Reality Break

I was going to do more of a day by day WDW thing but I have been home for almost a week and is cold as f*** and I feel like there is nothing to look forward to ever again.  Post holiday blues in the worst way.  Honestly, I don't think I was meant for this climate.  I'm always so happy when it's hot and everyone is complaining.  So I'll take a break to the food planning part instead of immersing myself in pictures of how warm and happy and relaxed we all were a short time ago.

The grocery shopping for this week was epic.  It cost so much that I got a free Jamie Oliver knife without having to actually save up stamps for it.  It seemed smart to use up everything before we left but I'm literally paying for it now.

I did the meal plan based on the shopping instead of my usual shop based on the plan.  I was out of so many things and then just bought some things that were on sale or looked appealing.  As always, the meals sometimes get moved from one day to another.

Wednesday - Pasta with sausage and kale, homemade focaccia bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Thursday - planned meal out - last day of my holiday time

Friday - Chicken or vegetarian fajitas with salsa, refried beans, cheese or vegan cheese, guacamole, lettuce, cilantro.

Saturday - Macaroni and cheese, vegan mac and sauce, Asparagus

Sunday - Braised chicken thighs with mushrooms, mashed potatoes, roasted mixed veg (broccolini, zucchini, corn)

Monday - beef curry, chickpea, potato and cauliflower curry, spicy green beans, basmati rice, samosas & Indian breads (Jordan and Cory coming so bigger dinner)

Tuesday - Spaghetti & Meatballs, Italian bread (ready to bake from freezer), salad

Wednesday - Pizzas and Greek salad

Thursday - Empanadas, soup (probably choice of several jars of leftover soup from freezer)

Friday -  Teriyaki salmon, rice, Asian style salad

I also hard boiled some eggs for lunches (all eaten as of this writing) and made some spicy tuna-mayo  Onigiri for the freezer.  Forgot to take photos but they are so easy to make and so delicious for lunches.  Mix some tuna with spicy Japanese mayo, or regular mayo plus siraccha sauce to taste.  Cook Japanese rice in the rice cooker - I use Kuhio Rose and buy the big bags to keep in the storage room along with the giant bags of basmati and of flour.  Then I just fill the canisters in the pantry as needed.  I made 4 rice cooker cups of rice which made 6 large Onigiri.  Plus one small one I gave to Maddie's friend Hayley.  When the rice is cooked tear off 6-8 good sized squares of plastic wrap.  Sprinkle the top one lightly with sea salt.  Put a heaping half cup - more like 3/4 cup - of rice in the middle.  Make a dent in the rice and put in a tablespoon of tuna.  Wrap and twist the plastic wrap tightly around the rice, moulding it into a ball and enclosing the filling as you go.  It's easier than it sounds.  Then unwrap the ball, sprinkle with some toasted sesame seeds and re-wrap, putting the individually wrapped Nigiri in a freezer bag or container.  To add to a lunch microwave the frozen rice ball before packing until it is warmed, the cold rice will be hard otherwise.  Don't heat it so much the filling gets hot.  Let cool to room temperature before packing.

I got a very late start due to the grocery shopping - started about 4 pm but was done most of the prep by the time I served dinner at about 7:30.  First I started the beef curry.  It's a new recipe, I've made many curries but never with stew beef.  It was on sale and I think the boys like having some beef once in a while.

I used this recipe Fragrant beef curry with rice 

I did replace the milk with a can of reduced fat coconut milk and the curry powder with garam masala and turmeric, and put in a large tin of diced tomatoes instead of the fresh tomato called for.  It smelled great, we will see what they think on Monday.

As the meat was browning and I was adding vegetables etc to get this started simmering I put together the breads - focaccia for that night and pizza doughs par-baked to serve another night.  I'm getting better at the planning stage of batch cooking so I knew I'd have to have all the meat and vegetables for all the dishes pre-chopped and measured and all ingredients out of the cupboards to reduce the prep time and allow me to move easily between one dish and another.  Got the bread rising and started the sauces and pasta for the macaroni and cheese.  I made a typical cheese sauce for the large dish, but Maddie's vegan one which contained almond milk, lots of nutritional yeast, and some tahini actually was more tasty.  A bit envious.

I plan to put sliced tomato and panko breadcrumbs on top before baking them.  These went into the basement fridge.  That's Maddie's on the left, it even looks better because the real cheese one above contains white sharp cheddar and asiago, which don't give it the pretty colour of the turmeric and "nootch" in Maddie's.

