Thanksgiving is just days away and there’s a lot you can do in advance… like planning the perfect outfit to wear for dinner. I recommend pairing a colorful holiday blouse with the biggest stretch pants you own! Here’s what I made this week:
Fresh cranberries for Thanksgiving dinner
Chicken soup
Skinless chicken drumsticks with rice and Swiss chard + salad
Custard pudding
Banana bread (for a friend)
Apple bread (for me!)
Spaghetti with simple meat sauce + salad
Oatmeal muffins
Plain chicken jambalaya + salad
Simple white bread with egg to make bread cubes for my Thanksgiving bread stuffing
Penne with chicken & pesto sauce with steamed carrots & zucchini
Taco salad
I’m so looking forward to my Thanksgiving dinner. Everything is from scratch and is out of this world. I’ll be making turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, steamed green beans, fresh cranberries, gravy, and pumpkin pie with real whipped cream!!! Tomorrow, I’m roasting turkey wings to make stock for my gravy and stuffing. After all that food, we never feel overly full or lethargic, probably because we’re not having anything involving marshmallows! 😀
It’s been raining for days here in Southern California. ☔️ I love it. I’m forced to stay home in my kitchen and do what I love to do. Here’s what I cooked this week:
Turkey tenders with rice & broccolini with garlic
Tomato soup
No knead pumpernickel bread
Vegetable bean chili
Apple pudding
Chicken spinach skillet dinner + salad
No knead whole wheat bread
Mini chocolate chip cookies
Leftover turkey tender with steamed & pan fried potatoes, carrots, green beans & sweet potatoes
Buckwheat pancakes
One pan chicken with roasted potatoes, Brussels sprouts & bell peppers
Tortillas
Rigatoni with simple meat sauce + salad with garbanzo beans & avocado
About those mini cookies: We usually just have a cookie for dessert these days. Since cutting back on sugar, I rarely make cakes or pies. I’m even making the cookies smaller and one small cookie or a chocolate cluster is all I need for dessert. But the man I love claims he’s being deprived of his rights and as the warden of this prison I should allow him to have two cookies. His claim is that two small cookies are equal to one regular cookie and as a model prisoner, he’s entitled to a grown up cookie for dessert. (…awaiting a decision from the appeals board… 😀)
My cooking isn’t always pretty, but it’s always good! 😋 There are some things you only make for parties but I highly recommend having your own party, like pretend you invited people over but they never showed up. Then you get to eat all the hors d’oeuvres. So here’s what I made this week…
Deviled eggs (gone in two days!)
Spinach fried rice + cabbage soup with added carrots
Chocolate pudding
Granola bars
No knead crusty rolls
Turkey chili but with chicken + salad and crusty rolls
Almond butter
Spaghetti with cherry tomatoes & broccoli (I love this!)
It’s hard to focus on my cooking when the Dodgers are playing the Blue Jays in the World Series. ⚾️ I’m a Dodger fan but I’m also from Canada. 🇨🇦 It’s like having to choose between cake and pie! Here’s what I cooked this week:
Vegetable fried rice with carrots, cabbage, bok choy, spinach, and edamame + salad with ginger dressing.
Thin breaded chicken cutlets with rice plus steamed carrots and green beans.
Oatmeal muffins
Salmon patties with roasted vegetables
No knead fruit & nut bread
Vegetable bean chili + endive & romaine salad
Apple pudding
Taco salad
Here’s an un-staged picture of my spice drawer. Don’t judge me! 🙂 I know how it looks…. bad. But I know where everything is at any given moment. If you’re gong to judge me, do it for something dreadful… like cutting my own bangs.
It seems whenever there is work to be done, I somehow remember that I need to bake something. I mean really, isn’t pie more important than vacuuming? Here’s what I cooked this week…
Apple pie
Chicken & penne with pesto sauce and added spinach + salad
Tapioca pudding
Bran muffins
Egg salad
Bread crumbs
Chicken parmesan with spaghetti & my spaghetti sauce + steamed broccoli
Granola bars
Breadstick croutons (see below why I won’t make them again)
Chicken kabobs with peppers, zucchini & basmati rice + salad
No knead whole wheat bread
Oatmeal muffins
Taco salad
The breadstick croutons were easy to make. I just rolled a breadstick and used a scraper to cut little pieces. I tossed them in sesame seeds and they baked up round and pretty. I put them on my salad and quickly learned that you can’t poke them with a fork. You have to balance it on the fork and you know how that went. Three of them fell off the fork, rolled along the floor (that I didn’t vacuum), most of the seeds came off and now I HAD to vacuum. Next time, bread STICKS!
Not all of my experiments turn out. I only post them when they turn out many times and when my husbands says, “You can make that again!” Wait… is that a diss at all my other stuff? Here’s what I made this week…
Oatmeal banana muffins (without the crunchy top) – I sprinkled the tops with sugar for a crispy top.
I can’t think of anything that isn’t better when it’s homemade, from scratch. Sometimes, when I’m tired of cooking, which translates to “tired of washing dishes” and we go out to eat, I’m always reminded why I cook at home. Everything homemade just tastes better. Here’s what I cooked this week…
Spaghetti with shredded chicken + salad & garlic bread
Oatmeal muffins
Turkey chili with crusty rolls + salad
Double chocolate chip cookies
Peanut butter
Peanut butter cookies (they’re all in the freezer)
Vegetable fried rice with salad (working on Asian ginger salad dressing)
No knead whole wheat bread
Egg salad
Double chocolate almond biscotti
Sheet pan chicken & vegetables (this time with red potatoes & green beans)
Vegetable cashew stir fry (still not perfect 😣)
Taco salad
Chocolate pudding
I’m reducing sugar so most of our desserts are a cookie or sometimes, I have one or two of my chocolate clusters. I bake and freeze cookies all the time so we can always have something sweet after dinner. These days, homemade pudding seems a bit extravagant. 😋
It’s hard to take these pictures when I’m hungry and ready to eat. They are quick snapshots in a messy kitchen but here they are. In sharing these weekly posts, I’ve come to realize that I make a lot of bread. That means I eat a lot of bread. But I like it! 😍 Here’s what I made this week…
Chicken veggie kabobs
Seeded no knead bread. (it’s my whole wheat version with 1/4 cup of a seed mix)
I’m working on more vegetarian recipes. Now if I could just grow may own vegetables… I quit because the squirrels always win. 🐿 Here’s what I made this week:
Vegetable cashew stir fry (a work in progress)
Cabbage soup
Pumpernickel bread
Dark chocolate dipped coconut macaroons
Turkey meatballs with pesto pasta + salad
Tortillas
Custard pudding
No knead whole wheat bread
Baked ziti + salad
Apple pudding
Granola bars
Crispy oatmeal cookies (no chocolate chips)
Chicken breast with rice and steamed carrots & green beans
Dark chocolate-cashew clusters
Taco salad
Vegetable cashew stir fry (2nd version)
(Not all recipes that I made this week are posted. That usually means they are not ready for prime time yet! 🙂)
I shop at 5 different store to get the best stuff… Sprouts for organic nuts, Ralphs for bags of mini organic apples, Vons for mild olive oil for my butter-mix, Erehwon for sourdough bread, and Gelson’s for sardines. Here’s what I made this week…
Mexican black bean casserole + salad
Oatmeal muffins
Salmon patties with roasted vegetables
No knead whole wheat bread
Almond butter
Lemon blueberry loaf
Roasted chicken breasts with broccoli rice & salad
