Bean soup with ham

TMOTH pulled stuff out for dinner, yay! Kids ate ravioli...

I also made Mint Capped Brownie Cookie Cups to take to our holiday party yesterday and they are yum yum yum. Recipe on the package of Hershey's Mint Truffle Kisses.

roast beef, mashed potatoes, broccoli

We had leftovers from earlier in the week - new mashed potatoes and broccoli, and biscuits as well. Kids are having ice cream for dessert. I had cookies earlier - I baked some spritz cookies this afternoon. I think the oven is running hot - the first batch was almost burned, and the second was more browned than it should have been.

Tomorrow has to be easy and fast. The mid-kid has karate 4-5, I'm going to be out and about downtown lunching, and the quilt guild meets tomorrow night. I still don't have a gift for my secret sister, so maybe while I'm downtown I can find something.

Turkey pot pie

Using up most of the last of the Thanksgiving turkey, with leeks, bell pepper, celery, carrots, and potatoes.
I spend big chunks of the day making gingerbread cookies. Both boys love them, as do I, even though the pre-teen and TMOTH don't much care for them. They got the last of the leftover chocolate chip cookie dough cooked for them.
Everybody's sick at our house (I'm counting the pre-teen's foot problems in that category). The toddler brought it home, and the mid-kid is currently the sickest. Throwing up, just not himself.

Fried chicken thighs

TMOTH made fried chicken and mashed potatoes. The potatoes were really good. The chicken was OK - boneless skinless thighs have these secret pockets of fat that just gross me out.

We wound up with cheese and crackers last night - something fast before cub scouts.

Scrambled eggs

Not as good as last night - we had bacon wrapped scallops. Delicious.

I bought the beans and ham hocks today for my day-before-Thanksgiving bean soup. Since I need cornbread for the cornbread dressing, and whenever I think cornbread I think bean soup, it's evolved into a tradition - even though TMOTH and I are the only ones who usually eat the bean soup!

Leftover short ribs

With fresh bread and the leftover rice. I also had steamed purple cauliflower - which STAYED purple. I was amazed - purple vegetables usually turn green (or even worse- grey) when cooked.

Fried catfish and hushpuppies

Back to my roots! Catfish aren't nearly as good as bass, bream, or speckled perch, but were surprisingly good. Coated with cornmeal and fried, yum. No low blood sugar episodes for TMOTH tonight.

The mid-kid's birthday party went off without much of a hitch. Long wait for pizza, but kids got over it. He doesn't feel very well now - I think it's a virus rather than post-party sickness, since he has a little fever.

Omelettes

Omelettes for most of us - bacon, mushroom, and cheese - leftover lasagna for the tween and the mid-kid.

We went and picked apples today - a hair over 70 pounds of apples!

Chili

I made a big pot of chili with the 2 pounds of ground beef that needed to be dealt with. It WAS a chili day today - fallish and bright.

Steak, then apple pie!

Homemade biscuits and broccoli from the farmers' market.

Even if it's 90 degrees out, the calendar says fall, so it's apple pie time.

Much better than the frozen fish filets last night!

Tuesday night was lamb roast (yummm) and Monday night was leftover spaghetti and meatballs. That's three straight nights of Giant french bread. Wowza.

KFC

Yeah, I know.

It was easy and fast - needed to have that since the mid-kid had a cub scout meeting at 7:15.

Spaghetti supper at the VFD

The annual spaghetti supper at the Fire Dept was tonight. No cooking, yay! We had grilled steaks last night; almost as easy.

Hot dogs and hamburger

Back-to-school picnic at the mid-kid's school and the local fire department was grilling. Absolutely delicious hot dogs, I was rather astonished at how good they were. The fire dept. spaghetti dinner is on Saturday. Yay, another night to not cook!

Chicken soup

Because I feel like crap. Aching joints/muscles, chills, but no fever; queasy stomach. Kids had tomato soup.

Last night we had ham and biscuits and grapes. The DR table is still in pieces, so we're eating in the living room.

Chili

and home-made tortilla chips (well, I fried them, anyway).

Last night was a party at the neighbor's, so no cooking. YAY!!!

Yesterday we went to the Shaker Forest Festival. Not as nice stuff as prior years, but the food was better.

The toddler tried a little bit of everything:


Both the toddler and pre-teen got dragons:


We spent a lot of time looking at toy guns. I vetoed the rubber band gun, so the mid-kid picked a pop-gun.
Inspecting wares:

I want to play!


The toymaker demonstrating how it works:


There was general frivolity with the traveling Mother Goose:


Fun at the petting zoo:






Listening to music:

Ravioli

Frozen cheese ravioli with tomato sauce and garlic bread. I think I like the frozen pasta better than the dried... Cantaloupe, not the best.

Our kitty-corner across-the-street neighbor is having a cookout tomorrow afternoon, so no cooking of dinner. Yay! I just finished making a big tub of potato salad to take for that.

Garlic chicken

TMOTH cooked, since he had to get the mid-kid to karate by 7. It was quite good.

Fettucine alfredo and salads

Sauce from the grocery. It looks as if it's easy to make myself, but I was already running late. We ate by 7, but only by the skin of my teeth.

