MPM--Crawling Towards A Routine Edition

Momentous occasion of the week: My three year old starts school on Tuesday! No one is more excited than he is. Alas, I can't even plan a special dinner to celebrate as he has recently completely switched everything he would eat on me again. He used to merely sustain himself from pizza to pizza. This week, I took him to lunch at a pizza place and he drank the milk and had exactly one bite of his slice. We took the rest home and he ate it for dinner, but really, this is a boy who used to regularly inhale half a pizza if we would let him. Avocados are in (again); yay. Rice is out. (Just as well, it's hard to clean up.) And the big news; he has successfully eaten peanut butter twice now so I can stop having panic attacks about that. (As the child of two parents with life-threatening allergies--my mother to bees, my father to swimming fish--this was a source of tremendous concern for us.)

We're also thrilled to have The Best Babysitter in the World back with us for a visit. The boys couldn't contain their excitement this weekend about her arrival, and frankly, we couldn't wait either. We did a deluxe taco dinner tonight and then she and I caught up a bit over making some sauce (gravy) before my Jersey tomatoes went bad (we have had a few that looked fine on the outside but were foamy inside when we cut them...??? never seen that before) and roasting our delicata squash. So this week's menu looks like this:

Monday: Whatever TBBITW decides to grace us with! Or leftover tacos and Moroccan Peach Roasted Chicken. (This was an excellent use for unimpressive peaches. The chicken was a little too soft, almost like a crock-pot consistency, but it was easy, and a hit with my husband at least. I didn't find it very Moroccan and might add cinnamon or something, but then the kids might not eat it so I might just let it be.)

Tuesday: Chicken with figs, rice, delicata squash.

Wednesday: Pasta with roasted tomato sauce, rolls/garlic bread, salad.

Thursday: Whatever is in the box, leftovers, and maybe a pork tenderloin something if there isn't much leftover.

Friday: the big Cousins vs. Cousins football game showdown, so hot dogs for the boys and not quite sure what for me.

And on another note: I have everything I need to make the Smitten Kitchen Pearl Couscous with Olives and Roasted Tomatoes, which sounded great and a super way to use up the Israeli couscous I bought on a whim at Talulah's Table only to discover the same thing at our own Co-Op for less than half the price. However, I got distracted by laundry while bringing the chicken broth to a boil, and, well...let's just say that I'm lucky that the only casualty was the 2-quart cooking pot. I found a 3 quart that I'm working with, and I'll have to use it with the couscous soon because I'm not letting that herb splurge go to waste. I used the thyme already in the tomato sauce, as well as some of my olives, but the mint and the parsley need to find a home pronto. I have got to learn how to grow herbs instead of kill them.

Need some actual inspiration instead of nattering notes on culinary experiments? Try here, at the Organizing Junkie.