Whats For Dinner?

Wow, I made dinner 2 nights in a row. Alert the press. I did end up making spaghetti tonight. Although, the little one opted for SpaghettiOs instead. One other kid doesn’t like sauce and has it with butter.

Two others like Ragu sauce and lots of it. I prefer something a little more chunky. I usually make a sauce for myself but I didn’t have time today. I had a can of fire roasted tomatoes and I had that. If you think pasta is an easy meal, you’ve never had pasta at my house.

I made the frozen garlic bread that everyone loves. Since the oven was hot, we made chocolate chip cookies from the big bucket of dough that’s in the fridge. Nothing like warm cookies right from the oven.

I do have to admit, I’m already thinking about what I can get for takeout tomorrow. I guess 2 nights in a row is a little too much for me right now. I really need to get back into the swing of things. But, I’m thinking it might not be until January.

I know, don’t faint but I did cook tonight. I made pork tenderloin. I made a sauce from honey, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce and olive oil. It actually called for sesame oil but I didn’t have any.

Put the tenderloins in a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and coat with the sauce. Return to a 350 degree oven for another 45-60 minutes.

Mine were a little over cooked. The sugars in the sauce gave the meat a real crunchy texture. It was still good.

We had leftover sides, macaroni and cheese and green beans. Although with tonight’s activities, we all did not eat together.

I think tomorrow will be pasta and garlic bread. Of course, I have two that don’t like sauce so alterations will have to be made. The garlic bread will instantly disappear.

Since the oven will be hot, maybe I’ll cook some of the cookie dough and we’ll have nice, warm chocolate chip cookies after dinner. MMMMM, I can taste them already.

Now that school and activities are really ramped up for the year, dinner is not been a top priority lately. It’s so hard to plan and cook around the crazy schedule. Every day provides a new dinner challenge.

Tonight it was basketball from 4:30 to 6:00 then Christmas Pageant meeting at 6:00. Some of us ate during the basketball time and others ate at around 7PM.

Embarrasingly I gave the kids frozen dinners tonight. I usually only save these for emergency situations because they would eat them every night. Me, I had some leftovers since no one else will eat them.

Tomorrow I am making pork tenderloin. I haven’t decided how I’m going to cook it yet. I have a few recipes for pork tenderloin that I enjoy very much. I always have trouble determining sides to go with it.

I’m trying to get the kids to eat more vegetables but it’s not going too well. Sometimes I’ll give them some fruit but they’d rather have macaroni and cheese as a side. By the way, pickles don’t count as a vegetable. If they did, we’d eat more vegetables than anyone.

I made this as an appetizer, I quartered the recipe. I think you can make it with less butter too and it will come out just as good.

2 lbs. Shrimp (#31-40)
1 stick Butter
1/2 cup olive oil
1 Lemon
5 cloves garlic, pressed
3 Tbls. Worcesterhire sauce
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 Tbls. salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 Tbls. Italian seasoning

Melt butter in a large shallow baking pan. Add 1/2 lemon squeezed. Add all other ingredients, (except shrimp). Let simmer 5 minutes. Place shrimp in pan and baste. Bake at 350 degrees until shrimp are pink on top, 5-8 min. Turn shrimp, salt and pepper lightly and bake 10 min. Squeeze other 1/2 lemon and few dashes of Worcesterhire on top and serve with French bread.

 You’ll need the bread to soak up all the yummy sauce.

A while back, I dabbled in once a month cooking (known as oamc). It’s supposed to make things easier on a day to day basis.

The theory is you spend one day a month doing an enormous amount of cooking and everything goes into the freezer. You supposedly save money by buying things in larger quantities.

You buy and brown many pounds of ground beef. This meat, when cooled, gets doled out into the servings for the ground beef meals that you have planned.

You also buy an amount of chicken, if your preffered form. I like to use boneless breasts so I would have to cook up a lot of them and figure out how I’m going to use them and package and freeze them too.

I tried to do this on a much smaller weekly basis. Unfortunately, I was not a good labeler and I’d have all these packages in the freezer that I had no idea what it was. A few weeks ago, I finally threw 4 or 5 of these mystery packages away.

One concept I do like is if you get steaks, you put them in the freezer bags with the marinade. Then you thaw and cook. The flavor of the marinade really penetrates the meat and makes it much tastier. This is the only thing that I still do from my short days of a oamc’er.

To be really sucessful at this you must be a planner. When it comes to dinner, I am not a planner. I’m trying to get better and I’m still in my slump. I swear, I am cooking that chicken tomorrow. Maybe some type of crockpot recipe.

I know what you are thinking, she’s talking about hot dogs. Today was the last day of soccer for the kids. As luck would have it, it’s been raining since Thursday. So, instead of games they had awards and hot dogs at a pavilion.

It was good because even though it rained, it was warmish (for November) and it only got windy after we left. Since I have a kid in each age group, we were there for the duration.

