Tuesday Randomosity: Sleep Award Edition

I have done it! I have done the thing I always think I should do, and never do, which is to GET UP when I awaken in the middle of the night and do something more useful than lying awake, counting how many hours of sleep I could get if I fell asleep right then.

Lest you think I am no longer susceptible to the patterns of the past: I woke up at 3:00 a.m., almost on the dot, and then lay in bed/read soothing blog posts until 4:00, and then lay in bed in the dark, telling myself I should just GET UP ALREADY and start the day until 4:37. That’s when I finally Did The Thing and put on my glasses and came downstairs. I deserve a Sleep Award. Although, now that I think of it, a Sleep Award seems more appropriate for sleeping restfully through an entire eight-plus hours, so perhaps I’ll have to relinquish my claim.

In lieu of an award, I am drinking tea, as I do when I wake up. My stomach is a little uncomfortable with this idea – it thinks it is Sleeping Time, rather than Accepting Sustenance Time. It is also a little concerned about what time we will want lunch. 

If only the grocery store were open now, and I could get that over with! Oh well. I will blog about random nothings instead! 

• Carla has been having extra trouble getting to sleep lately. Firstly, I feel just terrible that she has apparently inherited my fraught relationship with sleep. She has had trouble falling asleep her entire eight-and-a-half years, and that doesn’t bode well for the remainder of her life, which I hope is very long. At least, I suppose, she seems to be able to maintain sleep once she gets there. While I occasionally have trouble getting to sleep, my main issue is staying asleep.
• Well, I suppose my brain is smoothing over the many, many times that Carla has come into my room at 3:00 or 4:00, or that I have awakened to learn that she had been awake for hours already. BUT, it seems less frequent than her troubles drifting off. The power of posting about something of the internet will immediately ensure that she wakes up at 3:00 every morning for the next month.
• The only thing that comes close to the frustration of not being able to fall asleep is the frustration of one’s CHILD not being able to fall asleep. Last night, my husband and I were watching the first episode of Sex Education and I kept hearing suspicious thumps coming from upstairs. It was quite windy outside, and my husband felt that the thumps might be exterior noises, while I was quite sure they were human. And then we had one of those mildly irritating conversations I imagine happen frequently in any longterm partnership, where he said, “Do you want to go check on her?” and I said “yes,” because I’d HEARD “Do you want ME to go check on her?” And then he had to correct my misperception and I had to glare at him briefly before I went to investigate the source of the thumps. 
• Thump source: Carla. Instead of reading quietly or thinking about sheep or doing deep breathing – all of which we have discussed AT LENGTH in regards to their soporific powers – she felt the best way to induce sleep was to get out of bed and gather some toys and play with them, in the bed. On the bed. Preposition the bed. Exasperation! Incredulity! How did she think this was a good way to get to sleep? And yet she seemed very sincere that she thought it would help. Trying to turn down the scold volume on my lecture, I removed the toys and reminded her of all the other options that we have discussed for helping lull our brains to sleep. Count backwards from 100. Count backwards by 5s from 1000. Imagine yourself, in great detail, walking along the route to somewhere you love. List 50 things you are grateful for. Go through the alphabet and name an animal beginning with each letter. Do some deep breathing. Read a book. Recite a poem over and over in your head. When I went back to check on her about 20 minutes later, she was fast asleep. Sometimes it seems like the BEST way to induce sleep is to scold her about it. Which seems… not right. 
• Carla mentioned to me that she cannot see pictures in her head, so the “walking along the route to somewhere you love” isn’t a viable option for her. I love that she’s so aware of what it’s like inside her head. I don’t see pictures in my head either, but I guess my internal travel writer is so descriptive that I can still make that option work. Or I can drum up a feeling of a place that is almost as vivid as an image. 
• Also, it is unfair of me to expect that she remember these techniques when I am terrible at remembering them myself! Only when I am DESPERATE for sleep do I recall most of these strategies. The one that I use most often – mentally reciting Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” until I fall asleep – sometimes doesn’t even occur to me in the middle of a 3:00 am wakeup. Instead, I turn to my phone, which almost certainly makes it HARDER for me to sleep. 
• There was supposed to be a secondly somewhere up there. I suppose you have forgotten about it as well. But on the off chance you were waiting on tenterhooks – “You did the ‘firstly,’ what’s the ‘secondly’? WHAT’S THE SECONDLY?” – I cannot remember. 
• I have finished my first book of poetry for the year. One of my 2022 aspirations is to read a poem every morning, and I have been keeping up with that so far. However, I may not have chosen the best book to start out the year. I selected a book at random and came up with The Seven Ages by Louise Gluck. She has an umlaut over the u in her surname; I don’t how to do that on my computer. I adore Louise’s poetry. (This makes it sound as though we are on a first-name basis, which we are not. I did meet her once, though. We went out to lunch and she is as fascinating as one hopes a famous poet would be.) But The Seven Ages is all about her contemplating her own death. That’s all fine and good, and it resonates, and I appreciate reading her thoughts from the perspective of being 50ish because I am nearing that age. But it was also a little depressing. Perhaps I will try a Billy Collins book next; I own two of his collections, but I don’t think I’ve ever read the poems; my impression is that they are lighter and sometimes attempt to be humorous.
• One of the Gluck poems has really stuck with me. It’s called “The Sensual World,” which, in my opinion, mis-implies what the poem is about or how to read it. But poems are very personal, so you do you, boo. Anyway, the poem is about how the world will grip you in startling and unpredictable and inescapable ways. There is this moment of exquisite beauty that the narrator recounts, in the kitchen of her grandmother. A tiny moment: a glass of juice; its taste; the way the light refracts through it. But it leads the narrator to offer an urgent warning about the trap that life has set for you: “you will never let go, you will never be satiated. / You will be damaged and scarred, you will continue to hunger. / Your body will age, you will continue to need. / You will want the earth, then more of the earth – / Sublime, indifferent, it is present, it will not respond. / It is encompassing, it will not minister. / Meaning, it will feed you, it will ravish you, / it will not keep you alive.” It makes my heart pound, it resonates so deeply. I am so familiar with those moments – of shocking beauty that flares suddenly out of the mundane, of intense love provoked by the smallest, most inconsequential thing (a kitten at the pet store, butting its head against your hand; a child seeing you in distress and trying to soothe you with the very techniques you use to soothe the child; an unexpected kindness from a stranger; a moment of private humor with a spouse; a child, asleep, with hands folded beneath the chin as though posed). And I know the exact feeling of wanting to clutch those things with both hands even as I know – we all know – they are not ours to keep. It is not our lot to hold them forever, but only for the short time we have on this plane of existence. You will never let go. It will not keep you alive.
• Yesterday, I experienced one of those moments of satisfaction/guilt that seem to be a hallmark of parenting. Carla was really anxious about returning to school (who knows why?!?! Is it the constant barrage of contradictory information, such as “Covid isn’t a big deal since you’re vaccinated; don’t worry too much, it probably won’t affect you too much if you get it” but also “make SURE you wear your mask and don’t breathe on anyone and for Todd’s sake, please don’t let anyone breathe on you!” Is it the fact that she hasn’t been in school for a month? Is it the fact that “school” could mean home/not home at any given time?) so I had to bribe her to even get her out the door yesterday morning. The bribe is not the satisfaction/guilt part, although perhaps it should be; it worked. I bribed her with a chocolate chip cookie for dessert (we are reverting to a “desserts on weekends” kind of schedule) AND with “something fun.” (She claims she never ever gets to do what SHE wants, all she does is go to SCHOOL.) I told her she could pick anything non-screen related, and she picked playing Barbies together. Sigh. I haaaaaaaate pretend play. It is the worst. But I agreed, and after school we played Barbies for 30 minutes exactly. Which is nothing. A tiny amount of my day. Then, when we were doing our bedtime mindfulness routine, and we got to the part about “what were you grateful for today?”, Carla said, “I was grateful that I got to play Barbies with Mommy.” No hesistation. Awwww. What a worthwhile way to spend our time together! But also: guilt, because I HATE playing Barbies. And yet it is such a simple way to make my beloved child so happy! Ugh ugh ugh. Well, I am not promising anything, but I will TRY to do more Barbies with Carla. 
• A thing it turns out I DO enjoy is playing Sleeping Queens. Do you have this game? I ordered it on a “my child is not doing enough math” whim last weekend and it is QUITE fun. There’s a video on the product page that describes how to play; it seems much more complicated than it is. And it’s a much faster-paced game than I anticipated. The basic object is that you want to get as many queens as possible. To get the queens, or to keep your opponent from getting queens, or to prevent your opponent from getting your queens, you need special cards. Your only chance to get the special cards is to discard a card from your hand. And – here’s the math element – you can draw more cards if you have an equation. So if you have cards in the values of 1, 5, and 7, you can only discard one of them and pick up one new card. But if you have 2, 5, and 7, you can make an equation and discard all three; then you can draw three cards. If you have/know a child in the young elementary age group, I highly recommend it. Because the number cards only go up to ten, the math is quite easy for Carla (although there’s no harm in keeping up with basic addition and subtraction), but it would be ideal for someone who is just learning to add/subtract. We also do multiplication, when it’s possible. I really wish there were an expansion pack with higher-value numbers. Anyway, I find it to be a really fun game and we have already played at least a dozen times. BONUS: This is a game that you can easily play with two people, which means that we don’t have to wait for Daddy to be home. 
• I made my first foray into baked oatmeal. I am a little reluctant to post about it, because I didn’t love it. And I WANT to love it. It was both better than I thought it would be and worse than I hoped. But I think I chose the wrong (for me) recipe. It called for coconut oil, which – to me (though not to my husband) – ending up being the predominant flavor. I wanted an APPLE flavor. Also, I don’t think I put in enough nuts. The nuts were my favorite part. I need to do more experimentation before I can make a firm decision about not liking it. I think I will try this recipe next. 
• I had a mildly negative interaction the other day that is still gnawing at me. It’s one of those things where the situation felt very fraught, almost purely because I am overly concerned with what people think of me. And the rest of it was fraught because it involved Covid, and I am caught in a wildly swinging internal pendulum of “you can’t control it and you need to find some way to live with it without forcing your child to be a miserable hermit” and “it is perfectly reasonable to continue to take precautions for the sake of those who aren’t protected/in order to keep Carla in school ” and “if you allow Carla to go to school, then how is this situation different” and “it is okay to have boundaries and limits even if they seem arbitrary; everything seems arbitrary right now” and “you and Carla are both vaccinated, you really can relax a little sheesh” and “arrrrrggghhhhhh.” I fervently wish I were the type of person who a) knows the exact right thing to do in any given situation and b) doesn’t care what other people think of me. I am neither of those people though, I am me. And as much as I try to be breezy, breeziness is not in my nature. And I DO care what people think, and I hate that about myself but I do.
• Totally related to the above point: It is not fair to present a situation in one way, with clear parameters, and then to change the parameters in the moment. It is especially not okay to then pressure people into accepting the new parameters. 
• Gah.
• We have a new addition to our Dinner Plan this week. My husband requested Taco Tuesday. I think you know that I will never turn down a request for tacos. This is the beauty of planning out fewer meals than one intends to eat. You can just slide tacos right into the mix, no biggie. It is especially helps when you haven’t yet made it to the grocery store.
• That reminds me that I have my check-up this morning. It is a totally normal check-up, so it should be fine. But it’s with a new doctor, in a new office, in a new location. So I am a little anxious about all of those things. Will I find the office okay? Will I get there on time? Will I like the doctor? Also, will I meet her for the first time while naked? That’s never fun. And then I have to do it all over again in a couple of weeks, because my PCP is retiring and I had to find a new one. (Hopefully I won’t have to meet her naked, though.)

