This week, we still have visitors, we have a holiday, we have a birthday, and then more visitors! Plus, life still feels extremely high on the frazz-ometer. I have no idea what to plan or make! And yet I need to plan and make something. Many somethings.
Takeout is not really an option lately. My daughter’s and husband’s basically conflicting schedules mean that a) no one would get to eat the takeout while it is hot (which is a Big Deal to me even though I realize it doesn’t bother most people) and b) no one is available to pick up takeout anyway. I suppose I could conscript my in-laws into bringing takeout, but then there’s a Whole Thing with them wanting to pay for it and… well, I guess I can just let them pay for it.
Also, I do not want my mother-in-law to cook. I just don’t. (She would! She’s lovely! She wants to help! This is a Me Thing, and yes it makes life more difficult and yes I understand that and yet I still don’t want her to cook. I tried it the last time they were here and it just reinforced the fact that this is a thing I cannot handle for a variety of reasons. You will just have to accept this as a quirk I have, one that is incurable.)
Dinners for the Week of October 3-9
- Slow Cooker French Wine and Mustard Chicken: I am assuming (hoping) that the mustard in this chicken melds nicely into the background and isn’t all “Here I am!” jazz hands in your face. Because my husband dislikes mustard almost as much as I dislike tomatoes. Aside from the mustard, this ticks so many boxes that I need to tick right now: Slow cooker. Not too difficult. Includes spinach. (I bought a huge box of spinach for a recipe last week that I did not make and now I have a whole lot of spinach to use up.) (Yes, I realize the recipe calls for kale, but I don’t have kale, I have spinach.) I am opposed to sage, though. So with that and the mustard, maybe this recipe isn’t right for my family, I don’t know. I am grasping at slow cooker straws here.
Follow Up: This was fine, but not a hit. I did not pre-sear the chicken, and honestly it probably could have benefited from a little extra flavor. The mustard did not overpower, which was nice… and the spinach worked really well instead of the kale. But this was just a little… I don’t know. Flabby is the word I am coming up with, although I mean that in a taste sense not a textural one. The sauce was too thin, for one thing. And it had a flavor, but it was a little mild but also a little bitter. I don’t know. My in-laws were very kind about it, but my husband did not care for it and I was fully on the meh side of things.
- Sheet Pan Lemon-Herb Fish with Crispy Potatoes: I really, really would like to eat this… but I don’t know if it will happen. We’ll see. And… it doesn’t really have anything green. Do I need to make a salad to go with it? Maybe some quinoa/brown rice/farro with peas and onions?
- Spinach and Mushroom Frittata: I can never, ever spell “frittata” correctly the first time. I suppose we can also do bagels (for those who eat them) and lox? And/or a winter fruit salad? And/or maybe Carla and I will make challah again; perhaps this apple honey challah?
- Beef Stroganoff with Side Salad and Ice Cream Cake: This is my husband’s birthday dinner request. We’ll have it over egg noodles. Maybe I should do roasted green beans or steamed broccoli instead. We’ll see.
Follow Up: This was very good. HOWEVER, I messed around with the recipe a bit, so who knows if I can ever re-create it. Here’s what I did. I noticed AFTER I had measured out the requisite quarter cup of dijon that a) that was a HELLA lot of mustard and b) pretty much every other stroganoff recipe EVER calls for something in the realm of a single teaspoon of dijon. Not, you know FOUR TABLESPOONS. So I ended up putting in around 1-2 tablespoons of dijon and then fretting about it the entire rest of the time it cooked. Since I knew (belatedly) that I was going to cut the mustard (lol – I crack myself up) (although I don’t actually know what that is supposed to mean — if something doesn’t cut the mustard, it means it’s subpar, right?) I figured I would need to make up the flavor elsewhere. Other recipes called for white wine, so I deglazed the pan with the onion/garlic mixture with 1/2 cup of dry white wine. Then I also added in a generous tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce. Then, because the resulting sauce STILL tasted mustardy, and I was panicking a bit, I added in an extra cup of beef stock. Then, because I was STILL panicking, I threw in a big glug of soy sauce. The end result did not taste mustardy at all, but I don’t know if it’s because of my ministrations or because it would have cooked off anyway. I also did not want to wait to do the garlic mushroom mixture the recipe called for, so I simply sautéed some mushrooms and some garlic for a while and then tossed them in with the rest of the beef and liquid for the entire eight hours it cooked. Then at the end, I used an entire 16 oz container of sour cream — and my husband added probably another quarter cup of flour to the sour cream, because the sauce was very loose — and mixed that in at the end. The end result was truly delicious.
- Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas: I am hoping my niece will eat this. Even though I don’t know if my own daughter will eat this. Sigh.
And then we’ll fill in with takeout, I guess.
What are you eating this week?
Sheet pan and slow cookers, very smart. We just got back from our weekend away and I have an EVENING CLASS I am subbing for this week and I am feeling so…depleted. But dinners must be made.
I wanted to say I totally understand re: getting someone else to cook. In theory it sounds great, in reality, I cannot even have someone else other than the boys or my husband load the dishwasher. So I get it. It’s weird because I eat at my mother’s house, food that I don’t cook, but in my own house, no.
Tonight I’m making your green bean dish, with vegetarian chorizo mixed in and cheese melted on top to make it a meal. And we’re having the white bean enchilada soup later in the week. So, thanks!
Last night Beth was excited North was having dinner at a friend’s because it meant she could cook with eggplant and spinach, neither of which North will eat.
