Whats For Dinner?

So, it’s Friday and it’s Halloween. We are coming to the end of my very uninspired week of cooking. Tonight, we got pizza. In an effort to save time and actual get some food into the kids, we had pizza.

We even got a salad but it did not get eaten. I’ll have it for lunch tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, I promise to dig through some recipes and post a real good one. I need to get back on track with cooking some good meals. It’s been a bad week for me.

Check out the ramen recipe that was commented. It makes ramen look fancy, schmancy. It’s almost good for you. I’ll have to try it.

So, like I mentioned earlier, I’m having a very uninspired week. Tonight there was an outdoor soccer practice with temperatures around 40 degrees. So, when we got home, everyone was wanting soup for dinner.

Two of us had ramen noodles. I always eat these with the water drained out. I put the packet into the water as the noodles cook so it’s not so salty. But, I make a spicy sauce that I toss the noodles in.

I’ve been perfecting it for a while and here’s what I like best. I use some brown mustard, red wine vinegar and crushed red pepper flakes. Mix it up so the vinegar and mustard combine. Toss the noodles so they are covered. It helps spice up what can be a bland meal.

There are so many things you can do with ramen. I ran across this blog recently http://www.mattfischer.com/ramen/. There are some pretty good ideas. I especially liked the Bailout Ramen post. It puts a whole new perspective on the bailout.

If anyone has their own ramen recipes, I’d love to see them. If I post it, you’ll get all the credit for it. Let’s have them!

Make chicken salad. I know, it sounds cliche. I was at the store yesterday and the meat section left me less than inspired. I can usually go to the meat section and get a few good deals and plan the week’s menu around it.

This week, there was nothing good. I ended up getting the ham steaks we had last night (they were BOGO) and some chicken (leg and thigh pieces). I still didn’t have a plan for the chicken so this afternoon, I put them in a pot and boiled them.

Two of the kids had some of the chicken for dinner. With the rest, I made chicken salad. I make a basic chicken salad, just enough mayonaise to make it stick together and salt and pepper. That’s it.

When I make a sandwich, I put hot peppers on it. It really spices up an otherwise bland meal. I also put celery seed on the sandwich. I really like celery seed. It’s one of my secret ingredients that when you put it in something, you can really taste the difference.

The moral of the story is, an uninspired dinner can still turn out pretty good.

I found this recipe on Allrecipes.com today. I’m making it tonight but without the bacon because we are having ham steak with it.

 INGREDIENTS

• 1 (32 ounce) package frozen cubed hash brown potatoes, thawed
• 1 pound sliced bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, divided
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 8 eggs
• 2 cups milk
• 1 dash paprika

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DIRECTIONS

1. In a large bowl, combine hash browns, bacon, 1/2 cup cheese and salt. Spoon into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking dish. In a bowl, beat eggs and milk until smooth; pour over hash brown mixture. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 45-50 minutes until golden. Top with the remaining cheese.

FOOTNOTE

• Editor’s Note: This dish may be prepared in advance, covered and refrigerated overnight. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking.

I was looking through some once a month cooking recipes earlier and I found this recipe for chicken packets. It uses already cooked chicken so it’s quick and easy. Not much clean up either.

Chicken Packets

2 cups chopped cooked chicken
1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 tablespoon chives, chopped
2 tablespoons milk
salt
1/2 cup seasoned croutons, crushed to crumbs
2 (8 ounce) packages refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
1/4 cup melted margarine

Mix chicken, cream cheese, chives, milk, and salt in a medium bowl (mixing with hands works best) to make filling

To prepare for serving, thaw chicken mixture.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Unroll crescent rolls.

Each tube will contain 4 rectangles of dough with a diagonal perforation.

Press dough along each perforation so the rectangle halves will not separate.

Place about 1/4 cup of the chicken mixture into the center of each rectangle.

Fold dough over the filling, and pinch the edges to seal tightly.

Dip each packet in melted margarine, and coat with crouton crumbs.

Place packets on a baking sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

All my life I have been eating beef stew. I guess I would call it a comfort food. You get your meat, vegetables and a starch, all in one bowl. It’s even great leftover.

The secret I have for making great beef stew is that I use V-8 juice instead of water or stock. It makes the stew a little thicker, a little richer and a whole lot more vegetable packed. So your taking an already pretty healthy meal and adding even more to it.

I tell you, once you try this in your stew (it would be great in other soups too) you won’t go back to whatever you were using before. Try it, you won’t be sorry.

I think there are two types of people, ones that love to cook on the weekends and those who would rather not cook on the weekends.

Some people see all the extra time as time they can use to make meals that they can’t during the week. They make elaborate time consuming meals. Or they use the time to make ahead meals for the week, when they are busy.

Then there is me. I really don’t like to cook on the weekends. We usually have what the kids call “hundred night”. That’s where they choose their favorite easy food and everyone gets what they want, for the most part. It’s called hundred night because it seems like I’m making a hundred different things.

I think tonight will be a hundred night. Warm up the can opener because it’ll be soup and spaghettiOs all around.

So, tonight we decided to go to a Chinese all you can eat buffet place. We go there every 1 to 2 months. Their specialty is snow crab legs and my 10 year old can’t get enough. Neither can anyone else who eats there.

I finally got a battle plan down when we go there. I usually eat way too much and feel so sick after. Now I get one plate of food, chicken, beef, pork strips. Basically all meats with some peppers and onions. I always get the donut looking thingy too.

If I have the urge to go up again, I’ve been getting fruit and/or vegetables. Tonight is was cucumber and tomatoes, some green beans and cantelope. Plus another donut thingy. They were warm, I couldn’t resist.

I felt much better leaving the restaurant tonight than I have in the past. I was still beyond full but not sickly feeling like usual.

So, if you decide to tackle one of these restaurants, have a plan going in. Or atleast look over the choices before grabbing a plate so you know what you really want. Don’t you hate when your plate is full and then you find your favorite?

It kind of seems like a ground beef week here. Someone I know was looking for a meatloaf recipe so I dragged out the one I found on AllRecipes.com. Everyone here loves it. I usually don’t put in onion because they don’t like it.

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 pounds ground beef
2 eggs
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup barbecue sauce
3/4 cup crushed crackers
1 cup crushed potato chips
3/4 teaspoon liquid smoke flavoring
3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 pinch cayenne pepper
6 slices bacon

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
In a large bowl, combine the beef, eggs, onion, barbecue sauce, cracker crumbs, potato chips, liquid smoke, ground black pepper, salt, garlic powder and cayenne pepper and mix well.
On a lightly greased cookie sheet, shape the mixture into a loaf. Lay the bacon slices across the width of the loaf so that the entire surface is covered. Cover the loaf loosely with foil.
Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 1 1/2 hours.

Aren’t leftovers the worst thing? In my house, no one likes leftovers. It seems like I’m the only one who will eat them. Sometimes we have left over macaroni and cheese and no one will eat it.

It’s no use disguising them either, they know. Tonight I figured we get rid of some leftovers but I was the only one who ate any. And of course, it was left over Chinese food, so it wasn’t even something I cooked.

Once the cooked food goes back into the refridgerator it usually only comes out and goes directly into the trash. One of the kids never eats her whole meal when we go out to eat. She loves to bring it home but only eats it if it’s pasta with sauce. She insists on bringing it home and admits to us she has no plans to eat it.

I try to make just enough but that’s so hard. If one person is extra hungry, there isn’t enough and if one person is not really hungry, there’s leftovers. It’s such a hard thing to balance.

Maybe from now on I’ll skip all the angst and just throw everything away.