Menu #11

Once again, this time of year is very busy for everyone, including us. With work, church, choir rehearsals, parties, shopping, and extra Christmas activities, I have some pretty simple meals planned for these few weeks. There are also some planned leftovers as well as some meals out. Hopefully you can find some inspiration to help you with your planning for your busy season as well.

Grilled Steen’s Sausage, baked potato, asparagus

The is a repeat meal from a previous menu except for a different potato dish. The sausage is from a small meat market in Youngsville, Louisiana called Nunu’s. They make all of it in-house. It is pork sausage links infused with Steen’s cane syrup. It is amazing!! We grill it – so good! Obviously if you don’t want to order some of this, you can use any kind of sausage that you like. Bake your potatoes nice and slow in the oven if you want the very best. For the asparagus, heat the oven to 400 degrees F, trim your asparagus and put on a sheet pan. Drizzle on a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper (or whatever you have). Cook until the asparagus is tender and the heads are a little crispy. 

Leftover Mashed Potato Soup with Ham, sourdough bread, salad

This is such a great soup recipe, and I found it out of necessity. I had purchased the twin pack of prepared potatoes from Sam’s (see the Thanksgiving menu) and only needed one of the packs. I wanted to find a recipe that used the potatoes instead of just having mashed potatoes again. That’s when I found this recipe from littlehomeinthemaking.com. It makes a large pot of soup and is super easy to make. I am adding ham to mine because we like potato soup with ham. You can have just the soup, or fix some bread or rolls and a salad for a complete meal. 

Chicken and Noodles, pudding

It’s Delta Kappa Gamma night again! This recipe is obviously a repeat since I have DKG once a month for most of the school year. Here are the instructions again. Boil some bone-in chicken (or a whole chicken) in the oven until it is cooked through. Then move the pot to the stove. When the chicken is cool enough, remove the meat from the bones. Add the chicken back to the pot with the liquid that was still in there from cooking the chicken. Bring it to a boil and add chicken Ramen noodles. The amount depends on how many you are feeding. Only use half of the seasoning packets. Let that cook until the noodles are done. We have never had a “normal” side with this, but you can put a vegetable, fruit, or salad with it. 

Grilled Pork Chops, Southern Cabbage, Sweet and Spicy Sweet Potatoes

My family calls me the Pork Queen because I have lots of really good pork recipes that I use. This one from kristineskitchenblog.com is for the grill, but you could probably cook them on the stove, especially if you have a cast iron skillet. You do need to plan ahead – the pork needs to marinate for several hours. I usually put it in the marinade either overnight or first thing in the morning. 

The cabbage recipe is from divascancook.com. I used to not be a very big fan of cooked cabbage, but this recipe is delicious and easy. It uses chicken broth instead of water, so there is lots of flavor and very little smell!! I like to use a little bacon grease in mine as well for flavor. Or you can put in a piece of bacon or some ham to add that meaty flavor. 

The potato recipe is from Allrecipes.com. These aren’t mushy sweet potatoes and they have a little kick to them. They are almost like sweet potato fries. You could probably cut down the spice for your taste if you don’t like too much. Also, my original recipe calls for butter instead of olive oil and it does not include poultry seasoning. It uses seasoned salt instead. 

Cream of Mushroom Chicken, Creamy Mushroom Risotto, asparagus

This main dish is literally something I just made up, and it doesn’t get any easier. Brown some boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a skillet over medium heat. Mix a can of cream of mushroom soup with about half a can of water. Pour this mixture over the chicken, cover, and let it cook until the chicken is cooked through. 

I mainly planned this meal because I wanted to cook some risotto. My husband loves the risotto we get in the main dining room when we cruise, so I wanted to see if I could make some myself. This recipe from spendwithpennies.com did not disappoint. I have found that you have to be willing to be committed when cooking risotto though. It requires constant monitoring for about 20 to 25 minutes. 

We will have asparagus again because we really like it and I also want to use up what we have. With just the two of us, I usually only need to cook about half the bunch at a time, and it is too expensive to waste it!