I also am grasping at straws dinner wise lately. I quickly marinated some peeled and deveined shrimp and then cooked them on the griddle pan and added to a bagged Caesar salad and called it dinner last night. I far prefer to peel and devein my own shrimp… except when I don’t and last night was a “don’t” night. And yet I annoyed myself with it because the shrimp were not as good as normal because I took the easy way out.
I too have spinach to be used- mine will go in Reddit’s best soup ever with tortellini and I use Italian sausage. If I have leftover I may do a ground Turkey tortellini soup with butternut squash if I feel like peeling and chopping the literal hardest substance on the planet- diamonds have nothing on butternut squash.
Mustard being jazz hands is hilarious and the most apt thing ever
We are bringing back fall recipes and are doing a butternut squash soup later this week.
I have a frittata recipe that calls for 10 eggs, a block of frozen spinach, and whatever meat you want to put in there (it calls for ham, which makes me gag and we actually sub potatoes), along with cheese. We use feta or goat cheese crumbles, but I bet you could use any kind of cheese. Frittatas are so forgiving – you can basically put anything in them and it will turn out delicious.
As someone who loathes mustard, I’m curious how your husband likes the chicken dish. I can handle mustard in tiny amounts as an ingredient, but if it’s prominent in a sauce, that would probably gross me out. I usually try to sub something spicy for mustard if I can. (One of the upcoming Cookbook Club recipes being made this week is meatballs with mustard in the meatballs, and I am gearing myself up for tasting them — I have mustard on the brain right now!)
If it makes you feel better, my menu planning has been crap lately. I literally drool reading about the things you make/plan to make. You are so far ahead of me in the food game!!
I totally get the “not finding it easy to have someone else cook in your space.” It’s also just practically hard because you feel like you have to help them find everything and navigate the nuances of things like the oven or finicky peeler. I enjoy going to someone else’s home and having them cook, but when people come to my space, I frankly find it easier to do the cooking. That said, my Mom ends up doing a lot of kitchen cleaning work, I find. She’ll offer to do things that need to be handwashed, or clean the table or sweep the kitchen. And those practical helps can mean a lot to me AND make her feel like she’s really contributing.
And my Frazz meter is HIGH this week. I have a lot of fun personal things that are coming to a head…but also a lot of big work things that I have not properly prioritized. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to fit it all in, but right now I’m going to make a giant list so I don’t forget 2/3 of the stuff that needs doing!
Yes let your in-laws pay for takeout! Not because you need them to but because it will make them happy to contribute.
I fired up the instant pot last night and made a huge batch of barbacoa beef with the idea that we’ll have a bit of it now and then freeze the rest. I also want to make some pasta with pumpkin sauce. No one else in my family wants anything to do with pumpkin so I’m sure they’ll have mac n’cheese and nuggets that night;-)
Those meals sound great! I love mustard but it is definitely a pervasive flavor. My older daughter loathes celery and even though it’s an innocuous item, she can always spot it in dishes. Best of luck with the dinners!
I like mustard but it’s not one of my number one condiments. I tell you this because I have had a chicken mustard dish and enjoyed it very much. So, who knows? It may be an instant hit. One of my very favorite things that my husband makes is a mustard pork dish – it’s wild how much the mustard compliments the pork. I have that “recipe” somewhere that I would be happy to share, if you are so inclined.
Yes, definitely let your in-laws pay for takeout. It would make life easy for you for those meals and would make them happy that they could help.
We are adjusting to life with a newborn, so there is no meal planning right now. We are making spur-of-the-moment decisions and thanking neighbors for delivery gift cards.
That said, my husband (who is doing all of the cooking) decided he wants a taco casserole tonight so that’s the current plan.
Last week, we started working through the list of things I missed desperately while pregnant – he figured out how to shuck oysters for me and put together a cheese and cured meats plate with all the soft, unpasteurized cheeses. I highly recommend this method of meal planning.
I made chili today. I doubled it. Quiet the undertaking, but I can now put some aside and bring it to Ed when I see him at college this weekend. He is very excited. Lad is making dinner tomorrow night. There is a surprised look on my face as I type that, but wonders never cease. Probably a Costco chicken by Wednesday because I will be busy preparing food for this weekend’s tailgate.
BTW – I read your last post, but I’m commenting here, because I’m here. Um, so funny about Carla critiquing the blue scarf wearing. Also the license plate thing – she might have a future as a detective. Best of luck with the houseguests and the fend for yourselves meals.
I don’t knooooooow. I went out for a birthday dinner tonight so I bought hot dogs for my husband while grocery shopping. Tomorrow I think I am making a slow cooker roast beef and ground beef and chicken for tacos for when my sister and her family and my daughter are here this weekend for Thanksgiving (them) and fall break (her), so I guess we’ll eat something out of that. I also have spinach to use up, thanks for the reminder. I think I have tomato and cheese skillet gnocchi in the freezer so I can also make that and throw in some spinach. I also do not love too much mustard if it’s the regular yellow kind. Dijon mustard my body does not recognize as food and will violently reject in various unpleasant ways. I haven’t done a sheet pan meal for a while, and it is a good idea.
I cannot let anyone else cook in my kitchen, I just cannot, so I get it.
We are having a lot of “I don’t know, what do you want” for dinner this week. We lost all the fridge stuff in the hurricane and I’m still building it back up so dinner is discombobulated.
I’d not want my MIL to cook in my kitchen either (quirk or not) – so I understand. My Mom though, that would be a different story (for whatever reason).
Ooooh that slow cooker recipe sounds wonderful— was it a crowd pleaser? We are in a major dinner rut over here. I have just accepted that I will cook dinner in the middle of the morning and people will reheat it randomly. SO DREAMY. **eyeroll**