Grilled pork chops

with broccoli and left-over biscuits and raw veggies.

Last night was the chicken, in an Indian (Korma?) simmer sauce from Trader Joe's. A little spicier than I remembered from the last time we had it, but still good over couscous.

I need to edit the Thursday/Friday menu - Thursday will probably be eggs, reasonably quick. The pre-teen wants to go to the book fair that night. Friday will be leftover beef stew because it can be reheated really quickly after the mid-kid gets home from karate.

Beef stew

I scavenged the freezer today and found a "braising" steak, some chicken thighs, and some pork chops. The steak got cubed and cooked with onions, celery, and garlic for a couple of hours; then I added carrots and potatoes. Biscuits from Bisquik and salad to round out the meal (and, of course, mac & cheese for the kidlets).

Last night was leftover Chinese - the crispy fried tofu actually reheated a lot better than I thought it would; the sesame chicken was a lot worse.

Menu planning...
Tomorrow will be the chicken thighs in some sort of simmer sauce (I know there's a couple in the pantry) and Tuesday will be the pork chops, probably just grilled. Wednesday will be out. Thursday and Friday will be pizza or quesadillas and some sort of fish. Saturday I'll make bean soup, and Sunday will be on the fly.

Hamburgers and hot dogs

with tater tots and smiley face potatoes. Yum! TMOTH even made the hamburgers so I didn't have to touch the ground beef.
Cake-from-a-mix is in the oven for desert. Double yum.

We had turkey soup with barley last night instead of turkey pot pie. It just seemed easier, even though it probably took as long to cook.

Chinese with the pre-teen

We had dinner out at the Chinese restaurant next to the Goodwill. We tried to order things that we thought there was a chance the picky pre-teen MIGHT eat. No go. She ate some rice and a bowl of ice cream. Oh well - at least I got to have yummy crispy fried tofu. Quite possibly my favorite Chinese food. We now have enough for leftovers for at least two meals, maybe more - sesame chicken and moo shu pork to go along with the tofu.

Menu planning for the next week:

Thurday: turkey pot pie (the last of the Thanksgiving turkey)
Friday: Pizza
Saturday: leftover Chinese
Sunday: Pot roast
Monday: bean soup?
Tuesday: quesadillas?

Cheese ravioli and garlic bread

Frozen cheese ravioli were on sale at Giant, so we had some with plain pasta sauce and garlic bread. Very nice, even the kids thought it was edible.

monitor problems

The monitor on the "main" computer is busted, and we're supposed to get a new one tomorrow. It's just more of a hassle to log in on one of the other computers.

Tonight was leftovers. Toddler-boy has a cold, started Thanksgiving, that he's generously given to both me and TMOTH. It was actually a very good dinner - reheated ham, steak, macaroni & cheese, cornbread dressing. TMOTH made potato pancakes out of the leftover mashed potatoes and they were excellent.

Thanksgiving dinner

MMMMmmmm, I do love Thanksgiving dinner. We had turkey, ham for the kids, mac & cheese (thumbs down from the kidlets because of the bread crumbs on top, but it was really good!), dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas, broccoli, sweet potato casserole, and rolls. Champagne to drink, of course. Nobody has had room for dessert yet - although TMOTH and I had pie mid-afternoon.

I made the kids and TMOTH clean up, since I did most of the cooking, but I had one bit left to clean up - the pan drippings from the turkey needed to be refrigerated to go into the stock. BUT, I dropped the container and it went all over the floor. At least the hound was happy. It was like this turkey was bent on revenge - before being cooked it had leaked all over the inside of my fridge, so I wound up cleaning out both crisper drawers today as well.

Fish

A couple of nice ocean perch filets, stuffed potatoes, asparagus, and french bread. The pre-teen found some mozzarella sticks and wanted those.

Hopefully I can scare up some dessert later - we've got a box of clementines that aren't too bad, but we also have chocolate...

