I said yesterday that I feel like I've been behind all week. So far today, I'm on task. I've got conferences for the 7 y.o., dinner for the in-laws and general around the house stuff. Seems easy enough. There doesn't appear to be any reason to not make some forward progress, or at least catch up. We'll see how it goes.
On week's like this, having a dinner plan is huge. I don't have to think, especially on a night when gathering anything, let alone thoughts on what to make for dinner, was tough. Having a weekly menu plan means I have all the items at my finger tips and we're less likely to eat out, or that I'll be serving up bowls of Cheerios. A meal plan is one less thing I'm behind on.
Looking for some quick and easy, tried and tasted recipes? I planned and cooked from my Taste of Home magazines this week. I love this magazine (it's one of two that I get), and rotate them in and out according to the season.
I was kinda craving pie, apple pie to be specific, but didn't really feel like doing the whole pie thing. Enter Rustic Apple Galette with Butterscotch Sauce. Galette is just a fancy way of saying don't-worry-about-a-crust. A Galette is pretty much a dump cake, but in pie form. It's even easier if you use pre-made pie crust. This one used orange juice and orange zest mixed with the apples, which was a different and interesting take. It didn't have the saucy-cinnamon apple thing going that I enjoy in a pie, but it was good. The butterscotch sauce was divine. I will certainly make a Galette again.
These Smothered Burritos are my Mexican fix for the week. They were a five ingredient speed meal. Seriously, browning the meat was the toughest thing. They were really good and definitely need the cheddar to hold up to the green sauces; if you want a gooey cheese, use a Cheddar Jack. The recipe says it makes four, but I got eight - those must be some seriously filled burritos. Plus, my Costco raw tortillas probably aren't the 10" called for, so I'm not sure they would not have held the amount of filling the recipe stated. I simply laid out the eight tortillas and evenly split the meat between them. We topped ours with sour cream and avocado slices - PERFECT!
We were having some pretty cool days, so my planning included comfort foods like this Garlic Chicken Rigatoni. Only one of us does mushrooms in this house, and he ain't the cook, so I left out the mushrooms. I also could not find sun dried tomatoes NOT packed in oil. Well I made several rounds in the aisles I thought they'd be in and found some, in all place, the bulk aisle, but I didn't need 2 1/2 pounds of them. So, I used oil packed, rinsed them and set them in water. To tell the truth, I'm not sure what difference it made - I like sun dried tomatoes so next time I wouldn't bother with rinsing, though I'd still drain off most of the oil. I liked the flavor, but there wasn't a lot of sauce, which I'm not sure it's supposed to have anyway. I might add cream to it next time to get that saucy coating on everything. I opted to use a chicken breast, but you could do rotisserie and skip the garlic powder and flour.
I was looking for a bar for In-Law dessert and then for lunches the rest of the week. Well, these Glazed Apple-Maple Blondies were good for dinner, but not so much for lunches. They were way too moist to hold up in a lunch that is squished in a back pack (store them in the 'fridge.) Don't get me wrong the bars are awesome, but between the apples keeping the bar itself moist and then the glaze, the amazing glaze, there was just no way they wouldn't be mush in a lunch. Next time I might put the glaze on the side and see if they are better for packing. Serve it up with sweetened whip cream or vanilla ice cream and dump the sauce over them all.
Is my theme clear yet, comfort, comfort, comfort and Cajun Beef and Rice fits right in. I didn't have instant brown rice, and I didn't think my regular brown rice would cook in the dish (it is supposed to be a one skillet meal.) It wasn't any big deal to cook the rice separate and eliminate that part of the recipe. The downside is that it was a little dry, so next time I'd add beef broth to the mix AFTER adding the rice to the skillet, which would take care of the problem. Also, because, in my way, the rice doesn't simmer with the beef mixture I might add some seasonings to the rice as it cooks. My other option would be to dump the rice in while there was still some liquid and let it finish cooking down in the skillet.
I keep trying to figure out how to get to the pumpkin patch this weekend, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous, which means huge crowds. The 7 y.o. has his rocket launch on Sunday, but the rocket is not even started (hubby is leaving over the weekend for work., so he'll miss the launch - hopefully he'll get to the rocket tonight.) The 17 y.o. is doing dinner with friends. The 15 y.o. is doing some shopping for Homecoming Week. I imagine we'll figure something out.
Happy Friday,
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