Brrr, it's been a cold week here. Our furnace needed a repair, which didn't get done until yesterday morning. We are so grateful to have heat once again. Since our wall oven is very near to the kitchen table, I tried to time any baking for the day with the dinner hour. I would leave the oven door open while it cooled to add a bit of heat to the eating area.
Here are our dinners for the week.
Friday
tabbouli -- cracked wheat, quinoa, lentils, onion, parsley, garlic, cumin, mint, oregano, julienne carrot, chopped tomatoes, diced cucumber, lemon juice, vinegar, oil, salt, served over lettuce (followed seasonings from this list to achieve the right flavor)
freshly baked French bread with olive oil for dipping
blackberry pie using some of those frozen blackberries from foraging this summer
Saturday
baked beans
garden potatoes
steamed carrots
leftover blackberry pie
Sunday
chicken, rice, and cheese casserole topped with homemade salsa
garden salad
Monday (switched the table settings/cloth for fall today)
garden vegetable, chicken, and lentil soup, using beets, carrots, potatoes, chard, sorrel, onion, garlic, tomatoes, sage, nutmeg (beets, potatoes, chard, sorrel, garlic, tomatoes, and sage from our garden)
rosemary and olive oil biscuit loaf
pear and rhubarb sauce
Tuesday
pasta in peanut sauce
cabbage side dish
Wednesday (my daughter brought home 2 large pizzas today, so we'll have pizza 2 nights in a row)
pizza
cole slaw (made with some of the 18 cents/lb cabbage from last month)
Thursday
more leftover pizza
garden salad with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and purchased avocado
Tonight? Mediterranean chicken leg quarters, rice pilaf, and a garden salad.
Our meals are very basic ones, using humble and ordinary ingredients. You'll notice that I really don't try a lot of new recipes, but instead recycle the old ones, altering ingredients according to what we happen to have on hand. I rarely ever make a special trip to the store to pick up a specific ingredient for a particular recipe. Instead, I find an adequate substitute, sometimes using my own reasoning and other times turning to the internet or a cookbook. Family meals don't need to be perfect to be enjoyable.
Procuring Food
I did a major portion of our grocery shopping for the month of October earlier this week. In addition to the items on my October shopping list, I also bought 25 cents worth of celery salt, 2 family packs of chicken leg quarters (slightly better quality than Walmart, and slightly less expensive), and 6 avocados, marked down to 3/$1. So far for the month, I've spent $118.50.
I continue to harvest from our garden on a daily basis. Our lettuce, kale, radish greens, and Swiss chard are doing well. We're focusing on using the lettuce and Swiss chard right now and allowing the kale and radish greens to put on new growth, if possible. We have ever-bearing raspberries in addition to July-bearing. Ever-bearing has an early crop in summer and then a later crop in early fall. I pick a handful every 3 days or so. We also have rhubarb still growing. Keeping a vegetable garden is one of the tactics we use to keep our grocery bill low. There is some labor involved. However, we look upon vegetable gardening as a hobby that provides substantial benefits.
How was your week? If you keep a garden, are you still harvesting from it, or has the season ended for you? And that burning question -- what was on your menu this past week? I get so many great ideas and inspiration from all of your meals.
