Sunday Food Prep – what went down in my kitchen (10)

Hello, hello!

Welp, Monday’s back…

…and that means I get to share my Sunday food prep adventures with you!

I was feeling less than inspired – much like the Redskins offense – and only accomplished a little – much better than the Redskins offense. *sigh*

I decided that I needed to make some brownies. Because … duh … brownies.

I’ve been fiddling with my recipe a little and I like what I did this time around. I decreased the flour (gluten-free) to 3/4 cup, only used 1 egg, subbed peanut butter chips for the dark chocolate chips, and threw in some chopped pecans from the pecan tree in our backyard. We have a few so I figured why not?

I also added a couple teaspoons of this new chia, hemp, and buckwheat cereal I found at the Fresh Market.

These are definitely winners! Not overly sweet and dense but still thick and fudgy. Just the way a brownie should be! Have you tried them yet?

I roasted a chuck roast in my crockpot.

I defrosted some homemade chicken broth and used that as the liquid. I skipped all the fanciness and just went with salt and pepper and a little bit of garlic powder as my seasonings.

For a girl who doesn’t like pot roast, I was really reluctant to share!  So good!

My sailor and I had some last night for dinner with some quinoa and roasted broccoli and there’s plenty leftover for a few sandwiches or to top a sweet tater throughout the week. 🙂

This broccoli. It’s like veggie crack. Seriously, I could eat the whole pan.

Finally, I decided to make a loaf of The Lean Green Bean’s Dutch Oven bread.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m not doing that whole gluten thing right now.

Well, I’ve been gluten free for a few weeks now and I’ve been assessing my tummy situation. I’m not exactly sure that gluten is the problem (I see my doc tomorrow and we’ll discuss all the tummy things then) and I read Erin’s post about why she stopped being gluten free and it really resonated with me. I mean, I don’t eat a lot of gluten anyway (as long as I don’t eat an entire baguette in one sitting!) but I also wasn’t having any of those other, more serious issues like balance and headaches, etc.  So, unless a test comes back indicating that I need to eliminate all gluten, I figure I’ll eat it in moderation. And maybe only in homemade foods so I can control all the ingredients.

Like in this bread.

Which, incidentally, I made with 2 cups of whole wheat flour and 1 cup of gluten-free flour and, while the loaf might be smaller than one that uses all gluten-y flour, it was still pretty delicious toasted and smeared with avocado this morning. And my tummy wasn’t mad. 🙂

Random Spam Comment Time!

…in response to this post

“Today, I went to the beach with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She put the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear. She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is totally off topic but I had to tell someone!”

Talk to me: Have you ever done an “elimination” diet? What did you eliminate? What did you learn about yourself?

– jennifer

Weekend things and a little bit of food prep

Hi there!

Happy Monday!

Are you gearing up for Thanksgiving? Are you cooking? Have you started cooking already? Are you traveling to where someone else is doing all the cooking? <—-winning

I’ll be doing only a small amount of cooking this year as we’re headed to my folks’ house.

Mom’s having the bulk of the meal catered (this should be interesting – my first catered meal experience) and the rest of us are  responsible for a few side dishes and desserts.

I’m making this. I made it for just us last year and it is the bomb dot com.

Plus, the pecan tree in my back yard is literally vomiting pecans so…..yeah.

My town had its Thanksgiving market on Saturday and my favorite vendor was going to be there so, you know we had to go. 🙂

There were like 65 vendors or something!

Lots of artsy craftsy stuff.

There were lots of puppy dogs.

Seriously, I can’t post pictures of all the dogs – we’d be here all day.

And there were lots of leafy green veggies!

There was a pony that I wanted to ride but I don’t think he was there for people of my size age.

I loaded up on sweet taters (duh!) and apples and the biggest butternut squashes I have ever seen (needed for above recipe!).

I tried to get my sailor to take a picture of me holding the butternut squashes but he said no. Because I don’t have a porn blog.

Seriously, where was HIS brain? Haha

And besides, has he never ever heard of food porn?

Whatever.

So, he took this picture of this goat instead. Her name is Latte. She was hanging out with the goat cheese lady. Mmmm…..goat cheese……

Here’s my haul on fresh beef. Score!

After the market, we took our goodies home and headed out for some lunch and errands.

We went to our favorite Indian place. MMMM…

I had the medium spicy vindaloo and was sweating bullets at the table. lol

For the record, I only ate one little triangle of the naan because it is made with wheat and I’m doing that whole gluten free thing.

