planning meals is SO BORING

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Plunging Into Spring Slash Summer Shemozzle; Dinners This Week; Are We Still Doing Easter Baskets

Yesterday, I forced my cranky self to go for a walk in the spring air with my husband. As we were chatting, I mentioned that I felt like my head was SWIRLING with all the to-dos I have ahead of me, and he sagely suggested that I write them down. Well. Writing them down helps, but it does not STOP the swirling.

What also helps is to squawk and flap at you. I know you are either going through something similar, or you know exactly what it feels like, or you have kind and/or wise and/or distracting words.

Because I have a fondness for alliteration, especially in post titles, I was looking for a synonym for “chaos / pandemonium / overwhelm” that began with an S, and I came across the word “shemozzle.” The word itself is a little sillier than how I feel; there’s something about the “ozzle” that makes me want to giggle. Say “shemozzle” out loud, it’s delightful. That very silliness is what makes it perfect. I may feel on the knife’s edge of a panic attack, but I’m panicking about silly inconsequential stuff when the world at large is full of so many massive, significant events, and “shemozzle” helps me remember that.

The first and most uncomfortable shemozzle / source of shemozzle / I have no real idea how to use this word: SUMMER.

I have finally gotten my ass into gear and started thinking about summer camp, and summer feels really, really close, and I have next to zero things planned, and the whole thing stresses me right out. Also, I spent – no exaggeration – SIX HOURS this weekend trying to research camps and fit them into the calendar and talk through them with Carla. Which is all to say that I acknowledge the many privileges and a blessings of a life in which a) I have six hours to devote to summer camp research and b) the wealth of options available to me is so extensive and c) summer camp is neither a necessity nor a hardship.

Summer camp, of course, is all tangled up in summer travel plans. (Shemozzle Two.) My husband and I are apparently inhabiting one of those logic puzzles: Suzanne wants to be in X place for Y days, her husband wants to be in X place for Z days, their daughter needs to be picked up from camp on Day Z, and they have to cross a river in a leaky boat with a hungry shark. How can Suzanne be two places at once without losing a limb?

Plus, summer has a bunch of Unknown Factors that could influence things like Which Camp Is Best and Will Our Travel Plans Work for People Besides Us, and I don’t know when the Factors will become Known and airline tickets continue to climb and also Carla’s birthday is in there somewhere and she’s been through nearly a school year’s worth of bar and bat mitzvahs that have conveyed the idea that Thirteen Is a Seriously Important Birthday but I’m not sure what besides “getting a phone” (no) or “elaborate party and religious ceremony” (also no) meets her expectations of what a Seriously Important Birthday might involve. [Edited to add: NOTE OF CLARITY – I am not opposed to phones for people’s children. A phone is not right for my particular child at this particular time, but there are many excellent and valid reasons for kids to have phones at age thirteen or even younger.]

Listen, I am well accustomed to the turmoil of Pell-Mell May, but it is still March, if only for another day, and I AM NOT READY FOR THIS LEVEL OF SHEMOZZLE.

Shall we turn to another, more pressing issue? Which is that this is a holiday week, and I am hosting one of the week’s holidays and yet I somehow still have to also feed my family on the non-holiday days.

Dinners for the Week of March 30-April 5

  • Fire Fry: My husband requested this, and if someone else is going to suggest a meal, I’m going to make it. Doesn’t hurt that fire fry is delicious.
  • Ground Beef Tacos: It’s been a minute since we’ve had tacos around here, and I’m in the mood for a Taco Tuesday.
  • Sesame Ginger Stir Fry: I think I’m feeling brave enough to try making tofu again, and this recipe sounds like the perfect incentive to attempt it.

We’ve been invited to join family friends for a Passover Seder, so that’s another night I don’t have to think about. And then I’m hosting Easter dinner. I think I’ll make a pork loin with a warm farro and veggie salad on the side. My husband has requested a cake for dessert, and has narrowed down his cake desires to a coconut cake or a carrot cake. I have never made either, and I’m always up for a cake challenge. Do you have a preference? And, if so, do you have a favorite recipe for either?

Speaking of Easter… my kid is twelve… do I still need to do the whole Easter bunny/Easter basket thing? Just the idea of thinking about it is making me weary. Are we still hiding plastic eggs all over the house? Do we need to dye eggs? Surely we should have at least a small Easter basket, right? My husband has always insisted that Easter is not a gift-giving holiday, and yet… I’ve always striven to fill my kid’s Easter basket with as many non-candy items as I can, while still trying to make it fun and exciting.

I wonder if I could get away with filling up an Easter basket with practical things, like these cute jeans Carla wants, or a new skort, or a duffel bag. I bet she would love a variety pack of spring-ish earrings. She’s been more interested in cooking for herself lately, and I’ve been stressing about SPORTS SNACKS, so perhaps a cookbook would be both fun and useful? Books are always a good gift compromise – if only Rosanne Perry’s newest novel had already come out! Carla loved attending Jeopardy! as an audience member over spring break; maybe she would enjoy a book of Jeopardy! games, or a book of trivia, or maybe even this inside peek at the show? Of course, I am also eyeing fun and silly things for Carla’s Easter basket, like these hand-holding socks or these fingernail markers or a stuffed ostrich. My child does NOT need any more stuffed animals, but the ostrich is adorable… and you know what is MORE ADORABLE is this stuffed Pallas cat OMG I want it so much. Carla also loves the latest fidget toys – she was eyeballing this squishy stick of butter at a friend’s house. Oh my goodness, she would get such a kick out of this tic-tac-toe wall hanging. Okay, now I am getting carried away. Let’s save it for her birthday, Suzanne.

