Menu Planning

Sunday night at church one of the girls in my class (I say girl, I think she's a few years older than me) mentioned something about how she doesn't plan what her family eats for the week because she can't think that far ahead.  Inside my head I was doing the whole CHA-CHING! YES! move.  

I don't menu plan either.  

I've tried.  

Twice.  I've done it twice, but that counts, right?

All the hippie mamas on the Internet swear by menu planning and how it will change your life.  Saving time, saving money, eliminating trips to the store, cutting out confusion over what's for dinner...

But, man, it's a job.  At least it is for me.

I get out all of my recipe books and pull up my Pinterest food board on the ipad, plus some paper and a pen, and try come up with about five different meals that don't feature the same flavors (I'm always heavy on the Italian) and that are borderline healthy, ie including vegetables and not out of a box.  This is harder than it sounds believe it or not.  I want to feed us real food, but sometimes Boots is like, "Where's the meat?" or "This must be something healthy."

I aim for five because with only two of us really eating (Mayhem eats, but not enough to be considered a third person yet) there will be leftovers for lunch the next day or maybe enough for dinner the next night.  I'm not always big on leftovers, but I am HUGE on saving money, so my five planned dinners usually stretch out 7 or 8 days.  

Sometimes, well, usually, when Boots works late I'll just fix a sandwich or something for myself instead of messing up the kitchen for one person to eat.

Then there's the whole side of me not being much of a repeater.  If I was I could just reuse a previous plan or two, but I haven't found the perfect sequence yet.  I like to try new things and if we ate it within the past four months it's either a serious favorite or requested.  Nothing is ever requested.  It's not that everything I cook is so bad he never wants to eat it again (or is it?  Have I been lying to myself?), Boots just never has any opinions on what we eat. 

"Anything in particular you feel like eating?"

"No.  Don't guess so."

Unless it's a real flop.  And when it's a flop we usually agree.  

There are even some menu planning programs out there to help, some free some you pay for, along with countless tip lists on Pinterest.  I'm just not with it.

All that to say this: Do you menu plan or just wing it by throwing something together out of whatever you've got?  If you do menu plan, got any tips?

Don't get me started on freezer cooking.  That's another hippie mama requirement I am not yet fulfilling.

Not Much of a Butcher, Certainly Not a Baker, Haven't Tried Candle Making

Ya'll, I am a crap baker.

Not a crap baker in the sense that I put waste in my oven, but what comes out the oven is definitely considered waste.

My Eats board on Pinterest is loaded with recipes I'd like to try.  I'm always on the lookout for something new, especially when it comes to bread. 

I want to be one of those people that makes their own bread so bad!  But I can't.

I have tried so many "anyone can make this bread!" recipes it would make you cry.  Or laugh.  You can find my flops on my Failures Pinterest board.  There's a lot.  Here's my latest.

It's supposed to be big and poofy, but instead it is sad and flat.  Kinda like my hair!

Anybody got any "this will surely work!" recipes?  Or just general bread making tips?  Like stop eating it?

Inspiration

Finally, after four years, I'm watching Julie & Julia, the movie about a woman who cooks her way through Julia Child's cookbook and blogs about it. 

I should do that...... cook my way through Julia Child I mean.

That's what I want for Christmas.  A Julia Child cookbook.  But I can't afford to cook lobster.

(Also Meryl Streep, who plays Julia Child, sounds like Mrs. Doubtfire or is Julia Child who Mrs. Doubtfire was supposed to sound like?)

Buying for Thanksgiving

Let's talk irony. I love irony, don't you? Jumbo shrimp, baby grand, blahdee blah...... Tonight, I had a little food irony at the Publix.

I bought a ham and a kosher turkey breast.

I'm hoping the cashier wasn't paying very much attention or either doesn't know that "kosher" and "ham" don't belong in the same sentence. I felt a little weird about the situation, but I'm hardheaded so I forged ahead.

On a side note, here's what cooked for supper: Medium shell pasta, (jarred) Alfredo sauce with English peas (ball bearin's as my dad says) and broccoli. Not gonna win any culinary awards, but that's what I wanted and it was pretty good.

Success in the Kitchen!

*This post has been "cooking" for several days. Here's hoping I found a new blog app that works!*

Hello, beautiful!  Isn't that just the prettiest?

Thursday I made this Glazed Triple-Chocolate Pound Cake from Real Simple magazine.

After much "You're really not going to let me have a piece?" from Boots, I took it to work Friday and my coworkers just loved it.  I did too, mainly because I know what a crap baker I am and it turned out fantastically, super chocolatey and moist.  Don't serve this to your vanilla lovers!

I did cut Boots a big piece and brought it home to him but, his feelings were still hurt about eating "leftover" cake and not getting to try it first so not much of a review from him.

