Leftovers

In trying to reclaim the space in my fridge all the leftovers from Thanksgiving were taking up, I made a concerted effort to use everything today.  It wasn't getting any fresher after all.  Plus we are planning another large meal this weekend when we celebrate an early Christmas with Chris' parents.

So mission leftover:  I made these delicious muffins this afternoon.  And then I promptly ate at least two of them.  The filling of the muffins is leftover cranberry sauce and it is super yummy wrapped up in cake.  If you make the recipe be warned that it only makes about 6 (mine made 8) muffins.  Also the batter is incredibly thick.  I subbed some whole wheat flour, but otherwise left the recipe as is.  So good!

Then for dinner tonight I made a turkey shepherd's pie (loosely following that recipe - basically I didn't use as much stock and then sprinkled butter and cheese over the top).  I didn't know how it would go with the family, but it was a hit.  Even Milo ate it and requested I make it again one day.   Plus it used up almost all the leftover mashed potatoes (still have some to make potato pancakes) and all the turkey.

So the leftovers are almost all gone.  I may need to just eat a big salad for my next couple of meals.

Thanksgivin Prep

For the Thanksgiving celebration I am making the following yumminess:

• Cranberry sauce made of fresh cranberries, apricot jam and pineapple.  Spiced with cinnamon and ginger.  
• Macaroni and cheese with a ton of milk and butternut squash
• Pumpkin soup made of fresh pumpkin
• Apple pie

Meal Planning

Planning our meals for the week is something that when I do it the week goes so much more smoothly.  When I don't things are stressful and we eat out way too much.  For some reason though I have to force myself to plan.  Coming up with a week's worth of meals at one time is tough work.  I actually did it for this coming week and while most of the meals are from the pantry, I did all the grocery shopping too.  That's a big accomplishment, folks.  

Monday:  bean and cheese enchiladas, raw carrots, guacamole

Tuesday:  chicken noodle soup

Wednesday:  frozen pizza, giant beans, polenta and roasted veggies

Thursday:  Thanksgiving at my parent's house

Friday:  leftovers

A Lovely Soup

Cooking for family and nurturing through food is a long tradition in my lineage. For this reason, I am so pleased Milo is an adventurous eater, is constantly playing kitchen, and also often helps me cook. Yesterday he was standing on a chair at the counter as I was making soup for dinner. We were adding spices, prepping veggies and chopping ingredients. In the midst of all this work, he gently rested his little head on my upper arm and said love. I'm not totally sure if he meant he loved me, he loved cooking or he just loved eating Pa's sausage, but I'll take any of the above and it was an incredibly sweet moment. It seems cooking together is as meaningful to me as it is to him.

Lovely Soup

2 links spicy sausage

1/2 onion diced

4 cups cooked white beans

3 carrots chopped

3 stalks of celery chopped

1/2 zucchini chopped

1 carton low sodium chicken broth

1 bunch kale, torn from stems and rinsed

Spices to taste: salt, pepper, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, red pepper flakes

Saute sausage and onion together until onions are translucent and sausage is no longer pink. Add beans, carrots, celery and spices. Cook for 10 minutes. Add broth and bring to boil. Cook for 1 hour. Add zucchini and cook for at least 10 minutes and then add kale 20 minutes before serving. Enjoy with a grilled cheese sandwich on a cool and rainy day in May.

Meatless Dinners

In late high school and college, I flirted with being a vegetarian. I didn't really like eating meat and when there was an option, I chose veggie, but I didn't go out of my way to be consistently vegetarian. Eventually I came to like meat and became more comfortable with preparing it so that meat is often consumed at our house. However, there are many people who believe you can't really be a yogi and eat meat (it goes against the principle of ahimsa or non-violence). I'm not ready to ditch the meat entirely, but it's not a coincidence that I planned two meatless dinners for us this week when coming off of a weekend spent at yoga teacher training. Here are those two meals:

Pasta and Kale and Olives

1 box whole wheat pasta cooked according to package directions

1 bunch kale

1 can of fire roasted tomatoes

1/2 onion chopped

2 garlic cloves

small container of pitted green olives from the grocery store olive bar, chopped

Parmesan cheese

olive oil

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until onions are translucent. Add rinsed and chopped kale, tomatoes and olives. Steam covered until kale is softer and a more bright green color. Season to taste with salt, pepper, dried basil, red pepper flakes. Add cooked, drained pasta to pan, drizzle with olive oil and toss to combine. Top with grated cheese.