My boss gave me some home-made key lime pie to have for dessert. Yummmmmmm.

last night - chicken soup and foccacia

all home-made, thank you very much.
We had a stash of chicken backs in the freezer, so I made stock. Note for the future: COVER those chicken backs when roasting, otherwise clouds of smoke come out of the oven. Very plain soup: just chicken, onions, and carrots. Still, very nice with the foccacia.

Lamb and mac & cheese

I still felt kind of rotten all day - toughed it out at work and then came home for comfort food. The lasagna last week may have been from Stouffers, but the mac & cheese from tonight was home-made -- grated the cheese myself!

Chicken backs are still in the fridge and should work for soup stock this weekend. I also have a hankering for focaccia - soup and bread will be on the menu either tomorrow or Sunday.

Mojito chicken thighs

Corn and cucumber from the farmers market, squash from the garden, plain old white rice.

Chili

Kids had mac & cheese.

What I really wanted was chicken soup- I've got some chicken backs thawing for stock, so hopefully later this week...

Omelettes

with eggs from the farmers market.

Our local supermarkets have started price-fixing eggs WAY over price, and now the farmers market eggs are LESS expensive, and taste better as well.

Last night was hot dogs.

Lasagna

Frozen Stouffer's lasagna- my brother disses me about this, but everybody eats it. Garlic bread and salad.

Last night we had cheese and crackers and fruit; Sunday night was steaks on the grill (YUM); Saturday was ham (suggested by the pre-teen, since she doesn't like ham and was at a sleepover).

Pork roast

More like a mini-pork tenderloin - I put it on the grill like a tenderloin, anyway. We also had broccoli and breadsticks. I had summer squash (from the garden) and TMOTH had a tomato. Kids had macaroni & cheese.

Beef stew

Eeek. 2-ish weeks since the last post. No excuses, other than laziness.

A beef steak, cut into ~1-inch cubes. Maybe half a cup of chopped celery. Three leeks. Three carrots. Two envelopes beef boullion, a few cups of water. A pint container of tomato sauce. A few grinds of pepper, an afternoon in the crock pot, then two carrots for an hour or so. Over noodles (which the kids ate, without stew, with cheese).

Parmesan Chicken

Made by TMOTH - Internet recipes sometimes work out! More biscuits from a can, corn, and squash from the garden. Yummm.

Pork Chops or Ham

Broccoli, and biscuits from a can.

Lots of cooking tonight - a retirement brunch tomorrow, and I volunteered to bring muffins. I wound up making 4 different kinds of mini-muffins: blueberry, banana nut, donut, and chocolate. The chocolate muffins are wonderful (at least I think so - everybody else in the house is kind of "meh.")

The chocolate muffins are from a recipe from the Fall 1984 (!) Williams-Sonoma catalog:

1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cups cocoa
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup sugar
3 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbs (1/2 stick) butter, melted

Butter the molds of a muffin pan. (I used canola oil spray in liners.) Sift together the flour, cocoa, salt, sugar and baking powder into a bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs lightly then beat in the milk, vanilla extract, and melted butter. Add teh liquids to the dry ingredients and stir quickly. Spoon into the buttered molds about 3/4 full and bake in a 425º oven (I baked at about 375º) for 15-20 minutes until lightly browned. (I never pay ANY attention to how long something is cooking. It drives TMOTH crazy.) Remove from molds immediately and serve with fresh butter.
Makes 24 muffins. (I'm not sure it will make 24 muffins - maybe 18? I made 36 mini-muffins and 2 regular size muffins from this recipe.)

Omelettes

Cheese for the boys, plus mushrooms and bacon for me and TMOTH. The pre-teen is sick and didn't eat. Poor baby - I just hope the rest of us don't get it from her.

Tacos, quesadillas, and cantaloupe

Something easy after an afternoon at the movies. Harry Potter was loads of fun - hopefully the mid-kid won't have nightmares tonight. NOW that I've seen the movie, I can re-read the book.

Pita pizza

Poor neglected blog! And all I have to start up again with is pita pizza. Huh.

I do, however, need to start again. We eat better when I keep track of things.
Monday: Chicken sauteed in olive oil, mashed potatoes, carrot sticks, cucumber slices, homemade bread.
Sunday: Pork chops, corn, zucchini, biscuits.
Saturday: Mushroom omelettes

for tomorrow: probably tacos - something with the ground beef in the fridge.

Noticed today: 3 tiny (<1 cm) Monarch butterfly caterpillars on the milkweed. YAY!!!

Lamb Shanks

Yum. In the slow cooker with garlic and dried morels. Home-made bread as well - half/half white and wheat. TMOTH and the toddler had corn from the farmers market to go with it. The other kids had tomato soup - lamb apparently is too "cute" to eat.

Last night was steak for our anniversary, baked potato, and broccoli from the market.

So...we have enough lamb shanks for one leftover meal, possibly enough chicken if it's stretched for another meal, some leftover steak - I should only have to come up with 3 or 4 new ideas for next week.

Cheese & crackers

with ham, wine, cucumbers, and watermelon. It got late - I was a little late getting home 'cause I had to get an anniversary present for TMOTH. Our anniversary is tomorrow - 17 years!

