Meal Planning Saga: Week Six

With a couple of assignments and a mid-term during week six, we had a few ups and downs. Though once again, there were a couple favourites and a brand new keeper.

Sunday - Frankies' Meatballs - Perusing videos and recipes on Chow a couple weeks ago (a great way to procrastinate and make yourself hungry), we stumbled on a recipe for meatballs from the Frankies of Frankies Sputino in New York. The raw garlic in these was incredibly overpowering, though the rich yet light texture was incredible. In the end, we ate what we could, froze the rest, and they are now slated to be 'slow cooked' in tomato sauce for a few hours this week to slay some of the raw garlic stuff going on.

Monday - Pulled Pork with Maudite 'Spare Rib' Sauce - Though the pulled pork here was excellent, the sauce we'd loved so much for our New Year's meal didn't quite work here for some reason. The mystery continues.

Tuesday - Thai Green Curry from Meal Planning 101 - Finally a recipe from Kindra's blog, the first one I perused before beginning the meal planning adventure. This is an incredibly flavourful and quick recipe and we'll be making it again soon. Next time with a red pepper, as listed, for a little more colour.

Wednesday - Pizza - Pulling out the last of our latest batch of Peter Reinhart's Neo-Neapolitan pizza dough, we ended up with two pretty excellent pizzas topped with tomato sauce, hot soppressata, hedgehog mushrooms, bocconcini and basil.

Thursday - Carrot-Ginger Soup - Using this recipe from Chatelaine as a guide, this soup turned out pretty well. Best of all, I managed to use up the large amount of carrots that had been sitting idle in our veggie drawer. Kicking up the ginger (by that I mean doubling it), this was almost as good as the bowl I grabbed a couple weeks ago for lunch at Leva.

Friday - With a last minute change of plans I ended up hosting a couple girlfriends for dinner Friday evening while Charles was off to a hockey game. Dropping into the Italian Centre, we grabbed a jar of roasted red peppers and eggplant pâté, a couple loaves of sun dried tomato bread, a round of chèvre and some smoked ghouda, "dolmades" (I'm really addicted to the Zanae version) and artichoke and mozzarella ravioli for what turned out to be a casual, tapas style evening. We also stopped at Bin 104 adding a bottle of Alley Kat's Apple Wit to our food lineup, along with Rogue's Chipotle Ale and their Chocolate Stout for dessert. My favourite was the the creamy, bitter-sweet chocolate stout, though the hit around the table was the Apple Wit.

Saturday evening we found ourselves at Niche... of course a post will follow soon. Enjoy the rest of your week!

And now for some meal planning.

As I mentioned a little while ago, last semester was decidedly crazy when it came to what we would be having for dinner. Every day we would get home and ask each other what we were doing for dinner, and by then it was often later in the evening and the chance of us having the ingredients to make what we wanted was unlikely.

Hence the meal plan. I'm going to try and keep it up for the entire semester, but we'll see what happens. Last weekend we sat down (with all our neglected cookbooks spread across our kitchen table) and planned the next two weeks for a bit of a head start, and we'll just keep adding recipes to a 'we'd like to make this' list as we encounter them.

We figure we have two days where time is a real issue - Mondays and Tuesdays. On Mondays I don't arrive home until around 6:30, while on Tuesdays Charles doesn't get home until ~6:30pm and I don't make it home until after 8pm. Thus Mondays and Tuesdays we're going to attempt speedy meals or those utilizing the slow cooker.

Yesterday was day one of school and the meal plan, and we made something inspired by the "Beijing Noodles" recipe from Moosewood's Simple Suppers: Fresh Ideas for the Weeknight Table. This is a vegetarian cookbook (although they do include fish recipes), but amazingly, we substituted the tofu here for beef (I used to do the opposite during my veggie days, so this is hilarious to me).

We couldn't find any sweet bean sauce in our area and in the spirit of using up things from the pantry, I rifled through the cupboard eventually finding a small jar of Thai roasted red chili paste to use instead. In the same spirit, I also discovered two packages of soba noodles in the pantry; I have no idea why we have these, so we subbed the 'Chinese wheat noodles' for buckwheat soba noodles which were really tasty. Other than that we cut up the veggies on the plate below and added some shitake mushrooms to our 'tofu' mixture as directed in the recipe.

Veggies at the ready

This was a lovely fresh way to start the week and all our substitutes worked pretty well. I certainly think this dish - currently nameless - will make it around again.