Verdict: Chris and I loved this one! So yummy and so simple. If you want more veggies, you can double the amount of kale. Milo happily ate a large serving of this and then asked for meat. He's a carnivore, that one.

Black Bean and Rice Enchiladas

2 cups cooked brown rice

1 can black beans or 2 cups cooked dried beans

1 cup taco sauce

1/2 cup salsa

1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed

Any desired add ins: frozen spinach, onion, corn

Flour tortillas

Cheddar cheese

Combine rice, beans, taco sauce, salsa and sweet potato (plus any add ins) in large pan. Cook until potato is tender adding liquid as needed, about 20 minutes. Spoon filling into tortillas and place seam side down in baking dish. Top with more taco sauce and desired amount of cheddar cheese. Bake until cheese is bubbly about 15 minutes.

Verdict: This is a hit here: we've been eating it almost once per week throughout the winter. I love that I can up the nutritional value by adding various ingredients and it keeps the dish from being the same each time. I've done this with corn tortillas also, but they don't stay together as well in the pan. The key to this recipe is having the rice already cooked. Typically if we have a stir fry with rice on Monday, it means we are going to be eating this on Wednesday because I just cook extra and save it.

So two nights of eating meatless this week means we're having cheeseburgers on the grill tonight!

Fry Soup and the Birthday of One Dr. Seuss

A kid invented recipe is sure to please

and to a toddler it holds the pleasant table manner keys.

Milo’s been talking about it for days

and Mama added it to the menu with much praise.

What is it, you ask, that Milo created?

Why it’s fry soup unmitigated!

Clearly my rhyming skills have not much improved since the fifth grade when I last attempted stanzas of poetry, but my cooking skills have come a long way. For days, Milo has been pretending to make fry soup for his stuffed friends Bert and Ernie. Soup is easy to make in a pot (according to Milo you just throw various blocks in, stir and put the lid on) so he makes many variations of soup - mainly carrot and apple. His favorite soup to make, though, also contains his most coveted food - fries!

I started to wonder how I could make him fry soup for dinner because I knew he would enjoy it. At first I thought something cheesy and creamy would be the way to go, but we limit dairy so I went in another direction. Turns out chili is a great base for fry soup! Think chili cheese fries, but with more chili and less cheese. Basically, just make your favorite chili recipe and top with oven baked French fries along with your other favorite chili toppings (here some grated cheese and chopped avocado).

Fry soup was on the menu for this week anyway, but with Dr. Seuss's birthday being today, I thought the good Dr. would appreciate the silliness of a child-directed meal. I even (this might mean I need help) made vegan coconut cupcakes for dessert in honor of the big day.

I really appreciate all Dr. Seuss did to encourage reading to be a fun childhood activity. Plus, he left us with many great ideas we can talk to our children about:

"Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!"

- Dr. Seuss

Eating In

For the month of January, we challenged ourselves to eat each meal at a home. In other words, no eating out. This was in an effort to curb some spending, plan better and eat more healthfully. We weren't eating out a lot, but we were relying on it a little too much. If we had late afternoon plans, we would just stop at Chipotle or Graffiti Burger for dinner. Sundays we would often combine brunch with grocery shopping.

To successfully eat every meal in a home takes some planning. We would plan out dinners for the week and then always have breakfast and lunch staples on hand. By the end of the month, I was a little burned out on menu planning. It is a task that I don't enjoy while I am doing it, but I appreciate having the plan as the days go by.