Well, that’s it. I am already painfully aware that today is going to be a grind to get through; my 3:00 a.m. alertness has eroded into fatigue. But blogging is a much better way to spend the early hours of the morning than tossing and turning next to my blissfully sleeping husband, waiting futilely for sleep to bless me with its presence. 

Read Full Post »

Obligatory Birthday Party Post

We had Carla’s eighth birthday party at a nature preserve. It took place outside, in an open-walled pavilion. The “entertainment” feature was to be a dinosaur-themed hike. 

Because Carla had requested a dinosaur theme, I bought dinosaur décor. I had first found some pink and purple dinosaur party supplies, but my husband thought they were too babyish, so we went with a more mature dino look. 

Very Mature image from amazon.com

It worked out very well for the venue, which had long picnic tables that I was glad we could cover up with tablecloths.  Although it was quite breezy so my mother-in-law had to spend a lot of time masking-taping the tablecloths to the tables. Bless her.

Note the enormous rock in the foreground that my father-in-law used to help keep the tablecloths in place. Added to the theme.

I set up the gift table with additional snacks – eight-year-olds can build up quite an appetite when they are out hiking. Plus, there is ALWAYS one kid who doesn’t want the cupcakes. So I packed Cheez-Its and the flavored raisins I mentioned recently and mandarin oranges and lots of bottled water. I also made sure we had tons of antibacterial wipes and hand sanitizer; one can never be too careful, but especially during a pandemic. I also brought bug spray and spray sunscreen. I am nothing if not over prepared!

It looks quite sparse, but that’s because I forgot to tell my husband that half of the table would be for gifts.