I ran out of eggs after making the cake so I stopped by a man's house a few miles down the road to buy some eggs.  I've seen his sign about selling eggs every morning on my way to work for the past two years and I decided I wanted to buy some "real" eggs (Boots makes fun of me every time I say that) but, the man was fresh out.

So I came back by Friday afternoon on my way home from work and he had saved me a dozen.

Look at these beautiful babies!  (Yellow cartons do you no favors when photographing, ahem!)

They're all different shades of brown and some of them have little freckles on them.  The man said his 44 hens and 4 roosters are Rhode Island Reds and Dominickers.  He keeps them in two separate pens at night (The Northern Chickens and The Southern Chickens-- they don't associate. Ha!) and they roam during the day.

Three bucks is a mighty fine price for "real" eggs in my mind, especially after Boots said they tasted better than he expected.  I count that as a win!

What I'm Cooking

Bell pepper surprise?  What is that?

Chinese Beef and Broccoli!  Recipe from here, I used deer steak instead of beef, omitted the rice, and drizzled a little honey and a splash of soy sauce before serving.  Fantastic!  (I don't even like Chinese food!)

What I'm Cooking......

Salmon with Green Beans and Carrots

I could not find Bok Choy anywhere (What is Bok Choy?) and I don't really like ginger so I didn't use them.  Boots and I liked this pretty well,  I'd give it a 3.

(P.S. Two days after I made this, I found Bok Choy.  They were hiding it out at the farmers' market!)

Tomato Soup with Roast Beef Panini

#1.  Not exactly tomato-y enough, too much onion

#2. Horseradish is weird to me, it gives me the shivers

#3. Arugula.  No.

#4.  Apparently I think "panini" is French or something for "burn the smashed flat sandwich".  Geez Louise.

Boots said he liked it, but I'm not sure I believe him.  I give it a weak 2.  Like I said, I had the shivers and not in a good way.

(Click the links for recipes!)

Scrambled Eggs and Cheese Toast

Our first breakfast out of the new kitchen.

Dear Boots......

For my birthday, or maybe even Christmas, I want a meat mallet.  This one's at Publix.

Love ya!

If you're eating oatmeal because of its cholesterol lowering benefits you should probably not salt the water when you're cooking it, right?

Somebody tell me why I have no less than a jillion kitchen gadgets and not one of them is a potato masher!

Dear Boots,

Today I did something I knew I shouldn't.
I was hungry, you see, and the imitation maple flavoring was calling my name.
I did something I said I would never do again-- I made pancakes!
I followed those directions to a P and the first two were awesome I tell ya.
But something went wrong and everyone after that were awful.
Boots, I promise I won't make myself pancakes again.
Next time, I'll just wait, and starve!, until you come home again.

Dear Boots,

Happy Thanksgiving!
Remember last year when you took me to your parents for Thanksgiving?
And your mom made dressing?
Well, I wasn't paying attention.
Please don't be mad if it doesn't taste like anything you've ever had before, I'm wingin' it.

Love!

Here's a picture of the shrimp with white beans on toast I made for lunch.




















What?
You don't see anything?
Oh, yeah, that's right!
I forgot to put the card in the camera and by the time I realized my mistake we'd already eaten every bite!

I'm cooking again.

And including lots of very bad pictures.

Here we go!

Heat broiler.

Combine 1 pound ground lamb or ground beef with 1/4 cup finely chopped apricots, 1/2 teaspoon coriander, half of a small red onion, finely chopped......

That's where the pictures start.

I'm so not good at chopping and the onion went e v e r y w h e r e ! !

Everywhere!

(I have one of those chopper things, why haven't I used it?)

Here's the ground beef, chopped apricots, and coriander just chilling out.

Literally, chilling out.

I forgot to thaw the meat, again!

Same stuff as above, plus onions, salt (Kosher, of course!) and black pepper.

Form into balls and broil until cooked.

Are they done yet?

Are they done NOW?

Squeeze the crap juice out of one lemon to barely get enough juice for 3 tablespoons.

Vow that the whole lemon squashing process is too arduous and that next time you'll just buy the juice.

Mix lemon juice with 3 tablespoons EVOO, and more salt and pepper.

Oh, yeah.

1 cup couscous plus 1 cup hot water.

(Couscous smells like play-doh to me.)

Let the water and couscous (I swear, it looks like grits!) sit for five minutes, covered.

Then fluff with a fork.

Chop two plum tomatoes (the key to not squashing the guts out of your tomatoes is a very sharp knife), 1/2 English cucumber (what's the difference between American and English?  I just used whatever theTargets had.), mix dressing vigorously, fluff couscous again, and try not to eat all the Feta.

I LOVE feta!!!

Feta and me......what can I say?

I like cheese!

Boots, please don't shake your head at me like that!!

When your meatballs are finally cooked, arrange them prettily with all your stuff in the previous picture.

