How was your holiday weekend? Did you eat anything wonderful, and if so I want specifics please (candy counts).
I did not make beef tenderloin for Easter dinner. My husband said that beef tenderloin is our Christmas dinner, and, while he didn’t expand on that comment, I sort of get where he’s coming from. We don’t want to spoil its specialness by having it more often.
Instead, after begging my family to tell me what they want, Carla finally announced that she wanted “that chicken Daddy ate at the Japanese restaurant.” First of all, it was pork, but no matter! This was a clear, specific request and something that I could make with Carla, so I readily agreed. We made pork tonkatsu (I made myself a pork chop with no breading) and Carla and my husband thought it was yummy. I do not enjoy pan frying things, but it turned out okay.
We also had strawberries and mascarpone which was delicious (even without adding honey to the mascarpone).
Let’s see. I think I am going to try a few fun things for dinner this week, and then lean heavily on the prepared foods section of my grocery store for other meals. I just don’t have it in me to cook, but I KNOW I will not be cooking next week, so I feel like I should at least give the impression of making an effort.
Dinners for the Week of April 18-24
- Lemon Butter Shrimp with Broccoli: I don’t know how my husband will feel about this one – shrimp is not something he really gravitates toward. But I think it will be novel, at least, because I don’t make shrimp for the family that often. (Of course, by “for the family” I exclude Carla, who will not touch a shrimp with a ten-foot chopstick.)
- Thai-Style Pork Tenderloin with this Quinoa: I want to make the quinoa. I want to eat the quinoa. But I may just skip it altogether and do a boring side salad or some green beans or something. Time will tell.
- Honey Garlic Sheet Pan Salmon & Brussels Sprouts: Here is where I play “can I get away with forcing my husband to eat salmon if I slather it in honey.”
- Slow Cooker Barbacoa Beef Tacos: These are good and we haven’t had them in a long while.
What’s on your dinner plan this week?
I just woke up in western Pennsylvania, with half a day’s drive left to get home and this post made me realize I have to menu plan as soon as we get home because Beth will want to grocery shop this afternoon. Ugh. I can’t think of a single thing, but I guess it’s better to realize now so I can think about it while we drive.
We got to our rental house around dinner time last night, so Easter dinner was canned soup and mushroom melts. The only cooking involved was sautéing mushrooms and North did that. We did eat candy, too. I spread it out in tiny servings throughout he day to avoid spikes, but I ate a nontrivial amount of it.
I feel quite lame – we have NOTHING special on Easter in terms of foods.
I am all about tradition and Christmas just oozes of tradition in my house, especially with food, but I have none of that at Easter.
The kids got candy from friends, which I then appropriated and re-hid as part of my impromptu egg hunt.
We had meatballs, rice, cornbread and peas (a family favourite meal) on Friday night and tonight we’re having our favourite curry dish…but those are very ordinary for us. I did buy a small ham, but never got around to using it yet and that will come at some point in the next few weeks without much fanfare.
I felt pretty successful with our Easter dinner, which included ham (Smitfield pre-sliced brown sugar glazed, nothing special), mashed potatoes, pineapple casserole which was a novelty for my family and they didn’t love it (but I do), pasta salad which got the comment, “Ooh, sweet! Pasta salad!”, a copycat Longhorn Steakhouse salad, green bean bundles, and deviled eggs. I also bought a carrot cake for dessert. Mostly easy and low-key but we ate it on my grandmother’s “Violette” china which felt very Easter-y, indeed.
That quinoa looks great and I may just put that on my menu! We had such a great weekend at my parents, and I didn’t cook for two days. Last night, we were all so stuffed from constant eating, I just made pasta salad.
It’s my birthday on Thursday, but that’s a busy day with my son’s wrestling and my husband’s work, so we are celebrating on Friday with takeout. This is a huge deal as we get takeout so rarely! Then my husband is away for a few days. Other than that, it’s a pretty ordinary week around here.
We made a ham for Easter brunch and now we have a mountain of leftovers. My husband would happily eat it for dinner every night until it is gone but the rest of the family is against him. I’m going to give it two more dinners and then pack the rest up in the freezer and I’ll use it up in quiche later on.
