Madeline Likes Food

Un-Baked Ziti

2010-04-13T04:14:00.000-07:00

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.

Chicken Legs

2010-04-12T03:58:00.000-07:00

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.

Banana Bread

2010-04-12T03:57:00.000-07:00

Low light photography should not be attempted while holding a baby. Camera shake ensues...

Chicken Salad

2010-04-11T03:53:00.000-07:00

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.

Roast Turkey Breast

2010-04-09T03:51:00.000-07:00

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...

Juicy Lucy

2010-04-08T03:41:00.000-07:00

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.

Pork and Some Other Stuff

2010-04-06T03:38:00.000-07:00

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.

Easter Eggs

2010-04-04T03:33:00.000-07:00

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.)

Wings

2010-04-03T03:25:00.000-07:00

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.

Italian Sausage & Broccoslaw

2010-04-02T03:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Roasted Chicken

2010-04-01T03:20:00.000-07:00

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.

Tostadas

2010-03-30T03:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

2010-03-29T03:16:00.000-07:00

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...

Butter Cookies

2010-03-29T03:15:00.000-07:00

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...

Pernil

2010-03-28T03:11:00.000-07:00

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.

Chicken and More Potatoes

2010-03-27T03:08:00.000-07:00

Roasted chicken breast... Hopefully I made some sort of vegetable to go with this. It looks kind of sad.

Steak and Potatoes

2010-03-24T03:06:00.000-07:00

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.

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

2010-03-23T03:03:00.000-07:00

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.

Salmon Burgers

2010-03-21T02:57:00.000-07:00

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.

Two Meat Combo

2010-03-18T02:55:00.000-07:00

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.

Pork Tostadas

2010-03-17T02:53:00.000-07:00

The tostadas are becoming my go-to method of recycling leftover meats...

Chicken Pot Pie

2010-03-15T02:50:00.000-07:00

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.

More Ranger Cookies (kind of)

2010-03-15T02:45:00.000-07:00

"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.)

Meatloaf on Demand

2010-03-14T05:49:00.000-07:00

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.

French Dip Sandwiches

2010-03-11T03:42:00.000-08:00

Leftover pot roast makes for amazing sandwiches. That's what I've decided. Leftover steak can be tough to chew. Not this. So good.

Chicken Taco

2010-03-10T03:40:00.000-08:00

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.

Shortbread and Whole Roast Chicken

2010-03-09T03:28:00.000-08:00

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.

BBQ Pork Biscuit

2010-03-07T03:24:00.000-08:00

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...

Chicken and Yellow Rice

2010-03-06T03:17:00.000-08:00

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.

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

2010-03-05T03:16:00.000-08:00

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.

Pot Roast

2010-03-04T03:13:00.000-08:00

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.

Ranger Cookies (kind of)

2010-03-04T03:10:00.000-08:00

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.)

Italian Sausage & Asparagus

2010-03-03T03:07:00.000-08:00

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.

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

2010-03-01T08:42:00.000-08:00

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.

Six Weeks Later

2010-03-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

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.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Morsels Cookies

2010-02-27T06:55:00.000-08:00

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.

Chicken Legs

2010-02-27T06:41:00.000-08:00

"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...

Steak and Potatoes

2010-02-25T06:38:00.000-08:00

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!

Crab Cakes

2010-02-23T06:30:00.000-08:00

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.

BBQ Pork

2010-02-22T07:09:00.000-08:00

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.

Roast Chicken

2010-02-21T07:04:00.000-08:00

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.

Muffins & Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-02-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

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.

Butter Cookies

2010-02-19T06:56:00.000-08:00

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.

Roasted Pork

2010-02-18T06:54:00.000-08:00

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.

Hummus

2010-02-17T03:35:00.000-08:00

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...

Baked Ziti

2010-02-16T03:31:00.000-08:00

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.

Cranberry Nut Bread

2010-02-16T03:11:00.000-08:00

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.

