I have no idea why, but I didn't do much over the course of the week. Last weekend, yes, totally rocked the Big To-Do list. During the week, yeah, not so much. We'll just say it was too hot to do anything and move on.
Shoot I didn't even plan a menu. I know this, but it's always a nice reminder, it is SO nice to have a menu and food on hand when it's time deal with dinner. As a result of no meal plan, we ordered pizza one night. When I ran to the store last night for ingredients for a salad, for the 16 y.o. who's work was doing a lunch BBQ, I grabbed fried chicken from the deli for dinner. Not a banner cooking week for me...or my family.
But I did cook a couple of things. If you're looking for tried and true, or at least some thoughts on the food, give one or more of these a try. You can find other things I've cooked from Pinterest on this board.
I needed a side for the chicken (farther down the list) that I made on In-Law Monday. These Garlic Noodles were easy and awesome. A light sauce, good garlic flavor. Because it was a side, even though I was feeding eight, I used the recipe as is - which said it served four. Everyone got the size of portion they wanted and, in the end, not a noodle was left. I did opt for thin spaghetti instead of angel hair; angel hair gets too mushy if it needs to sit for even a few minutes, so thin spaghetti is my go to when angel hair is called for.
It was hot, which means even having the toaster oven on adds too much heat to my kitchen. I needed these No-Cook Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars because the only heat came from the microwave, and that was for 30 seconds. These were really easy and really good. The crust was a bit of a surprise. The photo on the post looks like it had to be pressed into the pan, whereas mine I could spread. That tells me I may have needed a bit more graham cracker crumbs, or maybe I didn't need them ground as fine. The blogger also says it could stay on the counter. There was no way mine were going to be able to do that and not become a mushy puddle. However, kept in the 'fridge they were no problem. The crust was soft (as I said maybe a little too soft), and buttery and lots of peanut and chocolate flavors going on.
Because I had no menu plan going into In-Law Monday, I had to wing it. I've always got chicken in the freezer, so it was just a matter of finding other staples I had. Hello Cilantro Thai Chicken. I always have cilantro - we love the stuff. I have to say I was a little surprised. Typically, marinades don't always impart a lot of flavor, some yes, but they seem to mostly cook off. This was not the case with this dish. Now, I was able to marinate it for longer than 15 minutes, more like a couple hours, so that may have been part of the reason it was so flavorful. But I've had meat in marinade for longer than that and you only get a shadow of flavor. So yeah, it was good! Really good. This is the chicken I paired with the Garlic Noodles above.
My daughter hosted a backyard movie night for her "Fam." A little get-together before everyone started going off to school. Because of that I had some hot dogs to use up. My 6 y.o. was near me when I was scrolling Pinterest and decided we needed to have these Bagel Dogs. Don't let the yeast dough and boiling set you off, it really is easy. I had a couple things go a little askew for me. One was not working quickly enough while rolling and cutting - I was distracted talking with my boys, so I should have covered my dough so it didn't dry on top. I also was under the clock to get them done because we were headed for the neighborhood ice cream social just down the block, so the second rise was about 20 minutes instead of 30. Some of the hot dogs were still really cold, so that could have affected the rise, despite the heat of my kitchen. The flavor was good, and they had some good bagel-chew to them, but they were a little more "crusty" on the outside and a little less "fluffy" on the inside. I have another bagel dog recipe that I've used, so I'm not sure if it was my "issues" or the recipe itself that produced the results I got. More than likely a little of both. In any case, because I have another recipe, I didn't keep this pin.
I have not a clue what I'll do with my weekend (though the state of my pantry is deplorable.) The 6 y.o. has a birthday party to go to. We need to top off the college supply list for Girlie. I probably should go brave the school supply aisle at Target and get that off my list while there's still stuff to choose from. I'll need to wing some sort of menu for tonight and definitely make a menu for next week because not having one sucks.
Happy Friday,
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