I was okay with it (or I just couldn’t tell I wasn’t because I was still breathing fire) but a few hours later, I had an iced skinny vanilla latte from Starbucks and that made my stomach hurt.

Did some research and turns out the skinny vanilla stuff has gluten in it! Blech!

I didn’t finish it. Which sucks. Starbucks ain’t cheap.

So, I’m thinking about heading to the doc to officially get tested for celiac, just to see. Because it really did make me feel bad.

Sunday was a pretty low key day.

I did a little food prep but not too much since we’re going to be laden with turkey leftovers, too. 🙂

I made some gluten-free banana bread. Because, it’s banana bread. Duh.

I made us some homemade chicken noodle soup (gluten free rotini pasta) with the last of the chicken from last week and some of the broth that I made.

To make it creamy, I added a tablespoon of grass-fed butter (I buy Kerrygold and if you haven’t tried it yet, you are totally missing out!) and about half a cup of heavy cream.

So delicious!

Then, I made some beef stew in the crockpot using some stew meat that I snagged at the farmer’s market.

I used less than 2 pounds of meat so I used upped the veggies a little. I also subbed Yukon Gold taters for the red taters because that’s what I had and I used regular onion because the recipe didn’t state red onion until down in the directions.

Yes, I broke the cardinal rule of following a recipe – I didn’t read the whole thing before I started.

source

It worked out okay though. 🙂

I also didn’t add any frozen corn because I didn’t have any. T’was fine. Delicious, in fact.

Talk to me: What’s your favorite thing on the Starbucks menu?

– jennifer

Sunday food prep – what went down in my kitchen (8)

Hello!

I’d first like to thank you for being patient and understand while I took a little time away from my blog.

I needed the break to think and be in my own head for a little bit.

My grandma was a pretty amazing woman and it’s a little difficult to know that I’m not going to hear her laugh anymore.

Good thing I have it on the laugh track in my head. 🙂

Life won’t be the same without her but I can hear her telling me to stop moping around, get off my ass, and get back to it.

So, that’s what I’m doing. Cuz she’s the boss.

It was DARN cold this weekend. I heard it even snowed in some places!

And by some places, I don’t mean Alaska or Wisconsin or Minnesota. I mean, Tennessee. What the heck? November just started!

Anyway, as luck would have it, our heater is presently not working (service call  made, parts ordered, commence waiting game) but we do have a fireplace!

That we used all weekend.

And that Molly stayed in front of the whole time.

I woke up one morning to find her staring at it like she was waiting for the fire to start back up. Haha!

Because it was so cold, I really had no problems with food prep this weekend.

Oh, stand in front of a hot stove/oven all day? YES, PLEASE!!

The first thing I did was make some chili on Saturday night.

I decided I needed to try a new recipe from the new cookbook I picked up a few weeks ago. I love new cookbooks!! ❤

So, I made the chili con carne from The Ancestral Table by The Domestic Man because chili is practically necessary if it’s chilly outside. 😉

Holy. Amazeballs. This chili was delicious!

And, there’s plenty of leftovers for lunches during the week. And you KNOW that chili only gets more delicious after it sits for a day or so.

You’ll have to buy the cookbook to get the recipe, though. It’s totally worth it. 😉

(and no, I’m not getting anything from telling you to buy the cookbook except the knowledge that you might soon be eating some amazing new dishes!)

Then, Sunday morning, I got started early and made some cinnamon buns with buttermilk icing.

Yes, I’m aware that cinnamon rolls aren’t exactly food prep food but hey, I’m just trying to give you some ideas for what to bake in your oven, maybe next Sunday…. 😉

I also made some Pumpkin Bread.

Tis the season for pumpkin!

I kinda sorta followed this recipe out of my 1,001 LowFat Recipes cookbook except I used all King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour, subbed nonfat, plain Greek yogurt in place of the vegetable oil, and used 2 eggs instead of 1 egg and 1 egg white.

This bread is pretty yummy – especially if you slather it with nut butter. Who needs cream cheese when you have nut butter?! Om nom nom!!

Then, because I was craving it – yes, seriously, CRAVING – I made my favorite meat sauce.

I love this on top of roasted sweet potatoes, pasta, or even rice.

Hell, I’ve even eaten it straight out of the bowl.

Licked it clean, too.

I’m not proud. 😉

Talk to me: Was it cold in your neck of the woods? Do you have a fireplace? Did you food prep?

– jennifer