Chili

We had chili last night. I was able to get the crock pot up and running before I had to leave for the pre-teen's soccer game. It's chili weather here - cool and autumn-y. I also cleaned out the refrigerator enough yesterday to get the turkey in to thaw for Thanksgiving. Anyway, the meal plan for the next week is:

Sunday: Fish, salad, baked stuffed potatoes, carrot sticks

Monday: Bean soup with cornbread (I need the leftover cornbread for stuffing!)

Tuesday: Grilled chicken, french bread, O'brien potatoes, some sort of vegetable. (No more soccer practice!)

Wednesday: ? there may not be Wednesday night dinner, so we'll have soup and sandwiches if they don't. Otherwise, dinner out.

Thursday: Thanksgiving!!
Turkey
Ham slice (for kids, who don't really like turkey)
Homemade macaroni and cheese
Cornbread dressing
Bread cube dressing (if TMOTH decides he wants to make it)
Mashed potatoes
Gravy
Sweet potato casserole (mostly since the mid-kid loves the marshmallows)
Rolls
Tiny green peas from the silver can (for the boy-kids)
Broccoli
Pies-a-plenty - chocolate and pecan at a minimum. Likely not pumpkin - nobody in our family really likes it all that much.


Friday: Pancakes and fruit

Saturday: Pork - chops or tenderloin, fried apples, biscuits, green beans

Hot dogs!

I often overlook the hot dog option, since I don't really like them all that much. However, everybody else does. So it was a happy dinner.

Fish tacos

Great concept, poor execution. We ate at a new restaurant tonight, the ?something? Grill. The first bite was great, until I started to taste the fish - not very good fish, it tasted like catfish. GREAT fries, though.

Grilled pork chops and stuffed potatoes

TMOTH cooked dinner- and quite a good dinner it was. The stuffed potatoes - with cheese, green onions, and bacon - were excellent. Kind of a porky dinner, come to think of it.

Not much meal planning this week - I have ground beef and ground turkey for chili; just have to get it ready for the crockpot so it can cook on Friday. Wednesday and Thursday are both dinner-out days.

Pasta and salad

We had cheese tortellini, and angel hair pasta for the kids, with a basic basil/tomato sauce. Garlic bread and tossed salad to go with. Easy and cheesy.

Bacon & eggs

with toast or english muffin. A nice lazy rainy Sunday, although the kids were mighty bored.

The current household crisis is that we can't find the power cord for the laptop. We spilled some beer on the keyboard and fried a couple of letters. We replaced the keyboard and now the power cord is missing. On a positive note, I've put away/thrown away a bunch of stuff trying to find it.

Quesadillas

Something the entire family will eat! Easy and reasonably healthy into the bargain. Grapes on the side - really good red grapes. Toddler-boy loved them - he has the benefit of being the 3rd child and getting to do some things that we never would've let the 1st one do.

Ham and potato casserole

Scalloped/au gratin potatoes are the one thing that I prefer out of the box rather than from scratch. With some cubes of leftover ham and a little bit of red onion, it's a nice dinner (for the grown-ups, at least - the kids all turned up their nose). Carrot sticks and cucumber slices on the side. I was really bummed that the cauliflower we got over the weekend had frozen in the refrigerator. I'll roast some this weekend, but I really prefer it raw.

The menu items are all pushed back a day since TMOTH cooked last night. Quesadillas will be good if the tween has a friend over tomorrow night.

Veterans Day today, so I was off work. I finished painting about 2/3 of one long wall in the living room, I have about half of a short wall and a few extra bits of wall space to go. Then I have to finish taking off the wallpaper in the stairway that I starting taking off 10 years ago. Such is the pace of home improvement at our house...

I did help TMOTH get the gutter back up - and he did! I was so impressed - I never thought he'd be able to balance it all the way up on the big ladder and that it would hold until he could attach it. What a huge relief it is to have that back up.

Grilled chicken thighs

TMOTH made dinner- grilled chicken thighs and tater tots/hash browns. The boys also had mandarin oranges as an appetizer. I have apple crisp slated for dessert, so we're not completely without fruits & vegetables.