Leftover roast beef and french bread

made for an early dinner, at least. Early dessert, too, to distract the toddler who was screaming for "bubbles." One too many sucking on the bubble wand incidents.+

Beef stir-fry

Some sort of chuck steaks sliced thin, onion, bell pepper, and water chestnuts in Mr. Somebody's cracked pepper and garlic sauce over rice. Chicken-ginger spring rolls. STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE for dessert.

We went and picked strawberries and blueberries today. It is the end of the road for the strawberries, and it was hard picking. Not very many for quite a a bit of work. But, oh so very good. So good I made shortcakes to go with them. Blueberries were plentiful and we got quite a bit more of those, so blueberry muffins for breakfast.

Tacos and quesadillas

Leftover taco meat and leftover mojito chicken = dinner. Quesadillas because the mid-kid ALWAYS wants quesadillas. I don't know how much longer we'll be able to use the lettuce from the garden - it hasn't really bolted yet, but it's getting very leggy and somewhat assertive in flavor. I picked more peas yesterday (about enough for just me) and I have squash coming up!

Hamburgers!

and hot dogs. With chips. Ah, summer.

And a beef. I like ground sirloin for my hamburgers, and luckily I was able to find some this afternoon. I am usually not that lucky. Why is it so hard to find ground sirloin??? They only had the ONE package, or I'd have bought extra and frozen them.

We may yet have s'mores for dessert. We'll see.

Fish (last night)

Mahi-mahi from the frozen section at Trader Joe's, sauteed in olive oil and butter, with salt, pepper, and garam masala. Very very good. I also made hush puppies, just because we hadn't had any in a long time and I wanted some. Also yummy - what's not to like about fried dough? Chicken strips for the kids, along with mozzarella sticks, tater tots for the boys, and watermelon.

Cheese and crackers - with champagne!

We picked up the new [to us] car this afternoon, so a celebration was in order.

Leftover shish-kebab

Along with some french bread from Trader Joe's. Easy, which is good after a long day.

I found us a car today. It looks like a blueberry. I did some looking close to home, but all of the cars were fancy, leather seats, etc. etc. etc. I wanted the bottom of the line. As long as I have kids throwing up in the minivan, I really see no need for fancy. And so I found what I was looking for across the county line.

Tacos and quesadillas

I think the mid-kid would eat quesadillas EVERY day if I let him.

Mojito chicken and biscuits

An odd combination, but TMOTH cooked the chicken, so I wasn't about to argue.

Lasagna

Frozen Stouffer's - mine is much better, but we ate all of it. Garlic bread to go with.

Pancakes and bacon

Since we didn't really have anything else in the house to eat - no bread since the cinnamon toast for breakfast.

Beef Kebabs (last night's dinner)

With rice, pita bread, corn on the cob from the farmers market, and fresh peas from the garden.

The peas were a revelation. I'd grown the for the boys, who really like peas. Turns out they DON'T like FRESH peas, but I DO. I've always hated those nasty little green peas (and still do), but my garden peas taste more like edamame and the leftovers will be wonderful in a pasta salad.

Blogging has fallen off a LOT lately. It started when TMOTH and the mid-kid were in a car accident and I spent a whole week eating mostly fast food. Everybody will be fine (except the van), but it threw a monkey wrench into what has to pass for a routine in this household.

French bread pizza

That makes "Italian" sort-of two days in a row - and the kids both had pizza for lunch! (The mid-kid is at a birthday party; he's eating pizza as well.) We also had honeydew and cantaloupe. The cantaloupe was absolutely wonderful; and it just came from the local Giant (otherwise known as the hell-hole grocery). The honeydew wasn't bad either. I have a really bad habit of buying fruit and then forgetting it until I find it melting into a pool on the kitchen floor. I have another cantaloupe in there that needs to be dealt with reasonably soon.

Who's betting we have strawberries for dessert?

Lamb shanks

Mmmmmm, lamb shanks...TMOTH cooked them with mushrooms and celery in a mixture of broth and crushed tomatoes. Very nice. Roasted potatoes and some flatbread to go with. Kids had Chef-Boy-ar-Dee pasta with meatballs.

I know it seems like the kids eat a lot of meals different from us, but as I don't generally cook them a separate meal, I don't see it as catering to them. One thing that I will be forever grateful for is that my mother never forced us to eat anything we didn't like. (Well, with one memorable exception. I have a vivid memory of being made to eat corn, and throwing up all over the dining room table from the horrible taste of it. Never had to do that again.) I have the advantage of my kids being LESS picky than I was as a kid. I didn't train myself to eat tomatoes in any form until I was in college. I STILL will not eat nasty green peas or corn.

At any rate, it works for us.

Gumbo

TMOTH scavenged the freezer, and gumbo it was.

We had Thai takeout for Mothers Day, and it was delish.

Saturday Night Pizza

Pita pizzas - big ones.

Pizza

I used the big pitas to make pizza tonight. TMOTH really likes the pita bread as pizza crust - it's really thin and gets pretty crisp in the oven. Plain cheese for the kids (even so, the mid-kid claimed it "tasted funny" and didn't eat more than bites) and with pepperoni, ham, artichoke hearts, mushrooms, and bell peppers for the grown-ups.

