Week of Sept. 23 - Sept. 29

Here's our experiment: design a menu for each week to try new things and eat more healthfully. This is our first week, trying out what works and what doesn't.

Saturday: ✓

• Roasted Sweet Garlic & Thyme Risotto with Toasted Almonds and Breadcrumbs
  (Food Network print-out, recipe by Jamie Oliver)
• Brussels Sprouts with Walnut-Lemon Vinaigrette from EatingWell.com
• Suggestion: omit the lemon zest
• Pick up walnut oil from Breadsmith
• Ben: This was excellent -- the best Brussels Sprouts dish I've ever had (admittedly a small sample set, but this really blew away the competition)
  

Sunday: ✓

• Crustless Chard and Cheese Quiche from Allrecipes.com
• Carrie: Excellent! This "quiche" didn't have a dough crust, but used sliced potato instead. The potato made it substantial without being too heavy -- making it good comfort food. The chard turned out well -- not too stringy, not too mushy. But it was the tangy, flavorful goat cheese that really brought this dish together. We made it in a glass pie plate and that worked well, and it was surprisingly easy to cut and serve -- just enough eggy custard to hold it all together. A winner!
• Celery Root and Apple Salad w/Mustard Vinaigrette, Deborah's Everyone, p. 156
• Carrie: This was really good! It was a great accompaniment to the "quiche", with a lovely crispness to the celery root and the apple and a great vinegar tang. Yummy!
  
• Dense and Delicious Chocolate Cake, Vegetarian Times, Sept 06, p. 32
• Carrie: Too tired to fix this, moved to tomorrow.

Monday: ✓

• Whole Wheat Penne with broccoli, green olive, and pine nuts; Veg Suppers, p. 56
• Ben: Good, but didn't have nearly as much zing as the ingredient list led me to believe.
  
• Salad
• Dense and Delicious Chocolate Cake, Vegetarian Times, Sept 06, p. 32

Tuesday: ✓

• Perfect Hominy White Bean Chili, Veg. Slow Cooker, p. 69
• Ben: Nicely flavored, but lacking something: with the addition of some chunky vegetables, it would have worked better as a chili; adding some brown sugar would make it a good baked bean dish.
• Carrie: Agreed!
  
• Cornbread muffins - packaged mix (like Bob's)
  

Wednesday: ✓

• Indian!
  

Thursday: ✓

• Masa Crêpes, Vegetarian Suppers, p. 76
• Carrie: Yum! The crepes were a bit hard to make -- kept sticking to the pan. But the overall flavor was excellent.
  
• Spicy Black Beans, FoodNetwork.com recipe - amended
• The recipe is for fajitas, but contains a sub-recipe for black beans.
• Ingredients are separated, but instructions are not; cooking instructions start with "Add another teaspoon of oil..." in the middle of the 4th paragraph.
• Carrie: Good flavor and great accompanyment to the masa crepes.
  

Friday: ✓

• Roasted Pear-Butternut Soup with Crumbled Stilton, Allrecipes.com private recipe
• Suggestion: to make tough squashes easier to peel, try putting them in a microwave for 1 to 2 minutes to soften the rind.
• Carrie: The strange thing about the soup is that it had a very mild flavor, almost to the point of no flavor at all. But, of course, this was just the thing for the stilton! The soup served as a base for the stilton crumbled on top. Together, they were great.
  
• Crusty bread from Breadsmith
• Salad
  

Ideas & Possibilities:

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