"Hiatus? What Hiatus?" and a Few Words About Meal Planning

It's been a strange couple of years here in the Fridays household, so my original plan to cook a new recipe from my collection of cookbooks each week was a bit of a fail.

However, I just got two new books that I'm dying to read through, flag, and set up a trial schedule so I'll get back on track and continue to ensure that my writing skills haven't completely rusted.

In addition to the need to pull things back on track, I'd like to talk about meal planning.

Not only does planning your week's (or two weeks'!) worth of meals help to ensure you're not wasting food, but it also helps you write your grocery list, eat more healthfully, and use all your resources.

Our general week's meal plan is by category, which allows a bit more flexibility in each week's menu while still allowing us to lead our lives.

Monday is Slow Cooker Night - the munchkin started Girl Scouts in November, and her meetings are after school on Mondays. If dinner's already in the slow cooker, we can eat as soon as we walk in the door from meeting pickup, rather than taking an extra 30-odd minutes to prep & cook something. This is especially helpful in getting the munchkin to bed on time, and has helped improve her ability to focus in class the next day.

Tuesday is Taco Tuesday - by request, the munchkin asked that every Tuesday be declared "Taco Tuesday." So, that's what we do. Usually it's packaged seasoning mix and a box of taco shells, but even within the Taco Tuesday theme, there are many delicious variations. (We might do steak fajitas, for example, for Valentine's Day 2017. Steak on Valentine's Day is always a welcome change of pace!)

We usually plan one night per week as "Leftover Night." This week, it's Wednesday, but I might bump it to Thursday next week because there's a new recipe I'd like to try on Wednesday.

Starting this month, we're going to add Fish Friday, because I'm not always in the mood to eat meat or grilled cheese. 

Oddly enough, this adds enough flexibility to our menu plan that we can be creative and still make sure we're using our resources wisely, which is incredibly important when you're trying to do more with less!

Bonus Recipe - Rice Pudding

Now, I know what you're going to say, because I, like you, also despised rice pudding as either too sweet or having a weird texture - who wants to chew "pudding" ?

So, after catching a repeat of the GE episode "Puddin' Head Blues" on TV the other day, AB's recipe for Indian Rice Pudding started to call to me.

How fortunate (while the recipe was calling) for us to order takeout Chinese? 

Quite.

Having the main ingredient (1 cup of cooked-and-cooled long-grain or Basmati rice) in the fridge, albeit a bit older than I probably ought to have used, meant I needed to create a shopping list - it calls for whole milk, heavy cream, and coconut milk, none of which I had on-hand, as well as pistachios, golden raisins, and cardamom.

So, here's the compacted version of a week's worth of posts:

Shopping List

• whole milk (I bought a half-gallon, because my daughter and I will drink it, but a small "single serve" bottle from your local convenience store would be fine)
• heavy cream 
• canned coconut milk (I used "light" from TJ)
• ground cardamom
• UNSALTED pistachios
• golden raisins

Recipe Review

The recipe worked as expected (near perfectly - I'm fortunate to never have had an AB recipe fail) though it is a little involved. Anything where you're bringing milk to a boil is going to be involved, in my opinion, so it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Mr. Brown's meticulous step-by-step instructions really break everything down so I'd expect that my sister could follow them, but she likely wouldn't - she's kind of a picky eater.

I've never cooked with cardamom before, though I've eaten dishes that feature it, and I think it might be my new favorite spice. It smells kind of lemony, with a hint of pepper, and tastes like real vanilla with a hint of nutmeg. 

My husband enjoyed the flavor, but the texture from the rice, which had been in the fridge for 5 days, was a bit off-putting - it was still a bit "crunchy" and it shouldn't have been.

My daughter, on the other hand, wouldn't even try it. Whatever; she's 4.

Conclusion

Despite the kid turning up her nose at it, I'm still going to add this to the regular rotation, with the caveat that it needs to be made within one day of having takeout.

It's also not too complicated to do on a weeknight if everything's already in the house. Now that I've got the spice, nuts, and raisins, I'll only have to get the milk & cream next time.

RECIPE WIN.