Grilled chicken and new potatoes

TMOTH concocted a lovely marinade for the chicken - some lemon dill sauce, sherry vinegar, balsamic vinegar, and garam masala. It was yummy. I got new potatoes at the farmers market and sauteed them in a little oil, then added some garlic at the end. Also really yummy. Carrot sticks for a "green" and strawberries from the market for dessert.

Last night we had fish from the asian market with garden asparagus and bruschetta. Wednesday night was pita pizza.

I got some BIG pitas at the asian market - like the size of a real pizza. Bound to be pizza again in the near future.

Steak last night

Steak (and ham for mid-kid) cooked on the grill; broccoli, salad, and carrot sticks; and bruschetta with [sadly overcrisped] pita chips. Mini chocolate cupcakes for dessert.

Pita pizzas for lunch

at least for TMOTH and a couple of kids. The mid-kid had a hot dog at his baseball game, and I had pita bruschetta (also on the dinner menu!). I got the bruschetta topping made last night from a farmers market tomato and basil, onion, and garlic. Summer on toast.

Bad, bad blogger...

Not much to say for tonight, anyway. I had a HUGE burger at lunch and wasn't in the mood for dinner, the pre-teen is off on a rafting trip and so wasn't in the picture. Mid-kid wanted quesadillas, which the toddler was happy to eat as well, and TMOTH had a french bread pizza. I had a cup of tea. yum.

Last night was tortellini and garlic bread, Wednesday was pork chops, O'Brien potatoes, and FRESHLY PICKED ASPARAGUS from the garden. Heaven. Tuesday I had to work the baseball snack bar, so the rest of the family went to Cici's and I had a Gatorade. I think Monday was quesadillas...

Roast beef

Leftover roast beef from the freezer, mashed potatoes, cucumber slices, carrot sticks, grapes, and biscuits from a can. Some gravy for TMOTH.

We'll have to have something involving leeks in the next couple of days - I cooked some from the freezer because I thought they were squash.

On the global front, I'm highly disappointed in the supreme court.

No dinner tonight

Mid-kid had vague alarming symptoms of abdominal pain all day, not moving off the couch. One phone consult with the ped later, we're off to the ER. As ER visits go, not all that bad - we got there about 6:30 and got out about 11. No appendicitis, quick-strep negative, needs to be seen Monday at the office.

I made bread this afternoon, and at least got to eat a nice warm slice with butter before leaving. Then a bowl of cornflakes when I got home.

Steak! (back from Spring Break)

My daughter loves steak and my son doesn't, so since he had dinner at daycare tonight, the pre-teen got steak. French bread to go with. Also frozen green beans with almonds, but they seem to have changed the recipe to include some yucky sauce. The dog got most of it.

Plague masks

Is Judaism the fun religion? If these masks are any indication, yes:

Ten Plague Masks

(Thanks to the Washington Post for printing a photo of the lice mask. They send you to Party City, where you only get to see the lice mask on top of the bunch.)

Fish & stuffed potatoes

TMOTH cooked tonight. It was lovely. Broiled fish with TJ's mojito sauce and twice-cooked baked potatoes with bacon and onion.

Leftover beef stew

Strawberries for dessert.

Frozen fish portions and sticks

Toddler-boy wound up eating half of mine. Also the cornbread from last night, a bean/carrot mix from Trader Joe's, and baked potatoes. One of the stupid baked potatoes exploded in the oven, so I have that mess to clean up once it cools off, but TMOTH ate it anyway. Wow, time for dessert already. The time change and some nice weather has pushed dinner late for the past couple of days.

Bean soup with cornbread

Mac & cheese for the kids. Melon on the side. The pre-teen has a friend over (no school tomorrow) so they played outside for a LONG time.

Pork chops or ham

Mid-kid doesn't like pork chops, pre-teen doesn't like ham, TMOTH and I like both. Potatoes O'Brien and broccoli in cheese sauce to go with; chocolate cupcakes for dessert. The ham will get used as part of dinner later this week - added to bean soup and possibly in omelettes.

Lovely day today - I got into the garden and planted peas, lettuce, carrots, radishes, and celeriac. TMOTH wants to start tomatoes (and probably will this week) but I'll wait on the bulk of the seeds until after we get back from Indiana.

A little of this, a little of that...

TMOTH isn't feeling well and wanted fried eggs on toast for dinner. I wasn't in the mood for that, and the kids certainly weren't going to eat it, so I fed them Kraft mac & cheese and grapes; I had yogurt and granola with a chopped apple and a few grapes. Yumm.

Oh, and lest anyone think I'm Mrs. Crunchy Granola - I also made Rice Krispie Treats and yellow jello today. Double yumm.

Homemade yogurt and granola

I started the yogurt this morning. I put out a request through Freecycle, and have also been looking in the thrift stores, for a yogurt maker, just because it would automate the process. Right now I'm using the mason-jars-in-a-cooler-with-hot water method, and it requires changing out the hot water every hour to hour and a half. It's working though - I think that it could probably be "done" now after 5 hours - it's getting solid - but I think it might get more solid if I leave it the full 8 hours.

