Weekly Meal Plan #10

It’s a busy week ahead, starting with today. I prefer quiet, mellow Sundays, but lately they haven’t worked out that way. Earlier this morning I separated 30 eggs, needing the whites to make 14 of these cakes for last month’s Bake It Forward challenge (we raised more than $800!). I’l be baking 13 dozen of these cookies, too.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that I spent some time this morning researching egg yolk only recipes. I’ve never had much luck using them as-is from the freezer, the texture always being too thick. I think I’ve settled on making lots of lemon curd, which I’m optimistic will freeze well. I also came across the idea for a 12 yolk poundcake recipe, and will work with my existing recipe to tweak, and see how that comes out.

Enough talk of egg yolks, though, and let’s get to the business at hand with this week’s meal plan. I’m out Monday and Wednesday evening, and we have these two meals coming from Marley Spoon, so that means there isn’t a need for a lot of planning on my part this week. That leaves me feeling a little odd, frankly, but also relieved because I’m at the restaurant baking all day on Thursday, and subbing for the 4th grade teacher all day Friday. I suppose the break from daily dinner responsibilities is a good thing, but it’s not normal for me.

Since the Marley Spoon meals are meat-centric, I’ll keep what I cook on my own vegetarian. Pizza is a weekly event, so that meals a batch of All-Purpose Dough. I roasted a batch of cauliflower Friday afternoon, planning to use it as a filler this week, and will also use it in this salad (you can use this method on the stovetop to prep your cauliflower).

There’s also a couple of things on my baking wish list for this week.

• This nougat from 101 Cookbooks had me at hello. Sidenote—I was a bit sad to see the revamp on Heidi’s site. It feels less personal, and more of a generic recipe site. It’s hard to say that because I adore everything she does, but I also understand the need for change, or perhaps just move forwarding with the “times” after 10 years of running a blog. That doesn’t change my primal reaction to wanting that nougat right this minute.
• I baked my first Pumpkin Pie of the season at the restaurant 10 days ago, and it’s time to make one for us to enjoy at home, too. There are two to choose from here. This one is more traditional using evaporated milk (here’s a recipe to make your own at home), and there’s this pumpkin pie recipe that uses cream instead.
• I was craving these Honey Blueberry Muffins (pictured above), and made a double batch yesterday morning. I love them for a few reasons, one being they’re not too sweet, just perfectly balanced. They also stay fresh for a few days after baking (I leave them in a covered cake stand), so that means we have breakfast to take us well into Monday morning.

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