More Tostadas and Shredded Cheese

2010-02-14T03:40:00.000-08:00

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.

Breakfast Pizza and a Toasty Lunch

2010-02-13T03:05:00.000-08:00

We're a pretty nerdy bunch, but this week I took it to a whole new level.

"Geography Club" sounded like a good idea to me after I printed a blank map of North America and appeared to be the only person in my house who could identify Greenland. I put the map near the phone where Scrappy likes to hang out, but I didn't really think it was helping her as much as I thought it might have helped me back in 4th grade. I had colored in the states that we get phone calls from. So, if she knows that Arizona and Ohio come up all the time on Caller ID, then she should be able to pick one of them out from the dozen that are colored, right?

Then Luis's website got a hit from Rome, and for some reason that really set things off for me. In the past, we've had "band practice" and "drawing club," and now Scrappy wanted me to teach her how to sew, but I want her to learn to prepare food... A whole integrated curriculum came to mind. Italy. Geography Club could start with Italy and all the other things Scrappy and LV like to do on weekends would fit right in: art, music, food, fashion...

I prepared a Power Point presentation, but only got as far as loading it up with history. (I like history.) There weren't really any great ideas for Italian breakfasts that I could find in the short search that I did. Scrambled egg pizzas kept coming up. I never have yeast and I didn't want to go buy dough, so I made one gigantic biscuit instead to use as the crust. It didn't cross my mind until much later that this would be the equivalent to eating a dozen biscuits. Perhaps I should have cut the recipe in half... (Those are red peppers.)

For lunch, I wanted to melt cheese on a tostada. I chose the toaster oven instead of the microwave. I chose wrong.

Turkey Tostadas

2010-02-12T03:02:00.000-08:00

After thawing a container of leftover turkey, I didn't really know what to do with it. The baby and I headed to the grocery store, found a big stack of tostada shells, and decided that was the way to go. With some yellow rice, everyone was happy.

Chocolate on Chocolate

2010-02-10T03:13:00.000-08:00

Those lemon-coconut bars taste like a combination of Trix cereal and coconut donuts, so the tray is almost gone now. I decided to use the last of the cake mixes—Devil's Food cake—to make cupcakes. Then I made my own butter cream frosting with hot cocoa mix (why look for unsweetened chocolate powder). Sadly, Scrappy will not be here for several days. I keep running through scenarios for how to package one of these cupcakes in order to get it to her without it being ruined. It could be quite the happy Valentine's Day to her.

Pork Shoulder

2010-02-10T03:08:00.000-08:00

The clock is ticking very loudly the whole time you're cooking with an infant. Do I have time to go look up that recipe for the rub? No. I should have written it down last time. Do I have time to look at a recipe at all? Probably not. Baby isn't really about to give me the time to even lay the ingredients out on the counter. He began wailing as soon as I picked up the first garlic clove. Going from memory and without measuring utensils, I think this turned out well.

Roasted Chicken Breast

2010-02-09T03:05:00.000-08:00

While the chicken in this picture did come from from some rather large portions, they turned out to not be as ridiculously over-sized as I would have hoped. (Leftovers are fun...) There was quite a bit of bone.

Chicken Pot Pie and Lemon Cookie Bars

2010-02-07T02:36:00.000-08:00

Hooray! I finally got to turn that leftover chicken into a pot pie. This is part of the chicken that was leftover from the last whole chicken I roasted. I added too many potatoes to my new and improved (and more filling) version, so there is still more chicken leftover. (Which is good because I'm kind of tired of peanut butter and jelly for lunch.)

"It looks like a pie," LV said. So, click click click. I took a picture to remember. The crust was really good this time. I think it was combination of giving it enough of enough baking time with better prep work.

