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Weeks Eats

This weeks menu:

Monday: Black-Eyed Pea Patties served in a tortilla with Pico De Gallo, spinach, sour cream and cheese

Tuesday: Sweet Potato Soup and a Salad

Wednesday: Pasta Salad

Thursday: Pizza

Friday: Vegetable Lasagna

Saturday: Turkey Chili

Falafel

So I took pictures of the falafel I made last week but I can't locate my camera at the moment. This picture looks pretty close though.


Here is the recipe for falafel I made. It's a really easy recipe and a great substitute for a meat dish. I made my own pita (which is one of the easiest breads to make) but you can, of course, buy it at the grocery store.

Falafel

1 can of chickpeas
1/2 large onion, roughly chopped (about 1 cup)
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon salt
dash of Tabasco sauce
4 garlic cloves
1-1/4 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon baking powder
4-6 tablespoons flour
Vegetable oil for frying
Garnish With: Chopped tomato, sliced onion, sliced green bell pepper, and Tahini Sauce

1. Drain and rinse chickpeas
2. Place the chickpeas and onions in a foodprocessor
3. Add the parsley, cilantro, salt, Tabasco sauce, garlic, and cumin. Process until blended but not pureed.
4. Sprinkle with the baking powder and 4 tablespoons of flour, and pulse
5. You want to add enough flour to enable the dough to form a small ball and does not stick to your hands.
6. Form the chickpeas into balls the size of walnuts
7. Heat 3-4 inches of oil to 375 degrees in a deep pot or wok and fry 1 ball to test.
8. If it falls apart add a little more flour
9. Fry until golden brown. Approximately 4-5 minutes.
14. Drain on paper towels.

Dinner!

So I've been planning my dinner menu at the beginning of the week to help stay on budget and also to keep from going to the store more than once a week. It's been working out very well and I it's really nice to come home from work and not have to hope that there are enough ingredients in the cabinet to create something for dinner.

I am going to start posting my weekly menu on the blog and hopefully once we get internet at the house I can post the recipes and pictures daily.

So for this week!

Monday:
Black Bean Soup and Cornbread Muffins

Tuesday:
Caramelized Onion Tart and Salad

Wednesday:
Walnut Burgers and Sweet Potato Fries

Thursday:
Meatloaf and a green vegetable

Friday:
Pizza and Salad (we eat pizza almost every Friday night)

Saturday:
Falafel

Maybe this will help if you too can't think of what to make for Dinner

Happy New Year!

We had some friends over on New Years Eve last week to celebrate. It was a lot of fun and we actually stayed up till midnight!!

Jeff, Allison, Chris & Amy and us!

Dinner consisted of ham, spinach, pear and pecan salad, asparagus, bread and red wine pear crisp for desserts. We were also supposed to have corn pudding too but it didn't make it to the table. I had made the pudding and pulled it out of the oven once it was done and placed it on the back of the stove. When Nathan went to make the asparagus he accidentally turned on the wrong burner. It burned a circle in the corn pudding but we decided just to eat around it. We set it to the side and after about 10 minutes the whole pyrex dish shattered into a million little pieces. So the corn pudding ended up in the trash...boohoo!


Because we have no TV there was no way to watch the countdown. Our friends Chris and Amy downloaded countdowns on their iphones so we could see it.



We played a game of Bananagram and we had to take a picture of the OCD people (Nathan, Chris and Amy) on the right.


For those of you who didn't know Nathan has gone the past year without drinking soft drinks. He had his first coke in a year on New Years Day!!