My mother-in-law was such a HUGE help with the party, especially with the centerpieces. I wanted something to add a little visual interest to the tables. Yes, I know this is ridiculous; the kids don’t care. But * I * care. So I ordered these matching centerpieces, which were dinosaur cutouts that you affix to sticks and arrange artfully into vases or jars. 

This is what I expected them to look like:

image from amazon.com

My mother-in-law, bless her again, suggested the night before the party that we should set up the centerpieces in advance – for ease of carrying, and one less thing to worry about at the party. Thank goodness she did, because I could NOT get them to look right and was despairing. (My husband: “It doesn’t matter. The kids don’t care.”) But my mother-in-law persevered! She clipped greenery from our hedges and flowers from my flower pots and made the centerpieces look, I thought, quite lovely and wild. Did a single child comment on them? No. But I LOVED THEM. 

I am once again irritated that the decorations are one-sided.

I made cupcakes for the party, with colorful mismatched frosting. Per Carla’s request, they were vanilla cupcakes with lemon curd filling and lemon cream cheese frosting. When I ran out of lemon curd, I suggested we bring half plain, half filled, just in case some of her friends didn’t want lemon curd, and she was very amenable to that. 

Because it was SO HOT on the day of the party, I stuck my cupcake carrier into a big insulated bag and put ice packs under and on top of it. This worked very well, even though the cupcake carrier was too big to fit completely inside the bag. Not a single cupcake melted. (Better yet: no one got food poisoning from over-hot cream cheese frosting.) 

In classic me-making-things-as-difficult-as-possible-for-myself, I did not do all the frosting the same. But I rather like how colorful it turned out? I did three colors per frosting bag, trying out different combinations.

As I mentioned, the day of the party was HOT. And thunderstorms were predicted. I bought a book of dinosaur coloring pages – the kind where there’s a list of images to find in the picture – and a bunch of colored pencils, plus a couple of pads of drawing paper, just in case the storm prevented the hike from going through and we need to Do Something Else. Fortunately, it remained sunny and dry (and HOT) for the duration of the party. (It started pouring just as we were driving away, which was so lucky!)

I knew that the nature preserve staff allotted about thirty minutes between when the guests arrived and the hike began, so I brought some crafts to keep the kids busy. I found these dinosaur mask-making kits at Michael’s, and my in-laws helped each kid pick which mask they wanted to make, filled little plastic cups with glue, and distributed Q-tips and glue sticks. The kids seemed to enjoy the project, chatting with each other as they glued eyes and horns and spots to their masks, and making the masks took up the exact right amount of time. 

The hike leader was very sweet and friendly, but she seemed to have underestimated the amount of information kids today know about dinosaurs: every single time she tried to stump them with a question about dinosaurs, at least one child knew the answer. But the kids seemed to enjoy themselves, even if they weren’t learning anything new. It’s a PARTY, right? Not a college lecture series.

One of Carla’s friends told a delightful dinosaur joke: Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom? Because the “p” is silent. Carla’s friends thought that was hilarious. 

I sneaked around and applied sunscreen to the kids while the staff member was giving her spiel. I mean, I tried to sneak – obviously I had to ask the kids if they needed sunscreen and then sprayed them with it, so I wasn’t invisible. 

One of the staff members led the kids on a hike through the woods, pointing out birds and turtles and plants. My husband and my father-in-law accompanied the group on the hike, to keep the kids together and watch out for stragglers. The kids collected seashells and answered trivia questions about dinosaurs.

My mother-in-law and I stayed behind to clean up the craft and wipe down the tables in preparation for cupcakes. The craft – which required the kids to peel white covers off of approximately six million tiny pieces – was awful to clean up. The breeze had carried the little peels into every corner of the pavilion, wedging them in between the boards of the benches and planks of the pavilion floor. But I got every last one of them (I hope). We wiped down the tables and then my mother-in-law and I went and sat in the car with the air conditioning blasting. 

That was the worst part of the party: being so hot. I am not a hot weather person and I was a melted candle well before the party began. When our friends dropped off their kids, one tried to hug me. “I’m too sweaty,” I told him. He stepped back and looked me over. “You sure are,” he said. That’s a good feeling. Being visibly, appreciably sweaty. 

After the hike, I herded the children – masked – into the nature center, where they were allowed to use the bathroom. (The nature center was still closed to the public.) They all washed (“washed”) their hands and hurried back to the pavilion. We handed out cupcakes (MANY kids rejected the lemon curd, so I’m glad we had the two options) and lit a candle on Carla’s cupcake and sang her happy birthday. 

These cupcake toppers were one-sided too, but still cute.

Then we handed out favor bags (which I apparently didn’t photograph?) and the kids’ parents collected them. It was a quick two hours but very satisfying. Carla and her friends seemed to have a great time. 

I DO wish we’d had dinosaur wrapping paper, but I can’t buy wrapping paper JUST to fit a theme.

For Carla’s actual birthday – a few days later – I carried on the dinosaur theme. We had one tablecloth remaining, and I added the centerpiece sticks to a vase of flowers, and I ordered a big dinosaur balloon. We always decorate the birthday table the night before, so the birthday girl (or man) sees it first thing when they come into the kitchen in the morning. (This is a tradition leftover from my childhood.)

Carla decided to stay home from camp. With all the birthday excitement, plus her grandparents being around, she’d been going to bed super late. So she wanted to sleep in and relax and I didn’t mind keeping her home. (I especially didn’t mind because her camp group was scheduled to go on a field trip that day, which required packing them all into a bus, during a pandemic, and driving them on a busy freeway. Two MAJOR anxiety points for me.) Carla didn’t mind missing her field trip and we decided to have a Girls’ Day. We put on dresses and makeup and did our hair fancy (she put an ornamental bird on her ponytail). Our first stop was a candy store. I gave Carla $5 and she was allowed to buy anything she wanted. I loved that we had nowhere to be, and absolutely no time pressure (I’d made her cake the day before, because it needed to be refrigerated overnight), so she could look at every single candy option on the shelves and take her time choosing. 

Then we went to a local bakery that sells macarons. I have taken Carla there twice since it opened, and each time, it was closed. But because we went this time so early in the day, it was finally open! The bakery has a little restaurant as well, and one of the tables is a beautiful Cinderella carriage. Because only two tables in the whole place had diners, I let her ask the manager if she could sit at the carriage table and get her picture taken. She wore her mask the whole time, but the photos are still really cute. She also told everyone we met that it was her birthday, and everyone was very charmed by her and wished her many happy returns. We got her a macaron to bring home and I asked what she wanted to do next.

