No meal plan?

I’ve been on an extended vacation, so no meal plan this week. We’ve been eating picnic leftovers and basically winging it! We also have two dinners out planned this week. Then I’m going out of town the other two nights and leaving Hubby home with banana pizza. I should be back in full swing next week!

Feeding the Freezer

Something I do whenever I get a chance is to feed my freezer. I "process" food so that I have it on hand for weeknights. This makes menu planning much easier! I'll keep adding to this post as I include things on my menu.

Rhubarb: slice up (1/4") in 1 cup portions. I usually use rhubarb to make a compote for ice cream: Put 1 cup rhubarb in a small saucepan with 1/6 cup of sugar for 10 minutes, mix or shake to coat. Cook it on medium high for 5-10 minutes until it becomes a chunky sauce. It's great hot, cold or room temperature over ice cream or yogurt. Doubling works well.

Strawberries: slice up in 1 cup portions. Use in smoothies, add sugar to macerate and use as a fruit sauce on yogurt or ice cream, over angel food cake, on pound cake. My favorite smoothie: ½ cup of strawberries, ½ a frozen banana, 2 Tbsp ground flax seed. Put it in the Magic Bullet or your favorite blender and add vanilla soy milk to the top (about a cup). Blend until smooth.

Fajitas: Real Simple magazine developed this amazing steak fajita recipe. It's great in the summer over arugula or other greens. I add guacamole from Trader Joe's if I can't find ripe avocados to slice up….also tomatoes and frozen corn.

Pizza crust: I make pizza crust, adapted for my bread maker (and my refusal to use all-purpose flour). Sometimes I freeze the dough as described in the linked article and thaw it to make calzones, but I find it so convenient to freeze the crusts like this.

1 1/2 cups warm (115 degrees) water

4 ½ tsp active dry yeast (2 packets)

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons coarse salt

2 cups white wheat flour

2 cups whole-wheat flour

4 tsp gluten

Place all ingredients in the bread-maker in the order listed. Put it on the "pizza dough" setting. Turn dough out onto a floured surface (use some extra white wheat flour). Depending on the pizza size you want, you can use part or all of the dough. I usually do one large pizza that night, and then form the rest into individual-size pizzas for the freezer. If you use a rolling pin, your crust will be thin and crispy. If you stretch it the style will be more "hand-tossed". Here's what I do: Score the dough in half. With one half, stretch to fit on a 9 x 13" cookie sheet. Place it in a warm place to rise. With the remaining dough, score into 6 equal pieces. Place a piece of parchment (don't use wax paper, it will not come apart as easily once frozen) onto a cookie sheet small enough to fit flat in your freezer with about 2 inches of clearance on the top. Stretch dough to fit, no larger in diameter than what will fit into a 1 gallon freezer zip lock bag. Lay down another piece of parchment. Continue with each circle, laying it on top of parchment. Cover the last piece with parchment. Leave it in a warm place to rise, then place in the freezer. When frozen (wait 4 hours or overnight), transfer to a large, 1 gallon ziplock.

To use, thaw the number of pizza crusts needed (1 per person), cover as desired, and bake at 450-degrees for 18-20 minutes. It doesn't need to thaw first. These work well for grilling pizza, too!