Lordy, what a busy week! Between running around, huge cleaning projects, cars being unreliable, prepping for parties and outings, going on field trips, making Halloween costumes, parent-teacher conferences, painting the cat green (okay, Corrie helped with that), and various alarms in the night, it was, lordy, a busy week. Here’s what we had:
SATURDAY
Aldi pizza
The kids had pizza at home while Damien and I went to our college reunion!
Great food, great company. Check out the centerpiece on our table:
Kyra, there was a chapter all about you.
For those who were with us at TMC, here is a somewhat blurry pic of the guests of honor:
Ms. Enos was there, too, but she will murder me if I post the truly amazing photo I got of her talking about being the token WASP.
***
SUNDAY
Chicken thighs with fall vegetables, ice cream sundaes
A very, very fine fall dish from Damn Delicious, and a true one-pan dish (not “cook eleven things separately using every pot and pan you own and then put it all together in one pan, ta-dah!”).
I guiltily brought out the jar of “Italian Seasoning” I bought for a dollar. It has all the stuff I was planning to put on the chicken anyway. It’s like one of those packets with the matching birthday candles, streamers, balloons, plates, cups, and forks all in one. It makes you a bad person! I don’t know why.
Anyway, you cut up all the veg, drag ’em around in a simple sauce, lay them chicken thighs on top, sprinkle a little Bad Person Spice on the skins, and cook it up all together. It’s delicious and beautiful, and it’s easy for people to pick out the veg they don’t like.
I made too much, and we had tons of leftovers.
***
MONDAY
Pulled pork on onion rolls, chips
I tried using apple cider for the pulled pork in the Crock Pot, plus a quartered onion, some minced garlic, salt, and pepper. Not impressed. It tasted fine, just bland. Damien put pickled peppers on his, which was a good idea.
On Monday, we went to an apple orchard with the Girl Scouts, where we learned that, during Prohibition, FBI agents burned countless orchards to prevent the making of hard cider, and the country lost more than a thousand varieties of apples! Just gone! I know they were not apples for eating, but still! The bastards. Anyway, I was very impressed by how many heirloom varieties they had at this place. Some of them tasted more like pear or banana, some were kind of bready, some were like nectar. Apples are amazing.
I made too much pork, and we had tons of leftovers.
***
TUESDAY
Spaghetti with turkey pesto meatballs
Ground turkey was on sale, so I got 6.5 pounds of it, to which I added:
7 eggs
3.5 cups breadcrumbs
1/3 c minced garlic
3 Tbs Italian seasoning
1 Tbs salt
1 c parmesan
and a little jar of pesto sauce I found, probably 6-7 ounces. I cooked them in a 400 oven for half an hour or so
then put them in a pot with jarred tomato sauce. Is there anything finer than spaghetti with meatballs?
Actually, yes. The meatballs could have been beef and pork. Turkey just isn’t my favorite. It never feels like it’s completely cooked, and it needs so much help to taste like anything. They are lighter, though, so you don’t feel so bogged down afterward. Next time I try this, I’ll buy more pesto.
I made too much, and we had tons of leftovers.
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WEDNESDAY
Oven roasted pork ribs, lazy pierogies on noodles
Tried out a new side dish suggested by my friend Anne. I cut cabbage into ribbons and fried it up with a ton of butter, plus chopped onions and sliced crimini mushrooms. (This is how it looked after just a bit of cooking.)
I let it cook for a long time, maybe longer than 40 minutes, until it was tender, then added salt and pepper and some paprika.
We ate this over buttered egg noodles.
I liked it better than anyone else did. I don’t think it quite deserves the name “pierogies,” even qualified with “lazy” but it was flavorful, and vegetablish. I had a premonition and only used half a head of cabbage, and sure enough, there were still leftovers. Which I ate cold for breakfast. I cant help it; I have a cabbage deficiency.
I made too much pork, and we had tons of leftovers.
