Welcome To A New Week!

Hey everyone, this week's meals are as follows. We are going to make tomato soup and grilled cheese, sweet herb chicken with wild rice, lemon shrimp pasta, cheese tortellini with pumpkin sauce, and a tofu kimchi rice bowl. Below are the ingredients, a little write up about shopping, and things to look out for!

Groceries

Fresh and Produce:

• 3 green onions

• 1 red bell pepper

• 1 small bunch parsley

• ¼ cup pine cuts

• 1 shallot

• 6 cloves garlic

• 2-3 lemons

• 2-4 sprigs of sage

• 2 medium yellow onion

• 1 sprig of thyme

• 1 sprig of rosemary

• 3-5 carrots

• ½ bunch asparagus

• 2 celery stalks

• 4 slices of high quality bread

Aisle of Spices, Dried Good, Oils, etc:

• 1 cup white rice

• 1 cup wild rice

• 1 tsp toasted sesame oil

• ¼ cup rice vinegar

• 1 tbsp gochujang

• 3 tbsp corn starch

• ½ cup pumpkin puree

• 1 tsp sherry vinegar

• ¼ tsp nutmeg

• 5 cups chicken stock

• 1 tbsb of jam (no high fructose corn syrup)

• 1 tbsp tomato paste

• 1 28oz can tomatoes

Freezer/Cold:

• ½ cup kimchi

• 1 cup frozen peas

• 2 cups of packaged, but fresh, cheese tortellini or ravioli

• 2 tbsp butter

• 1 cup cream

• 1 cup parmigiano cheese

• ~1 cup of your choice of cheese blend (we used goat gouda, mozzarella, and California jack)

Protein:

• 1 package of firm tofu

• ~20 large (16-22 size) frozen shrimp

• 1 lb deboned chicken thighs

Staples (You should always have these):

• 1 tsp ground ginger

• kosher shalt

• black pepper

• olive oil

• butter

Optional:

• 1 small bunch cilantro

• 2 bay leaves

• heavy cream

Notes On Shopping

As always, these shopping items only cover what we will be using in the recipes. These recipes are also written for 2 large or 3 medium servings so you may need to pick up more items, but all the recipes are scalable.

For the chicken, you are welcome to substitute chicken breast, but the cook time will vary. When shopping for shrimp, buying the frozen stuff is typically just as good as fresh if not better. Shrimp are packaged in a size per pound style. That means when looking at the bag if it says 40-60 that means there are 40-60 shrimp per pound. Those are very small shrimp. Larger shrimp will say something like 8-12. These are very large shrimp and some stores do not carry that. Most stores have what we are using the medium to large size of about 16-22. Feel free to buy what you like and find, but the smaller the shrimp the faster they cook and over cooked shrimp become very rubbery.

If you cannot find sherry vinegar, or do not want to buy a bottle of it (it will not ever go bad) you can substitute rice vinegar or champaign vinegar, but the depth of flavor will be a little lacking.

As always, make sure to check your dried and fresh spices and herbs as you may not need some of these things and should always keep these items on hand.