Menu - April 20 - 26, 2008

Ok. Finally. A picture of the flat bread melts we made while A. was out of town.

Just the one picture because it's WAY overdue and I've been crazy busy trying to catch up on everything. There are a few others (two more, I think) at the flickr site. (click the picture)

I'm trying a few new recipes this week. It should be fun. Yes, fun. See, when I was a little girl, every adult in my life told me not to play with my food. Now that I'm the adult, I play with my food. A lot. Of course, what I call "playing" is what a lot of other folks call "cooking". Still? Heart-shaped flat breads are a hit with the kid. And fun to make.

And that's about all I have to say tonight because, basically, I need to get into bed so I can get up early tomorrow. I'm more or less caught up with the life crazies so I'm hoping to have the chance to post more this week. And write. Hopefully. With a little luck. And by the grace of God.

So. Menu. As always, much gratitude for Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday.

Sunday
breakfast: foraging (sleeping late)
lunch: baked potatoes stuffed with Boca "meat" and cheese
dinner: flat bread melts, salad

Monday
breakfast: cereal and toast
lunch: tuna sandwich, orange
dinner: pork chops, broccoli, corn on cob, salad

Tuesday
breakfast: pancakes
lunch: leftovers, fruit
dinner: black beans, hoe cakes (or rice), salad

Wednesday
breakfast: scrambled eggs, grits, biscuits (cereal for K.)
lunch: raviolis
dinner: chicken salad in bread bowls
extra baking: bread bowls, cinnamon rolls

Thursday
breakfast: cinnamon rolls
lunch: leftovers, fruit
dinner: Hamburger Steak with Mushroom Soup, rice, salad
extra baking: doughnuts

Friday
breakfast: doughnuts
lunch: leftovers, fruit
dinner: foraging/grazing

Saturday
breakfast: pancakes
lunch: ???
dinner: ???

I like bread bowls!

Despite feeling like I'd been hit be a truck a few times, I made bread bowls today. They were insanely easy. I used a recipe called Parmesan Bread Bowls that I found over on the Betty Crocker site. (TIP: search for "bread bowl", not "bread bowel".)

Of course, I didn't have the right size bowls and had to improvise, but it turned out ok. This is what they looked like about fifteen minutes out of the oven.

And this was my dinner tonight.

I loaded up half the bowl with chopped romaine, used the ice cream scoop to make two little balls of chicken salad (boiled chicken, Miracle Whip, chopped celery, pickle relish, all to taste), then topped those with some finely grated cheddar and decorated with pineapple and mandarin orange pieces. It was very yummy.

Now, I think I'm going to make a necklace while I digest.

Photographic evidence, take two!

Proof that I do eat lunch! Or, you know, that I at least fix something for lunch. The eating of such plates often take an hour or two.

And this is my beloved feline. I'm not sure if he was looking to snitch a bite or if he was approving/disapproving of my choices. He's a cat. Sometimes it's hard to tell.

And for the record, the dip is in a measuring cup because I was out of custard dishes, which is what I usually use. All the custard dishes are in the dishwasher (or sink) from where I used them in the baking prep this morning. Also, I rarely ever finish my dip. It'll be a miracle if I manage to finish half of it.

Photographic evidence

This is what an engine mount bolt looks like when it shears off.

And what happens when the bolt is sheared off? Why, the engine drops!

Luckily, there are (I hope) two other bolts still holding my engine in place so when it dropped it didn't hit the ground. Needless to say, this needs immediate attention. Unfortunately, my emergency fund is pretty wiped out from other recent events. With any luck A. can do this work himself... if he can get the other half of that bolt out of the hole...

So, for the time being, I'm housebound. Pretty much sucks with holiday errands still looming over me but I won't drive the car. Instinct (along with the information I dug up on the internet about broken engine mount bolts) tells me that driving the car in its current condition is BADBADBAD, despite A. telling me it can be driven as long as we baby it.

A. is hoping to manage a half day today so that he can get under the car before it gets dark. I'm not sure how much he'll be able to accomplish without the use of my grnadfather's tools and blocks, but with my grandfather in the woods (seriously, the man is pushing 90 and he's gone hunting again) there's no alternative but to try. Well, I suppose we could take it to a mechanic somewhere but without ready funds I'm extremely hesitant. Besides, there's this whole big lack of trust when it comes to mechanics.

So I guess today I bake, clean, and wrap presents. At least until A. gets home. Then there's a chance that I'll be playing grease-monkey assistant.

Jewelry for the girl child.

I made K. some jewelry today.



And a bookmark to match.



Yes. It was a most productive day.

This is just how my life falls together sometimes.

Sometimes, this is just how my life falls together. K. claims no knowledge of how these things were set up (though she does take responsibility for putting the "necklace" on the dino), and I certainly didn't set them up. And it's true that things like this just... happen... around me sometimes.

