Food post: no plan, and plan

As I stated somewhere, last week we did not have a food plan.

It worked out just fine that way. Of course now I have trouble remembering what we had exactly except for Friday, when we had penne with tomato sauce and eggplant parmesan. I also know we went through a lot of vegetables – broccoli, cauliflower, red pepper, carrots, mushrooms, celery. And we didn’t order in, but we did get chicken from the store one night.

I offer the eggplant recipe because, having married a man who salts the eggplant first and fries each cutlet lovingly, I was shocked to discover it can be totally fast and easy:

- Toast two slices of whole wheat bread
- Toss a few small cubes of parmesan into the magic bullet blender and grate into oblivion
- Wash one eggplant and slice into rounds
- After toast is out and has been cooled by toddler flipping it around in his wee frying pan, toss toast into magic bullet along with thyme and marjoram and let it make breadcrumbs mixed with previously grated cheese
- Crack two eggs into a bowl and get toddler to break yolks and mix up
- Bread eggplant slices, all the while explaining to toddler that he cannot help or stick his fingers into the raw egg because he has a tendency to eat raw egg off his fingers. Introduce “salmonella” into toddler vocabulary, which becomes “melonelda.” Don’t get the melonelda!
- Throw eggplant slices onto greased baking sheet and bake at 375 until crispy, about 30 min

It was a hit. I will be repeating this often I think.

Saturday we had more eggplant, in an eggplant-tomato-”sausage” (veg) sauce over polenta. The polenta was not a hit with the toddler crowd though. Veg hot dogs and cucumber slices figured prominently.

Sunday in honour of both Carl’s mum being down and the fact that a 10lb ham (with bone, so not all edible meat) was on sale at the market for $8, we had ham, fried potatoes and onions, and mashed turnips and carrots. I froze about half the meat.

Monday we had leftovers.

Last night Carl was not home for dinner so I asked Noah what he would like and he said soup, so we had soup and toasted cheese. And banana. This replaced a lentil dish.

Tonight the plan calls for homemade pizza with, yes, ham. And veggies. And cucumber slices.

Tomorrow (sense a theme here?) we will have ham and broccoli quiche, which I will have baked tonight along with banana bread for Noah’s snack day, and beet salad, and raw carrots.

And Friday we’ll have pea soup, and hummus and crackers.

And people wonder why the Sunday night roast used to be such a feature.

Food quote of the week, upon opening the organic produce box: “Broccoli WOW!” Also, when we brought the box in: “My LIKE vegetable surprises.” (Wait until the kid learns vegetable boxes are not, in fact, like Christmas. Except at our house they are, every week.)

If anyone has some fabulous squash recipes, I would love them, because we are experiencing a bit of a squash backlog right now. Acorn and butternut.