chose from, that’s 5 months worth of headache-free meals, complete with scalability and shopping lists. To see the post regarding the new 5-day Weekly Meal Plans click here!
Add comment November 5, 2009
New 5-Day Weekly Meal Plans at www.emealsforyou.com
(From the Recipe Collections at emealsforyou.com)
Pot Roast
Because you asked for it we now post a 5-day weekly meal planner with shopping list on our website at emealsforyou.com. The planner contains easy, complete meals for 5 days. Two options will be available: serving 4 and serving 2. Unlike some other sites, if you don’t like or your kids won’t eat the recipes we provide on the 5-day planner you may simply check out all the recipes on our site and choose a substitute. So you have the benefit of a full week’s planner and still use our site to pick other recipes or meal plans for special occasions or additional needs. We have also created a new recipes category, Weekly Meal Planner. Here you will find 5-day meal plans that you can choose the number of servings and create the shopping lists automatically. We have 20 weekly plans for you to chose from, that’s 5 months worth of headache-free meals, complete with scalability and shopping lists. All this and hundreds of other meal plans and recipes, everything from appetizers to desserts, from kid friendly to our WOW, watching our waists recipes.
This is available only to subscription members of emealsforyou.com. Once you sign up and logon to your account you simply choose the weekly meal plan that offers the number of servings you wish. Click on the link and print the downloaded file, it’s as easy as that. Having a special meal; just go right to our recipes and meal plans to make your own choice.; automatically scalable for 1,2,4,6,8,10,12 servings. It’s never been easier to feed your family good, nutritious meals. Save time, save money , save your sanity by planning your meals using emealsforyou.com.
1 comment October 26, 2009
New Feature – What’s Cooking!
Look for our new feature “What’s Cooking!” in the sidebar. We will keep you informed as to what we are cooking that day from the recipes and meal plans on emealsforyou.com.
2 comments September 3, 2009
Leftovers – Trash or Treasure
(From The Salad Collection at emealsforyou.com)
Spring Salad
Learning to plan your meals requires you to re-learn a skill our grandmothers had; understanding how to use all the various food products before they went “bad”. Leftovers became the next meal, tops of vegetables were put in water with a piece of meat to make a soup. Bread too dry to eat was made into stuffing or a bread pudding for dessert.
The first step is to plan your meals so that you count on there being leftovers. Cooking half a chicken for dinner makes little sense when you could cook the whole bird with the same effort and build a second meal with the leftovers; think chicken salad, chicken pot pies, chicken soup. A pot roast becomes hot roast beef sandwiches a couple of nights latter.
We are all mesmerized by the cooking shows that, with great fanfare, reveal the surprise ingredient to be included in the meal. We think this is great fun but shy away from this thinking when it is us who are looking into the frig and trying to come up with something appealing from what we see there. The salad pictured above came about when I realized the tomatoes were just about to lose their crunch, the leftover asparagus was to the use now or pitch stage and I had an abundance of feta cheese.
The bottom line is if we plan our meals we will save money; if we use all the food we buy we will get bonus meals, again saving money. The secret is to think about a meal, then think about an associated meal made using similar products. Don’t think about it as a chore, think about it as a game show, one you can win.
Spring Salad
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Salad |
| Meal: | Easy, pizy |
| 1 | pt | tomatoes, cherry |
| 0.5 | small | cucumbers, English, peeled |
| 0.33 | lb | asparagus, peeled, cooked |
| 3 | cloves | garlic, chopped |
| 1 | Tb | cilantro, chopped |
| 0.25 | cup | cheese, feta, crumbled |
| 2 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 0.5 | medium | lemon, juice of |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
Cut cherry tomatoes in half, place in a large bowl. Dice cucumber and asparagus into ½ inch dice; add to bowl. Add garlic, cilantro, feta, lemon juice and oil, toss to coat. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.
This salad filled out our Philly cheesesteak sandwiches nicely, see this meal and more on emealsforyou.com.
Add comment March 30, 2009
Are You Tough Enough to Win the Coupon Wars?
A while ago I wrote a post on Grocery Shopping – Inattention Can Cost You Big spelling out how smart shoppers understand how grocery stores increase their profits through the use of shelf tags and shelf talkers. This is nothing illegal, just a way for them to augment their small profits by tricking the unaware shopper into spending more than they have to to purchase what the store would like you to purchase.