Have you ever watched kids eat hot dogs? I swear, each kid has their own distinct way of eating them. You have with buns, without buns, cut up, not cut up. Most kids will either eat it plain or with ketchup. A lot of ketchup.

I saw one kid, his mom wrapped it in a napkin so he could hold it and eat the top part, there was no bun for him.

I was surprised because I figured with so many kids, there would be hot dog dropping everywhere but it wasn’t too bad.

So, if you ever find yourself in a large group of kids eating hot dogs, check it out. There must be a sociological study somewhere in all of this.

Remember that chicken I was talking about yesterday? Well, it’s still in the fridge. I didn’t make it last night or tonight. Tomorrow I either have to cook it or put it in the freezer.

Every week when I go to the store, there is nothing good. A few weeks ago, they had all the roasts half price. That’s the night I made real mashed potatoes and gravy. I haven’t made anything good since then.

Now, my oldest will be playing middle school basketball. Practices are Monday through Friday either 2:30 - 4:30 or 4:30 to 6:00. Since I have to drive her, that’s really going to put a damper on dinner most nights.

The thing is, I know the meat selection will be not so good until after Christmas. It’s like that every year. There’s turkeys and hams and expensive cuts of meat.

Maybe I’ll snap out of it and cook on the grill. Nothing like cooking out in the cold and dark night. But it is so worth it.

If anyone has any advice to get me out of this slump, I’d be happy to hear it.

I have to admit, I’m not a meal planner. I belong to several forums and occasionally people try to start to meal plan. Some people have all their meals planned out a month at a time. They even plan desserts.

I would have to say, I’m the total opposite of this. I go shopping on Tuesdays. I look in the meat case and see what’s on sale. Then I try to think if we’ve eaten this too many times recently (I was on a pork chop kick over the summer). Usually I’ll buy 2 or 3 different meats.

I usually plan which meat to take out because I put them in the freezer unless I’m using them that day or the next. That gives me about 4 or 5 hours to decide what to make.

Take tonight for instance. I have chicken out, it’s almost 3:30PM and I still don’t know what to do with it. It’s cold and raining so it won’t be grilled. I don’t know if I have enough tortillas to make quesadillas or fajitas.

I also have to take into account the evening activities. Who has to be where and when. I also have to note what is for school lunch today and tomorrow. I got into a pattern of unknowingly making the next day’s lunch for dinner the night before. Not good.

Not only do I never plan desert, we usually don’t have desert. The kids might have something but it’s so not planned.

I don’t think I could plan ahead, even a week at a time. Things come up every day that would put my plan in the trash. I envy those that can do it, I wish I could.

A friend sent me this recipe and I can’t wait to try it. If you use left over chicken or a store bought rotisserie chicken, it would be much quicker to make too.

cream cheese-chicken enchilada casserole

Makes 8 servings

1 cup chicken broth
2 (4.5 ounce) cans chopped green chiles,
divided
1 3/4 pounds skinned, boned chicken breasts
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup evaporated milk
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Monterey Jack
cheese
1/4 cup tub-style light cream cheese
1 (10 ounce) can enchilada sauce
12 (6 inch) corn tortillas (I used flour)
cooking spray
1/4 cup (2 ounces) shredded extra-sharp
cheddar cheese
1 ounce tortilla chips, crushed (about 6
chips)

Combine broth and 1 can of chiles in a large skillet; bring to a boil. Add chicken; reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes or until chicken is done, turning chicken once.

Remove chicken from cooking liquid, reserving cooking liquid; cool chicken.
Shred meat with two forks, and set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 can of chiles and onion; saute 3 minutes or until soft. Add reserved cooking liquid, milk, Monterey Jack, cream cheese, and enchilada sauce; stir well. Stir in shredded chicken; cook 2 minutes. Remove from heat.

Place 4 tortillas in the bottom of a 2-quart casserole coated with cooking spray. Spoon 2 cups chicken mixture over tortillas. Repeat layers twice, ending with chicken mixture. Sprinkle with cheddar cheese and
chips. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

I don’t know why. I’ve only had Thanksgiving at my house 1 time and that was way back before we had kids. We did have the dog. She grabbed the entire skin from the turkey (it had been cut away) and ran through the house with it, then ate it.

That year, we got a fresh turkey from a turkey farm. Let me tell you, it’s like night and day from having a frozen turkey. It just tasted that much better. Plus, I picked it up Wednesday, brought it home and put it right in the fridge. No thawing, it was great.

Every other year, we’ve eaten at someone else’s house (usually my in-laws). While it’s nice not to cook, not having leftovers really stinks. We usually eat so early that by the time we get home, you really want to dig into a turkey sandwich.

I think this year, when the turkeys are real cheap, I’ll grab a small one and cook it so we have some “leftovers”. I know I said my family doesn’t usually eat leftovers but they do love turkey.

Mmmm, I can almost taste it.