When late afternoon rolls around, do you already know what you’re going to cook for dinner, or do you look at what’s in your fridge and try to figure out what you can make with what you have on hand?

I applaud those of you who can throw things together and come up with a great meal, but not surprisingly, I’m one of those people who likes to have it all planned out. Otherwise, I’m sure I’d be missing some key ingredient I wish I had picked up at the grocery store, or I’d want to use chicken breasts that should have been thawing in the fridge for a day. I’ve been planning my meals in advance ever since I got married, but I didn’t get organized with menu planning until about a year and a half ago.

There are lots of menu planning systems out there, ranging from very basic to wildly complicated. I like to keep things simple, so I just use a blank calendar. You could hang it on your fridge, but I like to keep mine in a notebook. I use a small binder that holds 5-1/2 x 8-1/2″ sheets, because it takes up less room on my desk. I print out the calendar pages, cut them in half (there are two on a sheet), punch holes in them, and stick them in my binder.

I added two little Post-it tabs to the edge of my calendars to mark the sections, because I’m using a second set of calendar pages as my editorial calendar for this blog. I’m taking a more organized approach to blogging this year, so I’m hoping to post more often in 2014.

Before I shop for groceries (ideally once a week), I sit down with my menu planning calendar, my binder of favorite recipes, and the sale flyer for our local grocery store. I pencil in what we’re having for dinner for the next 5-7 days, then develop my shopping list based on my menu plan. I’ve gotten into a terrible cooking rut, so the menus aren’t nearly as varied as I would like, but that’s a topic for another day!

The calendar is one I designed myself, and you can download the 2014 calendar as a free PDF. I like to have only five rows of squares on each calendar page, so there are three instances where the first or last day of the month is on the previous or next month’s calendar page. My calendar, my rules.

Of course, the printable calendar can be used for anything, not just planning meals, so hopefully some of you will find it helpful.

Did you know that there is a National Popcorn Day? And did you know that it’s today, January 19? Popcorn is a snack worth celebrating, so I decided to make a batch of peppermint popcorn for an afternoon snack, inspired by this recipe from Our Best Bites.

Ingredients:

popcorn
white chocolate chips
semi-sweet milk chocolate chips
candy canes

How I put it all together:

It’s best to use salt-free, butter-free popcorn for this sweet treat, so I popped the popcorn in the microwave in a brown paper bag. Just put the popcorn in the bag without any oil or anything, fold over the top of the bag, and microwave it until it stops popping. (Read more about making your own popcorn in the microwave.) For this recipe, I popped 1/8 cup of popcorn kernels, and I had twice as much as I needed.

Line an 8×8″ baking pan with aluminum foil and spray lightly with oil. Put a bunch of white chocolate chips in the pan and place it in a warm oven. When the chips have melted, remove the baking pan from the oven and spread out the melted chips with a knife. Sprinkle with two thirds of the crushed candy canes, then add a layer of popcorn. Push the popcorn down into the melted white chocolate.

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler. (I use a metal bowl set into a small kettle.) Spoon the melted chocolate chips over the popcorn and sprinkle with the remaining candy cane pieces. Place it in the refrigerator to cool. Enjoy!

Sometimes I’m really glad for leftovers — especially when the leftovers are sweet and gooey. I baked a pan of s’mores bars for an annual fall fest some friends of ours hosted this weekend, and I was secretly glad to be able to bring a few back home with us.

The recipe is from Bakergirl’s blog, and I discovered it via Pinterest a couple weeks ago. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, since I couldn’t fit all 15 sheets of graham crackers on my pan, but these s’mores bars were super easy to make… and super delicious to eat! It’s hard to go wrong with graham crackers, butter, brown sugar, marshmallows, and two kinds of chocolate.

P.S. You can find other yummy-looking foods I’ve pinned on my Pinterest board called “yum.”

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been neglecting as much as I reasonably can in favor of two main pursuits — watching the Olympics and designing a brand new look for my blog. It’s undergoing a major renovation, and I can’t wait to show you the new layout when it’s ready!