Earlier in the day, while avoiding grocery shopping, I'd used the bags of vegetable scraps from the freezer to make veggie broth.

I got about 28 cups of broth from 4 large ziplock bags of carrot peels and tops, too soft tomatoes, mushroom stems and leek ends.  It makes me feel so thrifty!

Cut up the veggies and made the seasoning for fajitas and put them aside for Friday.  I added a sliced zucchini to the veggies here when I cooked them, and used two large boneless organic chicken breast halves for the meat, which was seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin and smoked paprika and cooked separately.  In the corner of the photo you can see the cooled, par-baked pizza shells that I also didn't photograph.  I was trying for efficiency hence no prep photos either.

This is the pasta with sausage and kale we ate that night.  I didn't take any photos until the meal was over - so this is the leftovers packed for Jimm's lunch.  Too easy for a recipe.  Blanch half (or more) of one of those huge bags of kale you can buy in the lettuce section.  I used the macaroni water after removing the macaroni with my large pasta scoop.  While cooking 1 lb of shaped pasta saute 6 sliced mild or hot Italian sausages, remove when done.  Add a little more oil to the pan if needed and a chopped onion.  Add 3-4 cloves chopped garlic when the onion is done, cook for a minute or so.  Deglaze the pan with about 2 cups of broth, chicken or vegetable, and return the sausages to the pan.  I used a vegan chicken product because I forgot to thaw chicken stock.  Season to taste with salt and lots of pepper.  Stir in the kale to heat, then add the drained pasta.  If your pan is not really large you have to reverse that, draining the pasta and then pouring everything into the pasta pot.  Keep back a cup or so of pasta water in case your pasta isn't brothy enough.  Stir over the heat for a couple of minutes to reduce the stock and blend flavours.  It would be best to stir a half cup or so of grated parmesan into it at this point but I kept the cheese on the side so Maddie could eat it.  I consider this one a big success as Jimm ate the kale without complaint.  A first.  The focaccia is my usual recipe.

I spent $17 on this authentic balsamic and it was worth every penny

I'll leave you with the image of all the dishes that had to be washed.  

Crazy catch up part deux

This, my friends, is Cinderella's castle at Walt Disney World being transformed into an ice palace by Elsa.  As I am on call for Christmas this year we had decided last year to spend two weeks in WDW as a family instead of having a big Christmas.  Everyone had a year to save for the trip, which would have worked out much better had the Canadian dollar not tanked during 2015.  It was almost par when our original plan was made, and something like 0.72 when we were paying for everything.  Bad enough that we had to reduce the length of our stay at the last minute, from two weeks to 8 days.  I have planned trips to WDW before and always use this great specialist travel agency, http://www.dreamsunlimitedtravel.com  It doesn't cost extra and really helps with the massive organization required for something of this scale.  Difficult as the planning can be, WDW makes it all so easy once you get there that it's pretty easy to forget not only how hard it was to pull together, and how much it costs, but real life in general.

I plan a lot of trips, and I think this is the first time I have had a major screw up.  The planning stage was fraught with small disasters along the way, including two of our children (Jimm's daughter Jordan and son Cory) and their spouses not being able to come, and some valued friends also having to bow out.  The weak dollar meant everyone who was going paid more.  There was a scare involving my oldest son, Riley, whose girlfriend Christa had a terrible time getting the time off from work and they were not going to make it....but she managed, although she had to come a day later than the rest of us.  Airfare was going up and up and up and I was despairing of ever getting tickets we could afford.  Phone calls to airlines asking for group rates resulted in price offers of $800 US from Vancouver to Orlando.  Then suddenly one of my price watching apps gave me a price of under $450 with Westjet, on the days we needed.  I called everyone, got the credit card with the highest limit (Riley's) and started booking flights.  It's complicated, because Alice was paying on her own card, you can only book 6 flights at once although we were 10, and I wanted to use my Westjet credit card $99 companion flight for Jimm.  Turns out I had to call in for that, so I left a message for a call back.  Meantime I'm frantically booking on line for Alice, then Madeline, then the group of 6, Riley and Christa, Jen and Jeff, and the two youngest Trav and Ken.  I am booking the 6 when Westjet calls and I can't stop because I might lose the seats.  Everything gets done.  A day later Jen texts me.  "Mom, why are our flights returning 2 days after we get there?"  I say - they aren't - it's the NEXT Sunday.  Nope.  I hit the wrong week on the drop down calendar.  I'm frantic.  Call Westjet, the lovely woman says - no problem, you are still within 24 hours, I will change the flights no charge.  That will be $3000 please.  WTF?  Yes, the price changed that much in less than 24 hours, so that the return flight that was $267 was now $800.  She was sorry, nothing she could do.  I was sick.  I actually cried on the phone.  She was very kind and refunded the original cost of the return flight to Riley's credit card, instead of to a "travel bank", but that was all she could do.  So...we had 6 people with no return flight.

