Oh, I had such high hopes for this week. A new recipe and another recipe to redeem a past failure. What could go wrong?
Bear but a touch of my hand, and you will be upheld in more more this. But not much more.
SATURDAY
Frozen pizzas
I think we were Christmas shopping on Saturday. I remember thinking fervently, “Oh, thank goodness we bought those pizzas, because we were out shopping all day.”
SUNDAY
Hamburgers, chips
I think we were still Christmas shopping? Or making chocolate caramel almonds, something exhausting. I had to make a separate trip out to the store to get more sprinkles.
MONDAY
Hot dogs, spicy fries, corn
Maybe you remember the dreadful chicken salsa verde slop I made last week. This was where my high hopes began. When I make terrible food, I like to redeem myself by remaking it better next time; so I found an actual recipe. Chicken, cream cheese, salsa verde, garlic, cumin; serve with cilantro, pepper jack, avocados, and sour cream. Can’t miss.
Well, the avocados weren’t anywhere near ripe on Monday, so we had hot dogs. Which was good, because we had spent a lot of time shopping on Monday.
TUESDAY
Asian peanut pork on noodles
Here’s a recipe I’ve been drooling over for a while, from A Year of Slow Cooking: Asian peanut butter pork. It was so easy! It smelled so wonderful all day! At this point in the week, I was slow cookers’ greatest fan. Not only had I slapped together this magnificent meal, we still had that salsa verde feast coming up later in the week. Boy oh boy oh boy. We had a lot of shopping to do, and there’s nothing like coming home to a hot meal after shopping all afternoon, and boy did this one smell good.
The peanut pork was. . . fine. I don’t know. It tasted exactly like what it was. I thought the lime and peanut combination was fine. The natural crunchiness of the peanut garnish added some natural crunchiness. And that was the extent of it.
Maybe I overcooked it, or used the wrong cut of meat. I was under the impression that it was impossible to overcook things in the slow cooker, because the slow cooker is in charge, but maybe I am wrong.
WEDNESDAY
Scrambled eggs, sausages, grits
On Wednesday, I was pretty hot to get that salsa verde thing going, especially since I knew we had a big day of shopping ahead of us, and I would want to come home and have a really tasty meal waiting. READY, AVOCADOS?
Nope. Not ready. Scrambled eggs it is.
THURSDAY
Creamy chicken nachos(?)
I decided that time and tide could wait for no avocados. I assembled the rest of my ingredients, and GUESS WHAT?
I never bought salsa verde.
I don’t even want to tell you how many supermarkets I had visited, and at no point at all did I buy salsa verde. I probably waltzed past various salsa verde aisles thirty or forty times this week. Probably that salsa sat there, staring through the curved window of their bottle homes in mute disbelief as I passed again and again, oblivious as a fruit fly to my now two-week-old obligation to stop and pick up a few jars of salsa verde.
So I looked up a whole other recipe using the ingredients I did have, mostly. It called for chicken, ranch dressing mix, cream cheese, and bacon. I figured any idiot could throw together something resembling ranch dressing mix, and as for the bacon, well, I had bought six boxes of ready-cooked bacon for Vincent de Paul, a decision I do not wish to discuss with anyone. My husband offered to run to the store to pick up ranch dressing mix, but I said, “No, no, that’s crazy! We’ve been shopping so many times this week! I can’t stand to buy even one more thing! I can do this! It will be good!”
So it cooked all day, and it smelled pretty nice; but at this point, I was starting to get the message that it was possible I was some kind of idiot who had nothing but terrible ideas poorly executed. So when it came to adding poor’s stolen bacon, a little warning bell went off in my head, saying, “Ding ding ding! This is terrible food, so please don’t waste even terrible bacon in it!” So I didn’t, and it was. Terrible food. Well, I ate it. I had thrown half a jar of jalapeno peppers into one pot, which made that portion terrible, but peppery.
FRIDAY
Tuna noodle
I . . . I have to stop at the store. We don’t have any noodles.
Aww! I’ve made that very peanut-butter pork recipe and wish I had any bright ideas for troubleshooting! I don’t, though. It’s one of my favorites on her site, but if it’s any consolation, I still don’t know if it was life-changing when I’ve made it, either.
I have recently discovered this blog — I have four kids ages 7 and under and am “meal planning” today — and just wanted to say thanks for the dinner posts.
That was all so funny, and so heartening for dinner-makers!
Also, I love to imagine Jesus’ face as he says, “I was hungry, and you fed me pre-cooked bacon.”
This is an exhausting read ya,ll! You are so good in the kitchen. I’m old so here is what I’m doing. I’m tossing a spiral ham into the oven,, making a potato casserole [sour cream, potato frozen shreds, butter, cream of chicken soup, ummm, crushed corn flakes for the topping with butter a green bean casserole and canned rolls. I hang my head in shame after reading all you go through. Merry Christmas…..Violet
That potato casserole is pretty much what my family makes for Christmas too; the recipe we use came from the funeral luncheon committee at some family member’s parish, so someone always has to bring “funeral potatoes” to eat at Christmas dinner.
Yeah, that sounds like my week, as far as the errands go.
Monday: Wanted to make Mexican chicken in the crockpot. Desperately hunt for wee envelope of taco mix I know I bought on Friday. Nowhere to be found. Decide any idiot can mix up taco seasoning, and any idiot can–if said idiot had chili powder in her spice cabinet, which she does not. End up making pork chops on Monday and going to the store Tuesday for taco seasoning and also the turkey that the family decided they wanted for Christmas dinner. We’re having Thanksgiving dinner all over again, apparently.
Tuesday: Taco chicken meat, tortillas, sour cream, and I think I threw some kind of fruit at them. Was going to make Spanish rice but the five year old cried at me that he wanted “white rice” so I made white rice and then he gagged on it. Huh.
Wednesday: Burgers or hot dogs and chips. Deep fried potatoes are still a vegetable, right?
Thursday: Pasta and some frozen mixed vegetables, which about 2/3 of the family ate. I made cranberry sauce today, too.
Friday: tonight was soup and buttered bread and fruit, because tomorrow I am cooking Thanksgiving Dinner Redux and must muster all my strength for that. I made more cranberry sauce today because i suffer from FOROOCS–Fear Of Running Out Of Cranberry Sauce.
That sounds like how I do a lot of my shopping.
Sat: leftover brisket from my mom’s bunko group and leftover salmon from Fri.
Sun: waffles, eggs
Mon: chili, cinnamon rolls
Tues: cranberry pork loin, oven-roasted potatoes and broccoli. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love my dutch oven because I can’t ruin a company dinner when I use it, no matter how many times I vary the oven temp to cook other things at the same time.
Wed: spaghetti, peas, nephew’s b-day cake
Thur: went to confession, so celebratory 5 Guys cheeseburgers
Fri: leftover pork, even though it’s Friday, but there’s no other time to use it, so it’s better not to waste, right? I got a bag of “power veggies” (that’s what the label says) full of things I don’t like, but that someone told me she didn’t like either except oven-roasted, so I’m trying it. Hoping that husband’s “Kale?!?!” comment doesn’t turn out to be how it tastes.