Since the weather in North Carolina plays ping pong between all 4 seasons during this time of the year, sometimes its hard to have a set in stone menu for the week. Saying that, I have several meals that revolve around the weather. Beef Burgundy is one such meal. I have made Julia Child's recipe as well as Rachel Ray's. Mine fall somewhere between the two and it is a serious family favorite. The Yorkshire Pudding aka popover recipe is one that I have made for years and a recipe used by my mom. However, due to our weather patterns, we grilled out burgers at my parents' house on Monday.
Chimichangas on Tuesday, are a recent addition to our family faves that we tried last July.
Wednesday brought a love and a fail of recipes to my collection. Caramelized Onion & Bacon Smothered Pork Chops were fantastic! My only changes to this were: boneless pork chops, beef broth and 1/2 & 1/2 in place of heavy cream. Unfortunately, the Au Gratin Potatoes were the fail for the night. The only change was 1/2 & 1/2 instead of heavy cream, all other directions were followed (including the rest time) - but it was still VERY watery. I have never ran into this when substituting the 1/2 for the heavy cream. After reading the comments, I did find where the author says 1/2 will not work for this but there were others who used heavy cream and it was still watery/soupy. I have several more au gratin recipes that I want to try or already have tried, so I won't go back to this one to figure it out, because even though it was edible, we have others we'd rather eat.
Thursday brought us back to a stand by as the steaks were marked down at the grocery store. They were prepared simply; just sprinkled with kosher salt and pan seared until medium rare.
As much as I love to cook, there are times that I would rather work on a project, especially if I am in a great flow so the week ended up with Pizza Hut and Hunger Games, but that is fine, because that is life.
It feels like the month of February went quickly, but I believe it lasted what it was suppose to, it was just that I was busy with projects - both old and new. It can even be seen in my February Monthly Menu. See the FFYS aka Hunger Games, the take out and leftovers? What makes it better, is that you can't see the March entries. We had Taco Bell one night and cereal another night. All because I had full days where either I lost my energy required to prepare supper - or because I was too caught up in a project to want to spend the needed time away from it to prepare a meal for the household.
That's something I don't really see on other food/cooking blogs a lot; the nights where you just don't feel like cooking, the nights you are so tired from the day's activities or the nights where life happens.
That is something that everyone needs to remember. Life happens. You aren't going to create outstanding meals after outstanding meals every day. (Minus if you are a chef and that is your job.- I'm talking people who don't do that for a living.)
One of the best things I have found for using the monthly layout in my Erin Condren Life Planner is that I can go back and see what I served with what and it usually reminds me of the flavors of the meal to which I can then think about other dishes that could be prepared with it the next time. Plus, I like to try not to repeat meals within the same month. This and last month were not good examples basically because we were trying to eat all the pork we had stored from a previous slaughter and needed the room for fresh meat. It will be awhile before I make several meals.
Just remember that sometimes it is perfectly okay to decided a bowl of Capn' Crunch or Raisin Bran is dinner. You have no reason you must defend it to anyone at any time.
Sometimes, even the best planned out plans, fail. Why? Cause we are human. Humans are perfectly imperfect. Today, my imperfections are shining true. This morning, I made out a plan of this coming meals we'd like to have and a shopping list to match that list. Just a quick little trip to the store for the things that I needed to complete said menu for the week. See, I have proof!?!?!
I did get all those things on the list even though I never marked off the Velveeta (which I spell wrong pretty much every time I write it), which is normally once a year cause that stuff is expensive. I'm also working on my lettering so ignore the top as it is not very neat or pretty.
So, if I made a menu and a shopping list, how did this happen??? Yeah, $152.94 (after my MVP discount took $7.93 off wooo...) I think my plan began to fall apart at the "salad crunchies" because I did get croutons, crispy wontons, McCormick Salad Toppings, and McCormick Bacon Bits. Normally, "salad crunchies" refer to the Salad Toppings only, but today the trip included my youngest son and he helped by adding things. So, maybe I shouldn't take all the blame for the extra purchases, that I am happy to report didn't contain cookies, ice cream, chips, soda, cereal, candy, or other sweets. However, he is the one that grabbed the hot sauce and bacon bits.
I am very far from perfect and can only hope I hold in my restrain when at the grocery store, since grocery shopping is one of my most favorite things to do. Hopefully, my next trip to the store will be next weekend to only pick up produce to finish out that week of planned meals. We'll see, as I am only human.
Then I got sesame oil, corn tortillas, flour tortillas from the international section, pastrami, roast beef, salami, and sandwich pepperoni from the deli then I grabbed bouillon cubes. I also got several marked down packs of beef brisket and rump roast. Needless to say, when I make food, we will have decent amount of leftovers for lunches the next day.