Enjoy!

Oh, and......cue camera batteries to go dead right when you're ready to take a picture of the finished product.

Yay.

Not Exactly Football Food

Like a Rabbit

**Disclaimer: If reading rambling pointless posts isn't your thing, perhaps you should skip this one today.**

*If you missed the recipe links, here's the one for the eggs and the bread.

*Monday morning I woke up with a headache and didn't shake it off until Tuesday night.
I took a whole bunch of pills but, nothing helped.
I thought I really was dying when I put my contacts in the wrong eyes and couldn't see straight yesterday morning.

*Boots had a wee bit of a motoring accident in his work vehicle Monday.
He's ok but, the corner of his eye is black from his head hitting the seat belt holder thing.
The doctors checked his head out real good and so far he seems fine.

*This morning I was listening to the radio on my way to work and Toby Keith's new song "Bullets in the Gun" came on.
(I know some of you are positively stroking out right now about the fact that I listen to country music but, I can't help it, I've listened to it all my life.
Let a good Sawyer Brown song start playing and I'm six years old riding in the backseat of my mama's blue yacht-length Crown Victoria again.)
The song is pretty much a rhyming crime spree.
When he said, "Never see it comin’, just hits you by surprise," I thought, "Is that how so many people become murderers?"
Do most murderers just snap under the pressure of whatever duress they've been subjected to and just go on a rampage?
I'm not trying to justify murdering or anything like that, I'm just telling you how my mind runs.
All this from a song.

*Today's my Friday.
I'm looking forward to a long nap when I get off work.

*I want to walk the four mile loop with Boots again.
Here's to getting him motivated!

Just an Ordinary Meal

After a full day of food blogging yesterday, (cook, take pictures, post-- very time consuming) all I wanted to do last night was relax.

So I cooked supper for my mama and Boots.

I made spicy noodles with pork cutlets.
Sorry, no pictures.

I won't call it a success but, I won't call it a flop.
It just was.

The noodles weren't spicy.
I couldn't find the red jalapeño the recipe called for so it went without.
I misread my grocery list and only bought one can of chicken broth instead of two so I used water.
The pork cutlets were great- seasoned with Kosher salt (how ironic!) and black pepper, coated in flour, dipped in egg, covered with panko, and fried in a skillet.
The noodles surely won't happen again (do you know how hard it is to find udon noodles?) but, I'll definitely cook pork like that again.

If anyone wonders why I'm posting before five o'clock in the morning it's because today I'm putting up three tents and a sound system in the name of community relations for the funeral home at a charity walk for kids with disabilities.
If you know what I'm talking about and you get bored today, come see me!

Because They're the Devil to Make!!

This past week I've been wishing for deviled eggs.
I took it upon myself to learn how to make this delectable Southern Baptist staple today.
Here are lots of really bad pictures of my cooking experiment first time making deviled eggs.

Start with a dozen eggs in a pot.

Add water and boil the heck out of them.

Question: Why do the butts of eggs bubble?

Boil violently!

Remove from heat, cover and allow to cool for about twenty minutes.

Rinse with cold water.

Crack and peel.

(There's no picture here because it is impossible to crack eggs with two hands and take pictures of the process with two hands, short of having an arm transplantwhatever.

Be gentle!

Some of them look better than others.

Slice and take out the yolks.

Smash 'em up!

Salt

Pepper

Mustard

Vinegar (can't see that), pickles (supposed to use sweet, I used dill)

Stir together

Pour in a bag (again, only two arms!), pipe into egg halfs

Admire work

Realize you forgot paprika

Have small scuffle with Boots about being a taste-tester because apparently he thinks you're going to poison hiim with something you plan to eat yourself.

Finally convince him they're safe for human consumption.

Admire whiskery face.

The End!

I got my recipe from Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen website.

Today I gave an old lady a ride home.
When I first saw her, I didn't stop.
I was thinking about Target and the supper I was cooking when I got home, I wasn't in the mood to stop and tell anybody that we weren't having visitation tonight, to go across the road to the other funeral home.
While I waited to turn out in the road there was a long line of cars coming and I saw her waving her arms at me in my side mirrors.
I decided maybe this was more than somebody that read the wrong name in newspaper, threw her in reverse and got out.
She told me the story of her "accident."

She was driving down the road and suddenly became blinded by the sun!
She ran off the road and struck a curb, bursting her tires!
She flapped over to the parking lot of the funeral home and was hunting somebody to borrow a phone from.

She called her husband from my phone, he didn't answer.
I offered to give her a lift and cleaned the crap out of my front seat so she could get in.
We chatted about my job, our cars, and our husbands.
I took her home, she gave me five dollars and I left feeling good about myself.

I went to Target and fell in love.

Whoa, Moses!  Aren't those cute!

Went home and cooked penne for supper.

The Bootshusband loved it.