Planning

Every week before we go grocery shopping, I try to plan out a menu for the week. Sometimes I'm less successful than others. I always plan at least two full meals, but on a good week, I'll plan four. I never actually plan five because I'm usually really tired at least one night a week with no desire to cook and we choose to go out instead.

This week, I'm really craving meatballs and sausage so I'll make a pot of that tonight. I think I'm going to go with slightly smaller meatballs today, browned in the new non-stick pan. I also usually just use tomatoes for the sauce and I think it ends up pretty runny and bleh. So today I'm going to make a normal sauce with onions, carrots, celery, etc. and then puree the whole thing before adding the meats. The pasta is so easy... it's just that when you are tired, kneading pasta for eight minutes just sounds exhausting. But in theory, put the sauce on to heat, start making the pasta, and then all should come together. Right? Well, we'll see how it comes out.

So, after the success of the french onion soup as a starter or just a light dinner, I've tried both minestrone and potato leek and I'm sad to say that only french onion seems to have any influence over our menus. Maybe the soup idea would have been a bit stronger in the winter instead of the summer, eh? Well, I'll stick to perfecting my french onion then. Though, dammit, we still don't have any cognac.

Aside from the meatballs and sausage, I'm not sure what else to make. I have a whole flounder from last week (frozen and vacuum sealed) that we haven't had yet. After watching the Top Chef episodes with the beautiful steaks, I really want a good steak. The problem is the meat. After Star Provisions meat, nothing comes close. Whole Foods is expensive, so you would think the quality is close, but it's just so bland. And Star is down at 14th street and Howell Mill with them closing four lanes of the connector to repave, not to mention closing the 14th street bridge until like November, traffic down there is total hell. Even if we have a ribeye in the freezer, which I don't think I saw when I cleaned it out, there is no way that it could be defrosted tonight.

I know we have two small racks of pork and some frozen homemade apple sauce. Searing a rack of meat and tossing it into the oven is so very tasty and fast (well, fast for my part) that I really love dinners like that.

So... excellent! I just remembered that Sawicki's in Decatur is open on Sundays. Lynn Sawicki used to work at Star so I think the purveyors are the same. They are a little more expensive, but they are close AND open on Sundays. Well, that looks to be my source for the next few months if I can just remember to call with what I want a few days ahead. They don't have aged bone-in ribeye today, but they do have the Painted Hills ribeye so we will go check it out and pick it up if it looks good.

With that in mind, I'm pretty happy with the plan for the week. We have leftover short ribs and also leftover pork shank confit from Floataway (a future post) so we'll have tacos one night and I'll just make some sauces to go with that if necessary.

In other news, my herbs are still alive! They don't seem to be growing yet, but it's a positive sign that they look green and alive. I watered them on Wednesday and Saturday. I'm a little concerned that no water is coming out of the bottom of the pot since I'm trying to overwater them (instead of underwater) but maybe they are just sweltering in this heat and are thirsty. With that in mind, maybe this will be the last week that I have to buy herbs!