Menu Monday #4

This is a rough day for me (I'll explain in another post), so I'll keep this Menu Monday short and to the point.

This week's menu is partially filled with freezer food meals -- leftovers from previous meals frozen to make life easier. The problem was that we would rarely eat the frozen leftovers because I was always cooking something new!  We've decided to fix that issue by making sure at least one week out of each month we consume mostly leftovers. At least there's a wide variety sitting in our deep freeze!


Menu, January 22-28

• Sunday -- Mushroom stroganoff based on this recipe at Williams-Sonoma. I cut back on the butter, added 4oz of cream cheese, and used nonfat yogurt instead of sour cream.  It was a hit! This with a big salad sure hit the spot.
• Monday -- Crock pot beef stroganoff based on this recipe. Normally I wouldn't have the same meal two nights in a row, but the wine I used on Sunday I assumed I could drink with dinner (the recipe only called for a cup). Wrong! It tasted like mushrooms and was a bit sharp -- the perfect flavor for stroganoff but horrible to drink. What to do so the bottle doesn't go to waste? More stroganoff! After all, we can freeze whatever we don't eat, right?
• Tuesday -- freezer meal
• Wednesday -- freezer meal
• Thursday -- Chicken and green chile empanadas
• Friday -- freezer meal or leftovers from Thursday
• Saturday -- steak & fries

We normally don't eat much meat, poultry, or seafood.  With beef, in fact, we'd maybe eat it once a month. Maybe. This month I decided to look for a local farmer to see how much it would cost to buy direct, buy local, buy grass-fed beef -- so much healthier for us and the economy!  Well, imagine my excitement when I discovered a farm in Corvallis, Oregon, that is currently offering 25% off a 25lb box of beef.  Perfect!  We don't need much.  I wondered how much it would cost, total, since the cost varies based on cut of meat.  I spoke with Amanda, a woman who works there, who was so happy to help a former vegetarian figure out what to purchase and how to use it.  We're getting a mix of brisket, roast, fajita meat, steaks, and stew meat -- 25lb for under $90! How awesome is that?!?  I drive down to Salem to meet the farmer and pick it up on Friday.

If you live in the Willamette Valley and are interested in buying meat directly from a farmer, check out Bald Hill Farm!