I bought the largest package of Italian sausage I had ever seen. Three dinners? Four dinners? Three dinners. I can get three dinners out of this package. The first dinner I had planned to make was sausage & peppers, but green peppers weren't in this week. Meat sauce it is. I added shredded cheese under the sauce for this plate. It's not even close to tasting like baked ziti, but at least I won't have so much cheese left to expire.
This only happened because in my head I had been creating an argument for why it doesn't matter if what I cook tastes good. I don't wave a magic wand and food appears. We're talking about the practical application of timing everything (trips to school, feeding the baby, etc.) and combining what I have on hand. Saying it tastes good doesn't really matter. You're going to have to eat it regardless. Can we appreciate how I was able to work around whatever obstacles popped up that day (including the great "I don't feel like it" hurdle)?
So I roasted chicken legs and potatoes. But I was no longer thinking in dinner mode by the time Luis served himself. I knew there were two lunches still in that pot, but thinking they were too hot to put in plastic containers just yet, I set it aside and completely forgot about it. No pictures of dinner. No lunches for later in the week. Just garbage. Hopefully I'm now that I've proved my own point—that I normally do a terrific job of pulling it all together—I can go back to doing a terrific job.
Low light photography should not be attempted while holding a baby. Camera shake ensues...
Baby Arugula looked really good this week at the grocery store. I can make salad with the leftover chicken, I thought. When I actually went to make the salad, I realized I shouldn't have turned up my nose at all the tomatoes. What was I going to put on this salad besides chicken? I chopped up an apple. I sliced up a red onion. I found some sliced almonds that had been overpowered by the hazelnuts they were sitting next to. And voila. Dinner.
I completely forgot to take a picture of the turkey. Scrappy and LV said it was delicious. These are the empty containers from the leftovers...
I had never seen Food Wars before, but this weekend LV watched a few episodes. Therefore, I saw most of two episodes. And like most people watching food shows, I thought, I would eat that... One episode featured Juicy Lucy's of Minneapolis—burgers with cheese inside the patty rather than on top. Both of the featured restaurants used slices of American cheese, but all I had was shredded Cheddar. They were pretty easy to make and didn't create nearly the mess I feared they might. Shredded mild cheddar was all wrong for this recipe, though. It doesn't turn to cheese sauce and it doesn't have enough bite.
There was leftover pork roast in the fridge and lots of pasta in the cabinet. That didn't sound particularly good together until I decided to toss them with the leftover broccoli-slaw.
It's hard to imagine getting a boiled egg wrong, but, yeah, I managed that. Somewhere along the way I decided that the recipe said to boil them for 15 minutes. After two or three minutes, a little voice said, "Hey. I don't think that's right." So what happens when the eggs are brought to a boil, endure a hard boil for a few minutes, and then rest in that water for another 15? This batch ended up a layer of egg white that clung to the shell. It was like peeling away to find a white yolk. But they tasted fine. Even the few I cracked before I dropped them in the water. (Oops.)
We couldn't not have wings for the tournament... I bought a jumbo pack a week or two earlier and froze them. They were still frozen two days after I moved them to the fridge. My plan had been to broil them as usual and then leave them in the oven for a bit, but it was way too hot in the oven. I moved them to the microwave instead. I love the microwave. All the chicken was completely cooked, and after two batches (a honey bbq I made up and the usual buffalo) we were completely stuffed.
As far as I was concerned, PTI had ended a "long" time ago. Sports Center had been on for almost 10 minutes. "Have you made a decision about dinner?"
"No... But we always eat out once during the weekend. So, either we eat out today or we eat out tomorrow."
"Or we eat out Sunday? What are you saying? You can't eat Italian sausage without the peppers?"
"No, I can."
And then I made LV go buy rolls so we could eat the leftover sausages.
Bunches of fresh broccoli's been on sale around here the past few weeks. I didn't feel like dumping raw broccoli on everyone's plate, but I also didn't feel like getting more pots dirty than necessary. So when the chicken was almost ready, I dropped the broccoli into the roasting pan and let it steam/boil in there.
There's some sort of leftover meat on these tostadas, but I loaded them up with so much lettuce I can't tell what's under there anymore.
This is ground beef meat sauce. Not quite as good as the Italian sausage meat sauce, but still enjoyable. And salad. We never have salad...
At some point LV left me a note that said, "These cookies are insane they're so good," but I'm not sure if it was this batch...
Pork shoulders were on sale. I bought one and put it in the freezer. I just didn't feel like eating it. Weeks went by. I let it thaw for days in the fridge, but to be sure it actually cooked all the way, I turned off the oven a few times during the roasting process and covered it. This might be my favorite batch yet. Or maybe that's because I finally served it with yellow rice.
Roasted chicken breast... Hopefully I made some sort of vegetable to go with this. It looks kind of sad.