Meanwhile I’ve been trying to keep up with the essentials like laundry, soccer games, shopping for maternity clothes, and eating homemade pizza. The kids were away at “Cousin Camp” on Sunday evening, so I made a slightly smaller pizza for just Tim and me. One half had pineapple; the other did not.

A few years ago, I almost made Hawaiian pizza for Tim for our second date. (My favorite must be everyone’s favorite, right?) Thank goodness I asked what toppings he liked!

I’m curious. What pizza toppings are your favorites? Which ones would you pick off if they crossed the line onto your side of the pizza?

My four little basil plants are growing like crazy! I recently found a recipe for basil hummus, which sounded great, so this evening I cut a bunch of basil and mixed up a batch for dinner. My mouth was watering just looking at the ingredients.

I chopped up the basil and garbanzo beans in the food processor…

…then added the rest of the ingredients (plus three cloves of garlic!) and kept processing it ’til it was thick and creamy. I spread the hummus on a small slice of homemade Italian bread, and of course it tasted just as delicious as it smelled. Next time I wouldn’t use quite as much garlic, as it almost overpowered the basil.

I served the hummus and bread for supper with homemade broccoli cheese soup (slightly modified from this recipe). It was a perfect meal for a rainy summer evening.

Do you have any great recipes that feature fresh basil? (Besides the obvious pesto, which I’ve actually never made.) I’d love to hear your suggestions!

On Sunday afternoon, I made mozzarella cheese.

I started with whole milk, citric acid, rennet, and salt — and ended up with 14 ounces of delicious mozzarella cheese. I followed the instructions step by step, and it actually worked! I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was (and still am). It was art, it was science, it was magic.

I’ve been wanting to make mozzarella cheese for years, so six months ago, I finally added a cheese-making kit to my Christmas wish list. The kit has been waiting patiently in my pantry ever since the holidays. So why didn’t I make cheese sooner? Well, I thought it would take a long time. I thought it would be more complicated. I thought I would become frustrated. I thought it seemed mysterious. I thought it wouldn’t turn out.

And you know what? It did take longer than the instructions said it should. It was a little frustrating when the curd didn’t develop properly. It was certainly more complicated than buying fresh mozzarella at the store. And I still think the process is rather mysterious. But it was actually pretty easy. And it turned out just fine.

I made cheese.

And now I can’t wait to make more. Last night I did some online research to see how I can get the curd to separate from the whey better, and I’m eager to tweak the process a bit.

The photos I hurriedly snapped with my iPhone along the way aren’t great, but dinner last evening definitely was.

I made the mozzarella cheese, grew the basil, baked the bread, and bought the tomatoes at a local produce stand. And I’m still a little surprised that I made cheese.

Two Fridays ago I stopped by the library on my way home from work and checked out a copy of “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.” I became familiar with this book a couple years ago when I discovered that a group of people on the internet were systematically working their way through each recipe in the book. I didn’t join them, but their commitment to a long-term baking project intrigued me.

So the day after I brought the book home, I opened it to page 157 and got to work on my very first batch of english muffins. As you may recall, english muffins were one of the items on my list of foods that I want to make from scratch, just to prove that a regular person can make them at home.

I think I subconsciously expected that I would be able to replicate Thomas’ Original English Muffins, but mine were nothing like those delicious flat, chewy muffins with their trademark nooks and crannies. My english muffins were tall, dense, and somewhat crumbly like a biscuit. And there wasn’t a nook or cranny in sight.

But I learned a few things along the way. I learned that english muffins are first baked on a griddle and then finished off in the oven. I learned that I’m capable of making english muffins that taste good (even without nooks and crannies). And I learned that the recipe in “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” yields six english muffins and a tremendous amount of personal satisfaction.

P.S. I debated whether to capitalize the letter ‘e’ in the word ‘english.’ As a rule-follower, I knew I should use a capital letter, but it looked awkward. And then I thought about french fries, which are not French fries. Problem solved.

Question: What happens when you smush a Rolo between a pretzel and a pecan?
Answer: You end up with a little stack of deliciousness.

