Last week, the family was mighty pleased with the weekly menu. It was a rare confluence of the ideal meals for the weather. And as a bonus, two full meals of Portuguese Bean Soup and Chicken Tortilla Soup safely tucked away in the freezer for 'one of those days' that inevitably come up.

More cold weather is forecast, so I'm aiming for spicy-warm, lighter fare in anticipation next week's Thanksgiving Day meals and leftovers. My secondary goal is to use the bag of shredded carrots and another very large bag of baby green beans, both of which seemed like such a good deal at the time. Here's what's cooking this week. 

Sunday
Breakfast for Dinner. One of my children's school food-class project was to prep, make and clean-up a full family meal. Eggs to order: 1 scrambled, 2 over-easy, 1 "rubber" egg (over-easy, but with a hard yolk), bacon, scones, from-scratch hash browns and fruit. No, this is definitely not light, but we'll have the whole week to work it off.

As a special treat, husband made apple-cranberry pie with homemade pie crust. We like it when he practices for Thanksgiving!

Monday
Salt and Pepper Shrimp, using chicken. While this is faster and prettier using shrimp, it's still mighty tasty with chicken. Rounding out the meal with fresh green beans, rice and poke avocado stacks based on an Alan Wong's recipe in the Blue Tomato. This falls squarely into the spicy-warm yet lighter meal category.

Tuesday
Misoyaki salmon, edamame rice and more green beans. This should finish out the green beans and the last of the shredded carrots.

Wednesday
A Diners, Drive-ins and Dives-inspired meal. The featured dish was apple brie pancakes with a side of meat. I need something fast for carpool-Wednesday, so it'll be black forest ham, honeycrisp apple and brie sandwiches, grilled. In theory, this sounds fab, so let's hope it's not another Bacon-bok-choy-tomato pizza debacle.

Thursday
Thai Chicken Curry. One of my daughter's favorite meals. Spicy and rich, but full of vegetables and pineapple to minimize the heaviness in the dish. If there are any more green beans left, they're getting thrown into the mix.

Friday
Hot and Sour Soup. Finishing the week going tofu-only for a light but satisfying, spicy-warm meal. Right in time to start preparing for Thanksgiving!

Eat Well. Be Well.

Where does Summer go? 

Schools have been starting around here from August 15th! We're going light on meat this week as we still have a lot of summer veggies from our garden and the 'ohana' trading system--zukes for string beans, overstocked tomatoes and squash, and even sleepovers for brownies! This week's menu is to keep the summer vibe going.

Monday: Misoyaki salmon and edamame rice. Using King salmon, which is on sale, instead of butterfish, which is not available. Separately, I'll be roasting some humongous tomatoes from a friend and more of our zukes since I'll already be using the oven.

Tuesday: Roasted tomato/zucchini and basil pizza using another whole-wheat Boboli. There's no recipe for this one, it's really just construction. No bok choy this time!

Wednesday: Nakaoyshi Gakko Somen salad (again), using the cukes, tomatoes and lettuce from the garden, scrambled eggs and kamaboko. This is very popular in the summer.

Thursday: My Daddy's Killer Fried Rice, using some fresh string beans, the rest of the kamaboko, carrots, onions and the rest of the homemade char siu that I froze awhile back.

Friday: Nametake Tofu. My sister sent me this recipe. It's supposed to be hot again, so no cooking and all-veg today.

Have a good week back to school (!?) Eat Well. Be Well.

Mostly Japanese food, and pretty light on meat. We go through periods where our vegetable consumption wanes, so I'm focusing on adding more vegetables to complete our dinners.

Monday--Okonomiyaki, with just cabbage, kamaboko and fresh green onions from our garden. 

Tuesday--Shabu Shabu. Another all-veg meal using tofu and the other half of the kamaboko from yesterday's dinner. Shabu-shabu got canceled awhile ago because we were out dipping sauces. Now I've started working on making the sauces from scratch.

Wednesday--Kara-age fish, but using chicken. Fish was not looking very happy this week. I think the swap will work. With the first harvest of Romaine lettuce from the garden, kim chee and hot rice.

Thursday--Stir-fried Lazy Wraps, for lack of a spiffier name. Take a package of sausage. Smoked Brats, Chicken Apple, or Portuguese are the household faves. Slice them and toss them in a non-stick pan. Slice an onion, 2 red peppers and some mushrooms. When the sausages are almost brown, add the onion, then peppers and then mushrooms. When everything is cooked, heat up some tortillas and make wraps. Add salsa if you like.

Friday--Misoyaki Butterfish with steamed broccoli, another fresh head of lettuce and rice.

Bonus Saturday--Yakisoba, made by the husband. Use Maruchan *fresh* and *not instant* yakisoba.  He adds green beans, carrots a bit of pork, chicken, or kamaboko and red pickled ginger (kizami shoga) as a garnish. Fresh yakisoba is in the refrigerated section of most Asian grocery stores as well as in some Safeways.

Eat Well. Be Well.