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.