MennoGourmet Weekly Review

I'd like to introduce what I hope will be a regular feature on my blog: "MennoGourmet Weekly Review." And yes, I stole the title partially from this newspaper. I also was thinking of an old Mennonite joke--thrifty Mennonites have "Mennonite Weekly Review" for dinner on Sundays, as a way to clean up all the leftovers from the previous week. All of that to say that I hope this idea will help me to be more consistent in blogging once a week. I will present to you what I (and usually my husband) ate for dinner for the past week. I love food and I love to cook, but it is a challenge to get a good meal on the table every night after work. I hope to share some of what works for us and to hear what works for you.

So we'll start with this week, even though it's only Thursday.

Monday night we ate at this restaurant. We usually go out to eat once a week, but didn't go out last week, so we splurged and went out on a Monday. The first time we ate at Thai Kitchen, we ordered things spicy and almost couldn't eat them. This time around we had milder dishes. So far everything we've had there has been delicious. Can you tell already that I'm not much of a thrifty Mennonite? We go out to eat too much. But heck, we both work full-time, so I say we should enjoy some of the perks. :)

Tuesday night I made Chicken with White Wine and Mushrooms. I made a few changes--I used boneless skinless chicken breast and I added some dried basil, oregano and a little crushed red pepper to the sauce. I used a semi-dry Reisling for the wine in the sauce and we drank the rest of the bottle with dinner. It was yummy. I cooked angel-hair pasta to go along with it.

Wednesday night I made a stew with Italian sausage, French green lentils, chopped onion, carrot and green pepper, and a can of diced tomatoes. It turned out well given that I mostly made up the recipe after reading a lot of similar ones online. I especially liked the finishing touch--a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar stirred into the stew just before eating.

Tonight I made one of our favorite "I want to eat soon but I don't feel like cooking much" meals, sweet potato quesadillas. The recipe is from Simply in Season, but basically it goes like this: saute onion, garlic, and grated sweet potatoes with a bunch of spices (chili powder, cumin, cayenne, oregano, basil) until soft. Make a quesadilla with some cheese (I use a mixture of Colby Jack and White Cheddar) on the bottom, a layer of the sweet potato mixture in the middle, and more cheese on top to hold it all together. Eat with salsa, sour cream and guacamole if you have it (we just had salsa tonight).

So far, a pretty typical week. I tend to cook one fancy meal at home per week that we have with wine. I usually do one quick and easy meal, and then something in between fancy and quick. That covers three nights, then we go out to eat once. The other night we might have leftovers, or another quick meal. I find that I really only have enough culinary energy to cook fancy one or maybe two nights a week.

I'll finish with a picture I took earlier this week. Daylight Savings and the lengthening daylight here have led to long, sunny evenings, with the sun setting around 8:30 pm, and glorious sunsets out our living room window. We saw this on Tuesday night:

The Shrine of St. Therese

If you're ever in Juneau, I highly, highly recommend visiting this place. It's about 20 miles north of downtown on the Glacier Highway going out of town. There's a little sign pointing to the left at mile marker 23 or so. After parking in the lot, I walked down a trail towards the coast. This is what I saw:


It doesn't look like much, just a teeny island off the coast with rocks around it. But...walk across the causeway and under the trees....


This little chapel is in the center of the island. A trail borders the island with all the stations of the cross along the way. It's a beautiful, meditative place. I walked. The trees dripped. I tried to take pictures, but with only a point-and-shoot under a canopy of trees on a rainy day, I didn't get really good ones. I wished for my photographer-husband, who would have taken pictures that captured the beauty of this place. Here's my feeble efforts:

One of the stations of the cross--I think resurrection? but I'm not sure

Christ among the Sitka Spruce.

View from the island overlooking Lynn Canal.

Sadly enough, after wandering around the island for half an hour or so, my cell phone rang. Of all places for my cell phone to ring, this really felt like an intrusion. But I was in Juneau for work, and this call was work-related, so I took it, and soon left. I hope to be back, and next time I'll turn my phone off.