Every weekend, we sit around and plot our meals for the week. Generally one trip to the grocery store follows the meal planning and we rarely stray from the plan. We may not get around to cooking everything we planned to cook but we don’t usually decide to make something completely different once the shopping is done.

Despite having done this for about 2 years, planning meals for the entire week is a challenge for me. I used to be the type that would make a zillion trips to the store and would decide what I wanted to cook on a complete whim. This ended up costing a lot of money and I wasted a lot of food. I also worked in a restaurant for a long time and quite honestly didn’t have to cook that many real dinners. I pretty much never had to think about what to eat for lunch since the restaurant fed me. In addition, I detested leftovers and rarely wanted to make something that would last for several meals.

Fast forward to now and life is pretty different. Instead of working 4+ nights a week, I’m home every night and need to have something to eat for dinner just about every night. I also take lunch with me to work most of the time. When we plan our meals for the week, we think about what we want to eat for lunch and dinner for a full week. To make decision making a little easier, we keep a list of all of the meals I’ve cooked that we liked enough to eat again. We also have to think about leftovers. It’s rare that I don’t cook something with the intention of eating it again at least once. All this planning is not an easy task. For me, it takes a little bit of the fun out of cooking. I liked the old way…where I would wake up and decide what I felt like cooking. Fortunately I still get to bake on a whim as we don’t plan desserts or baked goods in advance and I keep enough supplies in the house to bake nearly anything we might crave.

So…here’s what we’ve planned to eat this week. Pretty much everything on the list will be eaten more than once.

Pork Fried Rice - I use a variation of the recipe in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. I’ve made this enough times that I don’t actually need the cookbook anymore. This is great reheated in the microwave and even better if you fry it a second time. Also, my version is made with brown rice.

Potato Leek Soup – I like mine pureed and topped with cheese and chives. The topping is not necessarily traditional but it’s delicious. The version I’ll make is from The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters.

Shrimp Cakes with Tartar Sauce - Like crab cakes…but with shrimp. I found a great recipe online last year at Je Mange la Ville and this will be the recipe I use again this week.

Turkey and Muenster Cheese Sandwiches on Homemade Oatmeal Wheat Bread - I could eat turkey sandwiches every day so they’re a common item when we plan meals. The bread recipe is slightly adapted from one found in the February 2010 issue of Martha Stewart Living. It’s great tasting and doesn’t get stale as fast as a lot of the homemade breads I’ve made.

If all of the food above doesn’t last until Saturday, we’ll have baked potatoes or eggs or vegetables or even a bowl of cereal. We probably won’t have to resort to any of these as I usually make more than enough food.

And then there’s dessert. I don’t have anything planned for later in the week but I did already bake a batch of dark chocolate oatmeal cookies – minus the oatmeal and white chocolate chips in the recipe. Instead I used toffee bits and peanut butter chips. Still very delicious…so much so that they won’t last all week. By Wednesday or Thursday, I’ll need to dream up something else.

P.S. Let me know if you want to stop by for dinner…we’ve usually got plenty of food!

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I love flipping through magazines in search of recipes. Over the years I’ve become pretty selective about which ones I actually clip and file for later. Despite my selectivity, the vast majority of the recipes I clip are never made. Then there are the recipes that look so delicious that I make them before they’re ever clipped from the magazine.

These Peanut Butter Cup Cookies were one of those recipes. As soon as I saw these in the latest issue of Real Simple, I knew they would be made. Quickly. Like 2 days later…which was as soon as I could actually justify making another dessert. This recipe was not one that would linger in the binder for years without ever being made. This was a recipe capable of cutting in front of all the other recipes that have been patiently waiting in line for months (or even years).

If you like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (and I do), these are for you. The dough in these cookies is secondary to the Reese’s Cups and I’m okay with that. They’re super easy to make. The hardest part is chopping the Reese’s Cups. If you’re not really a fan of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups or peanut butter, you probably won’t enjoy these as much as I did.

I made only a few modifications to the original recipe. I added a little bit of peanut butter to the dough and I used regular sized Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups instead of mini ones. I prefer the peanut butter to chocolate ratio in the regular sized Reese’s Cups. But if you like the smaller ones better, use them.

This recipe uses a LOT of Reese’s Cups and that could get expensive…but Halloween is approaching and you should be able to find a jumbo-sized bag of them on sale soon!

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Adapted from recipe in Real Simple magazine, October 2009.

Makes about 30 cookies

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• about 16 regular-sized Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, coarsely chopped

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
3. Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
4. Beat the butter and sugars until creamy with an electric mixer. Add the egg, vanilla and peanut butter and beat to combine.
5. Gradually add the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated.
6. Fold in the chopped peanut butter cups.
7. Drop tablespoon-size balls of dough 2 inches apart onto the parchment lined cookie sheets.
8. Bake until light brown around the edges, about 10-12 minutes.
9. Transfer to baking rack and cool.
10. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

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Seriously, how has it been a month since I’ve posted? I blame the photo of the day thing I’m doing on Flickr. I’m taking a picture everyday and posting the photos on Flickr with a nice little description…and this is taking the wind out of my blogging sails. Sorry. If you really really really care about what I’ve been up to lately, head on over to my Flickr page. There are lots of pretty pictures of food and flowers and plants over there.