***
THURSDAY
Pizza, taquitos, roast chicken with fall vegetables, pork ribs, meatballs, and noodles
It was supposed to be sausage and mushroom omelettes, but things got away from me, and suddenly it was almost seven o’clock. Luckily, we had tons of leftovers, so I heated everything up and then added some silly food from the freezer.
The roasted fall vegetables really benefitted from sitting in the fridge all week and thinking about accepting balsamic vinegar as their lord and savior.
***
FRIDAY
Mac and cheese for the kiddos, I think, and I also bought 160 pieces of candy and a cubic yard of potato chips for a Stranger Things party.
D and I, however, are going out for our anniversary (20th! We did a podcast on the actual day, which was Wednesday. You can hear it here for free). I checked out the menu ahead of time, and one of the appetizers includes wild boar sausages. I mean, I’m not made out of stone.
***
Terra Cotta army photo: CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=672042
I have found adding a ton of Worcestershire sauce to ground turkey helps it taste like real food. (Like 5 TB to 2 1/2 lbs. ground turkey!)
Hey, you two look fabulous!
I have an easy and scrumptious recipe for Hawaiian Pulled Pork (from my friend from Hawaii).
1 large pork butt/shoulder (or 5# chicken quarters)
4Tbls Liquid Smoke (found in every grocery store, prob in spice aisle)
Sea Salt
Put meat in crock pot with liquid smoke and salt on top. Cook 8-10 hours on high (that’s what I have written down, but seems like low is the 10 hour setting).
Shred with forks. Serve over rice or with BBQ sauce as sandwiches.
One pan dish saved to my “Simcha Recipes” Pinterest board 😀
If you have a cabbage deficiency, have you made unstuffed cabbage? I have made it successfully in both crock pot and instant pot. Basically chopped cabbage, friend ground beef or turkey, canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, chopped onions and a few seasonings. You mentioned jarred pesto–my Aldi has some but I think the Trader Joe’s version is better (if you have a TJ).
“Tons of leftovers” was the story of my life after the kids starting leaving home. Now with two still here, I’ve finally have come to grips with accurate serving sizes. (It took awhile.) Yes, brownies cooked in an 8 x 8 pan is sufficient. No one will starve if I use only half a package of pasta. One small roasted chicken will still yield leftovers for (one) chicken pie the next day. Leftovers are good, but days’ worth of leftovers usually end up unrecognizable in the back of the refrigerator and my frugality guilt-o-meter goes berserk.
I remember my MIL telling me how hard it was to deal with leftovers after my husband (her youngest son) left home; suddenly she had leftovers that lasted through the next day! I’m beginning to see the glimmerings of this phenomenon, especially when we have pork chops (for some reason they adore pork chops). But it doesn’t happen with pasta. The same container of pasta can sit, all forlorn, for days until I deem it not safe to eat and toss it. They do try to make a dent in it, I’ll give them that, but pasta seems to just sit in the fridge and GROW. Not so with meat.
The chicken thighs with autumn vegetable recipe looked so good that I saved it with plans to actually give it a try. I had a bit of a culture shock though when I read that those 8 thighs were supposed to be four servings. I grew up in a large family, and I don’t think my mom ever served more than one piece of chicken per serving.
I have culture shock too when I read that 8 drumsticks or thighs are four servings; I rarely have less than three and husband would think he’s in deep trouble if I gave him less than four… Maybe Australian chickens are smaller? If Budget Bytes says 4 servings, we have almost no leftovers (2 adults, one toddler)
Ha, ha! My mom was the master of stretching a single pound of hamburger to feed 10 people.
We have six in the family, two of those will not eat chicken drumsticks, and I roasted 22 drumsticks Monday for dinner. My kids would weep (those who eat meat) if I expected them to have only one or two drumsticks.
Yes, cabbage here sells for 39 cents per pound this time of year. Practically free. I need to use it more so I will try this recipe. I like the budget bytes one you’ve posted too.
Happy Anniversary! You’re an adorable couple.
