The menu for the week beginning May 9th - Mother’s Day week – is:
- Mother’s Day
- breakfast – blueberry scones
- dinner – Baked Ziti accompanied by a fresh tossed salad
- dessert - Homemade shortcakes with fresh strawberries and whip cream
- Monday – Baked ham accompanied by mashed potatoes and peas
- Tuesday – Chicken stir-fry with bell peppers, snap peas and broccoli
- Family Wednesday – Pizza accompanied by a fresh tossed salad
- Thursday – Trout baked in a pocket with lemons, parsley and white wine accompanied by green beans in an almondine sauce.
- Finger Food Friday – Grilled Southwest Shrimp cocktail
Comments
This week I’m using a lot of items that have been gathering space in my freezer – a ham, green beans, peas, broccoli, chicken, pizza dough & sauce.
I’ll have to find a glaze for the ham and a dipping sauce for the shrimp but other than that it’s a fairly easy week.
Mother’s Day is where all the work is – scones, baked ziti and and strawberry shortcakes. Good thing I like baking. The ziti is a America’s Test Kitchen recipe that looked wonderful. I’ve never made baked ziti so it should be fun!
The store had trout on sale this week so I figured the “fish in a pouch” would be good again. Perhaps I’ll try adding a bit of orzo to it. Last time I tried couscous and nobody cared much for it.
I was so impressed with how the grilled shrimp turned out last week that I’m grilling the other pound I bought and pair it with a “southwest” dipping sauce. Not sure what the sauce is quite yet, but I’ll work on it.
Outcomes
The scones were pretty good. This is about the 4th time I’ve made them and although I still have problems with the dough log tearing it’s getting better. Dough logs in general I have a tearing problem with. I think there are 2 causes:
- dough is too thin in spots
- dough is not dry enough – tears when picked up from surface
Just means I have to make more dough logs – oh snap!
The Baked Ziti was a huge hit – a better Mother’s day dinner would have been hard to find. Add to that fresh baked shortcakes with strawberries and whip cream and it’s nearly perfect. I was so pleased with how it all turned out – as was my bride!
My Freezer Raid of the frozen ham went splendid. I glazed the outside with some Dijon mustard, brown sugar and a spritz of Bourbon, brought it to 120 degrees and served. Took about an hour or so. The mashed potatoes and frozen pean rounded out a great meal. There were even a few strawberries, shortcakes and whip cream left over from Sunday to have a nice dessert.
Tuesday’s Freezer Raid on the chicken and frozen veggies for stir-fry worked out well. I used an oyster sauce and served it all over rice. Easy, easy easy and my freezer is getting thinned out as the days go by.
Wednesday Pizza was fine. The left over pizza sauce I had from the Mexican style pizza didn’t mesh that well with the Italian stuff I whipped up. Still good. I’ll have to look for a better pizza sauce recipe.
I continue to be impressed with the “fish in a pouch” cooking style. This time I added some orzo and it turned out pretty well. It wasn’t dry and it absorbed a lot of the wine. Quite good. My fear is that I’ll get addicted to this preparation technique and not try anything else.
The grilled shrimp on Friday was fantastic although my tequila laced dipping sauce left something to be desired, at least for my wife. She’s not a tequila fan so while I could chalk it up to that I think there was more to her dislike than just the offending liquor.