Once I started the yogurt I realized I needed granola, so I'm making it as well. It's in the oven and will need to be stirred in a couple of minutes. I had a moment of panic - I grabbed one of the big spice jars to put in the cinnamon and put in cumin instead. AAACK. Luckily, it was just in the oats, SO, I poured the oats into my big plastic colander and shook it like mad. It didn't taste heavily of cumin before it went in the oven, so hopefully all is well. When I did find the actual cinnamon, I put in rather a heavy dose, along with some nutmeg. I used this recipe for granola as a starting point. BUT, in addition to the heavy spices mentioned before, I also used nearly 5 c oats (when I added 4 c, there was about half a c left in the [new] canister of oats), didn't put in any almonds (not THAT keen on nuts in granola), and added a couple of tablespoons of sesame seeds.

I think the only chance I possibly have of getting the kiddos to eat this is to drink it, as a smoothie. I see smoothies in our future...

Pancakes and bacon

That's all. The maple syrup is the closest we got to a fruit or vegetable tonight.

Tomorrow is another day.

Beef stew

TMOTH finished cooking the beef stew. Not enough carrots for me, but hey, it was cooked when I got home. I'm happy. At least it's not deep fried rabbit ears.

Chicken tikka skewers (and sides)

TMOTH made chicken tikka skewers before going to get the mid-kid for karate, then cooked them when we all got home. He didn't actually plan any side dishes, but luckily I'd decided to go to Grand Mart on the way home.

I love Grand Mart. It's a Korean-owned supermarket mini-chain, an ethnic extravaganza. But mainly they have better produce than the giganto-chains (we are stuck with Giant and Safeway here) at lower prices. I got lettuce ($0.99/lb vs. 1.99/lb), cucumbers ($0.79 vs. 0.99), grapes, cauliflower ($2.49 for a BIG head vs. 3.99 for a SMALL head), jicama, chayote, mushrooms ($1.29 vs. 2.29/8 oz.), rice, carrots, a small squash, and a honeydew.

I got the cauliflower dealt with tonight, as well as cubing and searing some meat for beef stew later this week.

ANYWAY, I sauteed the chayote (I'm the only one that eats it), made a yogurt-cucumber-onion shoot sauce for the chicken, chicken fingers for the pre-teen, biscuits, and sliced up the honeydew. At least I'm getting more fruits and vegetables in my diet.

Tortellini with salad and garlic bread

The mid-kid started baseball practice this afternoon. He and TMOTH didn't get home until about 7:45, so it was a rather late dinner. I need to stop by SuperH on the way home tomorrow to replenish the fruit & vegetable larder.

We still had some strawberries left for shortcake for dessert.

The MUW Shattuck Dining Hall booklet

Courtesy of Laurie Teague, class of 1971. According to Laurie, this was a pamphlet given out as a Christmas gift during her time at the W. Her daughter Bronwyn cleaned up the scanned copy (but thankfully not too much).

I have no idea how well these images will show up, but it's worth a try. Looks OK (not great, but OK) on the preview. If you click on a page, it will open up a full-size page that is actually readable.

First page:

Second page:
Page 3:

Playing

Just seeing what I can do here...I've been using Photobucket to upload photos and this is the Picasa option through blogger.

I'm sure that if I were conversant with HTML I could wrap the text with the other upload method, but I'm not. So here's an old old picture of the toddler.

The question is, can I link to a PDF? Is there even a PDF lurking here on the laptop I can play with?

Why is this even an issue? Well, the president of my alma mater (Mississippi University for Women) has turned out to be power-hungry and incapable of acting like a true leader. She wasn't liked by some of the powerful alumnae that ran the alumni association. Instead of IGNORING THEM and working on winning them over by working WITH them, she is hell-bent on getting rid of them. The more I find out, the more disgusted I am.

The only silver lining so far is that a bunch of the "renegade" alums are sharing all of their memories of the W. It's absolutely wonderful to hear all of the stories pouring out. One of the alums has now scanned a 60's-era recipe booklet.

But after fiddling, it doesn't look like I can post a PDF. (Edit -OK, I can. I have to upload the PDF to a file hoster and the link to it. Still, it should work, and it'll be a new experience.) Best I can do is link to it when it finally gets posted. Until then, buy yourself a copy of Southern Grace.

Menu planning

Lordy, how I hate this. It doesn't help that TMOTH sometimes decides to cook, which leads to a change in my plans.

So, at some point in the coming week, we will probably eat:
- quesadillas - Tuesday? - I'm toying with the idea of making home-made tortillas (and I think the kids would like helping) so that's a weekend project.
- chicken of some sort on a couple of days
- pasta of some sort (the pre-teen asked for tortellini "soon" so I'm thinking that it will be good for Thursday since the mid-kid likes it too
- pork chops - probably Wednesday, since the pre-teen likes them and the mid-kid doesn't
- fish or scallops
- I need to freeze the beef for stew soon - since we had beef tonight, I don't want beef again until a couple of days. Saturday?
- breakfast. Waffles or pancakes or eggs.

Am I making this too hard? It doesn't help that most of the "quick and easy" recipes out there rely heavily on canned cream soups. But. That ain't gonna happen in this house. So we struggle along and eat later than I'd prefer most nights.

Pot roast (sort of)

But TMOTH was cooking, so I'm not complaining. He took a couple of pieces of braising steak and cooked it with mushrooms, broth, and madiera in the pressure cooker and also made mashed potatoes. That and french bread made dinner.