Chicken Street Tacos, Mexican Rice

This is also a repeat meal from an earlier menu. I can’t say that I have an actual recipe for this. I basically just made it up so that I could use some ingredients that I already have. I use some shredded chicken that I already have in the freezer. This came from some of the rotisserie chicken pieces that I bought at Sam’s. Thaw that out and heat it up on the stove and add a packet of taco seasoning – I like the Taco Bell one. Follow the directions on the package but with the cooked chicken. I have some corn tortillas in the freezer as well that I will thaw and heat up. I do them one at a time on a cast iron skillet so that they get a little browned on each side. You can add some cilantro and chopped onion, and you have street tacos. I like a few other “typical” taco ingredients, so I use those as well. I have posted before that I like to use Rice-a-Roni brand Mexican Style Rice as a side.

Grilled Boudin, Natchitoches Meat Pies, salad

This is another repeat and may be a hard one to replicate. Boudin is not easily found (or universally liked). It is something that we have to get when we travel back to Louisiana, or we have friends bring us some if they are headed our way to visit. Boudin (pronounced “BOO-dan,” at least in Cajun country) is a cooked sausage made from pork meat and rice, plus various vegetables and seasonings, all stuffed in a natural pork casing. You can substitute your favorite grilled sausage here. The meat pies are a Louisiana favorite as well. The best ones are found in one of two places. The very best are at the original restaurant – Lasyone’s in Natchitoches. The second best place to find them are at many of the gas stations in Louisiana! We can also get them frozen, but not around where we live. The original ones can be ordered directly from the restaurant, but mini ones are also sold in grocery stores. We have to stock up on these as well when we can. There are recipes available to make them yourself, but I have never tried. The one I linked for you is from southernliving.com. Give it a go if you are interested. Maybe I will try one day!!

Chicken and Dumplings, green beans

Chicken and dumplings are another good southern favorite of ours. I have made them for years, but for a long time I used a recipe that used canned biscuits for the dumplings. While these are good, they are definitely not good for you, so I started looking for another recipe. I found one at thecountrycook.net that is supposed to be a copy of the chicken and dumplings at Cracker Barrel restaurant. While not exact, they are really good, and they use natural ingredients instead of a bunch of preservatives. You actually make the dumplings, but they aren’t difficult. I usually make at least a batch and half of these if I’m feeding my whole family. We usually have seasoned green beans with ours. Just use canned green beans and season as you like. 

Here are a couple of tricks I can share:

I like to use buttermilk instead of regular milk. If you don’t have buttermilk and you don’t want to buy any, you can “make” your own. You put 2 teaspoons of lemon juice into the milk for every half a cup. Let it sit overnight, and you have buttermilk! 

Also, I attended a cooking class with Amy Hannon (amyhannon.com), and she showed us a trick for incorporating butter into the dough. Instead of working in the cold butter, melt the butter and let it cool. Pour it into your buttermilk. Now you can pour the whole mixture into your dry mixture and incorporate it – genius!!

Hamburger Soup, bread

Tis the season for soup! Besides being the Pork Queen, I am also the Soup Queen to my family. We love soup during the winter months. I also really love it because many times I can cook it ahead of time so that I have quick weeknight meals. Soup also usually makes enough to have leftovers at least once. I usually make a spicy vegetable soup, but I felt like just having some good ole’ vegetable beef soup this time, so I found a recipe that was close to the one my mom made when I was growing up. This recipe from togetherasafamily.com uses simple ingredients, including frozen mixed vegetables, so it’s super easy to throw together. You could probably also make it ahead of time and put in the crockpot on Warm earlier in the day and have everything hot and ready to go for dinner. Some nice crusty bread or rolls round out this meal. 

Salmon Patties, Butter Beans, salad

I remember my mom making salmon patties for dinner when I was growing up. I didn’t like them at first, but as I got a little older, I really enjoyed them. This recipe from pintsizedtreasures.com reminds me of the ones my mom made. We never squeezed lime juice on them after they were cooked, but if you like that flavor, go for it. My mom always fixed pinto beans when we had salmon patties. I have some frozen butter beans that I want to use, so I found a recipe at southernfoodandfun.com to try. Many times when you look for butter bean recipes, you find recipes for lima beans. They are different beans, but they are similar enough that you can switch one for the other. A nice green salad rounds out this meal.