Meal Prep Monday : 1/15/18

This week it's pork-beef burgers, mashed sweet potatoes, and a veggie mix.  Since I mixed a full pound each of pork and beef, I got enough burgers for 2 weeks worth of school lunches.  I'll be putting half of them in the freezer for a future week. 

The burgers : Mix together 1 lb ground pork, 1 lb ground beef, 1 egg, and a generous shake of garlic powder.  Shape into patties.  I made mine on the small side, and got 11 patties.  You can cook your burgers using your preferred method.  I don't have a grill, and my oven is broken, so my only choice was a skillet on the stove.  Cook 10-15 minutes each side on medium heat.  Cook an additional 10-15 minutes, flipping occasionally.  It's helpful to cut one open to check for done-ness. 
(yielded 11 burgers)


The sweet potatoes : 3 medium-large sweet potatoes, cut into quarters, boiled until soft enough to mash.  Mashed with a bit of milk and some garlic powder.
(yielded 7-8 portions)


The veggies : 1/4 onion, 6 carrots, 3/4 cabbage.  Chop all veggies.  Cook onion and carrot on medium heat until almost done, then add cabbage. Cook, stirring as needed, til done. 
(yielded 9 portions)


As you can see, I did have extra of everything this week.  The burgers will go in the freezer, and the mash & veggies will probably be eaten over the weekend. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Questions?  Did you try it?  Let me know in the comments!

Meal Prep Monday : 3/6-3/10

Lunch This Week

Pot Roast & Carrots

Barley

Pot Roast & Carrots : I chopped 4 very fat carrots and covered the bottom of my crockpot with them.  Then I coated a 2.5 lb roast with salt, garlic powder, and flour and placed it on top of the carrots. I poured in 1 cup of red wine and a bit of tart cherry juice (cause those are the things I had...I didn't have any broth...), put the lid on, and cooked it on high for 6 hours.  Then I added a bunch of rough chopped mushrooms, and used forks to shred the beef.  I ladled out most of the liquid and brought it to a boil on the stove, adding some cold water mixed with flour. I stirred over high heat until it thickened, then added it back to the crockpot.  

Barley : I brought 2.5 cups of water seasoned with salt to a boil, then added 1 cup of barley, and cooked on low heat until tender but not mushy.  Unfortunately I dumped about 1/4 cup down the sink by accident while I was draining the excess water...

The meal : I divided the un-ruined barley into 5 sandwich containers, and then added a big spoonful of beef and carrots on top.  I have green grapes and sugar snap peas to choose between for extra fruit/veggie each day, and I suspect I will be bringing potato chips some days as well...extra salt and carb since I lost some of the barley...



I'm going to have to figure out something else for Friday's lunch, and keep one of these for the weekend, since it's now Lent.  I was so far in robot mode as far as lunches go, I didn't remember that I wasn't supposed to eat meat on Wednesday last week until I got home, at lunchtime (we got dismissed early for severe weather).  And then I remembered no more meat on Friday's either.  So I ended up with two lunches left over at the end of last week.  On Friday last week I ended up grabbing some leftover pasta from something else, and throwing some salmon from a pouch on top.  With 1/2 an avocado.  It wasn't much, but better than no lunch!  I suspect lunch this Friday will also involve a pouch of salmon, but I have no idea what I will be eating it with...I'll probably figure it out Thursday night.  Meatless meals are hard now that I don't eat tuna fish sandwiches every day.  And meatless twice a day has always been hard because I don't really care for that many types of fish.  I like shellfish and salmon, but they are expensive!  I recently discovered the pouches of salmon though, that are quick and easy and cheaper.  I usually shy away from pre-packaged stuff like that, but hopefully these are more rather than less healthy...I'm trying not to overthink it. 

Sweet Potato Pierogies

Last year, we had our first snow day on December 10th and our second on January 7th.  This year, January 7th brought us our first snow day.  I woke up to a 1 hour delay because of the frigid temperatures, with a final decision to be made by 8:00.  8:00 went by and there was no word, so I figured I had better hurry up and get ready so I could get my car cleared and thawed in time to get to school for my early-arrival duty.  Then, hooray, the call came at 8:05, right before I started throwing on layers of warm school clothing.  So I happily stayed in sweats and curled up on the couch with a book for awhile.  And then I went for a run.  I was supposed to take today off, because I ran the last 8 days in a row, but I couldn't take a day off when it meant sitting on the couch all day.

After my run it was time to play in the kitchen, because I'm pretty sure that kitchen adventures are a snow-day staple.  My oven is out-of-order until Friday or Monday, so baking wasn't an option.  (I turned it on the other day, and several minutes later noticed fireworks going off inside it.  Turns out the heating element snapped in half...)  I had a sweet potato on the shelf that needed to be dealt with, so I decided sweet potato pierogies would be a delicious, fun, time-consuming project.

Pasta Dough

I used this recipe for the pasta dough, but I made everything smaller and used 2 eggs.  

And I added garlic powder, and skipped the cornmeal.

Filling

1 sweet potato, boiled and mashed with a spoonful of sour cream and a bit of butter

1/4 sweet onion, chopped and sauteed with 2 cloves minced garlic

The final product, boiled, lightly fried, surrounded by shaved carrots 

and drizzled with a ginger cream sauce.

Pumpkin Ravioli

It's been awhile since I made pasta from scratch!  But I've been wanting to make pumpkin ravioli and I had some time this evening (for once I wasn't too hungry to wait for dinner to cook), so I made them.

Pasta Dough

1 egg

1/4 c wheat flour

3/4 c + white flour

2 tbsp olive oil

garlic powder

ginger powder

salt

Filling

big scoop of pumpkin

big handful of shredded colby jack cheese

Pumpkin Ravioli, 

with a Pumpkin Cream Sauce*, 

on a bed of Kale, 

with some Pumpkin Chicken** on the side.

And don't forget the Pumpkin Porter!

*Pumpkin, Heavy Cream, Sage, Ginger

**Boiled in pumpkin and Shock Top Pumpkin Wheat Beer

Yes, I love pumpkin!

Tomato Sauce

A friend gave me some tomatoes from her garden last week.  I was going to make tomato soup, but when I got to the point where it was time to add the heavy cream, I discovered that I didn't have any.  So I turned it into tomato sauce instead.  It came out pretty tasty.  I didn't end up eating it until several days after I made it, and I wasn't smart enough to write down what I did at the time, so I'll have to guess for you.

Ingredients

5-6 small tomatoes

1 1/2 carrots

1/4 small onion

4 cloves garlic

fresh basil

Directions

I made Xs with a knife in the bottom of each tomato, then dropped them in boiling water for 30 sec or so. Then I removed them and the skins peeled right off.  I chopped the onion and garlic and browned them in some olive oil in a dutch oven.  While they were browning, I grated the carrots into the pot.  I chopped the tomatoes and added them.  I let it cook for awhile, stirring occasionally.  I added some fresh basil at some point.  I let it cook down for a bit, and then I removed it from the heat and used an immersion blender to blend it into a tomato-sauce consistency.  

Last night I made some pasta with artichokes, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and some leftover chicken tenders.  I tossed it with the homemade tomato sauce.  Super yummy.