I’ve made several batches of these rolo pecan treats since I discovered this extremely simple recipe about a month ago, but they keep disappearing. It’s so mysterious…

Did you know that you can pop popcorn in the microwave in just a regular brown lunchbag? It’s true.

I’ve been seeing various mentions of this on the internet, so when I started feeling hungry this afternoon, I decided to try it out. All I did was put 1/8 cup of popcorn kernels in a bag, drizzle 1/4 teaspoon of olive oil over the kernels, and shake it a bit. Then I folded over the top of the bag two times and put it in the microwave on top of a folded paper towel (to protect the microwave from any oil that might seep through). I nuked it until the kernels stopped popping, put some popcorn salt in the bag, shook it up, and dumped it out into a bowl.

Yum!

When Magen got home from school and smelled the lingering aroma of popcorn, of course she wanted some, so we made a second batch using the same brown bag — and even though it didn’t have any butter flavor like she’s used to, she didn’t waste any time gobbling it down.

I love that popcorn is such a cheap, easy, fun, delicious snack!

Question: What kind of special edible Easter treat do you make for a kid who doesn’t like chocolate?

Answer: You combine two of his favorite forms of sugar — marshmallows and sprinkles — and end up with the most beautiful, simple treat ever.

A couple weeks ago I saw a picture on the Hip Hip Hooray blog of marshmallows dipped in chocolate and sprinkles, and I knew Hayden would love them if I used something other than chocolate. So today over lunchtime, I took a few minutes (literally — it was so quick) to make my own version with white candy melts instead of chocolate. All I did was melt some white candy discs in a double boiler, dip the marshmallow in the melted goo, and drop some sprinkles on before it hardened.

It would be easy to make these with other colors of melted candy or sprinkles to coordinate with a particular color scheme, but the classic multi-colored nonpareils are fun and cheerful.

If you’re looking for instructions on how to successfully make homemade ravioli, you’ve come to the wrong place. I tried to make homemade ravioli for the first time today, and… well, let’s just say that I did not serve ravioli for supper this evening.

The process of making ravioli started out well. Using this recipe for three-cheese ravioli as my guide, I started by mixed up the filling. Here’s what I included:

1 c. ricotta cheese
1 c. shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 c. parmesan cheese
2 beaten eggs
1/2 t. salt
dash of black pepper
1 T. fresh parsley, chopped

So far, so good.

Next I needed to make the pasta dough, which is when things started going downhill. I used the dough hook on my KitchenAid mixer for the first time as I combined the ingredients. The dough was much too dry. In hindsight, I should have added more water while it was still in the mixer, but I wanted to stick to the recipe (courtesy of The Food Network) as much as possible. I did add a little water just to make it form a nice ball on the counter, but it was too stiff to really knead, which is when I started feeling frustrated.

After letting the dough “relax” for half an hour, I tried to roll it out. I don’t know why I bothered to exercise on the treadmill this morning, because rolling out the dough sure felt like a workout! Seriously, it was hard work. I never really got the dough thin enough, but I finally decided that it was good enough and stopped. My dough was supposed to be a rectangle, but ended up looking like Australia.

Note to self: borrow or buy a pasta machine!

I straightened things up with a knife, plopped little dollops of filling on the dough, and then brushed the edges with egg before I laid another piece of dough on top. Sealing it up was not pretty. My dough was too thick and I used too much filling, which was oozing out the sides.

I made exactly nine ravioli before I gave up. I decided to cook one for a little afternoon snack, and in spite of the fact that it looked a mess before I cooked it, it actually tasted pretty good.

Of course, nine ravioli (actually, eight since I ate one) wasn’t enough to feed a family of four for dinner. Also, I didn’t want my kids to eat these inferior ravioli and then decide that they will never again eat my ravioli. So instead, I served ham, green beans, homemade macaroni and cheese, and french bread that I just baked this afternoon, and my culinary reputation remained intact.

I don’t think there’s much hope for the pasta dough I made, but the three-cheese filling was great, so it will probably end up in stuffed shells in a day or so.

