Springing All Around

Yay! It's spring! So, what's that low moaning sound? Why, it's me, grumpymom, annoyed at the baseball schedule. I'll live. And I'm spoiled. But I am annoyed that I never remember to just jot a note: Can my child PLEASE be on the same team as at least just ONE OTHER CHILD from our town? Please? Because sometimes I need to carpool and even from the town next door it's 20-30 extra minutes in some other busy family's life if I can't make it to the start of a game. 

And then I feel so guilty because I watch the Sandy Hook parents try to keep the rest of our kids safe and the wave of shame is too much to bear.

Anyway. On that cheery note, we plan our week.

Sunday: Grillin'. Big sale at the Co-op means yummy meat for all. Grilling steaks, and I have brussels sprouts, asparagus, and maybe some potatoes? I'll have to check.

Monday: Soccer tryouts, though in a fit of irony, neither of my kids has the slightest hint of interest. Ok then. I am trying to stay all neutral about it in case they change their minds, but my inner mommy is doing a happy dance of joy to escape that logistical nightmare next fall. (Irony, of course, because their dad runs the intramural/peewee soccer leagues in town. And like the cobbler's kids with no shoes...the boys grew up with a dad too tired from playing soccer with all the other kids in town to go play with them Saturday afternoons so they grew up with no great love and some slight resentment of the game. Ah well.) But, since Dad needs to be at the tryouts, something quick and easy, and in this case, that's pulled pork sandwiches from the crockpot at my husband's request. I'm happy to grant it. Might also do kale chips and roasted cauliflower from my pinterest board. To be positive: I really helped out the compost pile last week. Less positive: that's some expensive dirt I got going there. So I'm trying to be better about using the veggies I have.

Tuesday: I love my taco Tuesdays. Really I do.

Wednesday: Wednesday Spaghetti is really gaining in popularity in my book too. Wednesday is also "Eat Your Vegetables" night at my moms' group with the idea being: how do you sneak veggies in to your kids' diets? I don't do much sneaking but will probably make quinoa pesto for the buffet of sneaky veggies. That or the Trader Joe's "stir fry" (multi-grain with veggies frozen concoction)--both good.

Thursday: Leftovers. I can tell you now, it'll be pork for the parents, taco for older boy, and spaghetti for younger boy. Call me Kreskin (if you're old like me).

Friday: The pizza was a big hit last week so we might repeat. But it's also "fun and fitness" night at school and I'm not sure how slamming down pepperoni pizza fits in to that theme. So we'll see. 

So, that's the week I hope will be. The state testing is this week and my oldest (who is taking it for the first time this year) is freaking out. Here's hoping that calms down after Monday. Wishing you a peaceful, successful, freakout-free week!

Recuperation

So, I misled you, dear readers, and off we went to Atlanta and Macon for the break. It was awesome. We ate local or semilocal the whole time--even our chains were Moe's and Waffle House. Shrimp & grits at the Buckhead Diner, home cooking in Macon near Mercer, peach milkshakes and fried green tomato sandwiches at the Rookery....and lots of awesome non-food related moments, too, of course, but this is a food blog.  Possibly my favorite? The seder, with an olive and an orange added to the plate. I adored that.

This week:

April fools! Tuesday on Monday: tacos.

Tuesday: Lego Build (so there's a method to the madness)

Wednesday: fundraiser night at Iron Hill (anyone local: if you want to come out to dinner for a good cause, let me know and I'll get you a coupon; it supports my moms' group this Wed.)

Thursday: Oh, I'll have to cook something. I think I'll make the chicken from the gyros recipe and skip the gyro part. Works for me.

Friday: The kids are doing backflips that Lent is over and we can get back to pepperoni pizza on Fridays, so who am I to say no?

Have a great week!

Spring Break!

Woo! I am still education nerd enough that spring break makes me excited and uneasy at the same time!  I always feel like I should be heading off somewhere like the cool kids but really--I'm a homebody at heart, and so are my kids. Happily, we live in an area with enough to do that we can be tourists without going far. But it does mean that meals will be loosey-goosey for the week.

Monday: leftover pork from last week (yum)--my husband, best dad ever, turned the "I don't think I like pork" whining into AwesomeSauceFest--he got out everything saucelike in the fridge and had a dipping contest. Even Mr. Picky loved the sriracha and was bragging that he didn't take any milk after a big bite of it. I do not get this boy. A vegetable=poison, but hot chili sauce? Bring it.

Tuesday: Duh.

Wednesday: I am loving this new anchor night. Noodles, please.