Turns out, she wanted to go to Barnes and Noble and look at toys. (This despite the fact that she had JUST gotten a million new toys from her friends and had a million more family gifts to open later that night.) Fine! We spent a nice long time in the toy section, where she examined every Barbie and LOL and LEGO set and craft set and piece of Harry Potter merchandise in the entire store. Did we look at a single book? No. Again, it was lovely to be able to be as leisurely as possible, and let her take her time and enjoy herself. I took pictures of her holding things she wanted to buy, which I think gives her the same little thrill I get out of putting things I want in online shopping carts.

Then we stopped at a deli to pickup takeout sandwiches and headed home. 

For dinner, she requested homemade tacos. You KNOW I was happy to comply. And then we had raspberry cheesecake for dessert. 

It was a perfectly serviceable cheesecake. The crust was buttery and crunchy and the cheesecake had a good texture (except for the center, which was a little too soft for my taste). I had reserved some of the raspberry puree and we drizzled that over our slices. 

If only the entire theme could have been Sparkly Pink T-Rex. I would have really leaned into that.

Not my most beautiful or favorite cake, by a long shot, but it was what Carla wanted and I think it turned out okay. 

All in all, a satisfying – and surprisingly low-stress (once I secured the venue) – birthday celebration!

Read Full Post »

Dinners This Week

Last night, as we were doing the dishes, I asked my husband to help me brainstorm some dinner ideas for this week. He shrugged at me helplessly. 

“Name some things we eat, and I’ll pick some.”

I told him I have no idea what we normally eat. (I was too exhausted to go through all my Dinners This Week posts, which I started in part FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE.) “Tacos?”

That suggestion was shot down.

My poor husband is well and truly done with tacos. He says we eat them WAY too frequently, which is true, and yet they are easy and all three of us like them, which is Very Rare.

That is how I ended up buying some zucchini and a few onions at the grocery store, some yogurt and cheese, some eggs and bacon… and nothing else. 

(Well, okay, I also bought two containers of Dawn Power Wash. I almost never venture into the Cleaning Products aisle anymore, which is such a HUGE difference compared to a year ago. There are still gaps on the shelves – my favorite Lysol is once again out of stock – and there are still signs saying that cleaning products are limited to two per person. But it all feels much less dire than it once did. Anyway: when I was at Costco last week – shudder – I bought a giant container of Dawn, as one does, and the checkout person asked if I’d tried Dawn Power Wash. I had not, but after our conversation I determined that I NEED Dawn Power Wash in my life. It seems like it has a lot of uses beyond dishes. And now I possess two containers and need to figure out what to do with it. I am thinking it will be very good for cleaning Carla’s bathtub; I’ve always felt a little squicky about cleaning her tub with bleach. I end up washing it out again with soap so that she doesn’t take a bleachy bath, but that seems like double work.)

We are getting takeout tonight; I recently discovered the spicy cauliflower at a local Lebanese restaurant and have been CRAVING it. Who knew I would turn out to be a person who craves cauliflower? But then after that, I am just going to wing it, I think? 

Dinners for the Week of May 11-17

• Breakfast for dinner: Eggs, bacon, maybe some pancakes if I feel like mixing up a batch. 
• Greek chicken kebabs: This will only happen if the weather permits; it’s been rainy – and SNOWED on Sunday, though hopefully that was our FINAL SNOW – and I don’t care to grill in the rain. (OR SNOW.)
• Soy-ginger pulled pork: I am going to do this bowl-of-noodles style, as per Lazy Genius Kitchen.
• Chicken fajitas: Easy and delicious and close enough to tacos. Well. Not close enough for Carla, but I will find something else for her to eat.
• Black bean burritos: This is not quite tacos, but super close? And also very easy. And I also usually have all the ingredients on hand. 
• Chicken and zucchini stir fry: This is probably my go-to easy, yummy meal after tacos. Zucchini last for a surprisingly long time in the fridge, and we always have the other ingredients on hand, so it’s the perfect I Don’t Want to Make What’s On My Meal Plan meal. However, my husband is rapidly approaching a saturation point with this stir fry. So maybe we’ll just grill some chicken and zucchini and call it a day.
• Takeout: Spicy cauliflower… * Homer Simpson groan of yum * My husband suggested that maybe we just get takeout from the same Lebanese place every night this week. We could get something different every time, really explore the menu. Very funny. But also pretty appealing…?

If one of the above options doesn’t pan out, I have some pizza dough in the freezer so we can make pizza. Or, you know, more Lebanese takeout.

What is your go-to easy, satisfying meal you eat so often your family never wants to see it again?

Read Full Post »

Dinners This Week

I am going to complain only briefly about my body’s continued avoidance of sleep. As is the law of Internet magic (which works only once per situation, sadly), I slept Very Well Sunday night – from 10:30ish to just before 6:00. I only woke up twice. It was lovely and refreshing but did not compensate for the many many previous nights of poorer sleep. Then last night I woke up twice after I went to bed at ten, and then was awake between 2:30 and 5:00 ish. And then awake for the day at 6:30, which sounds like a reasonable time to arise but did not feel reasonable at all.

If you’ll allow me to recap: Friday night: slept until 3:30 am, then up for the day. Saturday night: slept until 4:30 am, then up for the day. Sunday night: nearly SEVEN (7) blissful hours of near-consecutive slumber. Monday night: large chunk of the night spent awake and despairing, up for the day at 6:30 am. While I wasn’t getting decent sleep before Friday (the one night I counted, I woke up EIGHT (8) times), it was at least preferable to being awake for giant swaths of the night. 

This is all to say that I have nothing at all to give to meal planning. I am relying heavily on a) takeout, b) comfort food, and c) easy things that we eat all the time. 

Dinners for the Week of April 27 – May 3

• Chicken Paprikas: This is not the recipe I use (I use one from Joy of Cooking and modify it to my specifications), but it’s similar enough. Except I use 4 cups of chicken stock instead of the crushed tomatoes, and chicken breast instead of thighs, so maybe it’s not really similar at all. Also I put potatoes in mine. 

• Cuban Sheet Pan Chicken: I am skipping the mango salsa and will probably make these into tacos.

• Tacos: Yes, I just said I was making the Cuban sheet pan chicken into tacos. But THESE tacos will be ground beef tacos. Totally different.

• Caprese Salad with Balsamic Chicken and Balsamic Dressing: This might require too many dishes. It will be the first to disappear from the list if I Just Cannot Deal.

• Chicken Zucchini Stir Fry: There are a lot of chicken dishes on my meal plan this week. Well, too bad. Chicken is easy.

• Oven Baked Pork Chops with Roasted Potatoes: Here we go. A non-chicken option. This will be the second to be chucked from the list if I am not feeling it.

• Takeout: However many times is necessary.

What’s for dinner at your house this week, Internet?

Read Full Post »

Dinners This Week; You Will Be Very Surprised That Crab Sandwiches Are Not on the Meal Plan

Despite a) truly glorious, early spring weather, complete with sunshine and birdsong and blooming forsythia, and b) a brisk morning walk with a friend in said beautiful weather, I am cranky. For no substantial reason!