Joe's Pizza and Pasta

The tween and I had a girls' dinner while the mid-kid and TMOTH were in the baseball room for the end-of-year party. Italian buffet; not special but serviceable. She wants to go to Bob Evans (why? I have no idea.) for her birthday dinner when we get a chance.

So, it was the tween's 11th birthday today. We got her pajamas, slippers (which she desperately wanted and loves), a necklace, a stuffed monkey, and book/kit to make beaded rings, and some Littlest Pet Shop toys. She picked out a cake at Giant tonight; it was pretty awful but it looked nice. She's getting so tall - about an inch short of 5 feet right now.

Chinese (sort of)

The menu plan called for chicken, which we (sort of) had.

Egg flower soup to start, then steamed dumplings from the freezer at the Asian supermarket. TMOTH had come up with a plan, so I was amenable. Apple crisp for dessert, yum.

Monkfish

A nice monkfish filet, baked with butter/oil, salt, and lemon pepper. Fried potato cubes. Broccoli. French bread (not very good French bread; a lot like Wonder bread in disguise). Apple crisp for dessert, mostly courtesy of TMOTH. He started slicing up all of the apples that toddler-boy had taken a bite or two out of and then discarded, and wound up with most of a big bowl of slices. All I had to do was the topping.

Manu planning

As a subscriber to the Flylady e-mails (http://www.flylady.net/), I've been put on notice that the new habit for November is menu planning. This is something I've tried before, but it hasn't worked. Something always seems to throw things off, and all of the "plans" go out the window.

Today we'll get to go to Harris Teeter, which just opened near the stable the tween has pony club at. Tonight's dinner will depend on what we find there (other than planning to serve the broccoli we got at the orchard yesterday).

But, as a start, my menu plans for the week:

Sunday: Serendipity - hopefully fish.

Monday: Pizza out - the mid-kid has a baseball game, and the tween's band is having a fund-raiser at a local pizzeria that's on the way home from the baseball game.

Tuesday: Tween soccer practice, so dinner must be prepared early...chicken of some sort.

Wednesday: Tween's 11th birthday, and also Wednesday Night Dinner at the daycare, so we'll probably go out for whatever the tween would like.

Thursday: No activities - potato casserole with ham and a green veg and salad on the side.

Friday: Mid-kid has karate at 7, so an early easy dinner - probably quesadillas. I do have the day off, though, so maybe chili instead.

Saturday: Tween soccer game, nothing for the mid-kid - Chili in the crockpot!

Sunday: Roast chicken.

Sunday:

Lamb stew

It turned out to be a busy day. The mid-kid had a baseball game he had to be at by 9:00, and the tween had a soccer game that was supposed to start at 11. Toddler-boy slept through most of the soccer game, so had a reasonably good nap. Back home for lunch (ravioli for kids, leftovers for grown-ups) and then almost immediately back on the road to go apple picking. It's the last weekend for our favorite pick-your-own orchard; the Pink Lady apples were ready (and yummy). We wound up picking about 50 pounds of apples, now we just have to make room for them in the fridge.

Dinner was a great lamb stew, mostly from the leftover lamb shanks from earlier in the week. All I did was to add a carrot, a potato, 1/4 pound of mushrooms scavenged from the fridge, a boullion cube, and a cup of water. Delicious! We have enough chocolate pie left for everyone for dessert, hooray! Maybe apple crisp for tomorrow?

Pizza Friday

The Safeway pizza the kids like - carefully picking off the pepperoni on their half, while adding mushrooms, peppers, and onions to ours.