This post takes the consumer education a little further; into the world of coupons and BOGO’s (buy one get one) specials. Again, this is not to condemn the grocery stores and call foul on their methods; only to provide an understanding on how it works and how smart shoppers can profit from it. Product manufacturers and grocery stores spend lots of marketing money and effort in convincing you to buy what they want you to buy. Our job will be to convince you to buy only the products you really need.
As the economy tightens more and more of us are clipping coupons and marching off to the store to “save” a bunch on our purchases. To successfully work within the “coupon” system we have to actually put forward some effort on our part. First there is the finding and clipping of the coupons; no big deal just developing a routine. Now that we have the coupons we have to organize them, maintaining our collection within the expiration dates. There is nothing like getting to the checkout line, thinking you have just saved a bunch, only to find out that many of your coupons have expired.
Now it is time to talk about shopping discipline. Hopefully you are planning your meals and making a shopping list. Take out your coupon collection and go through it to pick out only the ones that are for the products you need and have on your shopping list. This is where the store’s marketing attempts to take over your thought process, be sure that the product is still the best buy even with your coupon, even with double coupon offers. Sometimes the stores will push a certain product and an equal product will be cheaper without the coupon. At times the BOGO offer is good, but can you really use 2 of that product? Most stores will only charge you half price if you buy only one of a BOGO.
To sum this up, saving money at the grocery will cost you time and effort. You are up against an army of marketing specialists, hired by the manufacturers and grocery stores to seperate you from your money. You need to be just as deligent in your process as they are in theirs. Be tough, be smart, it is us against them and I am on your side.
1 comment November 23, 2008
Take the Register Receipt Challenge
By now, if you have been following along with all my meal planning posts and rants, you are feeling pretty good about yourself. You think you are doing a good job, or maybe you think you are at least better than you were at planning your shopping needs. Like any good training tool we now come to the test. How well do you actually do cutting back on unnecessary purchases, saving money and feeding your family better?
The grocery store has assigned all its marketing efforts to FORCE you into those impulse buys. They lay in wait at every turn with their endcaps designed to COERCE you into purchasing that package of cookies. Candy is only a short reach away. So here is the challenge: each week for the next 4 weeks gather up your grocery register receipts and enter them on the attached spreadsheet. Enter the unnecessary items, impulse buys, things you just couldn’t live without, and those things that just FELL into your cart in the spaces provided. I know that we are approaching the holiday season and we all are a little prone to slightly ease up on our discipline but just think; if you can get through this how easy the rest of the year will be.
Add up the columns and see exactly how much you are wasting each week/month. In these tight times wouldn’t that money be better spent on something else. The other lesson here is that after you complete this list and spend the time you will realize that using some of that time to plan meals and write down a shopping list will help with your budget and maybe your sanity.
The bottom line is that if you make the effort; whether you plan using paper and pencil or “spring” for the www.emealsforyou.com solution you will find life becomes a little easier. Click here register receipt challenge to open and print the tracking sheet or click here to email Chef Jake if you prefer the MicroSoft Excel version to request the file.
Add comment November 20, 2008
Meal Planning – Yes You Can
Exhibit A
I am about to prove to most of you that you really do know something about meal planning. I say most because some of you will get a pass and be invited to eat the Thanksgiving feast at someone else’s home. Each year the ritual begins about a month out; looking through magazines, asking friends and family and watching the endless TV cooking shows. You search for something different to serve for your Thanksgiving dinner; put together the list of things you will need for the meal, shop, cook, plate and serve…in other words Meal Planning at the highest level. While all this preparation and work seems like way too much effort; just take a minute to remember the look on everyone’s face as you serve the meal. Think about how much everyone enjoyed the food, the conversation and even thanked you for your efforts.
That last sentence makes my point. It all is worth it in the end. So what I propose is that you make an effort to do just a little of what you did for the feast. Plan small meals, less complicated, less work but I bet you still will get those smiles and maybe even a thank you or two.
Check out our easy recipe for Pecan Pies and many more at emealsforyou.com.
Add comment November 6, 2008
