Hi there!

Is anyone still out there? I'm here. I took a couple of weeks off of blogging to decide how to continue. We are still eating real food with very few pre-packaged foods. I just got bogged down with the terribly tedious task of blogging. How do these people write in their blogs every day?!

Honestly, I find it hard to sit down for a few minutes every day to put my thoughts down. When it gets to be a pain in the arse to keep up with I tend slack off. I think I might have figured out a way to post my meals without running into this problem. I think instead of posting daily and feeling compelled to write each step out I am going to go to a once a week post with a wrap up of our meals. If there is something spectacular then I can elaborate but I think that will be easier for me and less boring for you, the reader.

So, keep watching. I haven't decided if I'm going to post Saturday or Sunday. It will be one of those days because like it or not, school is starting back up and I'm going to be busy through the week. This should also prove interesting with meal planning and prep.

I hope everyone out there is doing great and I'll see you in a few days!

Day Seventy-four--Steak with Whiskey Cream Sauce

Wooohooo, this was a great dinner. It was fairly easy to make, but some planning and organization was needed. Here's what we had:

Steak with whiskey cream sauce, perogies and green beans with a balsamic glaze

Ok, so here's how it went down. Let's start with the perogies. We've been missing perogies. I just can't buy them anymore because they aren't organic. They are full of preservatives and I just can't do it. Tim's cousin Emily posted last week that she had made some and they were successful so I bummed the recipe off of her and made them. I made the dough first thing in the morning so it could chill and be easy to work with. After lunch I boiled the potatoes and sauted onions. This all got mashed together with some fresh grated cheese. This was my filling. I rolled out the dough and made circles with a cup.

Then I put a little bit of filling in the each circle and folded the circle over, crimping it closed with a fork. I was worried that the dough would tear and the filling would ooze out, but it was really forgiving and was a lot of fun to work with.

Once they were all done, I put them in the freezer so they would be easy to work with when it came time to cook them. Then I worked on the green beans. I snipped the ends of them and quick boiled them. Then I made the glaze. It involved a couple of pieces of bacon. After the bacon is cooked, I fried up a chopped onion in the grease. Then I added a tiny bit of brown sugar and some balsamic vinegar. It bubbled and got thick. This is when I poured it over the green beans. I think it was supposed to be served warm, but I wanted a cold green bean salad so I put it in the fridge until dinner.

Fast forward to dinner time. I made the whiskey cream sauce first. Again, it was really easy to do and went really fast. It was onions cooked in a little butter and then some whiskey added to it. Stand back when you pour the whiskey in. Whew. Then you are supposed to add beef broth, but I didn't have any so I used mushroom broth. Then you are supposed to add cream but I only had half n half. It all worked out and was delicious. All I had left to do was cook the rib eye steaks. I cooked two of them and really only needed to cook one of them. The kids didn't eat the steak and Tim and I ended up splitting one of them. I have one steak left over in my refrigerator right now.

This dinner was a great dinner. The meat was so tender and the cream sauce on top was so delicious. We were all fighting over the green beans and the perogies were an ultimate success. In fact, I had so much filling left over that I have dough in the fridge again so we can make perogies for lunch again. I'm watching a neighborhood friend this week and I figured the kids would enjoy something different from peanut butter one day. Plus, it's a fun project for them to build their own perogies.

I think that is all I have for now. I need to work on menus for next week and get my shopping list ready. I'm hoping our hellish heat wave will be over.

Day Seventy-three--Chana Masala

I know, I know. I've been slacking, not lazy, just slacking. We made a spur of the moment decision to drive over to NY Sunday afternoon. It was mostly because we couldn't figure out what to have for dinner and Tim's mom had called earlier and invited us over for a bbq over there. We spent the afternoon outside in the little blowup pool in the backyard and then we debated about what we wanted to have for the 4th. Nobody wanted to venture to the store and deal with the holiday crowds so at 4:3o we just piled everyone into the car and drove three hours.

We had some pretty amazing food waiting for us though. I wish I had thought to take a picture but honestly, we were so hungry that taking a picture was an afterthought. For food we had steamed clams (in a wine sauce), burgers, hot dogs, sweet potato salad, coleslaw, pasta salad, a corn salad, cider baked beans, and I'm pretty sure there was other stuff too. It was delicious. It was washed down with some of Ed's home brew. The beer was pretty good too. It was all enjoyed on the back deck and thankfully the temps had cooled from the 99 it was when we were out in the yard.

We came home Monday afternoon and because I still hadn't been food shopping and we were tired (and slightly lazy) we stopped at Wegmans and picked up subs for dinner. Tuesday night we were back on track. I had some chick peas in the cupboard so I made some channa masala. I made it in the afternoon so when Tim got home I could run and do food shopping before he left for aikido.

Chana Masala

This is a favorite go-to dinner for us. It's easy to make and it's full of flavor. If I'm careful with how much red pepper flakes I put in it then Aidan will eat it too. We ate this on top of brown rice and there was enough left over for Tim to take a big container of it to work with him and I have a container for my lunch too. Yay.

The rest of the week should be good. I'm kind of excited for tonight's dinner. I'm trying something new and I hope it works out. We're moving our pizza night up one night because Friday night we head to NY again for the weekend. I'll be sure to take pictures this time. =) Until later, stay cool!

Day Seventy-two--Couscous salad of sorts

Hello all. Sorry for the brief non-posting. It was just too much to keep up with between camp with the kids, keeping the house clean, the laundry done and everything. We did eat real food in the meantime. Wednesday we had eggs in the basket. Local bread with local eggs. A nice quick and easy dinner. Thursday we had smoothies. Yup. That was it. Everyone was so hot and tired that we didn't really want to eat all that much. Another easy meal. Friday was our normal pizza night. I was smart enough to make my pizza dough first thing in the morning so that I didn't have to worry about making it when we got home just after 4. I didn't photo any of these meals. I just didn't feel like it.

Things are pretty much back to normal now. Last night I made one of the recipes we were supposed to have on Wednesday night. I haven't had a chance to think about menus or shopping lists this week so I am happy to have a couple of meals that are easy "go-to" recipes for this weekend. Last night's recipe was tasty. It was easy and quick to put together. It's another recipe from the recent Everyday Food magazine.

Couscous, Black Bean, Corn and Mushroom salad

This recipe used Israeli couscous, which I had in the cupboard. Sadly, I used the rest of it in this dish and I didn't see it at Wegmans when I went last time. I'm hoping I can find it again because I really like the texture of it. I browned the couscous first and then added water and brought it to a boil and then it simmered while I finished getting rest of the things ready. I cooked the mushrooms in a little bit of olive oil. I pulled the mushrooms out of the pan and then cooked some corn with some green onions. Then this went in the bowl with the mushrooms. By this time the couscous was done and it went in the bowl too. Then I just squeezed two limes on top of it all and fluffed it all up.

Tim and I loved it. Connor liked it after he pulled all of the mushrooms out of it. Aidan had one bite and decided that he didn't like it. I think I'll make it again just to leave in the fridge for a quick lunch.

That is all I have for now. I suppose I'm going to go make up a menu for next week. We're supposed to be in the mid-90s all week. No baking around here, well except for Friday pizza, but I'm hoping the temps will normalize by then.