What's For Supper? {link-up}

Rather than attempt to write up all that I've been doing lately in a coherent blog post, I'm joining in Simcha Fisher's meal plan link-up.

Saturday
Mr. Husband made dinner that night since the kids and I had just returned from a visit to my parents in North Carolina. He made Two-Ingredient Crockpot Chicken, pasta olio e aglio, and steamed sugar snap peas. I sat on the couch while the kids tore through all of the toys they hadn't seen in a week, and talked about how tired I was.

What's For Supper? {link-up and a recipe}

Linking up with Simcha Fisher. I'm getting back on the horse of meal planning. Italian food is featured heavily this week, mostly because being a busy musician makes me feel more inclined to make family recipes that I could cook in my sleep.

What's For Supper?

Normally, I link up with Simcha Fisher but I didn't see it today. But this week I actually got myself together enough to plan the meals (actually two weeks ago, but I didn't get around to writing the post last week) so here we are.

Sunday: Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder
Unfortunately, after running a gas oven for six hours on a day too chilly to leave the windows open, but too warm for the heat to come on, we learned a little about combustion and carbon monoxide. (Worry not, we opened all the windows and it dissipated in about five minutes. We're all fine.)

The recipe comes from Fine Cooking, and I highly recommend. Just make sure you leave your windows open if you have a gas oven.

Monday: Pulled Pork and Cornbread
Leftovers + Sweet Baby Ray's + cornbread could not get any simpler. I didn't carefully read the instructions for the cornbread, however. When the instructions say "cast iron pan or 8" cake pan," it means that a 12.5" cast iron pan is not the best choice. Oops.

Tuesday: Pizza
I know I make this a lot, but our dinner guest that evening always requests my pizza when he comes, and I am always more than happy to oblige.

Wednesday: Pork Ragu with Polenta
Courtesy of the Make Ahead Cook. This used up the last of the pork. Instead of using the America's Test Kitchen recipe for polenta, I made it in the crockpot with the Basic Polenta recipe from The Italian Slow Cooker. Two great cookbooks.

We thought it was delicious, but Sir Toddler had to be bribed to finish his bowl after he burned his mouth on the first bite. Live and learn.

Thursday: Mushroom Risotto
I threw this in the crockpot (The Italian Slow Cooker again) in the middle of the afternoon on a day where everything seemed to go wrong. I tried to make a "magic vanilla cake" that leaked all over the oven because the (British) recipe called for a 24 cm. pan and the closest thing I had was a springform pan. The home button on my phone stopped working, I tried to see if a restore from backup would work, and I wound up losing everything saved on my phone (thankfully I had put all of my pictures in iPhoto beforehand) because the new iOS is not compatible with the most current version of iTunes a six-year-old laptop running Snow Leopard can muster. And the home button is still not working. (Apple's helpful support told me that I fix all of my problems with a new laptop. NO.) I'm sorry, did I bore you? I bore me too sometimes.

In any case, the risotto came out fine but Sir Toddler refused to eat the rice after he picked out and ate the mushrooms. He may or may not have gotten on his parents' last nerves. Lady Infant devoured it. Mr. Husband came home with a bar of chocolate for me because he was sympathetic to my petty problems.

Friday: Grocery Store Carry Out
Mr Husband is coming home late and our fridge is getting to the point of "We really need to go to Market Basket" empty. We didn't have the time to make that drive today, so we went to Shaws and got some carry-out and ice cream. There is a special place in my heart for grocery store sushi.

What's for Supper {pt. 3}

Linking up with Simcha Fisher.

Let's pretend that I actually planned our meals this week instead of what I really did, which was wing it with whatever needed to be used up out of the fridge.

Saturday
Despite our resolutions to junk our collapsing gas grill, a half-full tank of propane is a terrible thing to waste. More grilled chicken + barbecue sauce, pasta e olio, and nuked frozen veggies.

Sunday
Mr. Husband was working another late shift. Incidentally, we had a repeat of Friday's dinner, which was macaroni and cheese. I tried to alleviate the shame of my utter laziness by adding a few things from the refrigerator that really needed to be used up: spinach and bacon. Fancy schmancy.

Monday
At 1 PM, I realized that not only did I not have a dinner plan, but I had to be out of the door by 6:30 to get to my first orchestra rehearsal of the season. I made Two-Ingredient Crockpot Chicken with rice and broccoli. We were actually out of salad dressing, but I found a 1/3 full can of pizza sauce in the fridge that did the job nicely.

Tuesday
A red bell pepper in the fridge and a can of Ro-Tel in the pantry inspired me to improvise a Tex-Mex -ish chicken stir-fry. I cubed some boneless skinless chicken breasts, browned them in a pan, added chopped pepper and onion, then the Ro-Tel, heaped on cumin and chili powder, and served it over rice. It came out better than I thought it would.

Wednesday
Meatballs. My half-Italian heritage seems to come with a biological imperative that I make this dish at least once a month or I'll crave it constantly. That being said, based on what was in my pantry and the perfectly-browned-in-the-pan-meatballs gene skipping a generation, I had to deviate from the old family recipe.

Instead of using flavored bread crumbs, I pulverized our freezer cache of hamburger and hot dog buns.

Instead of pan-searing or broiling the meatballs briefly, I cooked them most of the way in the oven.

If I don't do this, my meatballs fall apart and my kids learn new four-letter words they shouldn't know.

I cooked the sauce separately and added the meatballs at the very end. Nobody complained.

Buon appetito.

Thursday
I tried to have an off week from it, but then some last-minute company had me resort to it. P I Z Z A. It's an easy way feed a bunch of people because it's easy to make, inexpensive, and everybody likes it. Including Sir Toddler, who is auditioning to be the next Little Ceasars guy.*

Friday
Enchiladas. I know, I know. They've been on every link-up. But I had decided a month ago to deliver an enchilada meal to a friend who's just had a baby, and the day for that was yesterday. So now I'm in the mood for them again.



*We took him to Uno's once and ordered him a kids' pizza. He ate all but one slice. HE'S TWO. The pizza was bigger than his head.