I have leftover chocolate pie for dessert - we had a retirement party this afternoon, and I have a lot of mints and about 3/4 of a pie left. This is a super easy and delicious pie; it's my tween's favorite:

Melt together 1/2 cup milk, 20 large marshmallows, and 8-9 oz chocolate (whatever you have - I used about 3/4 milk and 1/4 dark, a mixture of Hershey's and Ghirardelli's). Let cool to room temperature. DO NOT TRY TO SKIMP ON THIS STEP. THE MIXTURE SHOULD NOT BE WARM. Stir occasionally if you feel the need to do something while it's cooling.
When the chocolate mixture is cool, whip 1 cup whipping cream to stiff peaks. Fold into chocolate mixture and pile into a crust - chocolate crumb crusts are the best, although a graham cracker crust or a regular pie crust will also work. Refrigerate until firm. Enjoy.

Last night was grilled pork chops with carrots and Italian bread.

Fuddrucker's - mostly

I think this was the tipping point for Fuddrucker's for me. I never really liked it - they're so self-satisfied, and the burgers & fries aren't all that good. But, it was convenient to the soccer/baseball fields. The last time before this, they grossly undercooked my burger. This time, they only had one kid's meal ready when the rest of our food was, my onion rings were cold, and it took them so long to cook it that I had time to choke down 2 bites of burger before I had to leave to pick up the toddler. At least I have a not-very-good burger for lunch tomorrow.

I also stopped on the way home and bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate that TMOTH (along with the tween) finished painting the house today! YAAY! Now I have no excuse not to finish painting the living room.

We had great fun at halloween last night - went to a neighborhood where 2 friends of the tween live and went around with all 5 kids.


The toddler had a brief meltdown until I realized he just wanted candy - I put a Tootsie roll pop in each hand and he was perfectly happy.

Quesadillas

A quick dinner "wasted" on a weekend! BUT, easy, good, easy to vary to suit different tastes - TMOTH even made a pizza quesadilla, which was surprisingly good.

My birthday was yesterday, so I'll have to update my profile. I'm now closer to 50 than to 40 ... somehow that bothered me more than just turning 40. Last night's dinner was ham and biscuits (chosen by the mid-kid) and O'Brien potatoes (with peas for the boys).

The tween weathered a disturbing incident today - she was online on Gaia and somebody kept trying to get her to give out her e-mail address. She kept her head and just left, but it upset her. I told her I was proud of her for doing the right thing, and the only thing I could suggest she do differently if it happened again was to leave immediately.

Steak and mushrooms

Mainly because the tween loves steak and wanted it for dinner. Mushrooms were mostly for me, although the man of the house likes them OK. I remember when I was in graduate school I'd saute a pound of mushrooms and call it dinner. Frozen broccoli with cheese sauce, french bread, strawberries, and cantaloupe round out dinner.

Now, when did I cook last?

Tonight was the annual Halloween bash at the kids' daycare, so dinner (such as it was) was provided by them. I can't actually complain - their chicken nuggets are actually very good, much better than McDonald's (noted, not a high barrier) and there was salad and rice to go with it.

The Man of the House cooked a lovely dinner last night before the tween's soccer practice - lamb shanks with potatoes, carrots, and onions, with french bread to go with, and mac & cheese for the kidlings. I then spent most of the time at soccer practice in the car since it was so cold and windy, but I made up my shopping list for Thanksgiving, and checked off the stuff I already had. So far, that includes the turkey. If I waited until a "normal" time to try to buy a turkey, all that would be left would be 26-pound behemoth turkeys, so I went ahead and bought a 13-pounder, since basically only TMOTH and I eat turkey, anyway. Maybe the toddler will this year.

Monday night was the last time I "cooked" - we had frozen fish filets, tater tots, cornbread twists, peas (for the boys, anyway) and asparagus (which actually counts as cooking, I suppose). Nothing like asparagus, yum.

Breakfast for dinner

Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, hashbrowns, toast, cereal, and strawberries. Not ALL of that for everybody - I unfortunately can't eat sausage and don't like hashbrowns, but it's all easy enough to cook and everybody gets what they want. The only thing EVERYBODY ate was the strawberries - they looked so good at the Safeway, but I was surprised by how good they actually were.

