A friend sent me a note last week to let me know how much she enjoyed the cheese souffle and that it fit perfectly into her plan to clean out her pantry/fridge/freezer because she had exactly the right amount of everything to make the souffle. This note made me happy not only because she enjoyed it but also because it confirmed that the recipe actually worked. As I’ve written before, I’m a home trained cook, trained primarily by my mother. My mother was not a cookbook/recipe follower. So when she taught me to make a cheese souffle, she said to use about “this much butter” (cutting off a hunk) and “this much flour” (sprinkling from the bag). When I include quantities and amounts of ingredients for recipes, I’m using my best guess and hoping I’m right. Please forgive me when I’m not.
A pantry/fridge/freezer clean-out sounds like a fabulous idea for the beginning of spring, so that’s my plan for this week. The menu and shopping list include links and ingredients to make all of the dishes listed for dinner except for the turkey burgers and veggie/rice dinner. The green chicken chili at our house, however, will come straight from ye olde freezer hopefully without ye olde freezer burn.
The apple/romaine/walnut salad (Thursday dinner) was inspired by a delicious lunch at Harry’s Roadhouse in Santa Fe. It was a simple mix of chopped romaine, organic apples, walnut pieces and blue cheese with a poppy seed dressing. My people don’t eat blue cheese, so I’ll have the tiny piece that’s hiding in my fridge all to myself.
Happy eating, happy spring, and happy Easter.
jenny's lark 