2 insanity inducing days later I found them United flights for about the same price, but leaving at 0600 on the 16th.  So now they needed a hotel room for part of a night, and transportation to the airport because they could not use WDW's "Magical Express" bus after the checkout day, and in addition our cheap arrival flights were for the day before our check in, arriving about midnight eastern time, so we needed to stay in the airport Hilton that night.  Ugh.  Found them a Holiday Inn near Downtown Disney (now Disney Springs) and reserved a van from a limo service for 0345 a.m. because they had to be at the airport 2 hours before their flight.  Amazingly, no one hates me, they were all very gracious and praised my efforts at putting the trip together, even though this error cost them all money.

Then, after Riley had paid their tickets, Christa could not get the time off work to leave Thursday.  He had to buy her another flight, leaving after she finished work, so she flew overnight and arrived the Friday after we had checked in to our WDW hotel.  I think this cost him another $400 or more.

Anyway, the room, park tickets, and all the meals were pre-paid (we opt for the Disney Dining) you don't really save money unless you are 1)a large group of foodies like us 2) go during the free Disney Dining periods (usually September) or 3) are some kind of competitive eater in training.  But it is convenient to pay it ahead of time and not worry about meal costs while you are there.  You get meal credits, 1 quick serve meal, 1 snack, and 1 sit-down meal per day of your stay.  It doesn't sound like a lot, but each meal includes a non-alcoholic drink and a dessert (except breakfast) and the portions are huge.  The snacks include things we would call a meal, like a bagel with cream cheese.  And what we didn't do was look at our credits so we presumed we only had them for the days of our stay - we checked in on the 6th of November and checked out on the 15th.  You have to make restaurant reservations 120 days in advance or you will get nothing (that's another long story) and the "Signature" restaurants take 2 credits per meal.  We love the chance to eat really amazing, award winning food so we had booked 2 signature restaurants.  That means out of 9 nights we had used 4 meals, which we thought meant 2 nights we would have to eat elsewhere and pay for meals.  NP.  We had dinner at Disney Springs in the House of Blues on the Wednesday, our no-park recovery day.  Then on our last night together we ate at Raglan Road Pub, an Irish pub in Disney Springs.  On the next day while checking out we found that we all had sit-down meal service credits left, in Jimm's case 2 as he missed one meal due to getting a cold.  We hadn't actually looked at how many we started with, and it was one more day than we thought.  I think I forgot we didn't use a credit on our arrival day. So the later-flying kids used what they could the night after Jimm & I left with Alice and Maddie, and they still had a ton of credits left, so they were frantically converting them to snack credits and buying candy to take home instead of letting them go to waste.  Lesson - if you do this, keep track of your meal credits and make sure you look at your initial statement that tells you how many you start with.  Every time you "pay" for a meal you get a receipt that tells you what you have left, but only of the type of credit you use, if you you use a quick service it only says how many quick service left.  And each room had different numbers of credits and so on, so it got confusing.  As a result we paid for at least one meal we didn't need to.

We still managed to spend a good deal of money on alcohol and there is an automatic 18% gratuity added for large parties so you definitely still spend the dollars. Lots of them.  And it's easy to do, you get given a customizable "magic band", a bracelet that is your room key, park ticket, and yes, handy link to your credit card to pay for all those drinks and shopping.  You never need to touch money.  Very dangerous but handy.  You can also use the bracelet to download links to park photos taken on rides and so on, I will post some of those when I can afford to buy them!  More Disney to follow.