While we did improve on planning, the jury is still out on the money spending. Our grocery bills went up, but I think we still came out ahead over a couple of meals out. Certainly, meal for meal eating in is less expensive (for example one night we had filet, salad and baked potatoes at home for about $20, the same meal out would have been $50ish).

It was a great experiment and while I'll loosen up the reins from here on out, it did teach me that we don't need to eat out quite as often as were as long as I have a plan and stick with it.

For Breakfast

As we continue picking up books on a whim at the library, I also try to grab one or two by authors I am more familiar. One of these authors is Tomie dePaola, who I remember fondly from childhood. Some people don't like his artwork (I do) and some people don't like the content of some of his books (he has a lot of them), but overall I enjoy his work. Some of the books I've grabbed are not age appropriate for Milo right now, but some are and we've enjoyed reading those.

Yesterday at the library, we noticed a copy of Pancakes for Breakfast which while new to me has already become a hit at our house. The book (which doesn't have words) traces the morning of a little old lady who would like to have pancakes for breakfast. A series of misadventures does finally lead to that pancake breakfast, but it doesn't come easily. With no words, this book is a fun way to have children describe what they are seeing in the pictures and notice more closely how the pictures in books help to advance the story. I've also noticed Chris and I have slightly different ways of telling the story because of what we pick out of the illustrations. Another fun lesson in perception.

And perhaps best of all, guess what we're having for breakfast tomorrow?

Happy Thanksgiving: Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Muffins

You know what else makes me feel better and more in control around the holidays? Baking. Yep, baking. When I was in grad school and my life felt mind-racingly unsettled I baked a lot because I couldn't really screw up a batch of cookies. I've since turned to other methods of coping, but baking still holds a special place in my heart. Plus, now Milo can help stir! The recipe below is an update to my previous favorite pumpkin muffin with a vegan twist to accommodate Milo's allergies. These aren't overly sweet, but don't taste vegan either. We gobbled them down quickly!

Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup hemp (or other non-dairy) milk

1/2 tablespoon vanilla

12 ounces of pureed pumpkin

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 bag (about 1 cup) of chocolate chips or raisins

Preheat oven to 350. Mix together wet ingredients in large mixing bowl until pumpkin is incorporated well. In separate bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add dry to wet in small amounts until batter forms.

Fold in chips or raisins. Pour batter into muffin tins and bake for 25 minutes or until toddler decides he can't stand the wait any longer. Makes about 12 muffins. Enjoy!

What Goes with Chili

The last week or so has been rainy and chilly. We've turned the heat on and our outside play was confined to small bursts between sprinkles. It's not the ideal crisp air and sunny days of fall we long for in August, but it is the perfect weather for making a pot of chili.

People have strong beliefs about their chili - with beans, without beans, what type of beans, corn or no corn, five alarm or just a little heat. For this reason, I am not going to offer up my chili recipe (plus there isn't one as I just wing it every time I make it). I, am, however going to say the best accompaniment to chili is cornbread. Corn chips are an acceptable substitute, but please hold the spaghetti and (eww) rice.

With Milo being allergic to dairy and eggs, I didn't want to use the usual Jiffy mix I have in the past. Luckily it was very easy to find a super good vegan cornbread recipe. This stuff is so good and so easy that I don't think I'll ever use the box again. The original recipe is linked to above. My changes are below.

Vegan Wholewheat Corn Bread

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup bread flour

1 cup corn meal

1/4 cup white sugar

2 tbsp ground flax seed

6 tbsp warm water

4 tsp baking powder

1 cup rice milk

1/4 cup canola oil

Measure dry ingredients into large mixing bowl. Mix with fork until combined. In separate small bowl, whisk together the flax and warm water. Add the other wet ingredients. Incorporate the wet ingredients into the dry. Scrape batter into greased 8 square inch baking dish. Bake in preheated oven at 355 degrees for about 25 - 30 minutes.