(I DO have to go to Target, and go inside no less, to procure some Easter candy. And I am dreading filling the plastic eggs with… whatever it is I normally fill them with. Candy? Maybe the Easter Bunny will upgrade to some dollar bills. The prospect of a Target trip is not super cheering.)

(Yesterday I had to make multiple phone calls, AND I deep cleaned the bathrooms, so perhaps I have some residual grouchiness from that?)

(We ARE supposed to go from low-seventies to low-thirties in the next day or two, so there’s that. Plus, it is QUITE WINDY and you know my feelings about THAT.) (Grump grump grump.)

Well, crabby mood or not, we must eat. I skipped my Dinners This Week post last week because I just couldn’t BEAR to think about food or plan any meals or cook. My husband is very agreeable in times like these, so he put up with leftovers, scrounging around, and takeout for several nights. And then HE planned this week’s meals (except for tonight’s tacos, which were a Carla Request). By “planned” I mean that he suggested things for me to cook, but that is indeed helpful because planning the meals – thinking of things that we haven’t eaten too recently, that don’t take a million years to cook, that will make at least some use of food we have in the house already, that two-thirds of us will eat and not hate – can be just awful.

Armed with my husband’s meal plan, I went to the grocery store after my lovely, not-de-grouchifying-in-the-least walk. (I am sure my friend found me RULL PLEASANT.) I did not want to go to the grocery store. Yet I really needed to go to the grocery store. We had run out of half and half, people. HALF AND HALF. I have been putting MILK in my tea like an Agatha Christie character.

Probably it was good that I was able to go to the grocery store on a cranky day. Grocery shopping puts me on edge as it is, so I’m putting the crankiness to good use, at least. And then I could really glower at the frozen foods case where the pancakes are once again MISSING and sigh dramatically over the dearth of regular-old large eggs (I do not need extra large eggs or jumbo eggs or super jumbo eggs, thank you very much) and stare in a pointedly Very Patient Way at the woman who was ambling – AMBLING – in a zig-zag fashion down the aisle, making it next to impossible to pass her on either side. 

I did buy myself some flowers, which helps. 

And I bought ingredients to make cinnamon rolls, which I DO NOT NEED to make, but which sounds like a very festive Easter morning breakfast. Because if there’s one thing a home visited by the Easter Bunny needs, it’s more sugar. Well. If my husband talks me down from the cinnamon rolls, at least bread flour and cream cheese keep for a good long while.

I stood in front of the beef selection for a Very Long Time because my recipe calls for chuck roast and my choices were chuck EYE roast or chuck SHOULDER roast or some other things that had the word CHUCK in them but not the word ROAST. I wanted to CHUCK a ROAST right at my husband for choosing the recipe, I’ll tell you that much. Google did not help. I did not have the recipe on me, because it is in a PHYSICAL BOOK, not on a website, like it’s 1953. I see I am getting a little shouty. At least I did not shout at the beef selection. I finally asked the meat monger – a young woman, which pleased me – and she very decisively told me that the chuck EYE roast would be best for my stew purposes, so I went on my way. (I was very glad she’d said chuck EYE roast, because the recipe called for 3 to 3.5 pounds of chuck roast and not a single roast in the entire case was 3.5 pounds. They were all 2.25 to 2.75. But! I did find ONE ROAST that was just a squeak under 3 pounds and it was the chuck EYE roast.)

Carla and I – after much deliberation – are planning to make macarons this weekend, as our Easter baking project. They will be filled with lemon curd and buttercream as per this recipe (although I bought the lemon curd in a jar), but will have speckles per this recipe. I am very, very exhausted by even the prospect of Holiday Baking Projects. But perhaps by the weekend I will feel more chipper about the idea. Anyway, I had to buy a huge giant container of cream of tartar, even though we only need a pinch, because I had failed to check on our cream of tartar situation at home. Let me tell you, my face fell when I saw a little container of cream of tartar in the spice cupboard. Fortunately for all involved (me and the cream of tartar), it had expired in 2014. 

For some reason, I have had a craving for cinnamon gummy bears. I don’t think I have had a cinnamon bear for… thirty years? And I am fairly sure that I would eat a total of three of them and then be satisfied for another three decades. But the craving is strong. So of course I cannot find cinnamon bears anywhere. Grouse grouse grouse.

This isn’t so much a grocery store report as it is a catalog of things that irritated me whilst at the grocery store. 

Grocery availability has gotten so reliable (aside from pancakes) that I didn’t even LOOK for some of the things that I normally bought in duplicate just in case – was there any pepperoni? Who knows! My preferred taco seasoning in my preferred little jar is still out of stock, but I can buy it in the envelopes so it’s not a BIG deal. And the taco shell shelves seemed a little patchy, but I still only purchased a single box of taco shells. What did that meme say last year? “The earth is healing”? (Is “the earth” in this scenario me or the grocery store supply chain?) Now we just sit and wait for Suez-Canal-blockage-related shortages to start. 

Dinners for the Week of March 30-April 5

• Tacos

• Oven Baked Pork Chops with Steamed Broccoli – This is a good, solid, simple meal. 

• Mulligatawny Soup – This was my lone suggestion for the week, simply because we have mire poix pre-cut in the freezer AND because I picked up another loaf of sourdough bread at the grocery store. Sour toast will pair very nicely with some Mulligatawny.

• Slow Cooker Balsamic Pork Tenderloin – I got my husband some feta and he already has some sundried tomatoes. I will make rice and caramelize some onions to serve with the pork. Easy peasy.

• Guinness Stew with Side Salad – I bought some Guinness for St. Patrick’s Day, because I had never tried it before. Turns out I do not care for it. But my husband pointed out we could use it for stew, and indeed we will. I found a recipe in The Best International Recipe cookbook, from the editor’s of Cook’s Illustrated (which is different from America’s Test Kitchen in some way but I do not understand what it is). Why is it “recipe” instead of “recipes”? Just to tug my toehairs, I guess. Also, holy Slovenian sausage, this cookbook is PRICEY. I sure as sugar did not pay $66 for this cookbook and neither should you. 

What are you eating and/or baking this week? Or, if you feel like joining me in a Celebration of Crabbiness, what is getting all up in your grump today?

Read Full Post »

Dinners This Week

Carla is on spring break and I have somehow already forgotten how… challenging it is to have her around all the time. It’s lovely on the one hand, of course. This morning she came and snuggled up to me in bed and we chit-chatted while the fog of night evaporated around me. But on the other hand, I have all of my normal things to do with the addition of a small child who needs to be entertained. 

And do not get me wrong! I am Very Good at requiring her to entertain herself. She is excellent at playing independently. But even a child who is good at playing independently is incapable of playing independently all day for multiple days in a row. 