The "kids" from left Ken, Jen, Alice, Jeff, Maddie, Travers, Riley, Christa

Crazy catch up posts

I don't even know how I got this far behind.  My phone is full of photos that were intended for blog posts and are now languishing selfishly, taking up space I need for important functions like Words With Friends.  So....I'm gonna back-date and rely on memory for my original intent.

Back to October 17th, my first real social function after Thanksgiving.  We went after dinner to our friends' place for drinks and snacks, along with the requisite gossiping about those who didn't make it.  Kidding.  Sort of.  We had been warned that Annike, who is Swedish, was making a "sandwich cake" and to eat lightly.  Having experienced Stu and Annike's hospitality before I took that seriously, and was grateful to heed the warning.  Turns out sandwich cake, or Smörgåstårta  is a popular Scandinavian dish served in many restaurants.  It's a sandwich, but so full of creamy, mayonnaisey filling it more resembles cake.  Fillings vary but usually include eggs and shrimp.  It's gorgeous, probably horribly fattening, and absolutely delicious.

My veggie plates never look like Annike's  I'm keeping this as a reference!

I figure your heart health and weight are your own business so I'm including a copy of Annike's recipe here, with her permission.  Seriously, you have to try this at least once.

Seafood Stew and Women Overdue

From my kitchen window.  For about 4 days fall is wonderful.

It's been a weird week.  Only two births - both attended by me and both super quick.  Call days for the other midwives completely silent.  We have 2 women overdue and another 5 due.  I feel like the Sword of Damocles is hanging over my head.  So today was my "second call" day meaning I will only get called out if there is a home birth requiring a second attendant.  Same Friday, when we had Peter and Chelsea over for dinner and cards - tacos with hard or soft tortillas, beef and onion or vegan chorizo filling, Mexican rice , chipotle beans and all the toppings.  Grapes and these chocolate chip cookies for dessert. 

These mint chocolate chip cookies are too dark to photograph

Toppings for tacos are actually the best - by the time I have added the lettuce, salsa, guacamole, jalapeños, cheese etc I don't really need whatever the protein filling is.  I bought some Pacifica beer to go with but I think only Jimm drank it.  Chelsea and I had a Chaberton Reserve Dry Bacchus which is delicious and a bargain at about $20. Peter, being of Scottish descent,  thinks whiskey goes with everything.  

So with only one real work day, Saturday, I did get some other things done.  I finally cleaned out the linen closet and threw away all the old greying sheets, and did the thing where you put all the sheet sets into their own pillowcase.  It looks very organized, now I just need to get the boys to actually use the top sheet.  Kidding, I just didn't put a top sheet into the twin sets.  Some things are not worth fighting for.  

I also made French bread, with only partial success.  It's about my third or fourth time trying for the thin, crunchy crust and I there used egg wash on the loaves and a pan of water on the bottom shelf to provide steam., which helps the crust.  What I'm not getting is how to ensure my baguettes rise UP instead of sideways.  I get a nice grain and crunchy crust but the loaf is wider than it is tall.   

Tamago made from leftover egg wash.

So I won't be giving you any French bread instructions at this stage, that's for sure.  It still tasted fine. I made a seafood stew for dinner, something I had planned for earlier in the week which somehow didn't work out.  (By the time I finish this entry it's Monday.  Back on call and interrupted at this point by a couple paging to let me know something has started and they just want to check that they should call me when I said to call, and not now when contractions are 12-30 minutes apart. I take 15 minutes to calm myself. I had a first baby once myself.)

The stew starts with mirepoix, chopped onions, celery and carrots.  On top of the mirepoix in the bowl is a minced shallot added because it was hanging out in the fridge.  Quantity doesn't matter a lot here.  I think it's about a cup of each vegetable.  Start that cooking fairly slowly in olive oil, along with some kind of sausage cut into bite-sized pieces.  This is garlic sausage because Jimm doesn't like spicy stuff.  Chorizo would have been more appropriate I think.  When the onions were almost softened I added chopped bell peppers.

After the peppers add an astonishing amount of garlic

The spice mix is 3 tsp Old Bay and 1 tsp smoked paprika.  

I used some fish stock I had made a few months ago and put in the freezer, about two cups, and a large can of Italian tomatoes which I squished up with my hands while adding.  Try it, it's fun.  Let it simmer a while to blend the flavours.  In my case, about 20 minutes or until Jimm got home.  