My plate

Here's what we've got planned for the remainder of the week:

Tonight (Tuesday) - Spelt pancakes with winter squash and goat cheese filling (from Sophie Dahl's Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights); with some wilted spinach on the side

Wednesday - Pasta with artichoke hearts, spinach and feta (also from Simple Suppers)

Thursday - Chicken curry (from Lynn Alley's The Gourmet Slow Cooker) with carrot and seed salad (from We Eat Together)

Friday - Moroccan Spiced Fish (again from Simple Suppers) with some greens

Saturday - We've decided to leave one free day, and this week Saturday is it. So we can either head out or stay in, whatever we choose.

$8.00 Po-Boys... Budget Friendly at DaDeO on Mondays or Tuesdays (or any day really)

Zed and I headed to our Tuesday night yoga class, after work and classes, already hungry. After an hour and a half of rumbling stomachs, we decided to stop for something quick on the way home. I know Fork Fest is going on right now, but seriously, nothing beats the $8.00 Po-Boy bargain offered up by DaDeO on Mondays and Tuesdays.

We arrived around 8:30, and the restaurant was packed (as usual), but luckily a couple was just leaving and a booth was quickly prepared for us. I love the tables at DaDeO: they are cozy but still roomy enough to store a back pack and the massive amount of winter attire we all carry around with us at this time of year; plus, every two-seater booth is set up with its own juke-box, complete with old tunes from the 50s. The vibe of the restaurant, in general, is one of the best on the Whyte Ave strip, with relaxed and friendly staff, an eclectic mix of customers and a constant supply of "old-time blues" (I love blues, especially the old, soulful, acoustic stuff...).

Our drink orders were up first, and we didn't deviate from our favourites - I went with a Cherry Coke and Zed for the classic version. We were quickly supplied with a miniature biscuit each, and a small helping of jalapeño jelly. For entrees we of course chose Po-Boys. I think I have tried every fish or veggie version of the sandwich, and last night I went with the blackened catfish. Zed went for the blackened chicken, his favourite version of any of the options. A Po-Boy comes with your choice of Potato Hash or Veggie Jambalaya and a small helping of coleslaw. Zed went for nothing but coleslaw (they gave him a bunch extra though), and I upgraded to Sweet Potato Fries (an extra $1... you really can't go to DaDeO without trying these things!).

Once the sandwiches arrived the Cajun dry spice peppering my fries and catfish hit me square in the nose, and I couldn't wait to dig in. The catfish was set out on the salsa and lettuced bun in thick chunks, blackened for a crispy, smoky outer layer that left the sweet meatiness of the fish intact. The famous Sweet Potato Fries lived up to their title once again, with a crispy battered outside and sweet soft inside, sprinkled with more seasoning, I haven't had any better in the city. Zed reported his blackened chicken to be just as good as always, with the darkened seasoned outside providing a nice tickle in the back of his throat, while still leaving the chicken moist and tender.

Blackened Chicken w/ Slaw (sorry it's so blurry)

Blackened Catfish w/ Sweet Potato Fries

As if the deep fried goodness wasn't enough, we decided to share a dessert (we scored on the sandwiches so we had to). We had sampled the pecan pie once before, so this time we settled on the in-house made coconut pie with whipped cream. A large piece of pie arrived a couple minutes later, and we dug in. The pie was pure shredded coconut on top of a thin pie crust at the bottom - I love coconut and found out this was a great way to eat it.

Coconut Pie w/ lots of whip

One of the best parts of the evening was the bill - the two of us got out of the place for under $30 (not including tip). Dessert ($6) could have probably have been left for an even better bargain.

The Monday and Tuesday Po-Boy special will always keep us going back for more, but if you are strolling down (or up) Whyte Ave., check out DaDeO for some eats that are guaranteed filling and budget friendly.

DaDeO Diner and Bar
10548A 82 (Whyte) Ave
780.433.0930
**Dadeo is a licensed bar, and you need to be 18 to go in**

HUB Mall eats: Motherly's Bakery

I was on my way to meet a friend for lunch today in HUB, and decided to stop for a Tuna salad sandwich at Motherly's (towards the south end of the mall). To my knowledge there are only three other outlets (in HUB Mall) where I can acquire a tuna fish sandwich: Subway (not happening), Java Jive (not quite enough fixings and too salty) and The Lunch Box (similar to Java Jive's option).

Of all the choices, I quite enjoy Motherly's sandwiches: there is a simple choice of homemade white or brown bread, your choice of veggies (just plenty of lettuce and onion for me) and a pickle on the side. All this mid-day loveliness puts you back about $6.50 or so, but it's well worth it.

More on Campus eats to follow soon...