A few weeks ago I was brooding. I also happen to be sitting at my desk while doing so. In the midst of brooding, I noticed something on my desk. A dino had stopped by to use my oil burner as his watering hole.

I wasn't too terribly concerned until I realized that there was a hunter behind him, aiming two wicked looking guns at him!

When did this happen? When did this guy turn my candle holder turned catch-all into his perch?

While shifting angles to get a better shot of the hunter (and to determine if that was a monocle or an eye patch) I noticed something...

A monster was coming up behind the hunter!!

All the while, these guys were hanging out under my desk lamp on the other side of the watering hole. Innocent bystanders, I'm sure.

I don't know where they've wandered off to now (only the bystanders are still present), but at least I got the pictures to prove I wasn't imagining things.

A little of everything... update

I want to say hi and welcome to those that have subscribed for mail updates. Hi! And welcome. Thank you for subscribing. I hope you enjoy your stay with me, however long that may be.

Also, I wanted to thank everyone for their recent comments and apologize for not responding. My brain has been a little broken lately. Thanks, and sorry.

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I was digging a recipe out of my inbox on Wednesday when I noticed an email from my mother... only it was routed from my web site. I opened it and found the following words in big blue letters: EXCUSE ME!!! When was "daughter" dropped from your job description?

Come to find out, I've been a daughter for much longer than I've been a wife and mother, so I've changed my occupation on the about me:the basics page to include "daughter". While I was doing that, I made a few other changes, all of which are listed on the updates page.

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Speaking of my mother, a few posts back I said that she had laughed at me for feeding my family beans and hoe cakes for dinner one night. That should be clarified a bit more. She didn't laugh at me, but she did tease me. Normally her good-natured teasing doesn't bother me, and at the time even that teasing didn't. When I said she was laughing at me, I was in a severely bad mood and even the air around me was rubbing me wrong.

Mom did tease, and I did laugh with her, even though she was dreaming about her granddaughter (my daughter) being a malnourished stick body with a big balloon head (something I laughed at my mother for, by the way).

Also, it should be noted that even though my mother teased me about said meal, after she saw the picture of my dinner plate from that night (shown below), she wanted some. She didn't want to cook it, she just wanted me to fix her some.

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Project:movie clearance is progressing right along. In the past few days I've tossed four tapes. It's really funny to pop a tape into the vcr and have the video from one show and the audio from another show play simultaneously. It really is. Two of the tapes that went away were old television episodes. The rest had the movies The Hidden, (most of) Iron Eagle II, (a very badly decayed) Campus Man and Next of Kin.

Only Next of Kin is on the keeper list, though The Hidden was very... very... tempting.

No other cleaning has really been accomplished in the past few days. I've been utterly useless. Today is the last day I'm supposed to use the medicated eye drops, and Tuesday I should be able to wear my contacts again. Tuesday can not get here soon enough for me.

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I did most of the grocery shopping yesterday, and I can say now that I'll undoubtedly go over budget this pay period. On the plus side, my freezer is fully restocked (or will be by Saturday afternoon), so neither I nor A. are complaining.

My only concern is restocking for this year's hurricane season. Though there's very little that I have on hand that I can't cook on a grill (which we need to get, husband) should the power go out, I am a little concerned about what to take (food wise) should we have to evacuate. That's something I'll have to work on in coming days, I suppose.

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Yesterday while grocery shopping, I took the canvas grocery bags. Usually I forget them, but yesterday I remembered to take them. I was so proud of myself.

The "I'm doing good" feeling was short-lived, though. Two of the four stores I went to loaded up the groceries in plastic bags THEN put the loaded plastic bags INTO the canvas bags. Even after I pointed out that the whole reason behind bringing my own bags was to avoid the need for the plastic bags, they insisted on doing it that way. One of the baggers told me that it was store policy for all groceries to be bagged in store bags, even if customers had brought their own. Needless to say, I was a little shocked and a lot disbelieving. I've got a phone call into the day manager for that particular store, but he's yet to return my call.

Making tortillas

Instead of talking about how some stranger (bug spray guy) was in my apartment while I was sleeping this morning, I'm going to recount (with pictures!) yesterday's fun.

On Sunday we made homemade tortillas. Well, technically A. and K. made them, and I gave advice from behind the camera while I took pictures. I have to admit, they were good. Very good. And far easier than I would have thought. Since we've always had a "YUCK"-factor whenever we used any store-bought tortillas (and ended up throwing them all out), I think we'll just make our own from now on.

Yes, I took pictures. I'm behind in posting them, but... eh. I've been busy. I have been making it a habit to cook with the camera within reach (much to the dismay of my family, who often get recruited for the actual cooking part while I play photographer).

So, pictures!