I’d like to try making homemade ravioli again, but not until I have a pasta machine that can roll out the dough for me. Meanwhile, if any of you have made homemade ravioli and have any advice for me, I’d love to hear it!

While I was eating leftover lasagna and catching up on some blog reading over lunchtime just now, I remembered something I’ve been intending to post since Thursday night.

That’s right, folks. Someday just after breakfast, that box of dry lasagna noodles is going to take a sudden turn for the worse…

It’s a good thing I live only about six blocks from a grocery store, because when I was trying to decide what to make for dinner last evening, I looked in the cupboard and saw a box of bow tie pasta (er, farfalle) and knew that a trip to the store was imminent. I already had a number of items written on my shopping list for the next time I happened to go to the grocery store, so I added “sausage” to the bottom of the list and headed out to the store.

I made Bow Ties with Sausage and Peppers for the first time about a month ago and loved it, so I was eager to make it again. It’s delicious, it’s quick and easy to prepare, and it’s even colorful too. Here’s the recipe, courtesy of the Better Homes & Gardens pasta cookbook.

:: Bow Ties with Sausage and Peppers ::

6 oz. bow tie pasta
12 oz. fresh sweet or hot Italian sausage links, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red sweet pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 green pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 c. sliced fresh mushrooms
2/3 c. chicken broth
1 T. snipped fresh basil or 1 t. dried basil, crushed
2 t. cornstarch
1 large tomato, coarsely chopped (1 cup) — I omitted this

Cook pasta according to the directions on the box. Drain; keep warm.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet cook the sausage, onion, and garlic for 5 minutes. Add red sweet pepper, green pepper, and mushrooms. Cook about 5 minutes more or until sausage is brown.

Combine broth, basil, and cornstarch. Add to sausage mixture. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir for 2 minutes more. Stir in tomato; heat through. [I omitted the tomato.] Pour sausage mixture over pasta; toss to mix. Makes 4 main-dish servings.

Enjoy!

This morning before work, I stopped by the Farmers’ Market and bought six ears of corn and a half bushel of peaches. Actually, according to the sign, they were PEACHE’S.

It was one of those signs that was just begging to be photographed, posted on the internet, and mocked. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me, nor was there a subtle way to snap a picture. In spite of the apostrophe abuse, the fruit was delicious. I don’t know who Peache is, but I’m glad she’s a farmer, not an English teache’r.

Sometime during my backpack-and-lunchbox days, I learned the meaning of the words omnivore, carnivore, and herbivore. Many years later, in 2005, a clever person coined the word “locavore” to describe a person who seeks to eat food that is grown and produced locally, and in 2007 the New Oxford American Dictionary selected “locavore” as its word of the year.

People have been primarily locavores since the beginning of time, but as a result of globalization, food now travels an average of 1500 miles to reach the plates of North Americans. By contrast, locavores eat foods that are grown or produced within a relatively small radius, whether 50, 100, or 150 miles.

During the past several months, I’ve read quite a few books about food:

• “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life” by Barbara Kingsolver (my top recommendation)
• “Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally” by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon (founders of the 100-Mile Diet)
• “Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal” by Eric Schlosser
• “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals” by Michael Pollan
• “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto” by Michael Pollan

Thanks to these authors and the locavores I know personally, I’m becoming a locavore too… at least in theory.

August 3-9, 2008 is Virginia Farmers Market Week, and the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is encouraging Virginians to choose one day during that week to eat only food grown in Virginia.

Of course, for me, Virginia-grown is not necessarily the same as local, as there are certainly locations in neighboring states that are closer than parts of my own state, but legalistic is the last thing I want to be when it comes to food. The map below shows the area my food could come from if I were following the 100-Mile Diet. You can see your 100-mile radius area by entering your zip code into the nifty little mapping tool on the 100-Mile Diet site.

I’m not sure yet which day next week will be my Virginia-only day, but I’ve decided to host a local foods potluck at my house on Wednesday evening… and I’m calling it “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Potluck.”