Thursday: Holy Thursday. Not sure what we'll do here. The semi-Seder is a decent plan but only my husband likes lamb-qua-lamb so maybe Indian? Palak paneer for bitter herbs and lamb biriyani? We'll see. That might be pushing it even more than nachos and zeppoli.

Friday: Good Friday. So, not much.

Saturday: pick up the ham and try not to pick at the ham. We also have a neighborhood egg hunt. I know I'm bringing water and ... I'm sure I'm going to get something else but I am not sure what.

Then it's Easter, and brunch with the family. Wishing you a wonderful break, if you are having it, and a lovely week either way!

Alas, Poor Reader, I Hardly Knew Ye

So, right when I need it most, Reader is shutting down. Boooooooo. So, now I have a deadline to finish debugging my blog.

Sigh. So here we are another week. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Last week went well; I finished my grad class! woooooooooo! So we jettisoned the Thursday crock pot for Friday. And then Friday discovered it was quite bland and not a hit, so off to two nights of pizza it was.

This week:

Today, my kids were outraged that there was no family celebration of St. Patrick's Day, so we pulled one together. I poached a salmon, for the first time ever. De-lish. I also made sprouts (cabbage like, but tastier) and we'll have corned beef and cabbage for dinner.

Monday: Joanne's Pork Tenderloin

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday--special papal edition! Tacos + Nachos (Nacho=nickname for St. Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits, of which the pope is one), and Zeppole (for St. Joseph's Day, and to celebrate the pope's Italian heritage!).

Wednesday: Noodles.

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: March Madness Party. Not sure what we are bringing.

So, nothing exciting but a good week overall. Have a happy day, all!

Not Sure How the Pageviews Are Going Up...

But I wish any of you coming to the site good luck and know I bear you no ill will.

Hi again, and welcome to my stripped-down version of my meal planning.

Last week, I went hot and heavy in to my friend's blog, trying both her pad see ew and gyro recipes. I hope she posts some new stuff soon, because, yum. Pad see ew I talked about in the last post; as to the gyro: the chicken is prepared in a yogurt base, exactly like my all time favorite grill recipe. This has more oregano (makes sense) but otherwise--not a lot of difference. It was delicious and my only regret was not making a ton more. I will know better next time.

The gyros were only a moderate hit--as gyros. Only my husband ate them as an actual gyro; the rest had it deconstructed. The tzatziki was excellent and I will make more for just me, no gyro, this week. And I used the extra red onion to make the Smitten Kitchen pickled onions again, which really hit my food happy spot. My mouth waters just writing about them. So a qualified success, as long as you believe in the deconstructed meals version of success (and I do).

This week: I am tired and not doing much experimentation. Today I did a lot of cooking ahead. We'll see how that goes.

Sunday: London broil, asparagus, baked potatoes (sweet or Russet)

Monday: leftover buffet (pad see ew, steak from last week and maybe tonight), brussels sprouts, broccoli

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. Hoping to use that bag of black beans with this slow cooker recipe. If it fails, no problem; beans from a can with the same taco spices I use for the meat totally works for me too.

Wednesday: Wednesday spaghetti, all by ourselves though.

Thursday: hoping to try a pinterest recipe: slow cooker root vegetable stew. It has zero chance of being popular in the house (soup; no meat; all veggies) but I am looking forward to trying it and I'm the one cooking. Plus, it will finish up a ton of stuff in my house that is on its way out one way or another.

Friday: A little unclear. Pizza night is not enjoyed as much in the no-pepperoni season, and the older one is getting his spacers for his braces this afternoon, so that makes it a challenge.

Also this week: Irish Soda Bread baking. Recipe is on the sidebar. Sigh. I'll see what I can do about pulling it off.

Meanwhile, my third of three grad classes ends this week; wish me luck, I have two papers to write and am totally freezing on them! Deep breaths...Have a great week! (PS--I'm no longer linking to Menu Planning Monday while my blog is quarantined...no point. Hoping I'll get back to it someday, but this is not that day!)

For Those Who Read in Reader, I Salute You

I still have no idea how to get my site out of quarantine, but the habit is hard to break. So, here I am with some random bits of news...

1) We got a new stove! Finally. It's an LG "dual oven" (top is more of a warming drawer/broiler; bottom is a "real" oven). It's more than I wanted to spend but my husband talked me in to it, pointing out that we (I) use it every day. And while I always try not to blame my boots for the faults of my feet, wow, the right tools can really make a difference.

