Well, I am still hard in the meal-planning slump. BUT I have all your lovely suggestions from last week, so that’s what I’m cooking, folks! Thank you for planning my meals this week!
Dinners for the Week of April 13 – 19
- Snack Dinner/Fend for Yourself: I bought a loaf of sourdough from the grocery store for those who would enjoy some sour toast. I have cheese aplenty. And olives. And pickles. And sugar snap peas. And carrots. And strawberries. And cherry tomatoes, for those who partake. And delicious Triscuit crackers. If people are interested in adding some protein to their snack dinner – and maybe they don’t care! maybe it’s a carb night! – we have pepperoni and peanut butter and yogurt. We have lots of cereal and milk. Things could change between now and then, but I am planning on a faux-Orange Julius with a side of sour toast for myself. Everyone else can do what they do.
- Breakfast for Dinner: You will perhaps be unsurprised when I tell you that, like chocolate, I don’t really care for breakfast. Every now and again, fine. Like waffles or pancakes or French toast casserole or strata for a special occasion. My husband made a Dutch baby for Easter and it was delightful. But on the whole… I could take it or leave it. Mainly leave it. And eggs. Pfff. Get out of here with your eggs. Once in a Long While I can stomach a few spoonsful of scrambled cheese eggs (these are scrambled eggs with American cheese, or, better yet, Velveeta) or maybe an omelet, as long as it has plenty of cheese and mushrooms and onions. I do not like cereal. ESPECIALLY if you pour milk on it. Soggy flakes or rectangular prisms of carbs? NO THANK YOU. I am always up for bacon. But breakfast for dinner is EASY. And Carla will usually eat a couple of scrambled eggs if I bribe her with a pancake.
- Sheet Pan Cuban Chicken: How have I only made this a couple of times? It is easy and DELICIOUS. Done. On the list.
- Pizza: I’m not going to lie, I will probably get takeout. But I COULD make it from scratch. If I felt like it.
- Crockpot BBQ Pork Tenderloin: Easy. Yummy. DONE.
- Crockpot Chicken Tortilla Soup: This is the most fussy, involved meal on the plan this week. But it sounds good, and so few things do lately. Plus, it makes enough for plentiful leftovers which I can eat for lunch the rest of the week. On. The. List.
My husband contributed a dessert idea for the week. If I can track down the special sweet rice flour it calls for (and believe me, the LAST thing we need is another special flour; we have plenty of low-carb flours leftover from our Keto experiment last year), he will be making us Hawaiian Butter Mochi. I am curious but wary.
Now I need to moan a bit about bananas.
This is the current banana situation in our house.
Yes, I did pose the bananas in front of the piano. What? The light was nicest there.
Normally, the bananas live on top of the white cabinet in the hall between the pantry and the laundry room. Should they instead live in the fruit shelving unit I bought specifically for the purpose of holding bananas and other fruits? Yes, they should. But that shelving unit has been occupied by a large bag of clean face masks, the thermometer (which until just this week we needed to use every morning before Carla was allowed to go to school), and other odds and ends that seem to accumulate in the kitchen. Also, tomatoes. That’s where I keep any tomatoes we have in the house. At least the fruit shelving unit is half living up to its potential.
The storage issue is only a small fraction of my problem. The bigger issue is that I can never buy the right amount of bananas. Number of bananas? Amount? Number? Don’t know. It’s one of those words. I either buy too many – as I did, apparently, last week – and they languish, spottening and blackening with each day that passes. Or I buy too few and my family starts making “why don’t you love me?” and “I will surely perish if a banana doesn’t find its way to my mouth momentarily” kinds of noises.
Let’s be clear here. I DO NOT LIKE BANANAS. I will not eat one. They rank just below tomatoes and perhaps even above eggplant – perhaps, I said, not definitely – on the list of Things I Refuse to Ingest. I don’t like the taste. I don’t like the texture. I don’t like the smell. The only good thing about a banana is that it comes in its own wrapper. Do not tell me to put one in my smoothie; I can taste it and it is Not Pleasant. If I had my druthers, I would never buy a banana again.
I remind my husband we have them. Does he want a banana with some peanut butter as a nice after-dinner snack? No?
I remind my daughter we have them. Still hungry after dinner? Have a banana! Need a little after-school pick-me-up? Banana! Feeling munchy in the hours between breakfast and lunch? Banana time! I bring her a banana in the car nearly every day after school, but more often than not I find the banana several days later when my car starts to emit a sad-banana distress signal.
What do we DO with the excess bananas?
In the past year alone, I have made:
Banana chocolate chip snack cake
Chocolate chocolate chip banana muffins
Banana cake with maple brown butter frosting
The word banana is now looking like nonsense.
Keep in mind that, while I enjoy baking, I get a little pouty when I am baking food that I don’t want to eat. And it’s just two people eating a whole snack cake, which means that we often end up freezing some of it or, worse, throwing it away. Which is the opposite goal, here. Plus, it’s hard to be creative about finding new uses for bananas. Plus, while I am dithering about recipes, and simultaneously trying to guilt-trip my family into eating the bananas, they are getting black and soft and smelly. It is a miracle A MIRACLE that we haven’t been overrun by fruit flies.
I have tried freezing the overripe bananas… but inevitably, they pile up. And I cannot brook a freezer crowded with hard, black half-moons when I need SPACE for important things. I have thrown away many a frozen black banana!
This week, I am going to make these banana oatmeal cookies. Or maybe these peanut butter ones, which have neither wheat germ (?) nor the TWO types of oats called for in the previous recipe. Because why not? Perhaps Carla will be tickled at the prospect of parent-sanctioned breakfast cookies. And then I am OUT OF IDEAS. So if you have a non-smoothie banana go-to, PLEASE let me know. Because the only idea I have left is Never Buy Bananas Again.