Not every ingredient needs to originate in the Commonwealth of Virginia, but every dish should at least feature locally grown or produced food. If you’d like to come to “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Potluck” and you haven’t gotten an email from me with the details, either send me an email (if we’re already friends) or leave a comment here (if you’d like to be friends). You don’t have to be a locavore or a gourmet chef; the only requirement is that you like to eat good, local food!

The other night I mentioned to someone that I had made bagels for the first time over Easter weekend.

“Soft bagels?” she asked.

Apparently she had pretzels on her mind. Unfortunately, it happened to be a very appropriate question. Bagels are supposed to be soft and chewy, but I managed to bake a not-so-soft batch of the World’s Chewiest Bagels. I wouldn’t exactly call them tough… just ridiculously chewy. They tasted good and the process was fun, but the overall outcome left a bit to be desired.

Ever since writing “make bagels” on my list of 101 Things in 1001 Days, I’ve been hoping to find someone who has made them before who could give me some tips. No luck. People think it’s a great idea, and they’ve all said that if I learn how to make bagels, they want my recipe and advice.

(This feels like a weird, inverse version of the Little Red Hen. Nobody said, “I’d love to help you eat the disappointing results of your bagel experiments,” but everyone wants to enjoy the final results of my quest to master the art of bagel-making.)

Lacking a bagel tutor and finding exactly zero recipes for bagels in my cookbook collection, I headed to the internet. As expected, my Google search yielded too many bagel recipes. I didn’t have a clue which recipe would lead to the perfect bagel, so I just looked through a few recipes and picked one.

In spite of the variations in recipes, the basic process is pretty standard. You create a batch of dough, knead it, and let it rise. Next you shape it into round balls, poke your thumb through the middle, and try to get it to look like a bagel.

How did I do? 🙂 That’s what they looked like after letting them rise again. Next you cook them in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes. It’s kind of like making donuts, except that donuts are boiled in oil — a.k.a. deep fat fried. Different bagel recipes indicate different lengths of time for the boiling, so I’ll have to experiment with that.

Next you brush the bagels with egg yolk (to make them shiny), add seasonings if desired, and bake them. The recipe I used said to bake the bagels for 35-40 minutes. I checked them after 25 minutes and they were already overbaked.

Looks can be deceiving. They’re beautifully golden brown, but eating them gives your jaw a workout. Next time I won’t bake them as long! Once I’ve come up with a good basic bagel recipe, I’d like to experiment with different kinds of dough. Eventually I’d like to be able to replicate my favorite bagel from the local bagel shop — a sundried tomato spinach bagel. Mmm.

If I agreed with the title of a book I received for Christmas, I wouldn’t be posting this. According to author Margaret Mason, “No One Cares What You Had for Lunch.”

I beg to differ.

I’m sure that somewhere out there, someone cares that I ate pita for lunch today. (You do, don’t you?) More than that, you might even want to know how I made it. If you’ve never considered baking your own pita, I highly recommend it. It’s even slightly entertaining… if you have an oven with a window. The flat dough puffs up and forms a pocket, just like a well-behaved pita should.

I know you’re not supposed to care what I had for lunch today, but I ate my fresh, warm pita with fresh, warm roasted red pepper hummus. Mmm. There are as many hummus variations as there are camels in Egypt, so I didn’t bother to write down my hummus recipe.

This whole wheat pita recipe is one I found online years ago and have modified slightly. Note: the oven temperature isn’t a typo. The hotter the better!

Ingredients:
1 1/4 c. warm water
1/2 t. sugar
2 t. active dry yeast
1/4 t. salt
2 1/2 – 3 c. whole wheat flour

Directions:

1. Place water and sugar in a large bowl and stir. Add yeast and stir slightly. Let rest for 5 minutes. Mix in salt and flour gradually.

2. Knead well for 5 minutes. Place the dough in a bowl and lightly coat it with oil. Cover with a cloth and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Divide dough into 8 balls. Roll out each ball to make 1/4-inch thick rounds. Lightly dust each side with flour by rubbing it with floured hands. Let rest covered for 20 minutes. Bake on ungreased cookie sheets for 5-8 minutes or until lightly browned.