No dinner blog last night - the boys had Wednesday night dinner at daycare, and the tween, hubby, and I went to Macaroni Grill. The grown-ups think it's OK, but the tween really likes it - the only one she seems to like more is Bob Evans, and it's never really been clear to me why she likes B.E. so much. On the mid-kid front, the trip to the neurologist was reassuring. He's basically fine and will likely go to karate tomorrow.

Chili

Grown-ups had chili from the freezer - I added canned beans and cheese to mine, yum!

Big kids had spaghetti-Os AND tomato soup. Toddler had mandarin oranges and cheese - he pretty much has to eat the second he walks in the door or he's REALLY cranky.

I had great plans for last night - was browning strips of beef for stir-fry when J. called from baseball - mid-kid was seeing double. Apparently he'd tripped and hit his head over the weekend and didn't bother to tell us until he was at baseball. SO, we ate a bowl of cereal and met them at the ER. (Meanwhile, the beef burned. The hounds are happy.) CAT scan was negative, but the pediatrician he saw today wants him to see the neurologist tomorrow. Ick.

Tacos

The tween actually ate tacos! The more she eats with other people, the more she'll try. It's amazing. Hopefully the mid-kid will follow suit.

Fall dinner

We had our first official hard frost last night (although it got cold enough the night before to kill off the tomatoes and squash). Plus, I had time after kids' stuff to cook!

Pork loin: Seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and poultry seasoning, seared on the grill, then finished in the oven. Nice and juicy and even the tween ate it because it was like pork chops when sliced.

Fried green tomatoes: See frost above. Salted, dredged in seasoned flour, then fried. (This is how the spouse grew up with them - I alternate with cornmeal because I like them better that way. He sometimes puts powdered sugar on them, but I do draw the line somewhere.)

Sauteed apples: Peeled, sliced, with nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and allspice, plus a tablespoon of butter and about half a tablespoon of sugar.

Baked potatoes plus raw sliced apples for the big kids round out our dinner. I also sliced up an Asian pear, but it was a little past ripe and nobody ate it (and I don't blame them). A nice Australian cabernet for the grownups as well.

Brownies for dessert!

It was kind of a long day- Up early (and the toddler-boy didn't sleep well last night, winding up in bed with us) to make pancakes for the horde of kids. Mid-kid had to be at the baseball field at 9:30 while the tween had to have her soccer picture made at 10. She had TWO soccer games back-to-back today; a bit much, I think, for this age group. They tied the first game, but lost the second. Would they have done any better if they were fresh? I don't know, but it seems to be an inherently bad system. Lunch at Cici's, then dropped off the sleepover friend and came home. Nice afternoon playing in the yard, and I even managed to do a little scraping and plastic placement for the last bit of house painting that needs to be done.

Waffles

By request of the mid-kid. He actually wanted pancakes, but I just don't have time for that on a karate night. I promised him pancakes for breakfast. He and dad are off now for the class, and I'm waiting for the tween to get home with her sleepover friend. (My lovely husband cooked the bacon and sausage and made coffee. Hooray!) Toddler-boy LOVED the sausage, so much so that he stole the last piece off my husband's plate.

My mom had surgery to have her shoulder replaced yesterday - this is after having her hip replaced last year. My brother left a message saying, "This is Mom's number at the hospital. Don't call tonight - she's stoned." She was still pretty happy from the drugs this morning, but seemed to be feeling OK. It's no fun living 1,000 miles away.

Bean soup yesterday

One of those dinners that got chosen for me - I knocked a container of bean soup out of the freezer the other day getting out the ice cream and cracked the el-cheapo generic Glad-ware container. (I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate the brick floors in my kitchen.) We had some leftover ham and caramelized onions to gussy it up with, and I made cornbread using leftover buttermilk (STILL some buttermilk left - time to find another recipe). Any dinner with cornbread is a good dinner for me!

Work ended early enough that I could do some grocery shopping with the tween and get home in time to not rush dinner. Thursday is one day that NOTHING is on the family schedule.

Dinner out

Sometimes I think the kids' favorite question is "Can we eat at a restaurant?"

Tonight it was pizza. At least it was good pizza.

