Reckoning #4

So...how did the menu plan work out this week?  Let's take a look...

	Breakfast	Lunch (Snacks)	Dinner
Monday	coffee, leftover rice	rich tea biscuits, carrots, peas, apple, cheese stick	Treated by a friend!
Tuesday	coffee/lemon pound cake *	Ratatouille and leftover kimchee fried rice	chicken breast with mirepoix and wine gravy
Wednesday	coffee/tea/pumpkin scone *	leftover chicken with peas and carrots	split chicken finger app. w/a friend post-concert*
Thursday	Focaccia and Coffee	rich tea biscuits & cheese, sliced zucchini & squash	Fried Rice w/peppers and carrots
Friday	Hot rice cereal, coffee	Rice and Mango, Cheese Sticks and biscuits, apple, tea	Rice and Mango and then a Party!

*Another fail this week -- I had a singing gig 1-hour north of where I live.  Sadness, I stopped at Starbucks a few times this week...

Recipes and notes for this week after the jump...


Ratatouille
My father calls this his "mess" and eats some variation of it multiple times a week often with a bit of meat thrown in as a complete skillet meal.  If you don't know this dish (pronounced ra-ta-too-ee) then you should because it's easy, tasty, and cheap to make. The trickiest part (I think) is putting the ingredients in the right order.  Because (and I know this must be a shock) veggies cook at different speeds...hey it took me awhile to learn that hard lesson.  The kinds of ingredients and amounts are subject to personal taste and the size of your skillet.

How to make a basic ratatouille:

• Put some oil in a skillet
• Add some garlic and onion (I use 4 cloves and a med. yellow onion)
• When the onion has gone a bit translucent and your domicile smells like your grandmother's house, add some diced eggplant (I use 1/2 of a large fancy eggplant).  
• Cook it for a minute or two, add some zucchini and squash (I use one of each)
• Cook for a minute, add some diced bell pepper (I like to use parts red and green)
• Cook for a minute, add some diced tomato (I use 4 roma tomatoes)
• Add salt and pepper and simmer for another minute or so

Chicken Breast with Mirepoix
Mirepoix -- chopped up onion, carrots, peppers I had lying around
Chicken Breast -- Rubbed down with butter and seasoned with S&P
Gravy -- poured cheap wine over the mirepoix with a little water and let the whole thing cook with the breast...1 hour @425F

Basic Fried Rice:
In a saucepot, prep a cup of fragrant rice (basmati, jasmine, etc)
When rice is done, in a skillet, add a dollop of peanut oil (or other high temp. oil) and when hot, add onion, pepper, carrots, etc.  After 3 min. stir in rice and add a drizzle of oyster sauce or soy sauce. Mix well, stir fry for a min. or two.  Serve with green onions or crushed peanuts as garnish.

Hot Rice Cereal
This is a recipe straight off of Hillbilly Housewife.  It is one of my favorite recipes and whenever I have leftover rice I love to make it the next morning!