Well hello there, we have apparently reached the time of year when I have small freak-out about breakfast. Join me, won’t you?
The issue, in a nutshell, is that I continue to need quick weekday breakfast options for my child. Ideally, they would be portable and at least semi-nutritious. This is Quite Challenging, because a lot of breakfast foods do not appeal to my kid. I am and have always been a Very Picky Eater, so I get it; it’s not always a matter of “just eat it because it’s good for you.” Sometimes the preferable option to a food you don’t like is simply not eating. As a Very Picky Eater, I understand. As a Tends-Toward-Fretful Mother, I want my child to fuel her body before school.
The bacon and egg sandwiches I mentioned here are fine, but they are not an everyday desire. The French toast muffins I mentioned in the same post were fine, but I think Carla got sick of them. However, muffins do seem to be a well-received mechanism for delivering calories and (modest) nourishment to my child, so I think I’m going to make some apple cinnamon muffins and some pumpkin cream cheese muffins in the hopes that they do the trick.
Speaking of calories and nourishment, I haven’t done a great job of planning meals this year. I am, however, less great at winging it. So let’s get back to meal planning, at least for today.
Dinners for the Week of March 2-8
Slow Cooker Korean BBQ Chicken: I am in need of some slow cooker meals this week, and this sounds yummy. I’m using breasts instead of drumsticks, and I’ll shred the chicken and use it to make some rice bowls.
Lemony Garlic Butter Shrimp Orzo: My husband and daughter got me a new cookbook for my birthday, and I love it. It has many, many recipes I would love to make and eat, including this one. My husband doesn’t normally care that much for shrimp, but he said he’d be happy to try any recipe from the book and I’m taking him at his word.
Ramen: My daughter is into ramen lately, and I like ramen well enough. My favorite way to make it is with shrimp and edamame, but my husband would prefer chicken. Hopefully we’ll have leftover Korean BBQ chicken he can add to it.
Chicken Paprikas: This meal doesn’t necessarily scream “spring is on the way,” but it’s tasty, simple to make, and usually produces enough leftovers for another meal.
Stephany! Woo hoo! Your copy will be in the mail asap.
Mystery Item
It took until Saturday for me to remember the mystery item I’d been meaning to order last week. (By the way, I loved Kate’s suggestion that it might be chipotles in adobo, which I’d previously blogged about running out of in a previous post! Good eye, Kate – fortunately, it’s on my grocery list, although my store was completely out of chipotles the last time I looked.) The mystery item was Loop ear plugs. Not a kitchen item AT ALL. I keep meaning to get Carla a pair of these ear plugs because a) I think she could use them during in-class study time, when her teachers discourage the use of headphones and b) I know she could use them when we go to noisy restaurants, which tend to make her feel unbearably overstimulated.
Things I’m Making
Speaking of Carla: she is going through another phase of not being particularly amenable to eating. She eats a decent enough variety of things, I think, but she gravitates toward easy foods which are often less nourishing and/or nutritious than I’d like. I would especially like for her to have easy foods to grab for breakfast a) because she often skips lunch. (We have discussed this with her doctor, we are on top of it, do not worry.), and b) because I want her to be self-sufficient in the mornings.
One food she has been into lately is the Starbucks bacon, gouda, and egg breakfast sandwich, which she gets without the cheese. I am having a strange and intense aversion to Starbucks lately, which isn’t the worst thing for many reasons. But this means I am less open to taking Carla to Starbucks. Also, Starbucks costs money and I am not eager to spend money on fast food breakfast more than once a month (outside of extenuating circumstances). Anyway, this is to say that I gave in once last week and took her to Starbucks for a sandwich with the caveat of using that sandwich as a prototype from which to make our own homemade breakfast sandwiches.
I made these bacon and egg sandwiches on ciabatta bread and froze them. (I added about a quarter cup of cheddar cheese to the egg mixture, because my kid likes cheese mixed in to her scrambled eggs, she just can’t abide it melted on top of things.) The finished product seems a little dry to me (no butter? no mayo?), and Carla has yet to try one, so please cross your fingers on my behalf. I will be quite irritated if she doesn’t eat them. (I eat very few sandwiches and also dislike eggs, so I will not be eating them. Maybe my husband will eat them.)
While I was cutting up the loaf of ciabatta bread, I made a miscalculation and ended up trimming the ends off of all eight sandwiches. Which gave me an excuse to make French toast muffins, a thing that seems delightful and which I have never tried before.