Put the lid on and cook for 5-8 minutes or until fish flakes and prawns are pink

Then put in the whitefish - I used 2 basa fillets, and large prawns (the ones that come 16-20 in a package.  I pre-seasoned the fish with some old bay, lemon juice, salt and pepper and garlic and let it sit.  The prawns got salt and pepper only.  We have a lot of leftovers that I sent to work with Jimm and Trav.  Just can't get out of the habit of cooking for eight.  

Top with parsley and torn basil leaves and serve on rice.

Thanksgiving - Not My Job

It's been a while since I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner or an Easter dinner.  It seems that Christmas is my territory and since I am often on call or working in clinic on Thanksgiving it has fallen to others.  My sister in law Rose really loves Easter and does wonderful dinners, and my oldest daughter Jen and her fiancé Jeff are the crowned rulers of Thanksgiving. I'm also really happy that they have their dinner Sunday, a second-call day for me, rather than Saturday when I was on call.

We left late as usual, I was doing house calls which took longer than expected.  When I got home at 5, expected in Vancouver (an hour away) at 6,  Kenny was ironing his not-quite-dry pants.  Jimm was playing guitar, the kitchen was a mess and Travers was doing whatever Travers does all day - it doesn't usually involve being out of his room anyway.  Jimm decides to go get gas while waiting for Ken to be ready. I clean the kitchen and thank all the cooking gods I am only bringing wine. The photo shows Jen in the middle between Jimm and her friend Steph.  My portrait of Jen was blurry. 

Back row is Jeff talking to their housemate Sarah's parents.  Foreground is Travers and Jen's friend Liang.  

Narrowly avoided a political argument in the car as we are approaching an election and Kenny, who has Autism Spectrum Disorder, often gets annoyed by Jimm's opinions, and vice-versa.  Travers tries manfully to be heard without breaching the bounds of politeness - he seems to get ignored because Ken and Jimm are preoccupied with demolishing each other's arguments.  We reach Jen's with everyone's tempers intact.

I think Jen had 18 people for dinner, and I'm always amazed by how relatively unruffled she and Jeff are by the magnitude of this dinner.
This is the menu:

All the food and Kenny's legs

• Roasted kabocha squash soup with crème fraîche
• Cream of mushroom soup with herbs
• Maple basted turkey with sage butter and bacon
• Roasted garlic mashed potatoes
• 3 kinds of stuffing - Vegan, vegan and gluten free, and cooked in the bird
• Lentil loaves
• Roasted kale with mushrooms with sesame and chili oil
• Roasted brussels sprouts, red and yellow beets with balsamic vinegar and roasted garlic
• Sweet potatoes with apples in a spiced glaze
• Cranberry sauce with orange zest and fig
• Turkey gravy
• Vegan mushroom gravy

I think the big favourites were the vegetables - particularly the roasted sprouts and the kale.

 It's a shame Thanksgiving food is so....brown.  It doesn't photograph as delicious as it is.
Jimm was particularly impressed with the kale, a food he has tried many times (at my insistence) and not liked.  Yes, I'm going to try to get the recipe.  The lentil loaf is one of my favourite vegetarian dishes.  Really hearty, excellent texture, and not pretending to be a hamburger when it isn't.  You can actually add meat instead of TVP if you want to make a better-for-you meatloaf.

LENTIL LOAF
1 c. TVP
1 large onion, diced finely
1 small yam, 5 cloves minced garlic
dry lentils to yield 3 cups cooked - about 1.5 c dry
about 1/2 c. toasted pecans
1/4 cup each soy sauce, ketchup, nutritional yeast, flax seed (I presume ground to replace eggs)
1 1/4 c. rolled or quick oats
4-5 chopped sage leaves, 1 sprig of fresh rosemary, chopped
1-2 tbsp maple syrup, dash of mace

To cook lentils:
2 tbs soy sauce, 1 tsp chicken seasoning, 1/2 tsp each rosemary, oregano, whatever you like,
1 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp molasses.

Cook lentils and TVP separately.  Allow lentils to absorb as much of the water and spices as possible.  Grate the yam, combine in a bowl with the onion, garlic, yeast and flax. Finely grind the nuts in a food processor. Add to the processor bowl 3/4 of the lentils and half the yam bowl.  Pulse until mushy, then combine with the unprocessed ingredients.  Add the remaining ketchup, soy, oats, herbs, syrup and stir.  Taste and add more herbs if needed.  Don't worry - it's vegan.  Bake in a foil covered loaf pan for 30 minutes at 400.  Remove foil, bake another 30-40 min at 375.  It will firm up a bit with standing.  Jen notes that she uses 2 c. lentils to make a double batch of this so 1 c is probably closer to the amount of dry you want to start with.  The chicken seasoning is salt, pepper, parsley, tarragon etc in a grinder - Jen has a garden and grows a lot of herbs.  You could probably use some salt and pepper and poultry seasoning.