And just to prove that I do still cook….

Pork carnitas. Yummy pork carnitas. If you’re not familiar with carnitas, you ought to be. The pork is a nice change from the usual beef or chicken. But maybe you don’t like pork quite as much as I do. Most people don’t.

These are from the May 2009 issue of Everyday Food Magazine and the recipe is available on the Everyday Food website. I followed the recipe to the letter for the pork. I didn’t, however, use the same toppings they used. Instead I topped my pork with sharp cheddar cheese, fresh pico de gallo (made with just picked cilantro from my herb garden) and sour cream.

As you look at the recipe, I’m pretty sure you’re going to scratch your head and say “Ewwwwww!” Yes, the recipe does instruct you to simmer/saute the pork in a mixture of milk and orange juice. Yes, this does sound gross. Yet I followed the recipe and I can assure you that the pork did not under any circumstances taste gross. The milk and orange juice thing repulsed me so much that I almost wanted the pork to taste bad. Shouldn’t milk and orange juice curdle when mixed together and shouldn’t mixing them together ruin the pork? Despite my skepticism, the pork was scrumptious.

This blog writing thing was fun. Maybe I should do it again sometime soon. Maybe if I do it again sometime soon people will still want to visit my site. Wishful thinking?

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I woke up yesterday morning wanting to bake a coconut key lime tart. Where the idea came from is beyond me. But it sounded like a good idea and it was Saturday so I had plenty of time for baking.

My craving told me I wanted a normal key lime filling with a coconut graham cracker crust. In addition, I wanted whipped cream and toasted coconut on top. With specific details like this, you’d think I’d made this particular tart before. But I hadn’t.

I have made key lime tarts before. I think the last one I made was a little off but I can’t quite recall what was wrong with it. Rather than risk even the slightest failure, I went to the internet. After looking around the web a little, I found Peabody’s Camping Key Lime Pie with Coconut-Pecan Graham Cracker Crust. Her recipe looked perfect but I didn’t feel like running to the store for pecans or mascarpone cheese…so I left them out and altered the recipe.

Coconut Key Lime Tart

Both recipes printed here are very slightly adapted from the Key Lime Pie recipe found at the Culinary Concoctions by Peabody website.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup key lime juice, fresh if possible
• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
• 5 egg yolks
• whipped cream (for garnish)
• 1/2 – 3/4 cup toasted coconut (for garnish)
• 1 coconut graham cracker pie crust (see recipe below)

Directions

1. Whisk sweetened condensed milk with the egg yolks.
2. Stir in whipping cream and key lime juice.
3. Pour into prepared coconut graham cracker crust and bake at 325° for 15 minutes.
4. Cool to room temperature and refrigerate for at least an hour before slicing.

Coconut Graham Cracker Crust

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups crushed graham cracker crumbs (approximately 12 graham crackers)
• 1/2 cup toasted sweetened coconut flakes, crushed into tiny pieces
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon coconut extract
• 6-7 tablespoons melted unsalted butter

Directions

1. In a food processor, blend together graham cracker crumbs, coconut, and sugar.
2. Add about 6 tablespoons melted butter. Pulse a few times. If it seems like it needs more butter add the remaining tablespoon.
3. Pour contents into an 11″ tart pan and press to form a shell.
4. Bake crust for 10 minutes at 400 degrees.

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Chocolate is good by itself. So is peanut butter. But they’re both better together.

I hoard Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. For this recipe and this recipe alone. After Halloween, I bought at least 10 bags of them on sale. Hopefully they’ll last for most of the year.

These peanut butter cup brownies have been begging to be posted for about a year now and I’ve never gotten around to it…in large part because I never got around to writing down the exact recipe. One of the pictures here was posted on Slashfood’s Feast Your Eyes blog yesterday so I now feel the need to follow up that mention with a proper recipe.

I brought baked goodies to people at my old job pretty frequently and these were one of the most requested items. Even the guys that worked in the kitchen begged for them on occasion. As a last treat before I left that job, I baked a batch for them.

The base recipe for these is from Baking Illustrated’s Chewy, Fudgy Triple-Chocolate Brownie recipe. I’ve made a few alterations.

Peanut Butter Cup Brownies

Ingredients

• 8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
• 4 tablespoons cocoa powder (I use a mixture of Hershey’s regular & Penzey’s Dutch Process)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons instant espresso powder
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (I only use unbleached)
• 8 or 9 regular size Reese’s peanut butter cups, coarsely chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8″ square baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Microwave chocolate chips and butter in microwave for about 45 seconds. If not mostly melted, microwave for 20 more seconds. Stir until smooth. Whisk in the cocoa powder and espresso powder. Set aside.
3. Whisk together eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, peanut butter and salt until combined.
4. Whisk the warm chocolate mixture into the egg mixture.
5. Stir in the flour until just combined.
6. Fold chopped Reese’s peanut butter cups into batter.
7. Pour mixture into prepared pan, spread evenly and level the surface with a rubber spatula.
8. Bake approximately 35-40 minutes. Brownies will be slightly puffed and a toothpick inserted into the center should come out mostly clean.
9. Cool to room temperature for about 2 hours. Cut into 1″ squares. Store in a tightly sealed container, preferably in the refrigerator.

