Time Flies in Fall

Suddenly, it is Tuesday again.  A new week's worth of meals on it's way.  Last night was "super easy Thanksgiving".  We had Turkey and Stuffing Rolls with mashed potatoes and gravy.  I even whipped up fresh cranberry sauce.  The leftovers of that are now in the freezer waiting for Thanksgiving.

Turkey Stuffing Roll-ups

I did skip the cream of ? soup.  I did put gravy inside with the stuffing as well as on the top.  Big thumbs up from Jason.  Kaitlyn ate the turkey, not the stuffing, and I made her eat three bites of the potatoes.  She ate them by scooping them on pieces of hard boiled egg white.  HUH?!?!?
Connor ate ...dum dum ta dum...nothing.  He finally ate some egg, and half a piece of toast with Nutella.

However, the night before, he did eat three helpings of salad.  That was all he ate.  Salad.  He declared it "delicious" and kept repeating "mmmm salad".  Go figure.

Last week was a bit rough, and to be honest.  I don't even remember what I cooked.  I know we had some King Ranch casserole because I had the leftovers for lunch yesterday. 

Tonight, Kaitlyn and I have to go to an Arthritis board meeting.  Mc Donalds for her (special treat) and catered dinner for me.  Jason and Connor are on their own. 

Meatballs Rule!!!

Spaghetti and meatballs.  Tried and true.  I combined my crock-pot bolognese sauce with some store bought Marinara sauce, and simmered meatballs for about an hour.  Mixed it with the noodles, and it was delish.  Everyone ate it, to varying degrees of course.  Jason had class so after bath, the kids had dessert.  Kaitlyn had Coconut cake and Connor had Oreos.  That made for a very pleasant night, except for when they ripped the robe hook off of the bathroom door.  Oh well.

Why don't you like drumsticks?

My kids don't like chicken drumsticks.  Kaitlyn ate them willingly ONE time.  We were on our annual vacation in Pacific Beach, and she ate three of them.  She has not eaten them since.  Last night was no exception.   Connor ate two bites.

I will continue to make them.  I am counting on the tenth time is the charm principle of introducing new foods.   I WILL NOT GIVE UP!  They ate all the rice and corn.  Small victories.

Anyway, I marinated the chicken in Italian dressing for about 6 hours, then baked them off in the oven.  During the summer, I finish them on the grill, but I was to lazy to do that, so I finished them under the broiler.  I use Sweet Baby Rays sauce, but I will use whatever I get on sale. 

So, tonight is pasta night.  Spaghetti and Meatballs.  Instead of garlic bread, I will toast up the Gilroy Garlic loaf that I got at the Harvest Festival.  This should be well received.


UPDATE - as of July 2012 - Connor will eat drumsticks!!!  Baked, grilled, and friend.  Kaitlyn is still a work in process. 

Pot Roast!

I like my Crock Pot.  I like pot roast.  I like the ease of cooking pot roast in my Crock Pot.  I do not, however, like over cooked roast (or meat in general).  I read all those recipes online, and people raving how their meat "simply fell apart as it was so tender". Yuck.  I don't like stringy meat. 

Yesterday, I didn't want to set it to cook for so long.  Then, I got busy at work, so I forgot to go home and turn it on.  Fortunately/unfortunately, Kaitlyn had a tummy ache, so I had to pick her up from school early.  Dinner is saved.

I tried a new recipe that used coffee for the cooking liquid.  I let it cook on high for 4 hours. I did tweak the recipe a bit.  I seasoned (S&P) and browned the roast before cooking, and I added 1 cup of beef broth to the cooking liquid.

Roast Beef with coffee

Results.... PERFECT.

You could still slice the roast, but it was tender, and tasted SO good.  Big thumbs up from the pot roast eaters in the family, namely Jason and myself.  The kids ate rice pilaf and veggies.  Connor requested carrots.  He loves his carrots.

Tonight is movie night, which may mean pizza, but we'll see what mood I'm in by the time I get home.

I survived Tuesday.

Talk about exhausted.  The whole family was tired last night.  Came home from work, threw L. rolls in the oven, had Kaitlyn do some homework, went to Nicolas's house, and picked up Connor.  Everyone was cranky, but they all ate their dinner.  Connor ate his Chicken Dinosaurs as he is not a big pasta fan, but the roll ups were a hit even though this batch was full of spinach.  Yay!  Early bath and the kids were in bed by 7:30.  No one woke up in the middle of the night.  What more could a mom ask for? 

Dinner tonight will be utilizing my leftover chili, somehow...someway.

Update:
We had chili tostadas.  Yum.  Kaitlyn woke up repeated at night.  Yuck.

Meh...

So, dinner last night was crock pot Orange Chicken. I will post the link, but it is definitely a "make at your own risk" recipe.  It was a big thumbs down from the kids and my husband described it as "interesting".  I tried to not cook it as long in the crock pot as that just kills the chicken, and I was close when I got home.  But, Kaitlyn wanted to go to Nicolas's house, and suddenly a five minute hello becomes a forty-five minute play date.  I didn't care for the chicken, but I thought the sauce was good, so we may see that part of it again.  I did a quick ambrosia salad to go with the sugar snap peas as a side.  The kids ate the peas, but left the pods, and ate the marshmallows and some of the oranges out of the salad, but left the pineapple and strangely enough, the whipped cream.  Oh well. 

Jason had class last night, and that meant it was just the kids and I.  We went for a cruise around the block, Kaitlyn on her scooter, and Connor on his big wheel/trike thing.  They were cruisin' so I did a bit of running to keep up with them.  As we then got ready for bed, Connor took Kaitlyn's Snow White doll and her doll rocking chair, went out to the living room, and rocked her to sleep.  So cute.  Apparently, he was hugging her in his sleep, but that was not enough to keep him from waking up at 1:45, and then staying awake until 3:30.  Aauuggh! 