I have taken a note from my own playbook from last spring break, which was, of course AWFUL, knowing, as we did, that we would not be returning to school after spring break for an unknown amount of time… and perhaps not at all. (We did not go back until late September.) Anyway, last year’s playbook included making up a detailed schedule of tasks to do each day, to give us a sense of purpose and stave off boredom/despair. 

Because I now have Extensive Experience, and can (sometimes) learn from that experience, I have kept our lists short: Math problems, 30 minutes of reading, a short research project (we had Grand Plans to study all the states last summer and did not even make it halfway, so we are renewing our efforts), some sort of exercise, and then the rest of the day free. Well, except we also have PLAYDATES on the schedule, which is new from last year. We are getting together with a couple of school friends, outdoors and masked, at various points throughout the week. Plus, we are doing baking projects for St. Patrick’s Day. A baking project is always useful in getting a person through the week.

We couldn’t agree on a single baking project, so we have settled on two:

• Pot of Gold Cupcakes: This was Carla’s choice. And frankly, they are darling. (I am Deeply Suspicious of the rainbow Airheads though.) In a totally out-of-character move (you know I love to make things As Difficult As Possible) (which I already am doing, by making TWO desserts), I bought boxed cupcake mix for this project. I got Funfetti cupcake mix, too, and I typically object to Funfetti for no actual reason. But we will be making the frosting and putting the cupcakes together and that feels like A Lot without tracking down and executing a delicious homemade cupcake recipe too. 
• Mint Chocolate Chip Brownies: This was my husband’s choice. He so rarely makes a food request that I decided to make these also. Plus, to be honest, the cupcakes sound cuter than they do delicious. And chocolate plus mint sounds actually delicious. We will probably eat a brownie each and send the rest off to my husband’s office. I got a mix for the brownies too, but I think I will use butter and milk + coffee instead of vegetable oil and water, to try to coax it in a semi-homemade direction.

The prospect of TWO ENTIRE WEEKS (yes) of just me and Carla, coupled with coming off a Call Week, added to the absolute nightmare of the Daylight Saving Time Change, means that I have been completely incapable of coming up with anything to eat for dinner. So my dinner options for this week are a little… uninspired. 

Dinners for the Week of March 16-22

• Sweet and Spicy Glazed Pork Chops with Side Salad: I am 90% sure I have some pork chops in the freezer, just waiting for this treatment.
• Another round of Not-Skillet Chicken Enchiladas: We had these last week and they were delicious PLUS the recipe produced enough sauce and chicken for an entire second batch. They are in the freezer, ready to be popped into the oven. 
• Tacos: This is a Carla Request and who am I to deny her?
• Chipotle Chicken Tortilla Soup: This has become one of my favorite recipes and so what if this week seems to have a heavily Tex-Mex theme? I already have the veggies in the freezer, chopped and ready to go. And aside from the completely optional step of straining the blended tomatoes, this is a SUPER easy meal to toss in the slow cooker.
• White Bean Enchilada Soup: Continuing to lean in to the Tex-Mex theme, and also it is supposed to snow at some point this week???? I have a friend in Denver who got walloped this week and I’m not anticipating that, at least. But a nice warm bowl of soup sounds like just the antidote to a resurgence of winter weather. And, as with the tortilla soup, I already have all the veggies waiting for me in the freezer. This will be a good one to postpone if we need to, also, because it doesn’t really call for anything fresh. (Except the veggies. Which, as I said, are HANDLED.)
• Caprese Salad with Balsamic Chicken and Balsamic Dressing: This is for a day when we just can’t deal with another second of Tex-Mex flavors. And by “we” I mean my poor agreeable husband, because I could eat tacos and their ilk every day.
• Dinner with FRIENDS: One of our dear friends is celebrating a Big Birthday this week and we are going to try to get together for dinner, outside, possibly at their house. I am SO EXCITED. This sort of cautious meeting-up with a couple of friends/families isn’t anything NEW; we’ve been doing distanced, masked (except while eating) outdoor get togethers since last summer. But it feels different now, somehow, like throwing on your winter coat when you know spring is just around the corner. Sure, it’s bulky and tiresome, but you only have to wear it for just a few more weeks and then you can spin around in the fresh air and sunshine without even a light jacket! Birds are chirping and daffodils are nudging their heads through the dirt and even the near-freezing temperatures have a little hint of springtime promise. We have come through this long, endless winter. Finally, spring is almost here. It’s coming! It’s on the way! 

Read Full Post »

Dinners This Week; Birthday Plans; M&Ms

First, a warning: I bought myself a bag of Easter-themed peanut butter M&Ms. They are delicious, but they are the exact shape/heft of a peanut M&M, which means that I am always, every single time, surprised when there is no peanut inside. 

Now, a heads up: Looking up a link for the peanut butter M&M eggs, I discovered that there is something called M&Ms Easter Mystery Mix Eggs, which is a bag full of eggs and some are chocolate and some are peanut butter and some are double chocolate. FYI. There is only so much time left until Easter, so I advise trying them right away to determine how many bags you need.

This week is my birthday and birthday plans are in the offing. We are having not only tacos on The Day, but we are also getting Mexican takeout (including margaritas) on the weekend. AND my husband is making me a lemon cheesecake, which is VERY exciting and also darling (he has never made a cheesecake before! he is also planning to make his own lemon curd! plus he took the afternoon off to make the cake and spend extra time with me!). AND a friend is taking me out for birthday tea (we plan to park next to each other and chat between cars). In non-food fun, I have a Zoom happy hour planned with my high school girl friends; it has nothing to do with my birthday, which is ideal. AND my family and I have an outdoor excursion planned with another family. If we have any energy leftover, I have requested that Carla and my husband and I play games; I bought Clue for this very reason, but we have many other games as well. (Apparently there are TWO Clue movies?!?! Perhaps I will force encourage my husband to watch one or both with me!) I am going to buy some champagne to sip while we play. Should be a lovely celebratory weekend!

Since not everything is about me (gasp), Purim falls during this week, so I will be attempting to make hamantaschen. (They will be filled with apricot and raspberry preserves, per my husband’s request. The recipe makes plenty for sharing with the neighbors.) Also also, I am cooking dinner for a friend and her family one night this week and I am planning to make some chocolate brownie cookies for them. I have already made a banana chip snack cake with the inevitable overripe bananas that accumulate when I try to meet my family’s banana needs; there is no way to achieve an ideal number of bananas at an ideal level of ripeness: I have either too few bananas or far, far too many; they are either mostly green or nearly black. Thank goodness for banana snack cakes, amirite?

It is indeed a food filled week! Which, as you know, is my favorite kind of week.