I'm not a fan of "those days." The kind where your dinner ends up on the floor. And it's not even a story worth recounting. Today was that kind of day.
I reached for the Italian sausage and put it in my basket. What I planned to do with it, I didn't know. Turns out, it made for a great sauce. LV raved about the leftovers.
It feels like it's been a year since I last made these. I didn't know where the recipe was, but I was pretty sure I could wing it. That wasn't the best of plans.
"Are you sure you want all that work?" LV asked. The first two times I made these, I was very meticulous in the way I removed all the little pieces of bone from the fish. And the patties held their shape. These became almost like tuna salad sandwiches. But considering how long it's been and how little fish we have around here, they were good.
There was pork, there was chicken, there was not a lot of time. I decided to mix up some BBQ sauce and hope it tasted like a meal.
I decided to go with a biscuit crust, but didn't make nearly enough dough. I should really start measuring things again instead of guessing.
"I haven't figured out what you put in them, but these are possibly the best cookies I've ever had" was LV's reaction to the last batch. That set the bar a little high. These were good, but not the same as before. (A lot less coconut because I was working with what little was left in the bag.)
Looking in the freezer, I announced I had no idea what to do with the leftover ground beef. LV asked if I could turn it into meatloaf. I vaguely remembered the last time I'd made it. There was grainy bread and perhaps too much seasoning. And something else... I came to this site, hoping to find an answer. November 1? I went that long between batches of meatloaf? That seems almost crazy. It's such a wintertime food.
Leftover pot roast makes for amazing sandwiches. That's what I've decided. Leftover steak can be tough to chew. Not this. So good.
I don't think I've tried the McCormick's chicken taco seasoning before. It's really good. This is chicken breast I roasted a few days ago with melted cheese on a tostada shell.
I made shortbread this morning. I made shortbread this afternoon. This is the afternoon batch. It's slightly less toasted-looking. LV had said the pseudo-Ranger Cookies were the best cookies he had ever had. But these were bordering on insanity they were so good. I was like, "Really? Because they melt in your mouth?" And I was joking, but he was serious. "Yes!" Who knew shortbread could be such a hit?
I roasted a little chicken for dinner. Rather than serve it with more potatoes like I have been doing, I made more biscuits. Between the cookies and the biscuits and the chicken, the oven was on pretty much all day. Which was nice because I had decided 58 degrees was plenty warm enough for opening all the windows.
Oh, and those things that look like pickles in the background... I put green squash in the bottom of the roasting pan with the chicken. Luckily I didn't put them all in there. They turned really mushy. I tried to bake them like fries later (again, more with the oven), but that didn't work well. So I served raw squash to Scrappy. I didn't think she'd be down with squishy squash.
We still had leftover pork in the fridge and I knew no one would be excited to eat it for lunch if I said, "Just microwave it," so I made a big production of lunch. Biscuits from scratch with homemade barbecue sauce and frozen vegetables. Who eats vegetables at home for lunch? Not us...
I was interested in making dinner using only one pot. So I pulled out the biggest sauteing pan, found its lid, and, voila, only one dirty dish (besides the three plates). First I cooked the chicken, then, after setting that aside, I made the rice in the same pot. We're back to the super thinly sliced chicken. See that shadow under the rice? The chicken is causing that shadow.
This is leftover sauce with leftover asparagus (not that I made all the asparagus one night—this is just what was left of the bunch). This is also my paper napkin as a diffuser for the point-and-shoot's flash. I'm not sure which is more delightfully lazy: homemade sauce from the microwave or picking up my napkin instead of moving the plate to a better location.
As long as the oven was on and the baby was agreeable, I made the pot roast today. It was still quite frozen when I put it in the oven, but I think with enough internal cooking time it turned out all right. And there are plenty of leftovers for French Dip sandwiches for LV.
Although they require the use of an electric beater, I've really taken to the kind of cookies that children of the Depression era seem to favor. No, they don't *really* require an electric beater, but when your only ingredients are a little butter and a little flour, you better hope you can get that dough as fluffy as possible.
(These aren't really Ranger Cookies because I used a chopped up chocolate bar and pecans instead of dried fruit.)
When I purchased the asparagus and the Italian sausage, I didn't see them going together. But come Wednesday, this seemed like a good idea.
It's spaghetti and half the ground beef I bought this weekend. I'm not thrilled. I was too distracted by a baby who refused to nap to season the meat properly.
So, after the first few tries, I let go of the idea of feeding the baby from a bowl. But he's so close to six months now and waaaay interested in what I'm eating. We went back to giving milk on a spoon a try.
These are basically chocolate chip cookies, but the recipe calls for placing half the morsels on top of the drops of dough. Why? So you can see that the chips are swirled. You're also supposed to add chopped peanuts, but I skipped that step. The recipe said to add extra flour. That makes them a little too crunchy.
"Dinner is deeeelicious."