Apparently Target had baking ingredients on sale. LV brought me one bag of chocolate chips two weeks ago. "Don't you want cookies every week?" I asked. I sent him back for more of anything the following week. He brought me coconut flakes. What can I do with coconut flakes... We had a box of lemon cake mix in the cabinet from when cake mix had gone on sale. I hunted around for a recipe that would tell me how to turn cake mix into cookie bars (luckily, I had been tempted by the peanut butter fudge bars on the side of the yellow cake mix box), and then mixed the coconut flakes with vanilla frosting. Scrappy thought it was delish. But she's not shy about complimenting her own cooking. This was the first time in forever that I had her bake with me. (Her and the baby and LV. It was a family affair.) I kind of like making cookies alone...

Bland Steak Dinner

2010-02-05T03:08:00.000-08:00

I made this steak on... Wednesday? Yeah. It's been a busy week. I made steak Wednesday, but LV called to ask if I wanted him to bring anything home for dinner. So I told him to bring something to go with the steak—two gigantic bone-in cuts that were slowly baking in the oven. He brought fried rice and egg rolls. Then the next day we had pizza. Then today we had the steak again. (I wanted to make chicken pot pie, but with only $5 on me, I couldn't really get all the vegetables and chicken broth. Tomorrow. I'll make chicken pot pie tomorrow.) Again, I didn't feel like putting much effort into the sides, so here we have plain egg noodles with plain frozen green beans with plain (but really tasty (I took my time comparing cuts this week)) steak. Borrrrring.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

2010-02-02T02:36:00.000-08:00

Finally, those homemade meatballs I was talking about... The recipe says to roll out 24, but I wanted big honking meatballs. I made eight. Usually I buy the pre-made turkey version, which comes with maybe a dozen per pack. For the low low price of half as much, I was able to buy double the weight in ground beef and come away with meatballs that left everyone satisfied. Plus the other half of my ground beef pack. Plus two real lunches. There are never enough meatballs leftover from the turkey version to make TWO lunches. It's usually just one sketch lunch. But with REAL meatballs, I was able to turn eight into five meals. Nice.

Leftover Pernil

2010-02-01T02:31:00.000-08:00

I saw this picture in the hopper and thought, Didn't I already post the turkey? Oh, that's right. I used up more of the leftover cranberry BBQ sauce on leftover pernil and fresh egg noodles. ("Fresh" in the sense that I just boiled them. Not that I just rolled them out by hand. I haven't begun making pasta yet. There are too many things to try long before that.) Between the pernil and the BBQ sauce, there was a whole lot of flavor going on in this dish.

Spice Rubbed Turkey with Cranberry BBQ Sauce

2010-01-31T16:24:00.000-08:00

Years ago, way back at the start of this blog, I flagged recipes in the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook that looked good. I never actually thought I'd make spice rubbed turkey breast, but I also never bothered to remove the flag. Then Key Foods put a 6.5 lb turkey breast on sale.

The cranberry bbq sauce was really good. I mean, the turkey turned out well, but... that cranberry sauce was super tasty. Scrappy wasn't a fan. Things like cider vinegar and hot sauce boiled with cranberry isn't really her thing. Oh well.

Extreme Close-Up

2010-01-30T03:28:00.000-08:00

We ate the last batch of chocolate chip cookies in record time. Something about ingredients being on sale or maybe me thinking that if I stir them by hand instead of using an electric mixer (as I have been for the past three batches (and they seem to come out better when I mix by hand)) then that burns all the calories necessary to offset eating so many cookies... These are oatmeal scotchies.

Leftover Chicken

2010-01-29T05:45:00.000-08:00

I wanted to make meatballs. Big Italian meatballs. But that plan just wasn't working out. First, I didn't have bread. Second, I didn't have time. After three days of wanting spaghetti and meatballs, I decided to simply make spaghetti and dump the sauce over the leftover roast chicken. Good enough.

Leftover Ham

2010-01-27T05:42:00.000-08:00

This time, rather than make more breakfast-for-dinner fare, I felt like making macaroni & cheese to go with the leftover ham. I had actually had leftover macaroni & cheese for lunch. This is the container that it had been in. Rather than get another plate dirty, I ate my dinner in the leftover dish. Leftovers galore...