This week went pretty well, all things considered. Monday, I went to the store and found to my happy surprise that chicken was massively on sale, so chicken drumsticks it was for dinner. Melt a ton of butter, mix in seasoned salt, dredge the chicken, and bake. Pioneer Woman says you can bake these at 400 for half an hour, but she is a lying liar who lies. I always have to bake them for an hour before they’re sufficiently done and I’m sure I’m not serving Salmonella Special. Maybe her fancy celebrity oven is hotter than mine, I don’t know. Served them with mashed potatoes that I forgot to salt, coleslaw and crinkle cut carrots from the freezer.
Tuesday was leftovers (we did have some), or grilled cheese and soup.
Wednesday we took the kids to Chik Fil A before hunting our annual Halloween candy; we like to take the kids with us, since they know what kids like and we figure whatever we’re not giving out, they’ll be eating eventually. Target had good deals.
Thursday was hot dogs and hamburgers, oven baked potato wedges (I still can’t sufficiently salt those either), coleslaw, and fruit. Candy corn for dessert.
Friday: pasta night and breadsticks.
“a lying liar who lies,” lol! I had the same problem with those garlic chicken thighs Simcha posted before. I had to double the baking time and luckily it wasn’t a night where I was already late getting supper on the table.
I may have PTUCD (Post-Traumatic-Undercooked-Chicken-Disorder). Once I tried a Laurie Colwin recipe for a whole roasted chicken, and at the time the recipe said it SHOULD be done it was….not. Very pink and raw and everyone was hungry and it was horrible.
I should have known better than to not have a busy week since my due date isn’t until Sunday and so I ought to have run around rather than mostly staying home and wishing I were at the hospital instead. But there’s also a stomach bug going around, so I’m avoiding that, not just watching my pot (belly).
Sat: homemade pizza. A bit burnt, but husband and kids made it so no complaints from me.
Sun: hot dogs and brats with chili.
Mon: pasta with jarred red sauce or homemade white sauce. Why doesn’t everyone in the family like at least one of the sauces??? But they don’t so we always have both.
Tues: leftover hot dogs and brats
Wed: husband grilled chicken breast and potatoes since it was the last nice day for the grill for awhile. So good, and everyone actually likes the marinade.
Thurs: taco casserole
Fri: probably salmon bake with rice and muffins.
Anna, I’m praying for you to have a quick, safe and easy delivery!
Just not too quick, K? 🙂
Thank you! And yes to the “not *too* quick” though no brother-in-law staying here now, so it wouldn’t be as bad. 😀 Last week I was all antsy and kept thinking “maybe today!” but this week I’ve gotten to the “no hope, pregnancy is eternal” stage and I’m pretty sure it’ll never happen…
Well, that’s a sure sign you’re almost there. 🙂
Pregnancy minutes in the last month are an hour each!
Go to the hospital sooner than later, just cruise around shamelessly in your bathrobe and admire the little ones in the nursery. Positive endorphins! Then hang out in their shower w/ music as soon as it starts to hurt! The warm water never ends. I was too polite and got out too soon w/ my little girl. I should have stayed until she was crowning. No more –at least half of a forehead!
How exciting! Can’t wait to hear what you name the baby!!!
I mean when u are in actual labor…ha!
haha, I knew what you meant, but it also sounds tempting just as stated. 😀 I have thought on occasion how nice it will be to get a night’s sleep at the hospital with none of the others waking me up. All the crazy Halloween decor everywhere has made my sensitive ones more nightmare-prone than usual.
I think we’ve settled on names, but really it’s that I’m 100% sold on the girl name and he’s kind of “well, maybe that wouldn’t be too bad” and we’re the reverse on the boy name, so it’s not so settled as it seems it should be by now. So I can’t wait to hear what we name baby too! And I’m sure my mom is biting her nails in apprehension…
Cabbage sounds so good. We hardly ever make cabbage. And when we do, we all go,”how come we don’t eat more cabbage?” But still we don’t.
Two of my kids adore coleslaw. So because I love them (and because i like coleslaw, too), I pick up a package of the coleslaw mix, which probably makes me a Bad Person because i don’t feel like grating my own carrots and cabbage, and mix it up for them once or twice a week.