There and Back Again

Hello dear readers!

I'm sorry for the unexpected hiatus. The holiday season was pretty busy, and I was in the midst of handing in my master's thesis (which is now done!), so blogging took a back seat. I'm afraid the next few weeks may not get much better as I start a new full-time job tomorrow. But I definitely still have things to share with all of you, and so I'll try to keep up with posting.

Tonight I'm cooking one last big complicated meal before launching into work. I've been doing a lot of meal planning in the last few weeks, especially while the husband and I were both on break with very little to do other than be at home and eat. I bought a whiteboard and promptly took a sharpie to it to outline days and meals; so far I've used it 3/4 weeks this month, and I have to say it's been great for grocery shopping. I still forget things, but in general I feel more confident heading out to the store with a list in hand. It's made meals much less overwhelming.

Tonight is my favorite beef stew recipe, which calls on you to throw in a whole bunch of guinness and red wine. Tonight we went with New Castle beer instead, because the last few times making it with guinness have felt too heavy. New Castle still brings a rich ale flavor to the broth, but it a little lighter with the rest of the ingredients. This is by far my favorite stew to make on a cold dreary evening, or just when I need something hearty. We're pairing it with some homemade cornbread and, of course, more New Castle for ourselves.

The beef stew, besides being delicious, was also a great example of how I'm going to be shifting my meal planning starting this week. Dinners will need to be fairly easy to make, but also need to support being made in a reasonable quantity; I definitely want to have leftovers available for lunch whenever possible. Soups are probably going to become a bigger staple in our diet, as I can easily package them and heat them up in a microwave.

The soup I'm looking forward to most is the Greek avgolemono soup I'm going to make this weekend. My husband doesn't like it much, so I thought it would make a perfect soup to prep for lunches ahead of time. I made my own chicken broth last week with baked lemon rings thrown into the crockpot, and I think it'll just be heavenly. Substituting brown rice, though, and maybe with a little bit of frozen spinach thrown in for a vegetable component.

I'll let you know how adjusting my cooking schedule around work goes, and also try to make a few updates soon about decorating the rooms in the house. We've made several improvements in the last few months that I haven't gotten a chance to share yet. And I promise, next time I'll include pictures.

- Cait