Sunday afternoon food prep

Sunday afternoon food prep

Objective: create segments of meals that let me eat a variety of foods this week with minimal prep time and will help me fight the temptation to buy something on the way home.  Living in walking distance to Trader Joe's is getting dangerous.

I'm at the tail end of the produce box.  The roasted tomatoes went into sandwiches, pasta, and catalan tomato bread (see Europe pics), curried brown basmati rice, black beans and brown rice.  Plums went into drinks and snack...  Roasted cauliflower was devoured as part of salad and part tapas.  Kale went into the hash, rice, and scrambled eggs.  Potatoes went into mashed, hash, and fries (with fresh cheese).  Beets were roasted and eaten with salad and reduced basalmic one night...and Trader Joe's spicy peanut dressing on another.  Lettuce...obvi...

After ten hours of peeling, cutting, and dissecting 

I procrastinated on handling the acorn squash because I have yet to find an efficient way to peel and cut it...or deal with innards... But now that I'm out of the easy veggies, I decided to stop procrastinating.  Plus, I love squash...  just not preparing it.

This week's mix and match set:

1. Grilled pears on the George Forman: Good for salad (almost tastes like jicama).  Good for paninis.  Good as a healthy snack.  I'm sure they'd taste better with butter and sugar but I'm trying to save my sugary intake for ice cream and cake...still have leftover molten cakes in the freezer!

2. Brie (<$5)

3. Trader Joe's multigrain loaf

4. Roasted acorn squash, garlic cloves, and onion.

After dressing: olive oil, basalmic, red wine, oregano, brown sugar (LOVE using pyrex, putting on the cover, and shaking it all up to save on minimizing the use of another prep bowl!)

5. Goya white beans (on sale at Stop and Shop)

6. Eggs

7. The rest of the bag of cooked frozen shrimp I splurged on at Trader Joe's

8. Half of a sad basil plant--learned the hard way that the radiator is under the sunny window...  oops!

So far, we've made
1. Grilled panini with brie, grilled pears, and basil...definitely way less pricey than the grilled sandwich that I was tempted by at Panera's.

2. Roasted garlic white bean dip with italian herbs (half of one can of white beans, olive oil, roasted garlic from the roasting batch, sea salt, oregano, basil)



3. Squash and white bean dip (other half of the can of white beans with the roasted onions and squash)
4. Scrambled eggs with shrimp, cheese, and basil

...I still have leftover barbecue shrimp pizza with whole wheat crust (trader joe's!) that's in the freezer... looking forward to other combos... squash risotto?  squash pasta?  squash stuffing?  squash and white bean salad?