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-01-25T13:39:00.000-08:00

Mmm... Monday morning cookies. This time I added pecans.

Leftover Steak

2010-01-25T05:39:00.000-08:00

I took the steak out of the freezer several days ago with bigger plans than simply making plain penne and frozen green beans. But here we are, plain penne and frozen green beans with some really good leftover steak. Mmm...

Roast Chicken, Muffins, Mini Quiche

2010-01-23T13:34:00.000-08:00

My parents came to visit. I made a chicken.

I also made mini quiche (much better when I didn't haphazardly add salt) and...

muffins for Sunday morning. (I was up *real* early on Saturday.) The muffins are oatmeal-cranberry-pecan. Because that's what was around...

Swedish Meatballs

2010-01-21T11:06:00.000-08:00

These are more frozen IKEA meatballs, but the sauce is all homemade. And this time I gave it about 20 minutes. Soooo good. So much better than the last time I tried to make a sauce without using the real drippings. Maybe too much sauce, though.

The 501st!

2010-01-20T11:02:00.000-08:00

No, it's not Star Wars. It's pernil. I thought I would take a picture before it became completely blackened.

A gigantic pork shoulder with the skin on does not look that appetizing. But give it enough time and it's delish! ("Enough time" for this particular shoulder was about 12 hours at 250 degrees.)

Baby Food and BBQ Biscuits

2010-01-19T07:01:00.000-08:00

I made a dozen biscuits, thinking I'd eat those during the week. But then dinnertime rolled around and I realized that I could use them for dinner again tonight. I don't know why (I don't think I've seen any TV chefs pushing the idea lately), but I was inspired to take the leftover pork roast and mix it with a chopped onion, some bottled BBQ sauce, some homemade BBQ sauce (ketchup, vinegar, brown sugar, dry mustard), and serve it hot over frozen vegetables. Yeah, frozen vegetables are my friend. Scrappy really liked it.

Meanwhile, I've decided the baby is ready to start learning to eat from a spoon. (The self-timer on this camera goes nuts flashing a red light on the subject, hence eye contact from baby.) I bought the rice cereal, but for now he's starting with milk on a spoon. It's not like he takes more than a few tastes.

Good Steak

2010-01-18T06:57:00.000-08:00

When I picked up the London broil, I wasn't thinking, Mmm, this'll be good. I was looking more at the size. But oh my god it was so good compared to the beef we've been eating lately. So good. The biscuits, not so much. I thought I had left them in there long enough, but it wasn't the same as the last really good batch.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-01-17T06:54:00.000-08:00

I love the cookie dough scooper. I think I forgot to mention that on the Oatmeal Scotchies entry. I love it!

LV redeemed a coupon I gave him last Christmas as a gift, so we have more cookies. I think my idea of baking every week (it started as a goal for Fridays) really will go on and on way past the holidays.

Leftover Chicken

2010-01-16T06:52:00.000-08:00

I had roasted chicken, half a box of shell pasta, and frozen vegetables. They all seemed to go together, but I wasn't sure what else it needed. Mayonnaise! LV was very excited. I was worried I was about to make everyone sick with warm mayonnaise. But it was safe. And still good as a lunch later in the week.

Pork Roast

2010-01-15T06:50:00.000-08:00

I had made my first pot roast, so now it was time to embrace the pork roast. This time I included the potatoes in the dish while it baked. So good.

Leftover Ham

2010-01-13T06:48:00.000-08:00

When the opportunity arises, LV likes to order a dish from Italian restaurants that has ham and a cream sauce. He asked me to hold the peas. Luckily, there were no peas in this frozen vegetable mix. He also requested a really thick sauce. I added corn starch, thinking that would do the trick. Instead we ended up with a lumpy alfredo sauce. Oh well. He still enjoyed it.

A Whole Chicken

2010-01-12T06:45:00.000-08:00

I see whole chickens in the store or on some cooking segment and think I'd never make that. But then I finally bought one. I made a whole chicken.