Ooh I haven’t made any kind of tacos for dinner in a while. That might be going on the plan for next week. This week is another “fly by the seat of our pants” week apart from the ham.
We are vacationing in Myrtle Beach so Easter dinner was interesting. We spent the day touring a huge park, formerly a rice plantation. Then at the last minute decided to go watch the local ball team play at 6:00. So Easter dinner was a hot dog (and I don’t eat hot dogs!) then cheese and crackers afterward in our BNB. Plus wine of course.
I ate a buffet style Easter dinner at my brother’s. Pulled pork on a bun, a variety of salads and desserts. I loved the haystack things with small chocolate eggs in them although they were hard to eat. I don’t meal plan for one; it’s whatever I have around that I feel like eating. Weirdly, I do LOVE reading about others’ meals though. And seeing photos of them!
We ate all the delicious horrible-for-you foods. Eggs with sausage mixed in for breakfast, jelly beans, cheese soup, mashed potatoes with extreme amounts of butter, cream cheese, and half and half, buttery corn casserole. And this chicken my MIL makes, rolled up thin pieces with cheese in the middle, breaded, then cooked in the oven in an inch of butter/white wine sauce. Decadent. Oh, and green beans with bacon. We should probably eat a salad one of these days.
We went to brunch at my in-laws’ house on Sunday. It was carb heavy and wonderful, although someone brought a vegetable plate and I ate ALL the snap peas. I also put two Cadbury crème eggs in my pocket as I was sliding out the door, so that happened. After brunch, there was an egg hunt with our niece sand nephews and we have it down to a real science now. Each child has seven color-coded eggs to find and the aunts and uncles that do the hiding really make it challenging for the teenagers. It was great fun and, as a complete areligous person, am starting to think of Easter as my favorite holiday because I love both brunch and the egg hunt and the fact that I get to come home the same day.
We usually have Man-Child (and The Girlfriend) along with our neighbors two doors down for Easter. This year, because the neighbors would be out of town, we had them over Saturday and The Husband served smoked salmon (delicious). He usually does some sort of maple/bourbon glaze and it was perfect. Man-Child came down with COVID a few days before (he seems to be recovering well), so our Easter was a very quiet affair with just the two of us. He made a pork roast, potatoes and asparagus for lunch.
I had a fantastic crab cake over the weekend. Dinner on Easter Sunday was leftovers and a grilled cheese sandwich. No regrets.
Dinner this week is a hodgepodge. Taco Tuesday and we have stuff to make pico de gallo and a small head of cabbage. Tonight was stuffed peppers from the freezer. No idea what we shall have on Wednesday but that can be Wednesday’s problem.
I made ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, and roasted asparagus for our Easter dinner which we ended up having on Saturday night. The boys ate a little bit of ham and that was it. I tried to get the 1y to eat mashed potatoes with gravy and he spit them out. So yah. I will make a soup w/ the ham and ham bone later this week – which is really the best part of the ham IMO. Tonight we are having ground beef tacos. And that’s it for meal plans here, so even fewer meals planned than usual… so the kids will subsist on dino/veggie chicken, mac & cheese, and banana pancakes since they won’t eat the ham. Le sigh.
I am 100% going to try that Barbacoa recipe!! We would love that. That’s one Mexican meal I’ve never really tried to make. It looks absolutely delicious.
It’s really good and super easy! And my trick for the chipotle is to blend a can or two of chipotle peppers in adobo, then portion it out into ice cube trays and freeze it, then save the cubes. I use a cube every time a recipe says “1 tbsp of adobo” and a cube for every pepper called for. (I like things spicy, though!)
I’ve saved the Honey Garlic Sheet Pan Salmon & Brussels Sprouts recipe because that sounds like our kind of dinner. May I just say that I want to love quinoa, and I try to think good thoughts about it, but I. Don’t. Know. It’s kind of weird.
Thinking good thoughts seems like an excellent start. Some foods just don’t appeal.