I am now very tired.    Tonight's dinner is the pre-prepped and frozen lasagna rolls that I made last month.  Good news for me.

Monday, Monday...

So, I had a rather lackluster ending to such a promising weekend.  I wasn't feeling well yesterday, so the cooking plans became rather abbreviated.  No big breakfast, Jason fixed an early lunch of mac-n-cheese for the kids (I made wraps for us), and dinner was a weak effort of taquitos and quesadillas.  At least I was able to manage fresh guacamole.

But today is a new day, and a new week is at hand.  (Plus the kids both slept in this morning. Woo Hoo)  Today, I am trying a new crock pot recipe for Orange chicken.  The kids love rice and fare pretty well with Chinese food, so we will see how it goes.  Also, on tap for this week are lasagna roll-ups (pan from last months monster roll-up session), pot roast, and tostadas.  I feel like I have a lot of plans for this week, but there is nothing on the calendar.  Hmm...that could be good or bad.  I think it may just be a long week of waiting to get my new iPhone.  Hee Hee.

It's the Weekend!

The weekend means lots of cooking in this house.   I started off with a loaf of pumpkin bread.  I love quick breads in the fall.  Zucchini bread is Jason's domain, but all others are mine.  Kaitlyn helped me with this one, cracking eggs and stirring.  For dinner, I planned chili, so I made that just after lunch.  Even just a few hours of sitting really helps the flavor.  I was glad I made it ahead of time, since the kids and I were over at a neighbor's house playing.  They were painting..wood, paper, each other...so an early bath was in order.  In fact, the boys were so messy that they got hosed off in the backyard.  Connor then ran naked down the block to our house.  We passed a neighbor family, but fortunately, the mom had two boys, so that was probably a pretty common sight to her.  She just laughed.

So, I served the chili a few ways in order to increase it's odds of consumption.  Chili dogs for the husband, chili in bowls for the kids, and baked potato with chili for me.  I had cheese, sour cream and chips on the table for the kids to choose from.  Both had cheese, and Kaitlyn had chips.  Connor ate two bowls of chili straight up with cheese on top.  What a great surprise.  Kaitlyn didn't like it, so she ended up eating a hot dog.  Aside:  Kaitlyn eats her hot dog in parts.  She eats the hot dog itself separately.  She then puts ketchup on the bun, and then eats that.  To each his own.  We all ate carrots, and then finished the night with a lively game of Hullabaloo.

Dinner out...WooHoo for me!

I have had some rough nights with the kids recently, so yesterday, I was too tired to even think about dinner let alone cook.  Souplantation to the rescue.  I like SP because the kids actually try new things and eat pretty healthy food there.  I throw lots of things on their tray and see what sticks.  Connor had been asking for broccoli the night before, so I gave him some little florets.  He dunked them in ranch, dipped them again in sunflower seeds and deemed them "Delicious".  He actually said that.  It was pretty funny.  They also ate garbanzo beans, cucumbers, corn and the requisite pasta.  Overall, a pretty good meal.  We did have a bit of a peanut scare towards the end.  On SPs "dessert" bar, they have jello, fruit and the toppings for their frozen yogurt.  Sometimes there are chopped peanuts, and tonight was one of those nights.  A couple pieces had made there way into the jello, which I did not know until after Connor had eaten a whole bowl.  A little bit of preemptive Benedryl, and he was fine. 

Tonight is movie night, so that will mean pizza for us - maybe frozen, maybe fresh.  I may make some English muffins ones which are Kaitlyn's favorite, but we will see.  I have been up since 4:30 so I may not make the effort.   The reality of a working mom. 

Super quick weeknight meal

We had a cold rainy day yesterday here in sunny So Cal, so everything seemed to take a bit longer than normal.  It took longer to get the kids ready; longer to pick them up; longer to run my errands.  I usually menu plan for the month, but this week was already a bit out of order, so I made a cheat meal on the fly.
Fish tacos for the adults, just the fish for the kids.  I baked frozen battered fish fillets, and threw on a couple of TJs Fish nuggets for the kids.  I had to buy small flour tortillas, since my wonderful husband does not like corn ones, and I also bought some shredded coleslaw mix (sans dressing) as a time saver. 
Add some salsa and lime, and voila...some very tasty tacos.  The kids had deconstructed fish tacos, eating the fish and tortillas separately with carrot sticks.  Kaitlyn filled her tortilla with shredded cheese; no surprise there.  Connor did take a bite of Jason's taco, but let it s l o w l y fall out of his mouth.  At least he tried.

The Picky Tooth

I am a working mom of two wonderful children.  My son, Connor, is two and his sister, Kaitlyn, is five.  The name of this blog comes from Katilyn and her friend Katy.  (BTW- Katy is a twenty-something student of mine, but they are very good friends.)  They were drawing a picture of a princess together, and Katy had asked Kaitlyn what her favorite foods were so they could draw them.  After listing the requisite cookies, candy and cupcakes, Katy asked Kaitlyn if she had a sweet tooth.  Kaitlyn responded with, "No, I have a picky tooth".  Thus, this blog was born.

Along with her favorite baked goods, Kaitlyn loves ravioli and pasta of many kinds.  However, other than those, it gets tricky.  The picky tooth can be VERY picky.  I also have a somewhat, shall we say, selective husband, and a very selective son.  Compound that with having to cook dinner at the end of a work day, and dinner time becomes very tricky.  I hope to chronicle my successes and failures as I navigate being a working mom and home chef.