Tacos

2010-01-11T04:54:00.000-08:00

I had second half of a pack of ground beef in the freezer. None of the usual options sounded appetizing to me, so I decided to make tacos. That's imitation shredded cheese. It was fine in the tacos, but, when there aren't so many other foods going into your mouth at the same time, the "cheese" sticks to your teeth. Eek.

Grilled Pork and Yellow Rice

2010-01-10T04:52:00.000-08:00

I didn't feel like baking the pork chops, so I seasoned them with the usual chili powder and grilled them instead. No complaints...

Oatmeal Scotchies

2010-01-10T04:51:00.000-08:00

With our cookie container empty, it was time to make more...

Buttermilk Pancakes

2010-01-09T04:46:00.000-08:00

When Imagine That! was about to hit theaters, LV received a press package of ketchup, mustard, chocolate syrup, and pancake mix. We shrugged our shoulders (until we saw the movie), put the items in the cabinet, and never really considered using them. But for weeks now I've been looking in the cabinet for things to make. Finally, one morning I woke up and started making pancakes with the mix. And what a nice mix it was!

Swedish Meatballs

2010-01-08T04:41:00.000-08:00

I've made Swedish meatballs from scratch before, but we picked up a bag of frozen meatballs and a jar of lingon berries the last time we were at IKEA. One day I sent LV to work with a tub of meatballs. And only meatballs. This night I actually made a sauce and egg noodles to with frozen meatballs. Much better. (Though, I think I still prefer the homemade variety.)

Beef Wrapped Peppers

2010-01-07T04:13:00.000-08:00

What to do with tough cheap meat... I put it in a zip-top bag, marinated it with balsamic vinaigrette (oh, that's where all that went), then beat it with a hammer. It was still super tough.

Bean and Pumpkin Soup

2010-01-05T04:06:00.000-08:00

I bought a bag of beans almost a year ago that was labeled as a soup mix, but I never made it. (After preparing kidney beans and chickpeas that I didn't eat, I just left all the bags of beans to sit on the cabinet shelf.) Then I saw a recipe in November for black bean soup that used canned pumpkin. It sounded really good. I've made black bean soup before. I've made pea soup before. Why couldn't I use my random can of pumpkin (seriously, I'm not sure when or why this small can was purchased) and my bag of mixed beans? I had a cold, I needed something soupy. While it tasted good, this was not the cure for a sore throat. The finished product was like a bean chili. I keep asking LV if he wants some. He keeps saying no.

Cupcakes and a Pattymelt

2010-01-04T03:58:00.000-08:00

By special request, I made more cupcakes. This time I thought the frosting should be green. And the batter should be pink.

After making this sandwich for myself (LV had regular burgers later), I've decided the best way to clean the Foreman grill is to use a piece of bread. So good.

Salad

2010-01-03T03:54:00.000-08:00

Bags of lettuce were on sale, but there's no way we only ate vegetables for dinner. I have no recollection of what I served with this...

Ham and Eggs

2010-01-01T03:53:00.000-08:00

What better dinner to make with your leftover ham than breakfast?

Bacon Wrapped New Year

2009-12-31T03:44:00.000-08:00

When we invited LV's family to come over for brunch the day after Christmas, I thought I would make mini quiches and a ham and I don't know what else. They declined the offer, but I still wanted to try making mini quiches. So I made them on New Year's Eve (and added way too much salt). Luckily, one of the recipes I found online said that they freeze really well. The three of us weren't about to eat two dozen of these before midnight.

Mini quiches seemed appropriate because I wanted to try wrapping bacon around anything, and bacon and eggs go well together, right? So, I just had to decide what I was going to wrap the bacon around (after I found which store had bacon on sale). Apples became my answer. (Again, I have a lot of time to ponder life's mysteries...) Apples are cheap and they would give it that sweet-salty combo. And if that didn't work well enough, then there would always be mozzarella sticks... wrapped in bacon.