Now that we are all healthy, here are the desserts.

Pumpkin Pie served with cognac whipped cream

White chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake

Apple Pie - I believe GF 

Not shown are homemade vegan coffee ice cream and vegan maple pecan ice cream.  So I think we know why I don't do Thanksgiving anymore.  

Like a virgin

When my youngest daughter, the hippie one, suggested I start a blog it was probably because I was clogging up her Instagram and Facebook feeds with food posts.  I don't think she ever imagined I would actually do it, as my tech savvy is, shall we say, limited.  But the ability to say more, expand and explain, to have more than 140 characters is irresistible. So here we are with the first post.

Today is a planning and cooking day, or it will be as soon as I get my lazy self to the grocery store.  I've found that at least having an idea what will be for dinner most nights means I waste less food, grocery shopping is more focused and I'm not (quite) as likely to give up and go out for dinner when I come home from work and find "my house is dark and my pots are cold."

Here's how the planning stage starts.  I try to use some of the food I already have in the fridge and freezer, try some new dishes and repeat some successful ones.  Then I write a grocery list.  The unsanitary-looking book on the top is the way I store all my old clippings, recipes from other people and so on.  I apologize for the strange text wrap - it's not working well and I have no idea how to fix it.Told you I was an amateur.  Anyway, the next step is shop, then plan out the cooking order.  Back soon.

Grocery shopping complete.

The week's menu looks like this:

• Sunday - Chicken Biryani http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/dining/011rrex.html?ref=dining&_r=0   Naan bread. 
• Monday - Pasta with roasted peppers and Italian sausage, salad
• Tuesday - Meatball subs and  green soup
• Wednesday - Pork Tenderloin, Asian noodles with vegetables
• Thursday - Chicken enchiladas and Mexican Rice http://www.food.com/recipe/rice-cooker-mexican-rice-159900?soc=socialsharingpinterest
• Friday - Greek salad, pita bread, hummus, prawns

I have the meatballs and asian BBQ tenderloin in the freezer.  The plan is do the Biriyani first as we are eating it tonight - throw the food at my men while I continue with the rest, and convince Kenny, my youngest,  to do as many of the dishes as possible by pretending they are all from making dinner.  You start with marinating the chicken with yoghurt and spices.  I left out the chili entirely from this recipe because my husband does not do spicy.  At all. Let it sit while you prep the rest.

 Pour a glass of wine because it's 6 o'clock now and you deserve it.  I did the prep of the aromatics and rice on the stove in a cast iron pan because my rice cooker doesn't have a "cook" option.  I used the chicken broth I had made last week and put in the freezer.  Once the rice cooker was going I started the sausage and peppers for the pasta tomorrow.  It's from the new Michael Smith book, Make Ahead Meals, but honestly you could wing it.  Take a couple onions, 4-5 Italian sausages, 3-4 chopped red peppers and 2 heads of garlic, peeled, separated and halved if large, I added a chopped eggplant not in the original recipe, and mix with a tablespoon of oregano, sea salt an pepper, a cup of red wine and a couple tablespoons of olive oil.  Mix it all in a large bowl then roast it at 375 for an hour, stirring every 15-20 minutes.  It gets heated up and served on penne, stirring in a couple of cups of greens.  I reserved a ziplock bag of the mixed kale/spinach/chard blend I'd bought for soup.

Now it's time to start the chicken - 4 organic, skin on bone in breasts that were on sale.  I often cook a whole chicken or two to use during the week but this was cheaper.  I used the same spice blend I always use on the chicken.  It's adapted from a paleo recipe for slow cooker rotisserie chicken.  Combine more or less equal amounts of sea salt, thyme, garlic powder, smoked paprika, and freshly ground pepper.  Rub the chicken with olive oil, then the spice blend.  If using a whole chicken use the slow cooker.  Put a few balls of tinfoil on the bottom to keep the chicken elevated, then cook on low for 10 hours or so.  They tell me it's good - certainly it comes out moist.  This chicken I just baked since I had the oven on for the sausage/pepper mix.