A. made the dough. Sadly, I didn't get pictures of that. I didn't think about it until after they were rolling it out. By the time I had the camera in my hand, K. had taken over and A. was elsewhere. First, she would get one of the little balls they'd made.

Then she got some flour...

and dusted the little ball with it.

After that, she would pat it out, flattening it a little bit.

After she had it more or less flattened, she would start to roll it out using an old Disney glass from Burger King because I am in desperate need of a new rolling pin.

From time to time she would stop to pat it out, sometimes dusting it with a bit more flour.

After she was all done, she would peel up the raw tortilla and put it on a piece of wax paper atop the growing stack waiting to be cooked.

After K. was done rolling all the dough out, A. came in and started cooking the tortillas.

Over and over and over again, until we had a lovely little stack of tasty home-made tortillas!

After the tortillas had cooled and it was nearing time for dinner, I went in and made Simple Taco Meat (see my tweaks to the recipe here).

It was a good meal, and everyone had at least a little bit of fun. Even with the fun factor, I think next time I'll make them myself while they're at school and work.

Oh, and those tortillas? They're good spread with peanut butter and wrapped around a banana, too.

Coming soon: playing with a coconut.

Family Fun

We went to the AirFest out at the base today.

Wow.

We were only there for a few hours, and those were the last few hours of the show. We showed up just to watch the Blue Angels fly.

See, Mom had taken K. out there yesterday and they saw a few of the earlier flying exhibits from the car before they had to leave. Mom told K. a lot about the Blue Angels and K. really wanted to see them. So despite all that we had to do today to prepare for A.'s flight tomorrow, we drove the 45 minutes or so to the Air Force base on the other end of town, sat in traffic for nearly 20 minutes, walked nearly 45 minutes from the parking area to where the air show was actually being held, stood around in the sun watching the Blue Angels for 45 minutes, spent the next 30-45 minutes trying to get autographs (got one Blue Angel pilot's and took a picture of K. with him - she was thrilled), then made the hike BACK to the car where we sat for 20-30 minutes before we even got the chance to get back into the main flow of traffic.

It was so very worth it. K. loved the Blue Angel's show, and after several attempts, I managed to finally catch them splitting. The picture quality itself is rather poor, but I'm sure they're much better than what the people taking pictures with their cell phones got. Out of all the pictures I took today, this one is my favorite. I'll be posting others at my flickr account tomorrow.

And with all the fun, there was bound to be a bit of a downer thrown in. The Universe likes to keep such balance, after all. A., being a natural red-head, is burned pretty good on all exposed skin areas. K., being 10 and not quite as fair-skinned as her father, is experiencing her first ever sun burn. Thankfully it's just her shoulders and the top half of her upper arms, with just a bit on her chest. She wore a tank top today. I... well, I'm a natural blond and a reformed sun-loving desert rat (I haven't spent much time in the sun at all in the past 15 years). I'm a bit charred around the edges, meaning my face is all pink and I can feel the heat it in, but I'll be fine in a day or two.

I think K. now understands why I'm always pushing her and her father to wear their sunblock, and I don't think she'll balk so much when I reach for it for a while. I haven't decided yet if I'll keep her home tomorrow or not. I'll decide in the morning when I get her up. It may be a good day to keep her home and let her sprawl on the couch and re-watch Happy Feet while her skin soaks up all the aloe gel it can handle.

Cookies!

Just regular old oatmeal cookies, some with raisins, some without. Normally I tweak the recipe up a bit, but I wasn't in charge of the ingredients tonight.

The kitchen is all clean, the cookies are cooled and put away, I've nibbled on what I wanted; it's time to go to bed.

A picture of dinner tonight! It was good, even if it did need more garlic. And maybe a bit of ginger.

I kind of want to make cookies for dessert, but not really. Not that I don't want nibble on them, just that I don't want to have to bake cookies. Which is rare because I almost always want to bake, especially cookies.

Saying today was a low energy day for me and that I got nothing done is a gross understatement. It was one of those when I worked for 15 minutes and rested for just as much time, if not more. Still, I managed to get my bed made; wiped down the bathroom; folded the load of towels that were in the dryer from last night; washed, dried and folded a load of K.'s clothes; washed, dried, and folded a load of K.'s sheets; spent some time cleaning off the desk; spent some time cleaning the living room; washed and dried a load of towels (haven't gotten to folding them yet); washed a load of dark clothes (bought some new house clothes this afternoon and they needed to be washed so I can wear them); cooked dinner; and did some of the dinner dishes. Not bad for a low energy day. I'm hoping tomorrow will be better, though.

I took a break from typing to finish up the dishes and I still want those cookies. It's just after 7pm (edt) so I suppose I have time to bake the cookies, deal with the clean up, and relax before bed. I suppose the only question now is oatmeal or chocolate chip?