Cook Ahead Day and Back to School Menu Planning

Yesterday we had evening church planned, so I was able to rise early and get to the grocery store before the rest of the city. I came home with a stack of "cook ahead" ingredients to get a head start on the week. Sorry about the pics -- still no flash drive for my camera so iPod it is!

I started out making this beautiful breakfast I found on Pinterest.  It was very pretty and had eggs instead of butter (like most pull-apart). We used a cup of cooked sausage leftover from Pepper's breakfast burrito cook-ahead project a couple of days ago.  We enjoyed it with a fruit salad.

This would not be "everyday" food for us, as we're not that into canned biscuits, but it would be great company food because it sure is fast and easy.  I wonder if it would work just as well with my homemade biscuit recipe?

My next project was to poach chicken breasts, which I cooled and diced.  I put 2 into 3-oz packs for Pepper and I for quick lunches and froze the rest in 1.5# packages for a quick addition to dinners.

I prepped some celery for the week -- sticks for the kids and dice for recipes. I sauted and froze some of the dice. Today I will separate the grapes and grape tomatoes into snack size bags for fast access.

We made Cherry No-Bake Granola bars.  My basic recipe originated here, but of course, I've Tischler-ized it. My version is on Spark Recipes. If you've never made your own granola bars, do try them. These are so fast - they take minutes  - and you can customize them to your taste. If you use my recipe, make sure you like the taste of roasted sesame before you add it, because it's a prevalent flavor. We eat it a lot on our Japanese foods so we all are used to it but I would think some kids, especially, might not care for the strong flavor. You can leave it out with no ill effect. (36 bars per pan, 5 WW Points +)

We will have our favorite bento on Tuesday, Turkey, Carrot and Egg Soboro.  I cooked all the parts except the egg part so tomorrow's assembly will be super quick.

Our last bit of fun for the morning was putting together our favorite fruit snacks made of (get this) actual dried fruit.  This version is strawberries, papaya, kiwi, pineapple and tart cherries. As we were making it, the Blitz said, "This isn't really fruit snack, it's "Fruit-tastic."  We all decided that was a perfect name for our favorite fruit snacks and we'll be calling it that hence forth.

I am trying to keep adding to our prepared foods so that each week's lunches and snacks are easier .

Here's the plan for the week:
Monday:
Lunch: Pizza, grape tomatoes, cuties
Dinner: Chicken Yakisoba, cucumbers

Tuesday:
Lunch: Turkey, Carrot, Egg and Green Bean Soboro bento

Dinnner: Asian Salad

Wednesday:
Lunch: Boiled egg, "Kids sushi" sandwiches, apple
Dinner:  Root hog! (Everyone eats from the larder or leftovers)

Thursday:
Lunch: (Kids eat school lunch today)
Dinnner: Black beans and Rice on bed of baby spincah

Friday:
Lunch: (Whatever I can dig up!)
Supper: Three cheese potato tacos, iceberg salad

Can't think ahead to the weekend. Have a great week!

PS - forgot to mention I'm joining Org Junkie's Menu Plan Monday Link-up!

Fun in the Kitchen

So today was "fun in the kitchen" day.  And we did have fun!  Okay -- well actually it was more of a "mindful eating" challenge but you know -- my kids are great eaters!  So we just went for the fun.

First, we made these cool and easy bird feeders.  At least two of these little ones have sensory integration issues so this turned out to be a great exercise for them.  The combination of sticky gelatin and  lumpy birdseed was a good challenge.  The Blitz may or may not have eaten a couple teaspoons of the stuff.  What can I say, it was relatively edible.

Our second project was to mix up a batch of "real" fruit chews.  We have a section in our grocery that sells all this dried fruit I don't buy because it's full of sugar but then I thought, "Why not for a treat? Better than that artiticial stuff they call 'fruit chews'"  So we bought 3 packages based solely on pretty colors.  The kiwis were full slices so I cut them up; they required a sharp, heavy knife.  We mixed them all up with some mixed nuts.

I fogot to photograph the mixing but arent' they pretty?

Finally, before I knew today was cooking day, I had decided to mix a giant batch of meatballs to cook 2 ways.  Pepper had already mixed the meat, so all that remained was seasoning, shaping and cooking.  I knew it was risky but decided to have all the kids help.  I made them promise, promise, promise not to taste it and they had fun, fun, fun!

To make life easier for all of us, I readied a tub of warm soapy water for hand washing afterward.

I like a mix of ground meats for meatballs and I use the leanest available of each type;

• 86% lean Ground beef, about 2 pounds
• Ground pork, extra lean, about 2 pounds
• Ground white turkey meat, about 1 pound
• Italian sausage seasoned ground turkey, about 1 pound

I use about two pounds the mix to make the filling for this stuffed cabbage; it is a really wonderful seasoning so I use one head of Napa to wrap as many as I can, and the rest I just steam as plain meatballs.  They freeze great.  Notes:  I do not use onions (allergic).  You can use chicken stock and they are still great; I always have dashi stock so I use it.  Dashi stock is really easy to make -- Google it. 

The  rest goes for these Crock Pot Meatballs.

In between we had plenty of time for hanging our bird-feeders, playing in the unexpectedly sunny, warm day and saying good-bye to our little foster friend.   For fun, I gave them an all "round" supper; we made the Asian meatballs for tonight, so I made their rice into little balls, gave them a Satsuma orange (peeled of course), and Spinach Knobs.  They were in heaven with their round food.  For some reason it was really funny.

Another great day!  I am richly blessed!