Break for dinner.  If you make the biriyani, DO NOT omit the cashew/fried onion/raisin topping.  It makes the dish.  We had it with Major Grey chutney and a very spicy cilantro chutney for Ken and I.  I forgot the naan.  Sigh.  It was supposed to be served with broccoli but I forgot to buy it.  Now we will all go to carb hell.

Note the classy label on my homemade spice jar.

We ate dinner right after I put the chicken and the sausages in the oven.  We had some leftovers which will be used for lunches during the week.  Here's where Ken did a lot of the dishes - I'd done some but he is a machine.

Then I started the soup - an amalgamation of several recipes.  It's essentially a split pea soup with greens added at the end, then blended with the immersion blender.  Looks a bit Exorcist-esque but tastes good.  Once it was simmering, it needed an hour to soften the peas, just the right amount of time to do the pumpkin bread.  My recipe comes from my old friend Suzanne, she gave it to me sometime in the '80's .  It makes two loaves, and is by no means a healthy recipe.  Also it contains 2 cups of pumpkin, which is somewhat less than a large can and somewhat more than a small one.  It's a testament to how good this recipe is that I keep making it given this and the three cups of sugar.  I'll post it when I figure out how to do that and make it look good.

You will only wind up with about half this amount.

 All told it takes about 4 hours to do 5 dinners.  I started about 4:30 and was finished before 9.  After I watched Dr. Who with Ken and Alice and ate a slice of the evil pumpkin loaf.  Here are the meals:

Prep for the meatball subs and soup, thawing meatballs, cheese, panini buns, marinara sauce.  The Green Soup jarred and cooling.  I will use either tofu or veggie burger in my sandwich.
To the right are the pumpkin loaves.  They didn't stay intact for long.
Below are two previously cooked Asian BBQ tenderloins, chinese noodles, stir fry vegetable mix and bean sprouts.  I'll add veg broth, soy sauce and oyster sauce and other seasonings to the stir fry vegetables, add the boiled noodles and stir in the bean sprouts and some green onions right before serving.  I might add some sticky rice if we have a full complement of diners.   Again, I may add some tofu for me.

 This is the sausage and pepper "sauce".  It gets heated up while the pasta boils, then added to the cooked penne with some of the reserved cooking water and the greens.  It's supposed to be served with shaved parmesan on top but I will just put the parmesan and grater on the table .

Serving with a green salad with cucumbers. I just serve myself pasta with the vegetables and pick out the meat.  Yeah, I am not so much a vegetarian as a person who doesn't eat meat.  Jimm, the recipient of the meat, doesn't judge.  If a dish is too meaty, like stew or something with ground meat I eat something else.

 The roasted chicken breasts.  I will shred some for the enchiladas, and serve any remaining with Friday's Greek food, hence the pitas.

I made hummus a few days ago - hopefully there will be some left, otherwise it's back to the grocery store. The enchiladas will be put together on the day I bake them or they tend to get soggy.  It's one of the most popular things with my family and ridiculously easy to make once you have all the ingredients together.  I had an enchilada sauce in the freezer from the last time I made Mexican food.  On the day we are going to eat it I'll combine shredded chicken, a tub of cream cheese, a jar of salsa, a can each of 

 black beans and corn, and roll the mixture in tortillas.  I have used both corn and whole wheat tortillas successfully. Some sauce goes in the bottom of the pan, just enough that they won't stick.  Oil the baking dish a bit.  I usually make 2 without the chicken and with some added zucchini or other veg for me, putting them at one end of the pan in a kind of vegetarian apartheid.  When all the enchiladas are rolled pour sauce over, then top with a little shredded Mexican cheese (I use Oaxaca but you can use Mozza or Monterey Jack).  Bake until hot and serve with Mexican rice and shredded lettuce.  I use mild salsa to make this and keep the sauce mild for Jimm so the kids usually put some hot salsa on top.

So there you have it.  I don't get this much done every week, but my life is easier when I do.  It's always a toss up any day I'm not working what will be neglected.  Cooking?  Office work?  Laundry? Leisure?  Doing one means not doing the others.  (nb, most of the "extras" on my original plan did not get done because I wasted too much time.  C'est la vie.)