I made some cupcakes (either Betty Crocker or Pillsbury, we're not fussy) to go with the strawberries I just slices and sugared. California strawberries aren't as good as Florida strawberries, but they're still awfully good.

Fish

TMOTH and I had fish (sole? I think) baked in a lemon-dill sauce (bottled from Trader Joe's). It wound up more poached than baked, but was nice and moist. A little too dilly, though - it reminded me of dill pickles. Kids had fish portions/chicken tenders and tater tots.

The bread was a yogurt bran bread made with about half wheat flour. It was quite yummy. It's odd how the kids will eat homemade wheat bread, while turning up their nose at the commercial wheat bread.

I also baked the last of the snickerdoodles while trying to get the fridge cleaned out.

Wild Rice Casserole

A full day's worth of cooking today!

Breakfast was donut muffins, from the Hillbilly Housewife website.

Lunch was pigs-in-blankets.

In the afternoon, we made pretzels. The mid-kid had asked last weekend if we could make pretzels, and I promised him we'd try it this weekend. Well, we did, and it was not TOO difficult. I adapted a recipe from my trusty Bread Machine Magic cookbook - I wanted a larger amount of dough, and I thought it should have salt, so I used:
1 1/3 c + 2 Tbsp water (the dough was too dry as it was mixing, so I added the 2 Tbsp)
4 c flour
2 1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar
3 tsp yeast
I ran it through the dough cycle in the bread machine, then the fun began!

Mid-kid makes a snake and I shape a pretzel:


Mid-kid shaping the dough:


Starting a rope, with finished pretzels on the cookie sheet:


After rising, the pretzels get in a boiling water bath to poach for about a minute - 10 c water with 2 1/2 tsp baking soda added, then baked at 425. Some of them stuck to the cookie sheet; I think I'll use either a foil or parchment liner the next time.

Finished salted pretzels:


Finished cinnamon sugar pretzels:


They were really good- and not so difficult.

Dinner was a wild rice casserole that I first made when I was in high school and some friends of my parents gave them some wild rice. This (or a very similar) recipe was attached. All I remembered other than the sour cream and almonds was that (1) it was too salty, (2) it was a really huge recipe, and (3) it smelled god-awful while cooking. Google pointed me to a recipe for Wild Rice Baron from a wild rice site. I mostly used this recipe, except: (1) I halved the amount of everything, (2) used light soy sauce, (3) used sliced rather than slivered almonds, (4) didn't add the extra 2 tsp salt to the casserole itself, and (5) added more like 1/2 tsp pepper to my half-recipe.

Looks like dog food, doesn't it:


Even when smushed in a casserole, it doesn't look very appetizing:


It got a little hard on top while baking; I think next time I'll put some foil on the top while it bakes.

Lasagna, garlic bread, salad + Apple Pie

The pre-teen has a friend sleeping over tonight so she suggested lasagna. I pulled the last pan of it out of the freezer this morning - time to make up another big batch, knowing not to cook quite so many noodles the next time.

I'd actually asked the friend yesterday what she wanted for dinner - her answer was "apple pie." We still have a few apples left from an orchard trip in October (!!) that are miraculously still good enough for pie.

Breakfast for dinner

Well. Eggs, an assortment of sausages and fake sausage (Morningstar Farms patties, I think), hash brown patties for the boys, strawberries, and hoecakes.

What are hoecakes? I used the Hoe-Cakes recipe from the Hillbilly Housewife website. Basically fried cornmeal mush patties. I loved them. I only made a half-size recipe, and just as well, or I might have eaten the entire [big] batch. I have no photos, since I ate what we had. We have some stone-ground cornmeal left from our visit to a state park in Indiana a summer ago, and it has a lovely corny flavor. Hominy-corny, not sweet corn-corny. I'll have to make these again, even if I'm the only one who really likes them.

AND, TMOTH made english muffins yesterday. This is what they look like rising on a cookie sheet, with some in the pan:


A close-up of the muffins cooking (dry pan, medium-low heat):


And finally, TMOTH at work:

French bread pizza

for TMOTH and the pre-teen. Mid-kid and toddler were at KinderCare's Wednesday Night Dinner, and I had a HUGE burger at lunchtime, so I'm still not very hungry.

TMOTH is in the kitchen starting to cook home-made english muffins, so hopefully by the time they're done I'll be able to enjoy one. Plus, beautiful strawberries came home from the Safeway with me. Think they'll taste as good as they look?

Pad thai with pork

TMOTH got some cute little Asian food mixes at Trader Joes; satay and pad thai. We had the pad thai tonight because the plastic was easier to get open.



As is, it's vegan, but of course I sliced up a couple of pork chops, stir-fried them, and added it in. It was quite yummy, cheap (~$2.00 according to TMOTH), easy, and FAST. Two packets - noodles and sauce mix. Open, mix, and heat.

Quesadillas & Cantaloupe

The mid-kid wanted quesadillas last night, but the tortillas were frozen, so we promised them for tonight. An assortment: cheese; chicken and cheese; chicken, onion, and bell pepper (and cheese!); and hamburger, onion, and cheese - not tried before, but good.
The cantaloupe smelled better than it tasted - just not quite right, but the kids loved it.

