Week 8: Friday, 2/18 through Thursday, 2/24

Whole Foods One Day Deal this Friday was $1 off per pound on air chilled organic whole chickens.  I bought two!  One is in the freezer for another day.  Tonight, we'll have roasted chicken with roasted fennel and whole wheat bread.  Unfortunately, I have not been able to get into the habit of baking bread so this bread is from Whole Foods.  One of my goals is to bake our own bread but it just doesn't fit into my schedule right now. Note that the page numbers are for my reference and I do hope to post most of the recipes here at some point.  It's helpful later when I'm trying to quickly use previous weeks for future weeks!

Friday, 2/18 - Simplest Whole Roasted Chicken (p. 644), Braised Fennel, Bread - COMPLETE
Verdict: This recipe is the simplest for making a whole roasted chicken.  It's from my beloved cookbook, How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.  I also highly recommend the braised fennel (or as LTH says, "fendel").  It was simple but tasty (and different from our normal vegetables).

Saturday, 2/19 - Chicken Tacos and Sauteed Broccoli and Garlic - COMPLETE
Verdict: Great use of the leftover chicken from Friday's meal.  We also had chicken nachos for lunch that day that were very yummy.


Sunday, 2/20 - Bean and Cheese Empanadas (p. 174) and Pureed Parsnips - COMPLETE
Verdict: Very good and easy. I even made the refried beans myself (using canned pinto beans - next time I should make the beans from scratch too).  MTH commented on how good the beans were.  The good part is that reheated empanadas are also very good.

Monday, 2/21 - Bolognese Risotto and Pureed Parsnips - COMPLETE
Verdict: Same as before - yummy! I think I'll make another batch of bolognese just for making this dish.

Tuesday, 2/22 - Leftover Bolognese Risotto and Pureed Parsnips - COMPLETE

Wednesday, 2/23 - Macaroni and Cheese and Baked Sweet Potato - I made cheese quesadillas, green beans and baked sweet potatoes instead.

Thursday, 2/24 - Bulgar Pilaf with Broken Vermicelli and Pureed Vegetable - I made the homemade stovetop mac and cheese standby as well as maple carrots instead
Verdict: LTH loves mac and cheese and will eat carrots very easily.  Although it's definitely not as easy as making Kraft mac and cheese, homemade stovetop tastes so much better, it's worth the extra 10-15 minutes of preparation in my opinion.  Plus, you know what all of the ingredients in it are!