The French toast muffins needed to sit for two hours, so while they were sitting, I made a batch of homemade granola. I love granola, but it’s spendy. This batch called for coconut oil, which I don’t love, but it turned out okay. I used chia seeds, which is what I had on hand (because I purchased them specifically to make granola), but I would like to try adding flax seeds and/or hemp hearts and/or puffed quinoa to future batches. I suspect it will take me a long time to make it through this batch, though – I really only add a few tablespoons to yogurt.
Things I’m Planning to Make
I suppose while I’m making things, I might as well make a meal plan for this week.
Dinners for the Week of February 2-8
Slow cooker Mongolian beef: This sounds good and slow cooker meals are always appealing – especially when it’s so enduringly chilly outside.
Cream of mushroom soup: This sounds luxurious and warming. I will have to make some sort of protein for my husband to go along with his.
Ramen with shrimp and edamame: My husband wanted to try the squiggly noodles from Trader Joe’s, and I am always a fan of ramen with shrimp and some frozen edamame. Easy peasy.
Chicken paprikas: Yes. We haven’t had this in a while and it’s the perfect cozy comfort meal for winter.
Something But Not a Lot
In a rather drastic tone change, sometimes I feel so keenly the exhortation to say something that reaches beyond my little cozy corner. I have sat at my computer, many hours and many days, trying to find the words to express my despair and disappointment at the state of the world, to articulate the scale of my love and hope for all of us. Maybe it’s ignorance or delusion or cowardice or all three, but again and again, I find that I don’t know what to say or how to say it. I continue to read and listen to voices stronger and braver and more knowledgeable and more eloquent than I am. (The fragment “Before the apocalypse, there was the apocalypse” keeps looping through my brain.) I continue to seek out blog posts, fiction, essays, and poetry to make sense of things, to offer comfort, to provide distraction, to inspire, and to organize the complicated tangle of emotions into words.
Quick note that the giveaway for a copy of Nicole’s debut novel is open until this coming Friday. Please enter if you or a loved one need a(nother) copy of her book!
Are you having a snow day? If you are in a part of the world that is caught in a deep freeze right now, I hope you are safe and warm and that you have electricity. We are so very fortunate (so far) in that our home is warm and cozy and our larders are full of food.
I’m not actually sure what a larder is, so when I say “larders” I mean “the two refrigerator/freezers we own” and “the pantry and kitchen cupboards.”
The last time I went to the grocery store was Wednesday, but I feel like I made some pretty smart choices in terms of purchases. I am also feeling pretty smug about my slow-to-die pandemic habit of overbuying things and stuffing my freezer and pantry full of things that have lasting power.
Here’s (most, but not all of) what we have:
Protein: Salmon (wild and farm-raised), chicken, halibut (a Christmas gift from my brother and his wife), ground beef, steak, sausage, four shrimp, eggs, pepperoni
Dairy: Milk, yogurt, cheese (mozzarella, cheddar, parmesan), cream cheese, a partial container of sour cream, half and half, almond milk (not really dairy, but I’m counting it anyway), butter
Fresh produce: Lettuce (iceberg and a salad mix and romaine), cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, celery, onions (red and Spanish), one green pepper, green beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, one cucumber, apples, grapes, avocadoes, lemons, limes, 5/6 of a pomegranate, a mango that may be past its prime, some cilantro that may be nearing its end-of-life, scallions, one jalapeno, a quarter head of red cabbage
Frozen produce: Peas, corn, edamame (in the pod and half a bag of de-podded), various potato products (hash browns, diced potatoes), mango, cranberries, cherries, raspberries, ginger, garlic
Pantry staples: Lentils, dark red kidney beans, cannellini beans, one can of black beans, chickpeas, chicken/beef/vegetable stock, one can of coconut milk, tomato puree, noodles of various sorts (but no complete boxes of any of them), rice (basmati and brown), quinoa, farro, flour, sugar (brown, powdered, granulated), chocolate chips, oats, various nut butters, various nuts and seeds (mainly almonds), various tortillas and taco shells, various curry pastes
Sweets: Carla made an enormous batch of cupcakes yesterday on FaceTime with her cousin, a cookie mix, some frozen slices of apple cake from my husband’s birthday
Breakfast foods: A variety of cereals and frozen things (waffles, etc.), instant oatmeal, my favorite bread, and my husband’s collection of Oats Overnight
Condiments: A huge selection, especially of hot sauce
Herbs and spices: A huge selection
Baking necessities: Vanilla, baking powder and soda, honey, maple syrup, various oils, various vinegars, gelatin, yeast, etc.
As long as our electricity holds out, we are all set. I mean honestly, I don’t really need to go shopping again for months. Good lord, we have so much food.