The story of the appliances is: we really needed a washer and dryer. The washer was on its last legs; the dryer door had to be propped shut with a mop; it was not just inconvenient but actually unsafe. So while we were shopping, my husband said, Get an oven too. I resisted, and then he said simply: Would you donate this one? and when the answer was um...no, getting a stove was clearly happening too. First, the clock and timer went (that was years ago, to the point where the first thing my seven year old said was, "Wow! We got a new oven! And there's a clock on it!"); then the broiler became dangerous; then the numbers rubbed off all the dials (so I knew how to get the stove to 350 or the burners to boil or simmer, but heaven help a visitor); then the knob for the back burner disintegrated. All of which to say: A nice oven from 1998 would probably have been an improvement. But this one? Hoorah. The downsides are all only cosmetic; it only came in stainless, so it doesn't match the other appliances, but the old stove was black and white, so it didn't quite match either. The old stove had a white top, and this one is black, and wow, it gets dusty every day. But: I love that the grates are all one level; I love not having to guess on the burners anymore; I love being able to broil again; and the luxury of three timers is awesome. My old stove and I had come to an understanding, and so I do miss it, just a little, but this has been really fun to work with. Here's hoping it stays that way.

(The new washer and dryer are also pretty cool but this is not a laundry blog.)

This week:

Monday: leftovers/freezer meal.

Tuesday: In other news, my older boy is home with the flu for Day 6 and actually asked me to put off Taco Tuesday to Thursday in hopes that he feels better. But excitingly, he ended up liking what I made: pad see ew, from my friend Tracey's blog. I was sort of cursing myself (I hate handling raw chicken! how many steps does this have?) but tried to remember: I wanted to make something that used what I had already, and this was awesome in that category. The only thing I needed to buy was the rice noodles (Trader Joe's had them) and the chicken. Everything else was in the house, including a rapidly aging bottle of oyster sauce I was eager to move along. And now that we are back in the foodie world and have sriracha in the fridge (which my husband and older boy LOVE), the rest just fell in to place. (Broccoli? check. Rice vinegar? check. Molasses? check.) She is right: that baking soda trick makes the chicken very tender and forgiving. And to my shock and awe, after seeing me eat it, my sick one asked me if he could have some and went back for seconds. So grateful.

That said, will I make it again? Answer: maybe. The prep isn't hard but it is extensive. We did enjoy it, and I still have oyster sauce, so I saved the link and we'll see how it goes. (Loved the chili vinegar. The acid seems to kill whatever it is in the peppers that can make me queasy so this is a winner for me.)

Wednesday: Tracey to the rescue again: trying the chicken gyro recipe. Of course the minute I finished the marinade, I thought, no wonder, it's basically my favorite chicken recipe with oregano added! But, thanks to my trusty new broiler, I don't have to brave the weather for the grill.

Thursday: hoping hard for Taco Thursday around here, which would hopefully mean my big guy was well again.

Friday: What does the Magic 8 Ball say--"Outlook is cloudy"? That's me. Not just the weather (my very favorite map was here; "Snow totals all over the east coast are listed here. Except you in the blue. We have no clue what's going on there in the middle.") My husband is working late, and my boy is so sick...I'm hoping to go out and do something fun with the boys but that all depends on whether he's finally kicked this flu, whether we have no snow on the ground or 6 inches...I'm prepared to punt. We have plenty of good food in the cabinets and I am confident we'll figure something out.

Wishing you a good week!

An Au Revoir, I Hope

Au revoir, for those of you who chose Spanish instead of French in high school, means, "Until we see each other again." I am posting this because I got a few anxious emails, which I appreciated, in my posting absence. It seems that two links or comments, somewhere in the depths of my blog, are infected with malware. I can identify them but I cannot find them. And while Blogger suggests "first, take down your blog" and I would happily comply, nowhere do they give instructions on how to do that without losing your content.

I have years of recipes and family stories on here. I can get to them by going in as the administrator, and have done so often. I might, at some point, try to scrub the malware off the site and resurrect the MemeGRL blog. But now is not that time.

I am on Pinterest, clumsily, as MemeGRL MemeGRL, and while I prefer blogging it's been a good place to store recipe links while I figure this out.

So if you read me in reader, or on a cellphone, and have access to my blog while I am on malware hiatus, thank you for reading. I loved doing the weekly menus and having the accountability to my small community here on the internet. And I am still menu planning and hoping to get this back up and running, but now is not the time, and the near future doesn't seem likely either.

If any of you know how to "take down" a blog and hunt for the malware, I would cheerfully and gratefully accept help. But as it is--I'm off for now. I have no interest in bringing you anything that might harm your computers.

For now, know that my family and I are fine; the crockpot Korean ribs were terrific, and I have loved sharing with you and look forward to doing so again.  Happy eating until I get this fixed!