Spicy Broiled Bacon Avocados and 20 More Days of Meal Planning

Yep, still trying to eat healthy!

Here is what we will be trying over the next 20 days:

Valentine's Day Dinner Plan

Happy Valentine's day everyone!

It's not very fun that it falls on a Tuesday this year, but my husband and I don't usually do that much to celebrate anyway. And this afternoon we'll be doing our last round of more in depth house inspections, so I know I'll be short on time tonight to make a fancy dinner.

But I'm still going to try to whip together something!

I've decided to keep it simple, and go with several finger foods/shareable tapas. This will make it easy on me when I don't have much time tonight to cook (plus I still have to go to the grocery store!), and hopefully also be yummy. Just add candles to any meal, and it's romantic to me! ;)

We'll start with a salad of some kind. It will include avocados, and maybe I'll find some strawberries at the store to give it a hint of Valentine's Day red.

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Then, will come the two main courses to share. Smoked salmon, with capers, green and red onions, on a bed of gourmet potato chips, and topped with a drizzle of Avocado Dill Dip.

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Avocado Dill Dip

Our second portion of the main course will be warm, Baked Crab Rangoons. This is the part of our Valentine's Day diner that takes the longest to cook, baking for 15-20 minutes, but I'm planning to prep the smoked salmon while the rangoons are in the oven.

 Baked Crab Rangoons

Finally, for dessert, I'm keeping it simple. My husband asked me at Christmas time why I had to make such fancy cookies, and couldn't we just have peanut butter or chocolate chip. Well, obviously, since at Christmas I was baking for a cookie exchange, it had to be fancier. But for him, I'll grant his wish, and am going to bake him peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. I might have to stick one of those mini Reese's Peanut Butter cups on the top, just to make it a little fancy though!

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Do you have any fancy Valentine's Day plans, or will you be keeping things simple tonight? Anyone whipping up a meal for their valentine?

Annnnd This Is What Happens When I Don't Meal Plan

We go grocery shopping and come home with a freezer-full of frozen food. :(

THIS is why it's so important for me to plan out our meals in advance, otherwise we go shopping without a real list, and end up with lame dinners for the next 3 or 4 weeks. Even though it takes a bit of time, it's a whole lot better than this:

We didn't get only frozen dinners, we also got some prepared pulled pork, deli meat, ravioli....lazy fridge stuff that requires heating, not real cooking. I guess on the upside, our grocery bill at checkout was about $100 less than it usually is, since we didn't buy a million ingredients for cooking real meals. But I'm sure our sodium intake this next month will also be off the charts. Sigh!

Remind me to look at this post before our next grocery shopping trip, mkay? I think it will be good motivation to take the time to meal plan!

Do You Plan Out Your Meals?

Because we I do, and it makes life so much easier!

I am super lazy. Which you all know if you've read this blog for any length of time. So lazy, in fact, that I used to get our groceries delivered from Safeway, even though they frequently got the wrong brand or made weird substitutions. Going to the grocery store blows, at least in my opinion. But being an adult means doing a lot of things we don't like doing, and since I do love food and eating (just not the shopping for and cooking of the food), and we don't have Safeway where we live now, I have to go grocery shopping myself.

But I've figured out a way to minimize my shopping to just one major shopping trip per month, and then a quick grab-a-few-perishable-things trip half way through the month. By planning out our meals for a month!

Yes, it's about a $300-$350 shopping trip once a month, and our cart is overflowing and the checker hates us because we hold up the line with so much stuff. But it's so nice to not have to go every week that it's worth the bit of planning and hassle of getting it all to fit in the cart.

First, I make a list of all the dinners we're going to eat for the next 4 weeks, and print it out and put it on our fridge. It's kind of fun to know what I'm going to be eating for dinner in advance--I can look forward to trying a new recipe!

Then I go through all of the recipes ingredients lists and my grocery shopping list is mostly complete, except for yogurt and sandwich and salad stuff for breakfast and lunches.

I'm also a little anal and like to sort my shopping list by what section of the store each item is in, which saves me from missing too many things and having to backtrack through the store. Anything to minimize my time grocery shopping!

This meal planning thing has been working really well for us lately, and ever since I started doing it, not once have I found myself halfway through making a meal without a vital ingredient handy. Which is not a fun situation to be in, but can be easily avoided with a little planning.

And what have I made lately? A lot of old standby recipes that I've already posted on this blog, but also a couple of new recipes, including this Balsamic Chicken with Roasted Vegetables (although I changed up the types of veggies to cater more to what my husband and I like):

I'd also been dying to try this crab cake recipe from Mrs. Cheeseburger for several months, and finally did last week. Seriously delish, especially with a side salad and a sauce made out of fat free mayo, Italian dressing, tons of garlic powder and some basil.

And on Sunday, Miss Magic was nice enough to invite us to a fun BBQ at her house, for which I had to break out some yummy (and healthy) appetizer recipes. I have a slight obsession with both mini and stuffed appetizers, so I made a tray of Smoked Salmon Cucumber Cups and Mini Caprese Bites.

I've long since lost the recipe link for the Mini Caprese Bites, but here's the recipe that I fished out of an email to a friend from back in 2007:

Mini Caprese Bites

• 40 cocktail tomatoes
• 1/2 ball whole milk mozzarella
• Bernsteins Restaurant Recipe Italian Salad Dressing (make sure it's the restaurant version, much better)
• Crushed basil leaves

Hollow out all the tomatoes (a paring knife works well, cut around the top of the tomato in a circle, the scoop out the seeds and center).  Finely shred the mozzarella, and mix with about 2 tsp basil leaves, add salad dressing until a scoopable consistency (I think around 1/4 cup).  Use a small spoon to spoon the mixture into the tomatoes, garnish the plate with parsley.

 Do you plan out your meals in advance? Does it make your grocery shopping go a lot smoother? And who's with me on hating going to the grocery store?

My Fancy Valentine's Day Meal Plan (Um, This Might Be Hard!)

Imagine this:

You get to spend all day playing video games and messing around with circuit boards, while delicious smells of garlic, rosemary and carrot drift out of the kitchen. Then, your lovely wife lights a fire, places candles around the room, and puts on some music. Next, she serves you “Frenched rack of lamb, cut into finger-food lollipops, soaked in Port, caramelized on the grill, then topped with a fresh, biting sauce made from soft, sweet garlic and parsley,” along with garlic-rosemary-balsamic potatoes, salad, and carrot cake cupcakes for dessert.

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Oh yeah, and while you’re imagining this, pretend you’re a dude. My husband, specifically.

So, sound good?

It sounds pretty damn good to me! But after looking at these recipes, it sounds hard. Very, very hard to make for this culinary amateur, especially the lamb, which I’ve never made before.

Grilled Port Lamb Chops with Garlic Confit and Sauce Vierge "Persillade"
Glazed Rosemary and Garlic Potatoes
Carrot Cake Cupcakes

But you know what? I’m going to try it anyway! This is what I’m going to attempt to make for my husband this weekend for Valentine’s Day. It will be my most challenging cooking attempt ever, and hopefully everything will turn out good. But if not, I know my husband loves me enough to eat it anyway. Or order take out. But it can’t turn out much worse than pizza and TV reruns, which I think is what last year’s Valentine’s Day entailed (he was in charge of our plans last year).

So wish me luck, and I’ll be sure to report back next week on how these dishes turned out!