The heartburn was pretty extraordinary. But bacon wrapped goodies are still tasty the next day during your Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon.

Chicken Dinner

2009-12-29T03:42:00.000-08:00

The last of the gigantic chicken cutlets. This time with asparagus and really good homemade biscuits. (I thought the biscuits were going to be burnt because I waited too long to get back to the oven to pull them out. Nope. Turns out I probably never cooked them long enough before.)

Oven Fried Chicken

2009-12-27T03:40:00.000-08:00

This is my second attempt at a mega family pack of drumstick and thighs. The breading was really blah. I should go back to crackers with seasoning I add instead of boxed up seasoned bread crumbs.

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

2009-12-26T03:39:00.000-08:00

Taking a rest from the adventurous side of the kitchen...

Christmas

2009-12-25T03:31:00.000-08:00

I've seen that commercial for Pillsbury cinnamon rolls a million times. When I saw they were two for $5, I had to get them. I think I was the only one who was excited, though.

Last night I made the crust. Even though I've seen on a dozen TV shows that you should use something to weigh down the crust, I skipped that step. And didn't bake the crust long enough. And so even though I thought the quiche was delicious (I had been up since 6 (there's more of that broccoli from last night, too)), Scrappy had a hard time cutting it.

Having conquered first big cuts of beef and then big cuts of chicken, I felt ready to move on to a new challenge. Giant cuts of ham were on sale for the holiday, so we bought a shank portion the size of my head. I scored it, made a glaze, and overall was pretty happy with my first attempt at a ham. I think we'll still be eating it in February.

Christmas Eve

2009-12-24T03:22:00.000-08:00

We had a lot to do on Christmas Eve. I'm kind of surprised there were so many stores open... The main goal for me was to get two batches of chocolate cookies made for part of a gift set. LV was able to pick up a cookie dough scooper for me the day before. I *love* the scooper. Love it.

Scrappy would be with her mom on Christmas, so we tried to make a bigger deal about Christmas Eve dinner than we have in the past. This is another gigantic chicken cutlet with broccoli and homemade biscuits.

Then Scrappy and LV made sugar cookies using the Jiffy mix. LV and I had the same thought when we first tasted the finished product: This tasted like a corn muffin... I guess now we know that the fastest sugar cookies are definitely not the best sugar cookies.

And then we waited for Santa.

Let's Eat

2009-12-23T03:17:00.000-08:00

After having such an easy time preparing the potatoes to add to the pot pie (it's easy to leave things to cook and preheat long enough when there's a baby around to distract you...), I decided to make my own mashed potatoes to go with the pot roast. I liked to think of them as "rustic" with all their lumps and skins, but later it occurred to me that maybe LV and Scrappy thought that was the most disgusting thing in the world and would have much preferred the kind made from flakes. Oh well. I thought it was really good.

Pot Roast

2009-12-22T03:15:00.000-08:00

Thinking my parents were coming to visit for Christmas, I bought this pot roast. Then my mom announced they would not make it. So I baked up the meat before it could go bad.

The Dubbies

2009-12-22T03:07:00.000-08:00

LV started a little magazine, Art Department Weekly, which he affectionately calls "A-D-Dubs." As part of a year-end special, he wanted to hand out awards--the Dubbies. His fellow Art Departmenteers thought they would be receiving actual trophies. This pressured him into thinking he needed something real to give them--not just a copy of the issue with their names printed in it. So he asked me to make star-shaped cookies. He had also expressed disappointment in there potentially being no gingerbread cookies this year (I think the recipe is a bit labor-intensive). But here we are: dozens of star-shaped gingerbread cookies for the Art Department. (There are a bunch more gingy children and bears off camera. This recipe produces a lot of dough when you roll it out right...)

Grilled Pork

2009-12-21T03:04:00.000-08:00

The usual grilled pork with pasta and frozen vegetables... I didn't mean to shoot it like this, but I think it adds some flare to the meal.

