Taking stock & making stock

Lately I’ve gotten into planning our meals for the week each Sunday by taking stock of what we have in our fridge, freezer and cardboards; and checking with both Marc & my schedule for the upcoming week to see that our lunch & dinner needs/plans are. One would think that we should have already been doing this. Well, I guess we sort of did that, but in a much more haphazard manner often playing by ear and scrambling to make meals work given various time & ingredient constraints, etc. Often times, we ended up relying heavily on simple go-to meals/recipes that do not require much energy or thought. I suppose this new approach is much driven by my recent re-found interest in trying out and experimenting with new (and sometimes old) recipes. This means, planning is pretty crucial because some ingredients are stuff I might not otherwise buy/I bought a while ago for some other recipe and have not touched it since, I spend more time in the kitchen, and we need to make sure we are around to actually eat the stuff I cook!

I realize this may sound nerve-wrecking to some, but actually this has been a great exercise for both Marc & I. I’ve started to clear out various foods we’ve had for a while but forgot we had (hello, 3 month old frozen tilapia; frozen chicken stock from who-knows-when; last year’s girls scout cookies; jar of bulgur wheat!). It has also made Marc & I communicate better about events that are going on in the upcoming week – I was alone for dinner tonight because Marc has a work dinner, Tues & Weds will be a late dinner night because of workouts and Church deaconing, etc. This exercise actually also helps us think about other scheduling repercussions given that we share 1 car (a conscious decision on our end), and minimizes confusion & frustration.

Here’s a sample of our meals last week:
Monday: Shrimp paste chicken; steamed broccoli, cauliflower & carrots (leftover from Sunday); brown rice
Tuesday: Cocktails & Dinner out at East End (somehow we had overlooked this gem right by campus – we will be back to visit!), before catching Alvin Ailey at Memorial Hall (amazing dancing!)
Wednesday (Marc’s birthday): Laksa (coconut based curry broth with Udon, shrimp, fish balls, fish cake & abalone); kai-lan & shitake mushroom stirfry; oatmeal raisin cookies (the Tollhouse pre-made/bake-ready kind); Red-wine chocolate cake with mascarpone-cherry filling (inspired by this recipe) & chocolate ganache (from Joy of Cooking)
Thursday (Shuwen alone): leftover brown rice, kai-lan & shitake mushroom stirfry & a quick scrambled egg (used leftover egg-whites from when I baked Marc’s b-day cake on Wed)
Friday: Potluck party at Marc’s co-worker’s home (faculty were told to just brought wine, which we dutifully did)
Saturday: Dinner –spicy soba with shitakes, vegetables, tofu & edamame (inspired by this recipe); leftover chicken; leftover b-day cake
Sunday: Lunch – Carrot-ginger-sesame soup (inspired by this recipe) & grilled cheese sandwich
Dinner – Spaetzle; Spicy chicken sausage; Baked asparagus; Salad; leftover b-day cake

This week, I have on the schedule:
Monday (Shuwen alone): fried rice (basically throw a much of leftovers including rice and fry it all up!); ginger-pear crumble
Tuesday: Late night = Pizza + Salad; ginger-pear crumble
Wednesday: Curry with fish & bokchoy; Paratha (make dough for Thursday’s bread)
Thursday: Roasted Eggplant, onion & tomato soup; Pull apart beer & cheddar bread; microwave Chocolate Chai pudding (from a recipe I saw in Relish)
Friday: Sausage; salad; left over spaetzle
Saturday: Lunch – Pasta with ricotta, zucchini & mushrooms
Dinner – Chicken with fermented tofu stirfry (chicken bones goes into making a stock!); Brown rice; bokchoy + mushrooms
Sunday: whatever leftovers from this past week that is crawling around in our fridge – I’ll probably also make a few dishes and plan to have leftovers for lunches in the upcoming week

Yes, all of this scheduling does mean less freedom to completely change our plans, but it does not mean we have no wriggle-room. Given Marc & my tendencies to like to know ‘the plan’, this works well for us (admittedly, I can see how this will not go down well for others), and we will see how long this will end up lasting… if anything, the pantry is now ready to be restock with this year’s Thin Mints, Samoas and Tagalongs :) ... the freezer is not doing so well as currently there is too much communion bread and containers of broth/stock in it!

~ Shuwen