Dinners for the Week of February 23-March 1

OMG INTERNET NEXT WEEK IS MARCH.

• Chicken and Zucchini Stir Fry: Have I noted in the past that I add a sliced onion to this stir fry? I do and it adds a little extra something. Onion pairs very well with zucchini, I think.
• White Bean Enchilada Soup with Southwest Salad: This is what I’m making for my friend; the salad will be a side salad, with no salmon. 
• Crockpot Spicy Vegetarian Tortilla Soup: Or maybe I will do this soup for my friend instead; I haven’t decided. (I will make the other soup for me and my husband.) Because I am a recipe developer’s worst nightmare, I plan to eject the quinoa and add some beans and corn for oomph. 
• Tacos
• Caprese Salad with Balsamic Chicken and Balsamic Dressing
• Birthday Mexican takeout!
• Probably leftover cheesecake!

If nothing else, I will start my fifth decade with a full, happy belly. And I will definitely report back on the cheesecake. 

Read Full Post »

Convening a Meeting of the (Virtual) Party Planning Committee: Treat Yo’Self Birthday Plans

Hello! I’m so glad to see you! Please, allow me to take your hats and mittens. Head right on into the kitchen and I will get you a hot drink.

Can you believe we haven’t gotten together like this since two years ago March? I know! Time is a wild wolverine, full of teeth and impossible to trap. In today’s session, I would be so grateful for your advice on pandemic birthday plans – mine, in particular – so please put your party planning hats on. 

But before we get to that urgent agenda item, it seems critical that I fill you in on what an exterminator emergency is. Or at least, was, in the case of my particular exterminator postponement. (Carla speculated that it was bees! in the walls! which would indeed be an emergency, holy hot honey, but it was not that.) I asked our exterminator during his visit (after I determined that he and his loved ones are all okay, phew, may he live a long and healthy life) if he could satisfy my curiosity. Turns out it was a Live Mouse Issue. My mind, as you might imagine, went immediately to a room teeming with mice. But alas (for my imagination, not for him or his client), it was a single mouse that was alive and in his client’s kitchen. His poor client was, how shall we say?, dealing poorly with the appearance of the mouse. (My exterminator, in his low gentle drawl, “Lady was hysterical. What’d she think I can do? I am not a house cat.”) He was able to – 

LOOK AWAY to the next ALL CAPS paragraph if you don’t care to learn about the (non-graphic, I promise) demise of a mouse…

— Have you looked away yet? 

— Here is some buffer space for that pesky peripheral vision. 

– trap it on a glue trap because it was already clearly very sick from ingesting poison and did not want to move much at all. And then he… disposed of the mouse. May it ascend to a cheese filled heaven. 

— Buffer space for the lookers away —

— More buffer space in case your eyes are more curious than your brain —

YOU CAN LOOK NOW.

^{Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels.com}

All right, Party Planning Committee. On to the topic at hand, which is my birthday. I turn 40 later this month and I am feeling pre-mopeful about a) turning 40 and b) not being able to make A Big Deal about it. 

This is ridiculous for many reasons, the top being: We are in a pandemic, and no one who is not a Kardashian is getting the birthday celebration they want. PLUS, even if we were not in a pandemic, I am not A Big Deal kind of a person, and would feel stressed and anxious about any sort of Big Deal being made over me, so why I am wistful over the lack of A Big Deal is a mystery for the stars to solve. 

And yet I am full of self-pity because I am Fun. 

So! I think what I need to do is, you know, buck up. And then plan some fun things so that I can look forward to the day if not the event. And that’s where you come in! Because we are in a pandemic! And many of my ideas will not fly! 

Let’s establish a pre-pandemic celebratory baseline here.

Normally, for my birthday, I prefer to have a day off. I like to go get a massage, maybe a facial, maybe a pedicure. I like to do absolutely nothing at home – no cooking, no dishwashing, no anything. And I like to go out to a favorite restaurant, drink some yummy wine or champagne or cocktails, and stuff myself with something delicious and decadent. But of course I am not going to places for a massage these days nor am I going to restaurants. 

For me, A Big Deal would look something like the above, but maybe with a babysitter for Carla and maybe another couple or two would join us for dinner, and then maybe we’d all go bowling afterward or head to a bar for margaritas or come back to my house to play board games. I remember one birthday when my husband and I went on a brewery tour with couple friends of ours; something like that would be an awesome way to spend my fortieth.

Of course, once again, we are not hanging out indoors with other people nor are we going on indoor tours of places, especially those involving taking off your mask to drink things, nor are we hiring babysitters, or going into bars or bowling alleys, or inviting not-my-exterminator other humans into our house. 

In the Before Times, my husband (who turned 40 last fall with MUCH LESS WOE-IS-ME) and I had talked about the two of us, plus Carla, going to Europe as a joint birthday hurrah. That would have been delightful, but I have zero desire to get on a plane anytime soon. 

So. Those are the things that are NOT happening. 

What can I do instead? 

Here are the very minimal plans I have already made:

1. I have requested that my husband make me lemon pudding cake, which is delicious. 
2. I ordered two cute tops from StitchFix that I have had in my cart for awhile PLUS I ordered myself a Fix, to arrive on my birthday, which I haven’t done in ages because a) I have nowhere to wear Real Clothes and b) I have gained so much weight during the pandemic that I haven’t wanted to buy any new clothes. 

Here are some additional things I am considering:

• Good food. I am tossing around dinner ideas: would it be nice to make tacos at home, because I love tacos? Or maybe we could order takeout from our favorite Mexican restaurant? Or maybe we could try one of my other favorite restaurants that we haven’t visited since before the pandemic – and order steak or a burger or something that seems really risky (to me) as a takeout option. Probably best not to wing it on my birthday; nothing adds to the self-pity like a lukewarm soggy-bunned hamburger in a Styrofoam container.

• Perhaps we could find a movie we haven’t watched yet and watch it. I have no idea what this would be; the new Amy Poehler movie doesn’t drop until March, so that one’s out of the running and I haven’t heard of anything else.

• A game night? My brother got us The Deadbolt Mystery Society for Christmas. Maybe I will request that my husband and I start that as a birthday treat. 

• Near-birthday happy hour with friends. I haven’t had a virtual happy hour with my back-home friends for awhile. Maybe we could set one up on or near my birthday. Probably not ON; I wouldn’t want it to be about me, just about our normal catching up and chitting chat. But doing it the day before or day after my birthday might add to the fun anticipation. 

• Special sweets. Perhaps I will buy some Reese’s peanut butter hearts and snack on those all day. Ooohhh or order myself some Shari’s Berries, which I haven’t had in years.

Beyond these things – which are surely more than adequate in and of themselves – what can I do to make the day feel More Special? What would YOU Do?

