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.

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.