NaBloPoMo Day 21: Food

We tried out our first recipe that I found on Pinterest the other day. It was Cheese and Chicken Stuffed Shells. It turned out really good and the entire family enjoyed it. The next time I make it, however, I plan on making a couple changes. Maybe it's because this is a Weight Watchers recipe, but it didn't call for nearly enough sauce. It said to use 1 1/2 cups of sauce and I used 2 1/2 and plan on using 3 1/2 - 4 1/2 cups of sauce next time. Also, I think the chicken was lost in the rest of the flavors. I'm going to try Italian sausage next time. Making these substitutions/additions probably takes it out of the running for being a Weight Watchers recipe. I don't know since I'm not familiar with that program. But it was a good recipe and will be excellent with my modifications.

Tonight we're trying Slow Cooker French Dip Sandwiches. It smells so outrageously good in my house right now that I want to gnaw off my own hand. I'm mean, seriously! If this turns out to taste half as good as it smells, it will be a winner recipe. And it couldn't be easier since all I had to do was put everything in the crockpot and turn it on. Easy peasy. I don't know how I'm going to last another two hours until the meat is ready to eat.

What’s for Dinner?

We’re busy this year. BUSY. The Mister and I both started the fall semester Tuesday. We’re only taking two classes a piece this semester but add jobs, kids, and homeschooling to that and it’s more than enough. So, we came up with a way to balance out the home life stuff and I had to share because I’m excited about it, lol.

Mondays and Wednesdays, dinner is my responsibility. Tuesdays and Thursdays, dinner is the Mister’s responsibility. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will be either take out, leftovers, or a joint collaboration. I LOVE IT!! And today was the first day the Mister cooked dinner, lol.

He made chicken fajitas, nachos, and rice. It was great. He could have made boiled hotdogs and I would have been happy so long as I didn’t have to come up with the idea and cook it.

I’m sick to death of dinner. Dinner sucks. By the end of the day after working, doing homework, and homeschooling the youngest, I could really care less what we have for dinner. Have a sandwich, bowl of cereal or a handful of chips for all I care. Seriously. But I think this will make me more interested in cooking again. I used to like to cook but cooking and eating your own food night after night gets old.

So, YAY!!

Keeping Busy

In addition to working two jobs, raising two kids, keeping house, blogging, reading, exercising, wand keeping up with my favorite TV shows, I’ve brought back out one of my old hobbies:  crocheting. Last night I got my sewing bag and decided to make something, namely two scarves. Why scarves?  Because they are easy and I get lost in the repetitiveness of the pattern. I needed something soothing. Sometimes I think I’m developing ADHD. The thought of sitting through a 2 hour movie and not doing anything else makes me feel a little panicky  I seriously have only sat through one entire movie without doing anything else once in the past year or so. Well, it’s been long enough that I don’t remember the movie that I watched before the one to which I’m referring. Even when I’m watching TV I’m checking my e-mail, Twitter, Google reader, FB, etc. I have to be doing at least two things at once. It’s really odd.Is anyone else like that? Cooking is about the only thing I do alone and that’s probably because I’m chopping, sautéing, boiling,  mixing, etc.,  all at the same time.

Speaking of cooking, last night for dinner we have Beef, Cheese, and Noodle Bake. It’s another of our favorite dishes and it was fantastic. I saved the leftovers for lunch today. Last week I baked two loaves of Pineapple Zucchini Bread. We ate one loaf over the course of the week and I froze the other for us to have this week. It’s an awesome bread. The loaf we thawed yesterday was just as moist and tasty as the fresh loaf we ate last week. And it’s not that bad for you. The Mister and I eat it for a snack as do the girls. They also like to have it for breakfast. We’re still going strong on the new eating right lifestyle

This morning, I ran for an hour on the elliptical. I only ran for 4.8 miles today but I still feel good about it. Yesterday I ran 5.1 miles in one hour. I’m sure I’ll be able to get up over five miles again by the end of the week.