A couple of side notes that you don’t necessarily have to listen to:

• I freeze the Reese’s cups. Freezing them works well as they’re easy to chop when frozen..especially if it’s summer and your kitchen is blazing.
• You really shouldn’t cut these into squares larger than 1″. They’re really rich and decadent and one small square is more than ample.
• You could use fancy chocolate in these but I don’t. Nestle chocolate chips work just fine.
• Don’t overbake them…or any other brownies. Brownies should be moist and sort of chewy. Not dry and hard.

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I should use Seinfeld quotes more often (this one is from “The Muffin Tops” episode from 1997). Between Seinfeld and The Simpsons quotes, I could have endless title material.

These blueberry muffins, like all of the other blueberry baked goods I’ve showcased this summer, are from the plethora of blueberries I picked in July.

Even when I didn’t particularly care for blueberries as a fruit, I liked blueberry muffins. This might stem from my general love of muffins. My favorite blueberry muffins have a crunchy top…as a child, teenager and young adult, I was a sucker for the Duncan Hines muffin mix with the can of wild blueberries and the crumb topping. Nowadays I’d never consider using a mix…so I made these from scratch from a Martha Stewart recipe found in Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook. Are you tired of me praising the recipes in this book yet?

These were very good. Way better than average. For the topping, I simply sprinkled turbinado sugar over the batter. The turbinado sugar provided a nice crunch that regular granulated sugar wouldn’t have.

I loved the advice in this recipe to toss the blueberries with a little bit of the dry ingredients in order to prevent the blueberries from sinking to the bottom as the muffins baked.

Blueberry Muffins

Recipe from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook

Makes 1 dozen muffins

Ingredients

• 1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups fresh blueberries (I used fresh this time but I’ll probably use frozen next time I make these!)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1-2 tablespoons turbinado sugar (optional)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper muffin cups.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl, toss the blueberries with about 1 tablespoon of the flour mixture.

Set aside both the flour mixture and the blueberries.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until combined after the addition of each egg. Mix in the vanilla extract.

With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture. Beat just until combined. Add the milk and beat just until combined. Do not overbeat. Lightly fold in the blueberries using a rubber spatule. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups. If you’d like a little crunch on the top of the muffins, sprinkle a small amount of turbinado sugar over the batter in each muffin cup.

Bake until the muffins are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of one of the muffins comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes. Remove muffins from pan and let cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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Pictured in this post is a blackberry and peach tart I made in July. My mom gave me a bunch of fresh fruit she’d picked locally…probably more than we could eat before they went bad. Since blackberries don’t seem to keep particularly well, I turned them into these tarts.

They’re made with a walnut shortbread crust that I adapted from an almond shortbread crust recipe I previously used to make cherry tarts. I liked that crust a lot so it was an easy choice for this tart. I believe that this recipe is the one I used to make the original almond crust. Go figure, it’s a Dorie Greenspan recipe from Bon Appetit. I should have known.

To assemble the tart, I lightly pressed the shortbread into the tart pans, sliced the peaches, tossed them gently with a little bit of flour, sugar and cinnamon and layered them in the shortbread crust. The blackberries were then scattered over the peaches. I wanted the fruit in this tart to remain separate…unlike some previous berry and peach things I’ve made where the fruit melded together.

The fruit was then topped with an oatmeal walnut crumb topping and baked until the crust was golden brown.

Other stuff: Sadly, the week at the beach is coming to a close…it kind of went by too fast. We went on a day trip to Charleston, SC yesterday. We didn’t set out to see anything in particular…we simply parked the car and walked around all afternoon taking photographs. I’ll probably write a post about that trip as we took a lot of pretty decent pictures.

Other than the trip to Charleston, I’ve just lazed about all week. I spent a little more time on the internet than I should have and I did a fair amount of reading but I didn’t touch any of the knitting I brought with me. I really should start knitting again…if for no reason other than I have an awful lot of yarn in my stash. Maybe the mood will strike once we’ve moved and are completely settled into the new house. Or maybe the knitting bug will strike again once fall arrives.

We’ll be heading back to Williamsburg in the morning…as much as I don’t want the vacation to end, I will be glad to be at home to bake. I’ve been craving sweets all week and I really don’t like grocery store desserts anymore. Ice cream kind of did the trick yesterday…but baked from scratch goodies would have been better. Oh well…I’ll be home to make them soon enough.

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Rice, Corn & Black Bean Salad Wrap, originally uploaded by the boastful baker.

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