Columbus Day and the day after

Columbus Day - pretty much a perfect Indian summer day. The big kids had school, but the daycare was closed so we were home with toddler-boy all day.

The spouse hurt his back, so I was the designated parent (and snack parent) for the mid-kid's baseball game. Kid-pitch baseball with a bunch of 7-, 8-, and 9-year-olds is your basic comedy of errors. BUT - MY kid scored a run! He got on base with a walk, got advanced by hitters to second and third, then made it home on another walk. Huge progress for the kid who swung at EVERYTING his first game.

Dad and tween made dinner - ham and biscuits. At least the kids had fruit at lunch!

Today was eggs/omelets. The tween loves scrambled eggs, but wasn't keen on the idea of an omelet for some reason. So we scrambled hers. Mid-kid tried (and liked!) his cheese omelet; grown-ups also had bacon and mushrooms (and sausage for dad). Tween and I bolted our dinner; she had soccer practice.

All-American steak dinner

A nice porterhouse, shared by me, the tween, and my husband.
Baked potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, caramelized onions, and a nice [cheap] cabernet for the grown-ups. (Plus, there were leftover mushrooms and onions for omelets later in the week. Yay!)
Ciabatta rolls which went over really well.
Broccoli for the grown-ups and the toddler.
I was going to have little green peas for the boys, but wound up spilling nearly all of the bowl on the floor, so the hound got most of them.

Chicken masala

Chicken and carrot chunks in a masala simmer sauce from Trader Joe's, with rice and pita bread. Salad on the side from the farmers' market.

In theory, I should be able to make this during the week. Sounds easy, right? In practice, the chicken has to be thawed, then browned, then simmered; I just can't bring myself to dump un-browned chicken into the sauce.

We had some pie mid-afternoon as planned. Since I had to go to the store for diapers, I bought a not-quite-gallon of vanilla ice cream. Heaven!

mmmmmmmm...pie...

Apple pie in the oven for afternoon/snack dessert. We went apple picking last weekend, and really, why go apple picking if you don't make pie?

I remain mystified by people who think that making piecrust is hard. When I was little, I stayed with my Grandma Dunaway during the day while my mom was at work. Grandma made pies for restaurants in our little town, and any kid who was around got to "help." I just had help from toddler-boy making this pie, and I don't know how she did it! I've never mastered making it without measuring like she did, but my old Betty Crocker recipe has never failed me. (According to Betty, pie is "A Symbol of Good Eating in a Good Land.")

Hopefully we have either whipped cream in the fridge or vanilla ice cream in the freezer...

Pizza night

Gotta thank the spouse for this one - although I take credit for the suggestion. He started with a refrigerated cheese pizza from Safeway, left half plain for the kidlets, and on our half added pepperoni, mushrooms, red bell pepper, and artichoke hearts. Red wine for the grown-ups, Kool-aid for the kidlets.

Pizza sure doesn't deserve its bad rap - there are worse meals to be had.

Introduction

My husband asked why I was starting a blog, so I might as well explain to the rest of the world as well.

It's a direct reslt of the frustration of trying to decide what to have for dinner every single night, and the internet, for some reason, is little help. There seems to be two extremes of meal "help" out there - one of the beenie weenie school, one of the poached salmon in cream sauce on a bed of arugula - under the aegis of 30-minute meals.

I just was a reasonable well-balanced, somewhat tasty, not boring meal that doesn't take forever and that my kids might actually eat. Some days that's possible, other days it isn't. Hopefully by posting the dinner of the day, I can share some of what works for me and you can share with me.

Also, I can brag about my family, and isn't that why everyone blogs anyway?

Dinner post #1:
Soup #1 - Plain old Campbell's tomato soup with leftover pasta.
Soup #2 - Campbell's chicken noodle plus Progresso chicken noodle.
Ritz crackers.
(OK, not an auspicious start.)

Looking forward to tomorrow:
If I'm lucky I'll get home by six, but mid-kid has to be at karate by 7. Might just need to be pizza.