This week was a little disorganised due to after work commitments and I didn't stick to my plan every night. A couple of nights we had leftovers which has kept the freezer meat supply up. I am making home baked gifts for Christmas (Simple Living Christmas) so this did push the grocery bill up to $190 this week. I am aiming to buy the ingredients over the next four weeks to ease the expense a little. This is my menu plan for the week:
Monday - Beef Lasagne and salad
Tuesday - Ginger, Chilli and Cider Chicken with Vegetables
Wednesday - Chicken Burritos with Salsa and Sour Cream
Thursday - Beef and Vegetable Curry with Quinoa
Friday - Pesto Chicken Pasta
Saturday - Roast Pork
Sunday - Chicken Schnitzel with Potato Bake
I made the lasagne today from Annette Sym's Cookbook - Symply Too Good To Be True no 1. So, I am already prepared for dinner tomorrow. Yay! I was going to feature it as my recipe this week but the photos were really ordinary so I am going to showcase something else I made today....Almond Pesto.
This is one of the basil plants I have and I let it go to seed so I can grow some more. I have had this plant for well over a year and it just keeps producing.
Each of these little pods holds four seeds. I put off harvesting the leaves as I was not sure what I wanted to do with them. I tossed up freezing or drying but then Paul brought home something he was given by a client...and I was inspired:
Excellent ingredients for a pesto but I did not have pine nuts so I wondered if I could substitute almonds. Of course I can...Google says so :)
I put 3 tablespoons of raw whole almonds and 3 cloves of garlic in the food processor and ground them for about a minute.
I then added 3 tablespoons of chopped basil, 3 tablespoons of parmesan cheese and 5 tablespoons of the beautiful olive oil.
Voila! About 125g of my very own almond pesto and to be honest....I prefer it to the pine nuts. The almonds add more texture and that wonderful almond flavour. Can't wait to try this with some chicken and pasta. I can see my menu plan might change this week.
Have you substituted and created something better than the original before?
What's for dinner at your place this week?
Linking up with http://beccisdomesticbliss.blogspot.com.au/.