I know for sure that I don’t want to request that my husband set up some sort of birthday parade; I can see how those would be so fun and bolstering for some people, but I would find one for ME to be stressful. I also know for sure that I do not want a big family Zoom session, which Carla had for her birthday and which she recommended with great enthusiasm for my birthday. 

A dear friend of mine, who also turned 40 this year, said she and her family did a virtual beer tasting together. Something like that would be really fun, but I am guessing it is too late to plan it and even if not I would feel weird planning it for myself.

For my husband’s fortieth, our little family went on a long-weekend trip to a nearby state. We stayed in an Air BnB and ordered takeout and did outdoor activities and it was a lovely little getaway… but that seems less fun/doable in February, and I’m guessing we would have had to plan it in advance.

If you have had a birthday during the pandemic (most of us have, by now, gloom gloom gloom), what did you/someone else do to make it more special? Or was there something, in retrospect, you wish you had done instead/also? Have you thrown any virtual celebrations for anyone this year that went particularly well? – or badly, I would want to know if something went badly. Or do you have a birthday coming up – yours or someone else’s – for which you are already tossing around plans? If so, I would like to hear all about it. No plan is too simple or too extravagant or too specific to you that I don’t want to hear about it!

And, of course, if you just want to complain about birthdays I am always here for that.

^{Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels.com}

Read Full Post »

Dinners This Week; Persistent Gloom

I live in a part of the world where the sun rarely shines in the winter, and this winter is doing its level best to shift “rarely” to “NEVER.” Our local paper published an article in early January about how we hadn’t had any clear skies since NOVEMBER, and I think we’ve had only a day or two at best since then.

Yes, I see that sunshine coming up for the weekend. But I will bet anything that it means, like, 30 minutes of sun each day. Don’t get my hopes up, 10-day forecast.

The glimpses of sun are rare and fleeting and I never know how to properly address them. Do I interrupt whatever I’m doing to run outside in the snow and soak up the rays? I have been trying to go outside when the sun peeks out from behind the clouds, but it’s not always convenient and it is also cold, which means adding layers. And by the time I’ve gotten properly mummified the sun is doubtless hidden behind the relentless grey once again. (I do force Carla to go outside, sun or no. She has been doing a lot of work making snowballs and/or pulling ice sheets off our deck and stacking them on the lawn.) Carla and I have started doing an outdoor sport on weekends, together, which forces us both to be active AND outside, no matter what the sun is choosing to do, and that helps, but still: persistent gloom.

Why is it so hard to remember that, as with lack of sleep, lack of sunshine can cause its own dreariness and isn’t necessarily a reflection of How Things Actually Are? (Sheesh, my faulty shift button sure makes it difficult to use as much Emphasis Via Capitalization as I prefer.) Instead of remembering this – even if I just literally reminded myself of this phenomenon a sentence ago – I feel sunk in a gloom so heavy that it feels as though this is how it always was and always will be and I might as well let go and surrender to the abyss or move to Florida which is tied with abyss as far as my personal preferences go.

Even FOOD isn’t helping right now, so you know things are really grim. But we have to eat, yes? So let’s think about some delicious meals that might ignite at least some spark of light amid these unyielding clouds.

Dinners for the Week of January 26-February 1

• Simple Salmon Bowls: Did we just have salmon bowls last week? Yes, we did. Do I care? No, apparently not.
• Spicy Miso Chicken Katsu Ramen: When feeling gloomy, add spice.
• Chicken Tinga Tacos: This one makes me a little nervous because it calls for a can of fire-roasted tomatoes… I am not sure if I should blend them or if I should leave them out. Blending would keep the flavors in the dish, but it would make the tacos much saucier than they should be. But I’m wary of leaving them out entirely because they might be a key ingredient. Choices, choices. 
• Slow Cooker Lemon Garlic Chicken with steamed broccoli

This “plan just a few meals” thing is freeing, in its way, but also kind of weird. That list above feels so unfinished, and I don’t like leaving loose ends. We also have some steak in the freezer and some bell peppers in the fridge, so a stir fry could be in the offing. We still have not eaten the asparagus, which seems perfectly content in its jars in the fridge. And I have some romaine in the crisper as well, just ready for some sort of salad to spring into being. Takeout is always an option, or there’s always the option of something hearty and mood-boosting, like spaghetti with meat sauce.

How are you staving off the gloom this week, Internet?

Read Full Post »

Dinners This Week

We are somehow nearly halfway through January and I feel simultaneously as though the month has FLOWN by and also that it has lasted six million years. Much of it – at least the past week – has been extremely dreary and fretful, both for external reasons (what is HAPPENING with our democracy) and internal ones. But even though I am feeling down and worried and unsettled, I feel like my complaints are so small and insignificant that they aren’t worth sharing. There is SO MUCH going on in the world right now, my dumb complaints sound even more out-of-touch than normal. 

Like for instance how my return key does not work unless I press down on it with all my weight. Or how I am FINALLY getting to clean my oven (with the self-clean function) and so my house is filled with the acrid scent of imminent doom and also a soupçon of pizza essence. Or how I had to wait for more than an hour in the gynecologist’s crowded waiting room yesterday which a) I am SURE was the reason my blood pressure reading was much higher than normal and b) is making me Very Anxious about the likely unrelated fact that I have a scratchy throat today. Or how I have been working extra hard on revising my book and the whole thing is stupid and I am wasting my life. I really need to suck it up and stop wallowing.

I hope YOU and your loved ones are doing okay. And, honestly, if you had a small, insignificant gripe to share with me, it would make me feel better. Or not, that’s fine too. If you just want to scroll listlessly through my dinner options, trying valiantly to get up the motivation to think about making Yet Another Meal, that is a-okay with me.

Dinners for the Week of January 12-18

Over the weekend, I tried these Sheet Pan Cuban Chicken and Black Bean Rice Bowls (which Ernie mentioned recently), and they were delicious and a 100% keeper. They got me in a mango mood, so I have a bowl of mangoes ripening on the counter which is one good thing to look forward to, I suppose.

• Sweet and Fiery Pork Tenderloin with Mango Salsa: Speaking of mangoes, this is what we’re eating tonight. I have made it several times in the past and have always found the pork to be a little… weak in flavor. Today, I threw all the ingredients in the crockpot, added a bit of soy sauce and some minced ginger and garlic, and we’ll see if that does anything. 
•  Fish Taco Bowls 
• Fire Fry 
• Chicken Shawarma with Steamed Broccoli
• Tacos: The regular ground beef kind, per Carla’s request. I am going to have her make them, since she has been voicing some disappointment about the meals on offer lately. She seemed pretty pleased at the thought.

I also have some zucchini and asparagus in the crisper, for spur-of-the-moment stir fries or protein-and-a-veggie-side options.

What are you most looking forward to eating this week?

Read Full Post »