Happy December! It’s the month of Advent, and for our family, that means preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus. With the extra activities making our schedule a little more full, we are planning to use lots of food from our freezer this month, since there are quite a few already-prepared meals or significant portions of meals sitting in there waiting to be reheated or put right into the oven. We still have to make sure we don’t waste our farmshare vegetables, though, so I’ll still be doing a good bit of cooking. Last week, we made a huge pot of chicken/turkey and dumplings last week with homemade chicken broth and the leftover Thanksgiving turkey and will still be eating leftovers from it this week. (We also made turkey broth from the turkey carcass but ended up freezing it in smaller portions and using the slightly-older chicken broth for the soup.)
By the way, you might be wondering how a food blog managed to mention what might be the biggest, or at least the most-discussed, meal of the year – Thanksgiving – pretty much only in passing. Well, first of all, I do like to make sure we truly celebrate Thanksgiving by giving thanks and not by being gluttonous. And second, it’s been a little crazy around here lately. My husband is applying to doctorate programs, so I’ve been helping him with writing the essays. Plus, our 10-month-old daughter has just finished (I am hoping!) over a month of waking up 3-6 times a night about a third of the time, and she wakes up twice a night normally, which isn’t all that restful to begin with, so my body has kicked into the oh-dear-I-am-soooo-sleep-deprived-and-I-need-to-remedy-that-NOW mode. Hopefully recipes will be coming a little more often in the forseeable future.
(For reference, B is for breakfast, L is for lunch and D is for dinner. Links are to the recipes we’ll be using.)
Wednesday
B: fried eggs and toast (for me and the baby) or leftover chicken and dumplings (for my husband and son)
L: PB&J or PB & rice cakes
D: leftovers – chicken and dumplings or turkey and asparagus pie, sweet potato casserole
Thursday
B: whole wheat buttermilk pancakes
L: leftover chicken and dumplings or turkey and avocado sandwich with spinach greens
D: leftovers – pie and dumplings
Friday
B: leftover pancakes
L: any remaining leftovers or PB&J with fruit
D: cabbage and noodle salad with spicy peanut sauce
Saturday
B: cereal with milk
L: grilled cheese, homemade popcorn, oranges, hot chocolate (decorating the Christmas tree!)
D: stir-fried Napa cabbage with toasted sesame oil and soy sauce, sautéed mushrooms, pot stickers (from freezer)
Sunday
B: hot cereal (from freezer) with maple syrup and peanut butter or sunflower seeds
L: leftover cabbage and noodle salad
D: stir-fried steak with Vindaloo seasoning, roasted parsnips and turnips with parsley butter
Monday
B: leftover hot cereal
L: scrambled or fried eggs, oven-baked sweet potato fries
D: leftover cabbage and noodle salad
Tuesday
B: cereal with milk
L: leftover cabbage and noodle salad
D: leftover stir-fried steak, roasted celeriac and potatoes with leeks and garlic
Oh I’m glad to hear that the twice-a-night trend has been sticking! I hope it continues. Your cabbage and noodle salad with peanut sauce sounds super yummy. Is the recipe blog-worthy???
In fact, I have already photographed it (a few months ago!) and am planning to add it this coming week! Yes, it’s quite yummy and a great way to use up a huge head of cabbage.