Anyway, I am distracting myself from all worries by contemplating meals I can fashion out of this abundance of ingredients.
Potato, Sausage, and Broccoli Frittata: I like a frittata, and we truly have way too many frozen potato products on hand, plus I have some frozen sausage that I will never otherwise use, so this would be perfect. I would make a half batch, in part because we do not need 8 to 10 servings of frittata, and in part because the full recipe requires 10 eggs and I might want some of those eggs for other things.
Creamy Vegan Pasta: I love the idea of using some white beans for a lush, garlicky pasta sauce. We would have to mix pasta shapes though, and that makes me feel uncomfortable.
Chickpea Curry: I love this easy, warming recipe and it would be a great way to call both chickpeas and coconut milk into service.
Salmon Bowls: I love a good salmon bowl, and I like how this recipe includes edamame and avocado both of which I have in abundance. I will probably skip the mango though; I have a weird aversion to pairing mango with avocado. Although I do have that ripe mango that really needs to fulfill its purpose in life… hmmm. This recipe also calls for cucumber, but I am saving my cucumber for more of this salad.
Lentil Soup: A warm bowl of lentil soup would really hit the spot today. I was planning to use the carrots and celery for snacking, but I could apportion some of it for mire poix. Soup would also give me a good excuse to make some bread!
Beef with String Beans: I have a good number of green beans left from last week (although I used some in a red curry last night), and I have a bistro fillet of steak in my freezer. Why not put them together?
Chipotle Lentil Stuffed Sweet Potatoes: My husband and I made this a few months ago and it was delicious. (I can send you the recipe if you can’t get beyond the paywall.) My only concern is that I don’t think I have any chipotles on hand, which is very unlike me. It’s so unlike me that I almost don’t believe it. But I did make chipotle chicken tortilla soup last week, and I used the last cube of frozen blended chipotle I had, and I didn’t see any other cans of chipotles in adobo in the cupboard, so I may have slipped up in my chipotle stocking.
Vegan Sticky Sesame Chickpeas: I have never tried this before, but it sounds good. If I don’t use up the broccoli in a frittata, I could use it here. Or I could add some peas instead. (It doesn’t actually even call for veggies, but I dislike plain legumes.)
Chicken Avocado Salad: I don’t have bacon or tomatoes, but I think I can make a nice salad that’s loosely based on this one. I have some mozzarella pearls, and I could throw in my lone green pepper and some thawed frozen corn.
Chickpea Salad Sandwiches: I have been meaning to make a batch of chickpea salad, but haven’t gotten around to it. Now might be the time, especially if I end up making bread.
Steak and Caesar Salad with Potato: We have some leftover tenderloin from Christmas and I could whip up a Caesar salad. If I don’t use the potatoes for something else, I could use them here. Or I could roast up some of our plethora of diced frozen potatoes with some lemon zest, garlic and cilantro, in an homage to a dish from my favorite Lebanese restaurant.
Japanese Curry: This is a regular on our meal rotation, and we happen to have some golden curry cubes on hand. This can only happen if we don’t use the potatoes and sweet potatoes for something else, though. I also throw in a bunch of frozen peas, and broccoli if I have it.
Tortilla “Burgers”: I love a hamburger, but we don’t have any buns in the house. I suppose I could make some from scratch, but I also find the idea of making a “burger” with a tortilla quite appealing.
Wow, look at all those meals I can craft without ever setting foot in the grocery store! But what about sweets??? Surely I can make something yummy for dessert from what I have on hand. Besides cookies from the cookie mix. Or instant chocolate pudding, for which I also have a mix.
Cranberry Bars: I did not make these over the holidays, and I missed them. A baking project is the perfect way to while away the hours of a snow day, is it not?
Raspberry Mousse: We don’t have heavy whipping cream, but we do have Greek yogurt, and this recipe sounds simple and yummy.
Apple Cinnamon Muffins: I love these muffins and they make the house smell so good. Plus, they freeze well.
Sugar Free Flour Free Brownies: I have some dates in the house and I can make these! Also, since I am the only one who likes them, I can eat them all!
With Sugar, With Flour Brownies: Or I could throw caution to the snow and make these amazing brownies, which I apparently haven’t made since August.
If you are having a snow day (which seems like it could very easily morph into a snow week blergh), and you are in a head space that allows you to think of frivolous things like baking and cooking, what are you planning to make for today’s meals?
If you are not having a snow day (hello, Florida and California friends!!! what is your guest room situation like these days, hmm???), what do you make when you have no desire to set foot in a grocery store?