Fajitas

2009-12-19T03:00:00.000-08:00

Looking in the fridge and cabinets, I didn't have a whole lot to work with. A couple green peppers and a few tortillas. So, the baby and I set out to get some fajita seasoning. The cashier looked at me like I was kind of crazy. "This is it?" Yeah, that's dinner. With a lot of cookies after.

Chocolate Cake Cookie Bites

2009-12-19T02:49:00.000-08:00

After we ran out of brownies, I wanted more. In my head, though, I was picturing something more like chocolate wafers--thin and crispy. Way back in 2007, Scrappy and I tried to make Oreos. I thought I would take that recipe (box of cake mix minus essential liquids), make better cookies, and then maybe make a peanut butter frosting. I ended up with a crying baby and my hands coated in super-sticky dough.

Rather than fight to roll out 100 tiny balls of dough (I don't remember it being such a pain the last time), I tried first dropping the dough in rounded teaspoons (but it stuck to the spoon) and then using a cookie press (but it wouldn't break away and the baby started crying again, so I just made one long ribbon on a cookie sheet to deal with later).

They ended up being really tasty.

Chicken Pot Pie

2009-12-17T02:41:00.000-08:00

In my head, the leftover chicken (that gigantic cutlet) was set to become chicken pot pie. I just wasn't sure how I was going to make the crust with so little butter and shortening left. There were still more cookies to make... Besides that, I never find the Better Homes & Gardens recipe to be all that filling. With all kinds of time on my hands to ponder life's mysteries (I can't say feeding and playing with a newborn requires as much brain power as it does hands), I had plenty of opportunity to decide how to make the most of this pot pie.

This is the new and improved chicken pot pie, which now included four potatoes and a biscuit crust.

Class Party

2009-12-16T03:27:00.000-08:00

I said LV was going to make the brownies for Scrappy's class, but I ended up making them. With two boxes, I thought we'd have so many more leftover. There were only a few. I guess I cut them too generously. ("Neurotically" might be a better word to describe my attempt at perfect symmetry.)

Leftover Shredded Pork

2009-12-16T02:32:00.000-08:00

I like when LV asks if there's anything I need him to pick up on his way home. Today I needed tortillas; I had an idea for that leftover shredded pork.

There was a box of frozen chopped spinach in the freezer (again, from early in the pregnancy when I wanted to have lots of this kind of stuff on hand) which I thought could make for a good filing. "Good" in the way that it's not beans and we didn't have any rice. Then I made a sauce. Something like "ketchup + ground cumin + something runny + something else that's tasty." And when LV got home, I wrapped up the pork in flour tortillas and toasted it in the oven. They were okay.

Green Squash!

2009-12-15T03:24:00.000-08:00

I know you're supposed to buy in-season locally-grown fruits and vegetables, but I was excited to see something in the produce section that didn't look so yucky. I don't know where it came from or how big a carbon footprint it cost, but that green squash was tasty.

Chicken Cutlets

2009-12-14T03:10:00.000-08:00

In the meat department at the new grocery store, I spotted this bulging square shape labeled "chicken cutlets." It weighed four pounds and was priced at four dollars. LV asked, "What is that?" I didn't know, but looked really fresh.

Turns out, the butcher sliced the meat off a pterodactyl's chest and squeezed it into this little Styrofoam tray. I took one (the size a whole chicken) and put it in a casserole dish. I took the other and clipped it in half, putting both pieces in the freezer. Then I looked up a few recipes for baking a turkey and similar creatures in order to figure out how best to prepare this massive piece of chicken.

I ended up seasoning the chicken, covering the dish with foil, baking it according to turkey temperatures, and basting it every 30 minutes. Then I let it sit under the foil to continue cooking internally (I do tend to have a problem with undercooked chicken when it's not super-thin cut).

Dinner was a hunk of chicken on a plate with some of the juices. (I forget what bland treat I paired it with--the main event was the chicken.) LV thought it was the best thing ever.