This cornbread goes great with chili and would be nice with other bean based soups as well. It's also tasty the next day with avocado slices. Enjoy the fall weather - even if it is rainy!

Apples and More Apples

There are few photographic memories I find cuter than apple picking pictures. Something about the crisp fall air, the lush foliage and the happy, apple juice covered faces just make for great photos. In the past year, we've gone from sweet cherub little face happily munching on his first apple, to wild toddler frantically taking a bite of each apple he could get his hands on.

We'll keep going back year after year to add to the collection, so I need some great fall back apple recipes. Apples pick easily which means you end up with more apples

than it seems while picking. And for some reason the apple stash never seems to go down no matter how many apple snacks we have. So far I have made apple crisp, apple turnovers, apple sauce, and I also modified this muffin recipe to utilize more apples.

What am I missing?

What is your favorite thing to do with apples?

The Summer of CSA

For years, at least years since I have become aware of CSAs (community supported agriculture), I've wanted to participate in one. This summer we finally did it. After some research and weighing of options, we chose New Century CSA as our farm provider. This is one of the few (only?) central Ohio CSAs who deliver their produce, which was very nice. I also liked that it is a family-run farm.

Other Impressions of the season:

• We split a full share with another couple. This worked out well as there would have been way too much food otherwise.
• Corn, oh the corn. There was a lot of corn. Like 20 ears per week a lot of corn. Even with splitting the share, this was just too much corn for us.
• The farm said they mostly use non-chemical methods of farming, but will use chemicals as a last resort. I would like some clarification on this policy as it seemed to me some of the produce must have been sprayed.
• We would get a weekly e-mail saying what would be in the share that week. This was helpful, but it wasn't always accurate.
• Each Tuesday morning was an adventure as Milo and I would sort out the veggies. Our favorites were beets, cucumbers, the various lettuces. We could have done with less of the cabbage, okra, and hot peppers.
• Overall the quality of the produce was great. I would have preferred more variety of vegetables overall and varietals of species (all the produce seemed to be from modern seed).

All in all, it was a positive experience. I liked having to come up with menus and recipes using whatever we happened to have at the time. It was interesting to see how the share changed from the beginning of the summer to the end. Early June we had a lot of peas, kohlrabi and some early beets. By the end of August we receiving mostly tomatoes and corn.

We'll definitely do something similar next year, but we may branch out and try a different farm. For people who are interested in participating in a CSA, my advice is to create excitement for it in your family (Milo and I would look forward to the unpacking each week), be open to trying new vegetables prepared in different ways and use it as a learning experience.

What to Eat

Does anyone else find it really confusing to figure out what type of fuel to put in your body? I know some of you do, because I've been talking with you about it lately. For a long time I went with the whole everything in moderation theory, but even that simple stance is starting to not work with me. I want to feel good about the things I am feeding my family, but I also want those foods to taste good. I want to know what is in the food and if at all possible, I would like to know where the food comes from. Sometimes this seems like too much to ask and sometimes it seems this isn't going far enough.

I have come to recognize our food supply in this country is broken and this really bothers me. We strive to eat closer to the source by eating whole foods rather than processed foods, but even the origin of simple ingredients are murky when you start looking at them. The other day I was flipping through the coupons (of which I am using fewer and fewer of because they are all for processed food) and noticed one popular yogurt company just came out with a simply version. They took out the high fructose corn syrup, the artificial colorings and flavors and left (presumably) the yogurt. This made me so mad! Why didn't they just change the whole line of "foods" to be simply? Why even keep making all the other neon flavors and calling it a good idea for lunch boxes?

I feel there is so much information out there now about nutrition and processed foods (the Pollan books, Food Inc, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution) and how as a nation we are seriously going down the wrong path. Unfortunately, I still have the sneaking suspicion the majority of the food companies are not on board with recognizing there is a problem or probably more accurately wanting to change the status quo. I'll keep on aiming to eat whole foods, reading labels (in order to buy the products with the fewest ingredients) and also buying local when possible. I just wonder if that is enough?

