Oven-Fried Pork Chops

I find taking a temperature to be really annoying, but at least it made for a more interesting shot.

See? Not so interesting.

I kind of went crazy adding water to the pot.

Salmon and some other stuff

Grape tomatoes were on sale and the salmon looked good. Hence, this dinner. Served with rice and lots of garlic. (I saw too many chefs on TV doing it...)

Fried Eggs

LV likes the way I fry eggs. They're always picture ready when prepared on the little cast iron pan. Mmm... Sunday breakfast.

Pork Tostada

Not really. But we can pretend.

I had a lot of leafy greens left over from the fajita/tacos, so this was a repeat with pork and toasted tortillas. Well, without the spicy sauces. It might have been better...

Asparagus, Chicken, Pasta

I told LV to run to the store and grab asparagus. I meant Brussels sprout. There are fewer of them in the fresh packs. Asparagus is like $4.99/lb and comes by the bushel.

How to Eat All the Asparagus in One Sitting

Cut big pieces

Steam for just the right length of time

Serve only woody pieces to Scrappy (the tops "taste like water," which makes her irritable despite the fact she sleeps with a water bottle)

Serve very little chicken and pasta

Voila. All asparagus eaten.

Chicken Fajitas

As part of my week of reading LV's mind, I decided to go to the grocery store and get a fajita mix. When he came home, he wondered aloud if we should order Mexican.

Pork with Made Up Sauce

This is the pork. It looks okay. Mmm... Pork with some sort of breading.

This is the pork with a lemon-flavored pan sauce on top. Gross... It looks like the cat yacked on it.

But it did taste good.

Beef and Vegetables

I bought chunks of beef this week. I didn't know what I was going to do with them. So, sort of stir-frying them seemed like as a good an idea as any. LV thought we should let them simmer in the cooking wine we bought forever ago. That definitely decreased the blandness.

Buffalo Wings

Wings could not save the Bears' season.

Pork with Orange Ginger Sauce

This was a second more successful attempt at mixing oranges with pork. Probably because I used a real recipe instead of just making something up as I went along. Much better.

Chicken Strips

LV requested chicken strips for dinner on New Year's Eve. He said that 2007 went really well after we started it with chicken strips, hence we should repeat.

We didn't repeat with champagne, though. Instead we picked out a bottle of sparkling grape-apple juice with Scrappy. I think she's the only child I've ever met who hates sweets. You would think we asked her to drink turpentine when we toasted the new year.

Swedish Meatballs

I never thought it would take so long to make Swedish meatballs again... But here we are like a year later with the encore of Swedish meatballs. Just as well received the second time. After Scrappy claimed she had never had them before. It's been a long time.

Christmas Eve

We waited until the last minute to make cookies for Santa.

But it was actually less stressful than last year, the first time we attempted gingerbread cookies.

Before rolling out the dough and baking the cookies, Scrappy had to make it through dinner: steak with an assortment of vegetables.

Green squash, tomatoes, onions, celery...

Tuna Pasta

In an attempt to come up with something good for dinner at the last minute, I pulled out rotini, tuna, cashews, capers, milk and corn starch. Then I told Scrappy that it was like Tuna Helper. Except better.

Tangerines and Pork

Ice Cream Cake

Now, I wouldn't say that I sabotaged the store-bought cake to make sure that my homemade cake looked just as good on the blog... But I can say that b/c it wasn't me who put the ice cream cake in the refrigerator instead of the freezer after buying it.

This is what ice cream cake looks like when you let it sit on the counter a little too long...

Wedding Pasta for One

Me and a bottle of pinot grigio made this revival of Italian wedding pasta the night of a company holiday party. Luckily, the leftovers are quite tasty...

Not the Usual Chicken

Our grocery store only sells two kinds of chicken breast--really thinly sliced pieces that always look like filets of fish on this blog or thicker pieces still stuck to the chest cavity of the chicken. On this day, I decided to sautee the chicken just as fast I normally would, but this time used more than just salt and pepper so that it actually look like chicken--not fish.

Pizza and Cake

LV's quiet birthday consisted of Domino's Hawaiian thin crust pizza and a freshly baked homemade 99-cent cake. Mmm... If only I hadn't tried to frost the cake 20 minutes after it came out of the oven. (We were sort of crunched for time--Scrappy had to go to bed.)

I don't feel like making dinner...

We were supposed to decorate the tree, so I made chicken nuggets with frozen artichoke hearts. "Frozen artichoke hearts" are as bad as they sound. Even worse when they're a generic brand.