Scallops & angel hair pasta, with salad and breadsticks, and banana bread for dessert

The kids, as predicted, ate the pasta and breadsticks. Mid-kid added cheese, the pre-teen added marinara sauce.

The banana bread was good, but the damned dog got to it and ate about half of it.

Chicken salad for lunch

Not dinner, I know, but still an accomplishment ;)

I used most of the leftover roasted chicken from Thursday night and added pecans, onions, celery, relishes, mustard, and light mayo. Lunch for me and TMOTH, and I added some more chicken to make enough for 2 more lunch portions.

I have peanuts (for boiled peanuts) in the crockpot. Those of you not raised in the South (and some of you that were) are going "EEEwwwww" right about now, but I LOVE boiled peanuts. My brother-in-law gave me the following recipe for crockpot boiled peanuts:

1/2 cup salt
1 1/2 quarts uncooked peanuts
2 1/2 quarts water

Cook in crockpot on "high" for 5-7 hours. We did this once, and it was WAY too salty (but still good!), so I cut the salt down to a little less than 1/3 cup for this try.

I think dinner will be pan-seared scallops over angel hair pasta, with salad. Kinda depends on the rest of the day. The kids will eat the pasta, but not the scallops.

Lamb Chips, baked potatoes, and bread

At least for me and TMOTH. The pre-teen doesn't like lamb ("too cute") so she had a pork chop. Mid-kid and toddler don't really like either, so they had hot dogs. Well, mid-kid had a hot dog, the toddler ran around and didn't eat the hot dog. He'd already had yogurt and grapes, plus is fighting a cold. I also had spinach with roasted garlic and bacon, but nobody else likes spinach. We also had raw veggies - everybody eats carrots; I also had celery and cauliflower.

The bread was really good - half bread flour and the other half equal parts whole wheat flour, buckwheat flour, and wheat bran. The bread machine isn't great for bread, other than mixing and the initial rising of the dough.

We've got strawberries in the refrigerator, but I need to get in there and hull them.

Lunch was a tread for the mid-kid. He pasted his belt test today and is now a green belt. This will change the class schedule, so now we'll have to figure out which days to go and at what times. Anyway, he'd asked me, "If I pass, can we go out to lunch or dinner?" I agreed, so he picked lunch at Wendy's.

I also got all of the hamburger browned up and 4 of 5 approximately one-pound aliquots frozen. The other is in the fridge - I have a wild rice casserole that I want to make that I need mushrooms and almonds and sour cream for. Kind of depends on when I get to the store.

Sloppy joes

TMOTH made the filling and I got buns on the way home. We had a can of Heinz sloppy joe sauce in the pantry - we won't be buying that one again. Ick. The rest of the meat still needs to be browned and frozen, but it's unlikely to get done tonight. At least mid-kid's karate uniform is getting washed for his belt test.

Roast chicken, asparagus, and biscuits

I came home early today because I felt punky and found TMOTH lying on the couch with a low blood sugar. He was supposed to pick the mid-kid up from school for karate, so I gave him a coke, commanded "drink this!" and left to get the karate kid. We did karate - I hadn't been in quite a while and he's getting a LOT better - then picked up the other kids and came home. I called home from karate and gave the recovering MOTH instructions on roasting the chicken in the fridge. A little asparagus and some BisQuik biscuits (not as good as from scratch, but like I said, I was feeling punk) and mac&cheese for the kids. The carcass is now crock-potting for stock.

I got an extremely good deal on meat at the Safeway this morning - a whole chicken for about $0.70 a pound and ground beef about $1.25 a pound. I bought 6 pounds of hamburger - my Southern upbringing made me leave some for others. I doubt I'll get it browned tonight, maybe tomorrow night. Maybe tacos this weekend?

Fish Chowder

We had some leftover in the freezer from a batch we made a couple of years ago from a Queer Eye for the Straight Guy recipe, leaving out the fennel:
http://www.bravotv.com/Queer_Eye/tips/recipe/700ce778759e317159fc3460cf6f9ca0

I think we'll make it again using less than an entire Scotch bonnet pepper - a little spicy, even for my taste! - and maybe add some celeriac in place of the fennel.

Much nicer than the hot dogs of last night!

I need to look in the freezer to see what we can have for tomorrow and the next couple of days.

Pizza

The pre-teen wanted pizza so we got frozen ones from the Safeway. They used to have a really good refrigerated pizza, but they changed manufacturers and now it's really crappy. I need to find out how to send a complaint to the company, just so they know.

Chili

TMOTH found chili in the freezer, so we had that for dinner. Tortilla chips for me, Ritz crackers for TMOTH. Kids wound up eating Chef Boyardee.

Surf & turf

Well, sort of. Shrimp and steak, not lobster and steak. Much discussion ensued at dinner about whether this "counted" as surf & turf.

No pie crust made today, so there may not be quiche this week. I did get the chicken broth made and in the fridge. Once it solidifies some more, I'll skim off the fat and freeze the broth.

Salad and French Onion Soup

A nice dinner for the grownups - kids wound up with Kraft mac & cheese (which they're very happy with, at least). The onion soup was good - homemade beef broth to make it, melty onions...yum. I'd gotten an Australian olive oil at Trader Joe's last week, and it's very nice for a little oil and vinegar salad dressing.

I don't even remember what we had for dinner last night.