Did I hear her right? Do I need to have Scrappy's tastebuds checked? This is 99 cent salad because it's set to expire any second. This is super cheap chicken that is probably also about to expire. This is store brand macaroni that I overcooked. It's all eww. But okay. Something other than pizza gets a thumbs up from the Scrappers...
I had been meaning to make this chunk of steak for quite some time. It came out of the freezer on maybe Monday or even Sunday, but didn't go into the oven until today. We didn't get sick. Success!
One night last week, LV said, "You know what we haven't had in a long time? Crab cakes."
While I did a quick mental inventory of what I've been making for dinner the past few months and the reasons why I don't make crab cakes, Scrappy chimed in, "Yeah, it's been a while since we've made them."
I raised an eyebrow. We?
Later that weekend, though, I offered to make crab cakes on Tuesday night. This is not what I was picturing. It's been so long, I looked at the wrong recipes before using the wrong side of the grater. I wanted to make the kind that are finely shredded and need an hour to chill in the refrigerator. These are based more on a recipe for sandwiches from Self.com. They take about ten minutes when you work quickly, shredding your fingers and knuckles along the way.
It will be "a while" before "we" make crab cakes again.
I made a combination of the previous barbecue sauces I'd made before—white vinegar, ketchup, brown sugar, cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce—and marinated half the leftover pork. Then I made yellow rice with green beans and served it on tostada shells. Easy enough for a Monday.
This is roast chicken breast, penne, frozen chopped kale, and tomatoes. The chicken was still pretty frozen when I stuck it in the roasting pan (I stuck in the freezer after I brought it home from the store because I wasn't sure when I was actually going to do anything with it), which worked out really well. With the lid on, it created a nice little poultry sauna. I threw sliced a lemon in there and everything. It helped create a sauce so this didn't have to be as bland a meal as it could have been.
I wanted to make something for breakfast. No, not really. I wanted to eat freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, but that seemed an inappropriate thing to do with Scrappy around. To set a better example, I made oatmeal muffins with cinnamon streusel topping.
Then I made chocolate chip cookies. (You can tell these were from the last of hte batter because there are no chocolate chips visible.) I didn't give the oven enough time to cool down after the muffins. This batch is a lot crunchier than the previous round.
I found a funny little white hat in one of the baby's drawers. A very nice hand-me-down that nevertheless looks like it belongs to a Smurf because of the built in pocket of air. LV said we should take a picture of the kids in chef hats and bake cookies for his mother's birthday. But what kind of cookies...? We went with butter cookies. Shortbread seemed a little too old lady-ish.
This is boneless center cut pork roast. Something like that. Something that was not listed on the chart for roasting times in the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. Whatever it was, it was tasty. That's salt, pepper and chili powder for seasoning. The bed of onions and garlic burnt to the pan because the piece wasn't quite fatty enough. But that's okay.
If you've been reading this blog, you're aware by now that I have a stockpile of dried beans I'm making my way through. Today I had my eye on the chick peas. A year ago, Kathie Lee proclaimed on the fourth hour of the Today Show that she loves chick peas. I prepared half the bag. I thought they were disgusting. I couldn't imagine eating them on anything. They grew moldy. I haven't touched them since despite the little voice that keeps saying, "Hummus."
I've had hummus before and liked it. But this was gross. It still tasted like chick peas to me. It's obviously too chunky, but it seemed I would just going to be wasting my time and ingredients by adding peanut butter and fresh garlic and blending the snot out of this batch. It would still taste like chick peas. I asked LV if he wanted some. Obviously, he did not. I ate it with carrots. I spread it on a corn tostada. I toasted it on a flour tortilla. I added garlic salt. I still have a lot of hummus left in the fridge...
We've been avoiding converting any of the leftover chicken, turkey, or steak into dinner. Last night we walked all the way to Wendy's rather than eat leftovers. But tonight I went for it. There was a box of ziti. There were jars of pasta sauce. I had just bought a bag of frozen chopped kale. We could do this. We could make something of this... What I came up with was a super-cheesy leftover poultry baked ziti dish. Kind of light on the sauce, but still good.
I'd been staring down the cupcakes for a few hours, looking for anything else to eat, when it hit me: I could make bread. LV and I were so excited for the bread (not just because it was something tasty from the oven but also because we needed it to finish baking so we could leave) that I completely forgot to take a picture until the next day (which seemed like two or three days later going on baby time). But here it is in all it's baked wonderfulness.
LV said he wanted me to make dinner for Valentine's Day. He would make breakfast. When we looked through the refrigerator, our options for dinner were ground beef, leftover turkey, leftover chicken, or leftover steak. He suggested using the ground beef and leftover tostadas for Mexican pizzas. With some taco seasoning and fresh tomatoes, it didn't feel like we were eating Friday's dinner all over again. Ooh, I forgot to serve the leftover yellow rice. Oh well. We had leftover cupcakes instead.