Returning to Those Three Things

Way back in October, I reflected on the three things I said I would never do as a parent. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

While the television is mostly off at our house, it does somehow get turned on almost every day around 4:30. We watch the Sprout shows (although they have recently added dirtgirlworld to their line up and wtf is up with that huge eyed character..ugh). Milo actually prefers the pink puppet host who announces the shows rather than watching the actual shows. The television being on, coupled with the allure of the remote usually can buy me enough time to get dinner started. I'm not proud of the television watching, but I figure he isn't watching more than an hour per day (where I think research has shown the harm can come in). He doesn't eat in front of the television and most of the time he wanders away from it. We read a lot, and play for the rest of the day, so I am rationalizing this little bit of television as being okay in the bigger picture. I'm also very aware to not let the habit grow.

Due to Milo's allergies, the processed food bit has kind of taken care of itself. No mac & cheese is even allowed! He also has not had a chicken nugget nor a hot dog. He has had pieces of a bratwurst though. And he is a big fan of tater tots. Otherwise we do lots of fruits, some veggies, lean protein, beans, rice, bread, pasta. There are a couple of things I give him, which I probably shouldn't: animal crackers and yellow corn chips are included in that list, but otherwise we're doing pretty well on the nutrition aspect.

Habitual co sleeping went by the wayside around December. Little man seems to prefer his own space now, which is great because our bed is a haven for dust mites and cat dander. I try not to bring Milo to bed with us, but sometimes the siren call of my bed is too much to stand. On the (increasingly) rare occasions when he wakes up screaming, I do sometimes take him to bed with me. I then immediately regret it because Milo sees the cat and starts screaming cat, cat, while crawling over us to get to her. Limbs are everywhere, Prada is meowing (but refusing to move) and Milo thinks it is the BEST THING ever to have a cat in the bed and consequently none of us are sleeping.

It's funny the things we think are a good idea before we actually carry out the plan.

My New Muffin

Cooking posts, I told you! You might remember this muffin I made quite a bit when I was pregnant. While certainly edible, the recipe never quite created a fluffy bakery type of muffin. Plus, those two eggs aren't possible now with Milo's allergy. So when a nut, dairy and egg free morning glory muffin crossed my reader from the Food Allergy Mama recently, I thought I would give it a try. I'm glad I did! The muffin looks more tradtional muffin like and is quite tasty, but still not overly sweet. Original recipe is at the link above and my changes are below. All three of us have been enjoying these and I'll be trying more variations (adding in some wheat germ, trying coconut, adding in nuts since we don't have a problem with those and this summer subbing zucchini for the carrot).



145 Morning Muffin

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup non-dairy "milk" - I used hemp this time around

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 tblspn. pineapple juice from can (not syrup)

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. cinnamon

sprinkle nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup shredded carrots

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 can of cubed pineapple, chopped



Mix all ingredients together (whisk wet ingredients first and then incorporate dry ingredients; adding fruits last). Bake in preheated 350 oven for 20 minutes.

Let's Talk Cooking

It has been at least several weeks since I have posted any type of recipes on here. Lest you think I'm not cooking, here is a recent favorite dish we've been eating quite a bit lately and are having for dinner again tonight. We've been doing a fairly good job of planning a menu for the week and sticking to it, which is such a better way to go than the constant what's for dinner question.


I'll need to switch my cooking over to spring / summer flavors soon, but in the meantime there should be a couple of cool days to enjoy this yummy roasted chicken dish.


Roasted Curry Chicken With Vegetables

1 package boneless, skinless chicken thighs*

2 sweet potatoes

1 large baking potato

1/2 onion

3 or 4 carrots

1/2 head of cauliflower

Curry seasoning (not paste)

Salt and pepper to taste

Olive oil


After cleaning the chicken and all the veggies, throw everything into a large baking dish. Drizzle with a healthy portion of olive oil. Sprinkle liberally or to taste with curry, salt and pepper. Bake in preheated oven at 400 for about 30 - 40 minutes, stirring about half way through and adding some chicken broth if anything is sticking.



