Weekly Menu Plan

A few of you said you were going to miss the weekly menu plans, so here is my most recent menu.

Building from the ground up in a kitchen is always a little daunting.  There was quite a lot of food here when we moved in, but almost everything was very expired (like it expired in 2011), so I have been doing some tossing and replenishing, which means spending more money than I would like.

Also, I tend to get a smidge frivolous in the summer, and buy exciting things like $4 steak and 3 pounds of nectarines.  For the most part, I have tried to stick to my budget (with a few small exceptions). Most of these recipes are vegetarian, though, and inexpensive.

Happy Cooking!

Menu:
Steak and Tomato Pasta - We made this one in France last year, and Adam has talked about it frequently since then.  We made it again, and both thought it wasn't quite as good as we remembered. I have a few theories about why that might be, but I don't know for sure.  Maybe worse quality of meat (most likely)?  Using sour cream instead of creme fraiche?  Anyway, it is still solid, just not a 'this is the best pasta I have ever had!' recipe.
Thai Peanut Salad - I am sure I have mentioned before how much I love this salad.  I usually just use lettuce, a few colors of peppers (never green), carrot and noodles with the sauce.  It is always a hit.  Even Fox was a fan.
Cumin Chickpea Pizza - A medium success.  I will try this one again, and maybe post it in a month or two.
Curry Vegetable Bowls with Cashew Sauce - This was really good.  I need to tweak one thing, and then I will post it here.
Potato Galette - I changed this one up a little and used brown butter and cardamom.  Not bad, but it probably would have been better with duck fat.
My Favorite Pancakes - I never liked pancakes as a kid.  My mom didn't make them very much (we usually had waffles or coffee cake if we had a fun breakfast), and when I did have them, they were from Denny's or IHOP, and were super sub-par to the max, so I didn't know what a good pancake should taste like.  Once I tried these, I vowed to never eat a sub-par pancake again (ironically, I just had some mediocre ones on the 4th of July...).  At any rate, these are my favorite.  Many thanks to Janssen and Ruth Reichl for providing me with this exceptional recipe.