Fed the Garbage Disposal

Last night’s dinner was a big bomb. I’m very much a recipe kinda person. Some of what I make starts out from a recipe and then is modified by me to make it tastier. Some of what I cook is straight up recipe. Lastly, a few dishes that I make I don’t use a recipe at all. One of those dishes is homemade macaroni and cheese with diced ham. How hard is boiling up some elbow noodles and melting some cheeses into it, right? Well, last night I decided to try a recipe for three cheese macaroni and cheese that I got from Cooking Light. One of the reasons I chose this dish is so that I could use their nutritional information rather than having to look it up on all my ingredients and then doing the math. It’s lazy but what can I say. Another reason is that their recipe called for gorgonzola cheese and we’ve never tried that variety of cheese before. Well, it was GROSS. The cheese sauce was really thin and then it started gooping altogether until it was pretty basically inedible. I know how to follow a recipe but the mistake still could have been mine. Who knows. My mac and cheese is always a huge hit with the family. I think this is a lesson learned in don’t mess with a good thing. We ended up dumping the entire pan (what a waste) down the garbage disposal and ordering a pizza. The only other thing I had to cook in the house was frozen solid chicken. Still, even after eating two slices of pepperoni, sausage, and mushroom pizza, I was 600+ calories under my daily allotted amount. Go me! I’ve lost 3.4 pounds this week so far.

To add to our somewhat shoddy evening, the Mister and I butted heads with the oldest child all night. Sometimes I just don’t know what gets into her. She’ll be 13 in July so I’m perfectly aware that this is only the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come. After her atrocious behavior last night, she has lost her phone, she’s grounded until Monday, and I’m making her clean out and organize the garage (She doesn’t know about the garage yet. Keep your ears tuned for yelling around 3:30 EST this afternoon, lol.)  I also got her up for school early this morning so that she could unload the dishwasher and wash the dishes that she didn’t wash last night. You know something they never tell you about being a parent? That punishments suck just as much for the parents as they do for the kids. Although, I did find it funny to watch her stomp around the kitchen this morning, heheh. I'm evil, I know. And you know what really sucks about this whole thing? She’s just like me. I have nobody to blame for her attitude but myself. In fact, my attitude was probably worse at her age, lol.

Food

Cooking is something that I enjoy on occasion. The conditions have to be just right:

1. The kitchen needs to be clean.


2. All of the necessary ingredients have to be available. You know. In the house.


3. I have to be cooking something that I like to eat.


4. I don't like cooking for picky eaters.


5. And I don't like being in a rush.

Also, I'm a recipe cook. I'm not the type of person that can glance around the pantry and fridge and make a wonderful meal out of what I see that sounds good together. I can follow a recipe like a champ though. I've never understood how people can be bad cooks if they have a recipe to follow, can read, and can measure. It boggles my mind. My sister comes from a long line of fantastic cooks. She, however, ruins microwave brownies.

Food that comes from a can, jar, or box, i.e., Hamburger Helper, Preggo spaghetti sauce, and the like isn't real cooking. There's nothing wrong with it. I occasionally use ready made ingredients like taco seasoning for instance, but I call that, "throwing dinner together".

Garlic. Garlic is good. It goes in almost any dish and it's really hard to use too much. However, adding tons of garlic to a dish doesn't automatically make it wonderful. There's someone that I know that thinks they can cook by putting random ingredients together, lots of garlic, and then call it a gourmet meal. It's not.

Leftovers. We don't do leftovers. Why? I have no idea. I put leftovers away in the fridge only to throw them out later once they start growing new things. Exceptions to this are tortilla soup, Mexican black bean chili, pasta, and occasionally a roast which I'll turn into stew. Things that don't reheat well: Potatoes...of any variety. They just taste nasty. Mac and cheese out of a box. The homemade kind tastes alright if you add a little milk or cream to it when you reheat. Steak. Turkey. I know a lot of people will probably disagree with me on this. I think that reheated Thanksgiving turkey tastes funny. Funny in a not good sorta way. Don't get me wrong. We put the leftovers to good use as sandwiches and I chop up a good part of the bird to go into a turkey pot pie (pie crust pre-made from Pilsbury. I don't do pie crust.). But just to reheat the meat with the sides is icky.

Breakfast for dinner. Ain't nothing wrong with that. In fact, I'm making breakfast burritos for dinner tonight which was part of the inspiration for this post. See. I'm making my own chorizo to go into them because chorizo is nowhere to be found outside of the southwest for some reason. And I make it from scratch and it's really good if I do say so myself. And I use tons of garlic.

The other part of the inspiration came from my lunch which was reheated southwest potato stew. The potatoes tasted gross but the stew part was really good.

As for desserts...How much would you pay for a slice (or the whole thing if you're of a mind) of this scrumptious apple cheesecake with streusel and caramel topping?