*Note: I suppose you could do this with chicken breasts, but the dark meat of the thighs adds more flavor and stands up better to the high cooking temp. I'm a recent convert to thigh meat. It doesn't add that much fat or calories, adds more flavor and is less expensive than breasts.

Allergy Talk and More Reading

In my stack of books to get through (which is going pretty well, actually), there lurked a book I never would have read a year ago. The Unhealthy Truth:How Our Food is Making Us Sick and What We Can do About It is a book about the food supply and the increase in food allergies among children. I wouldn't have read this book a few years back because, honestly I didn't really buy into the whole food allergy thing. This is certainly a bias I have picked up from my family where we believe you prepare a balanced and nourishing meal and then you enjoy it. End of story. Reading labels and wondering how individual ingredients might affect certain family members doesn't enter the picture, it never needed to.

Then I had a baby who would spit up after every feeding. The weekend of his baptism, he had suspiciously red cheeks and a rash that didn't really improve over the next several months. Eventually we found out that Milo is allergic to dairy, eggs and most likely sesame. We're probably missing something else, too, because while the spitting up has stopped, the rashiness continues.

Now I read labels and I refuse some of my favorite foods. I've started to eat pizza without the cheese, which is surprisingly good. My Dad is learning to make fresh pasta without the egg. We're all slowly learning to deal with the food allergy, while hoping that Milo will be one of the majority of children who grow out of their early allergies.

This is all background to the perspective I went into when reading The Unhealthy Truth. The book is told in the first person of a stay at home who discovers her daughter has an egg allergy. She then goes on a research journey and ends up at her own theory of what is causing the increase in allergy (in her view GMO foods). Keep in mind I read the Michael Pollan books a few years back, so I already know our food supply is beyond messed up. This was the first thing that really irritated me about the book, the author seemed to have no clue about the current food supply issues. So she spends a lot of the book revealing some of the problems with the food supply using an excessive amount of exclamation points. I just didn't buy she really had no idea that feeding her kids blue yogurt was somehow not a natural thing to do.

The other thing I didn't like about the book is that the author is all over the place in terms of what the problems might be: she starts with a thorough investigation of the research concerning soy (this was the best part of the book in my opinion) and then moves on to what happens in the GMO process and why there could be problems with it (another strong point of the book). From there, though, she moves on to artificial colorings. Which I agree, best to stay away from, but she didn't really clearly connect this to the allergy topic.

If you read the book (and in spite of how negative this review seems, I do hope you read it), do yourself a favor and stop before you get to the section about putting her suggestions to use in your kitchen. Her suggestions focus on swapping out the colored goldfish crackers for the white cheddar ones. Probably not going to make a big enough difference. I do like her suggestion of crafting a family's diet to include 80% "good" and 20% "bad" foods, but I still bristle against labeling food good or bad.

All in all, this was a good read and it certainly does bring up some good points. I do believe we're in the midst of an allergy epidemic, I just don't know what is causing it or what I can do about it. To begin with, I'll be ordering Milo a vegan cake for his birthday next week.

Super Fudge

Do you remember several years ago when Rachel Ray went on Oprah's Christmas episode and made five minute fudge? This was back when Rachel didn't have her own talk show. She went on Oprah with this fudge recipe (that actually came off the back of a sweetened condensed milk can) and suddenly you couldn't throw mistletoe that Christmas without it hitting a pan of the fudge. Everyone made that fudge and it was the hit of many an office gathering I am sure.

Well, everyone, except me made that fudge. I didn't make the fudge because it was everywhere and I could eat my fill of it without dirtying a pot. This year though, I have no office to go to and eat free treats so I am left to making my own. Five minute fudge I can fit in during nap time and it tastes delicious.