Menu planning...need to do more of this. I have chicken backs in the fridge to make chicken stock, so maybe a pot pie at some point...leftover bacon for quiche...but don't want two pastry-based main dishes the same week. So, the menu draft:

Sunday - Chicken? Need to go to the grocery and see what's on sale.
(make chicken stock, saute mushrooms and make pie crust for quiche, bag up veggies for lunches for everybody)

Monday- Quiche, salad, fruit

Tuesday - pork of some sort, fried apples, broccoli or green beans

Wednesday - steak, baked potatoes, salad (maybe too much salad for TMOTH, but I'll be happy).

Thursday - chicken, some sort of vegetable, probably some sort of potato - O'Brien potatoes, maybe?

Friday - lasagna and garlic bread (and probably salad again.)

Saturday-

Fish

Flounder filets, baked in an aluminum foil packet. Broccoli, bread, and tater tots for the boys. Chicken tenders for the pre-teen, fish portions for the mid-kid. Chocolate pie for dessert; yum.

TMOTH fixed the cookbookshelf this weekend and I've been slowly getting the cookbooks put back, hopefully in some sort of order. I've rediscovered some old favorites in the process, and a few duplicates. My very favorite favorites are the church-lady cookbooks (this includes the Junior League, Eastern Star, etc. cookbooks), which is where the chocolate pie recipe came from.

I also have a lot of pamphlets that were just stuck on the shelves that I'd like to organize in some way - but I haven't decided on what might work the best.

Quesadillas

This time we had some leftover taco meat to put in one of them. TMOTH made a pizza-dilla, which the kids like OK (not me), and a couple of plain cheese. Not the planned soup, but an easy dinner anyway.

I'd made an apple pie last night, so we could have that for dessert.

Ham and hash browns

Mid-kid suggested this one - TMOTH filled it out with home-made pita chips, baby carrots, and apple slices. I also made a big pot of hominy, but I'm the only one who eats it - I put 9 half-cup containers in the refrigerator and freezer.

TMOTH also got chicken to make garlic chicken in the crock-pot tomorrow, and the pre-teen suggested steak for Wednesday. I'll be ready for soup Thursday, and probably pizza Friday.

Grilled pork chops

With fried apples, broccoli, squash, and homemade bread. (A nice dinner after leftover pot pie on Thursday and leftover pot roast soup on Friday.)

The squash was a nice surprise. We got a vacuum sealer last Christmas, and I vacuumed a few bags of squash from the garden this summer. This was the first I'd had of the frozen squash, and it came out nearly like fresh, certainly good enough for me to freeze a lot more squash this summer.

The bread was a surprise too. I made the dough in the bread machine using 2/3 white flour and 1/3 spelt flour, then baked it in regular loaf pans. I'd predicted the kids wouldn't even taste it, since it was darker than white bread, but they all just gobbled it down. We have less than half a loaf left, so more bread baking is in the near future.

(Leftover) lasagna

With garlic bread made from commercial french bread. (Not nearly as good as the breadsticks, but easier on a worknight.)

TMOTH made a wonderful pot roast last night. He's much more creative than I am, and put celeriac in, which was a terrific addition. YUM. We've got enough for soup later this week.

Menu planning:

Wednesday: Boys are at daycare Wednesday night dinner. I do NOT want to eat out, but pre-teen does...I told her she could pick what we were having for dinner, but she's still not happy.

Thursday: Pre-teen has to be at the local high school at 7 for a concert, so dinner needs to be easy...either waffles or leftover pot pie.

Friday: Either waffles or leftover pot pie (depending on the Thursday decision) or leftover pot roast soup.

Saturday/Sunday: Depends on whether they fixed my payroll problems at work - the system ate me and I was hopefully restored in time to be paid on Friday. If not, we'll be scavenging the freezer.

Turkey pot pie

Found some turkey in the freezer (from last Thanksgiving, maybe?) that was fine when thawed and made into a pot pie. TMOTH made brownies for dessert.

I spent a good chunk of time today resurrecting some cast iron, a breakfast skillet TMOTH got from his mom when he finished graduate school and a tiny (6" or so) skillet that came from I don't know where. The breakfast skillet is in good shape; the jury is still out on the tiny skillet.

HOMEMADE lasagna

It was good! I hid vegetables in the sauce and no comments from either kids or TMOTH. Plenty of leftovers from the one I baked - and I made 3 since it's just as easy to make 3 as it is to make one. I also have a lot of lasagna noodles left over that I need to figure out something to do with. Also home-made breadsticks - both garlic and plain (mid-kid doesn't like garlic much - he tried the garlic ones, but preferred the plain ones).

Potato soup

It's been a grey rainy day here in the suburbs, so potato soup seemed like a good way to warm up for today - it's supposed to be in the 70s tomorrow, so a salad for dinner, or maybe grilling out, sounds pretty appetizing!

After a long break - Mexican

Tacos for me and TMOTH and quesadillas for the kids.

We had a good holiday, lots of cookie-baking and traveling and eating with family. Now it's back to the grind. I haven't planned ahead very well but will think about it over the weekend.

My brother and his significant other gave me a couple of new cookbooks - Rachael Ray and Paula Deen - that I haven't had a chance to really look at yet. Maybe they'll be inspiration.