Super Sunday (51/52)

Meal Plan Week #50
Sunday:  Kale Lasagna Diavolo

We now officially love kale.  Think of this dish as a spinach lasagna, but much, much better.  First, the kale is so much better than using, say, thawed frozen spinach.  Second, the sauce was slightly spicier than the typical marinara.  Bottom line: look for many, many more kale-based dishes in 2012 (assuming we still inundate you all with what we have for dinner).

Monday:  Leftovers
Tuesday:  Broccoli and Cheese Soup and Baked Potatoes

Yep, easy as 1, 2, 3.  We saved time--and got great flavor--by preparing the "baked" potatoes in the crockpot during the day.  The soup was pretty easy to slap together, and I got to use the blender (my favorite "soup making" tool).

Note, however, that if you choose to use this dish as leftovers, you may be better off doing a second batch of potatoes in the crockpot the next day . . . while nuking already cooked potatoes the next day worked ok, they were a little rubbery in parts.

Wednesday:  Sobre Mesa

Thursday:  Leftovers

Friday:  Christmas Party

Certain lunches during the week:  Spinach-Quinoa Salad with Cherries and Almonds

Made it.  Ate it.  Won't do it again.  (Heck, we didn't even take a picture.  If you know us, that says it all about this dish!)

Besides being a waste of quinoa, the requisite pitting of cheeries required by this dish has to rank up there on a list of kitchen drudgery.

Saturday am:  Eggs in Purgatory Re-do

 See, I told you we would try it again with pre-prepared salsa.  This version was tons better.  And while you cannot tell from the pictures, we made this dish ENTIRELY from ingredients we picked up at the market before breakfast: all local--eggs from Henrietta's and salsa from the U of Mobile!

Saturday pm (Tex-Mex Taco Night!):  El Fenix Orginal Tacos

I guess we are learning that if you want Tex-Mex in Mobile, you have to bring it yourself!

While I was a little scared to fry these suckers up, it was easy.  We were even brave enough to have one of the M&Ms over (the other was out of town)--hard to beat homemade tacos and beer . . . 

Some meals during Week #51
I have decided to highlight the few dishes we have already made this week.  While we have one more menu item, I am seriously doubting that it will get prepared . . .  but we'll see . . .

Sunday breakfast:  Nopalitos and Eggs (Tex-Mex cookbook)

For the uninitiated (and we were until we tried this dish), nopalitos  are cacti leaves, and they taste sort of like better tasting green beans.  (Yeah, that description blows the exotic-ness of this dish out the door.)

The dish was easy; we are glad we cooked with cacti leaves--which, surprisingly, are available not at the specialty fu-fu grocery store, but at the WinnMac-Dixie; and when you add the salsa, it looked like Christmas on a plate!

Monday:  Grilled Goat Cheese Sandwiches with Fig and Honey

This is--again--a completely local dish.  The bread was picked up from the market (from a vendor from Elberta, AL).  The goat cheese is from Henrietta's (see above).  The honey is local.  And the basil is from our window sill.

To make it even better, it tastes great.  For instance, A. is usually a savory breakfast junkie.  She liked this.  She even liked it for DINNER.

Rest of the week:  Best of intentions, but--likely--very little follow through!  Happy Holidays!!