Although it is easily found on the Internet, here is the recipe:

18 ounces or three cups of chocolate chips (the big bag - I only had the small bag so I added some Hershey's kisses to make up the difference)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1.5 teaspoons of vanilla extract
Whatever add-ins you like in fudge - I used walnuts
salt

Over low heat, melt the chocolate and the milk together. Once melted, stir in salt and add-ins. Take off heat and stir in extract. Work quickly to pour the mixture into a pan lined with wax paper. Let chill to set in the fridge for about 2 hours.

Enjoy!

Menu Planning

In the last several weeks, I've started planning out what we're having for dinner in advance. While some of you might think this is a no-brainer, this has revolutionized life in our house (okay, there is some hyperbole in that sentence, but menu planning has made life easier). When I was working, Chris and I would send e-mails back and forth toward the end of the day trying to figure out what dinner was going to be and who was going to stop at the store. This was not an efficient system. After I stopped working, things were marginally better, but still the question of what we would be eating that night often loomed large. When there isn't a plan, it is very easy to call Lavash for take out of delicious lamb kebab sandwiches and hummus.

So I have started listing out the days of the week, taking into account what nights we have plans and starting from there. Here is the menu last week as a sample:
Monday: baked mahi mahi, roasted brussel sprouts
Tuesday: lentil soup
Wednesday: eggplant curry and brown rice
Thursday: Chipotle
Friday: -
Saturday: pizza night
Sunday: dinner with my parents

As you can see, the menu is a work in progress. I usually make a batch of soup on Tuesday so leftovers can be eaten at lunch through the week. Thursday night is swim night, so we usually pick up dinner on the way home. And by Friday, I typically am out of ideas and don't want to cook.

Having a set menu has saved me from ordering carry out several times. If I know what I am to be cooking and have the ingredients on hand, it seems silly to not prepare the dish. I tend to cook with few ingredients, but getting to the store is sometimes a challenge. I also need to time the grocery trip with when the fresh ingredients need to be used. Monday's dinner last week should have been later in the week and further from the grocery trip because the fish and veggie were both frozen and the prep ingredients were shelf stable.

So this whole menu planning thing is a work in progress, but we're getting there.

Just for the fun of it, here is this week's menu:
Monday - dinner at parents
Tuesday - minestrone soup
Wednesday - crock pot roast with sweet potatoes
Thursday - carry out or leftovers
Friday - stuffed shells
Saturday - pizza night
Sunday - dinner with parents

Now if I can just get to the store...

Currently Reading

If you took a peek at my nightstand these days you would see the latest hot novel (although I did find time to race through The Lost Symbol last month) and back copies of Yoga Journal have been covered up with parenting books. Specifically parenting books on sleeping. I've been getting these out of the library because 1) budget reasons, 2) each one is slightly different but has the same general ideas and 3) I don't want these sitting on a shelf in 5 years reminding me of this phase. Interestingly there is always a waiting list at the library for these types of books. It makes me feel good there are other sleep deprived parents out there who are looking for the magic cure for non-sleeping tots.

One parenting type book, although not about sleeping (I needed a break) that I recently read and really enjoyed was Hungry Monkey. It's written by a SAHD (stay at home dad) who loves to cook and is making it a mission to have his little girl love food as much as he does. Much like Julie and Julia, this book falls into the category of I wish I would have thought of it first, but since I didn't I'm so glad I'm along for the ride. Hungry Monkey was light and entertaining with plenty of intrigue for the foodie. I've come to realize that when writing about one's child, no one is going to think they are quite as special as you yourself do, and this was certainly the case for this book, also. However, Iris (the little girl) does seem cute and is an engaging "character" foil for her gungho cooking father. Plus there are some good recipes I want to try.

Chris didn't get a chance to read it before it was due back at the library, so we may just buy this one. I wouldn't mind having it on the shelf in 5 years as I also hope to have an adventurous eater (who by the grace of God and possibly with the help of Ferber is sleeping through the night).