I suppose I can at the very least buy some candy the next time I go to the grocery store. And maybe I will consider buying a bag of bunny farts. Carla does love both cotton candy and fart jokes, so it seems like a guaranteed win.

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Grocery Store Report; Dinners This Week

We got about a foot of snow overnight, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, I didn’t take a ruler outside with me because that would be weird. For me. No disrespect to your ruler. I love snow, so I don’t mind too terribly much. Carla – off from school today AND tomorrow – LOVES the snow, so she has made snow angels, tried to make snowballs (the snow is currently too dry for packing), helped our neighbor shovel her driveway, and eaten a large bowl of snow. She went sledding with friends. She has enjoyed cocoa with a jumbo marshmallow in it.

Before all the snow fun, Carla and I ventured out to the grocery store this morning, and I am not exaggerating when I say that we were the ONLY CUSTOMERS in the building when we arrived. Toward the end of our visit, there were maybe 5 to 10 more customers going up and down the aisles as well, but for awhile it was just us. Very eerie. 

The produce section has been making me feel a little watchful lately. First, the store has moved some things around and re-arranged some of the display cases… which I am SURE is because they do this periodically and NOT to disguise the fact that there is less produce than before. 

It seems like the outages are rolling though. A few weeks ago: NO POTATOES or red onions. Then last week and this week, both of those things are back in stock, but Spanish onions were missing from the shelves. Today, there were no white onions, no Spanish onions, and no sweet onions – at least, not in the normal/large size. There were a handful of red onions, and plenty of the smallish yellow onions in a bag, so I bought a bag of the smallish onions. The onions were all arranged so that it looked like only the sweet onions were out of stock. But NO. There is usually a big selection of THREE ADDITIONAL ONION VARIETIES in that section that are simply missing. 

There were very few bananas. 

There were no blueberries. 

Jalapenos were abundant today, as were bell peppers of most colors. Wait a second – I wasn’t looking for green bell peppers today, but now I realize that there weren’t ANY green bell peppers. 

The lettuce area was a little thin, both in the bagged/boxed lettuce area and the heads-of-fresh lettuce area. But not barren. There was still lettuce if you needed lettuce. 

I didn’t notice any major issues throughout the rest of the store. Everything we buy seemed to be either well-stocked, or not completely empty. Like… the milk we buy had two containers in the 2%, and more containers of whole milk and skim milk. The specific type of pretzels my husband eats was out of stock, but other types of pretzels were abundant… and had been arranged so as to fill in the gap that my husband’s preferred pretzels would have occupied. 

Last week, the waffles/pancakes freezer had pretty much zero waffles or pancakes; I am accustomed to the lack of pancakes, but not the lack of waffles. There were no French toast sticks, either. Instead, the entire freezer case was FILLED with hashbrowns and breakfast potatoes. Today, waffles were back, French toast (but not French toast sticks) was back, and one variety of pancakes was available. And there were very few hashbrowns. 

The chicken nugget/chicken tender area was not full by any means, but there were several bags of each. 

I totally forgot to look at pasta today. Last week, the egg noodles aisle was almost completely wiped out. (I changed one of our meals to chicken paprikas, which requires egg noodles.) I had to buy a brand of noodles that I am unfamiliar with (and won’t be buying again). 

The beans/taco shells/Asian/Mexican food aisle seemed just fine; last week, the soft taco shell section had been very depleted. 

Lunchables were available. We already have Hormel pepperoni at home, so I didn’t even look to see if it was in stock. 

Last week, I also went into my local Trader Joe’s. (They have fresh English peas that my kid loves.) I was prepared to be shocked by the experience; I’d been reading that Trader Joe’ses all over the country have been having trouble keeping things in stock. I expected empty shelves and harried workers.

It looked… the same. Produce was abundant. I had no trouble finding the things I wanted. I didn’t see a single empty shelf. 

When I checked out, I asked the two cheery, friendly people who were checking me out about it. “I heard that Trader Joe’s is having so many supply chain issues,” I said. “But this one seems like everything is fine!”

The smiles dropped from both their faces. They said very grimly that it has been ROUGH. That they are out of a lot of things, but have been rearranging things so it doesn’t look like it. They said that one day, a truck just never showed up, and they had nothing… and then the next day, two trucks showed up at once and they were jam-packed with things. One of the checkers said that weird things are delaying the supply chain. She mentioned that there was a problem sourcing glass jars for a while. And then sometimes there will be a certain lid that they can’t get, which means the product can’t be packaged or shipped or put on the shelves. The change in their demeanor was enough to demonstrate how tough this must be. 

It is all making me feel a little tiny bit edgy. Like… it’s clear there are issues. But they don’t seem to be widespread, and they don’t seem to last too long, and – as Swistle pointed out – there is still PLENTY of food. So much food. No one is going hungry. So while remain very interested in the grocery store stuff, I am not quite to the point of adding an extra XYZ item to my cart every time I’m in the store.

On to the actual meals. 

We only made two of the meals I planned for last week, so I am (rather reluctantly) putting the ones we didn’t eat back on the list. 

Dinners for the Week of January 17-January 23

  • Air Fryer Parmesan Chicken with Broccoli and Hasselback Sweet Potatoes: I didn’t make this last week because there were ZERO sweet potatoes at the grocery store. Today, there were plenty, so I snagged a couple. 
  • Chicken Tortilla Soup: This is my favorite soup, but it requires a LOT of work and I am not sure I’m up to it. So. We’ll see. All the ingredients (except the cilantro) will keep if I decide not to make this.
  • Oven Roasted Chicken Shawarma: I have some green beans leftover from last week that we can eat with this. This is honestly the only meal on the list that sounds remotely appetizing.
  • Chickpea Bowls: I like to add green and red bell peppers to these bowls, but I feel like red peppers start to taste odd in the winter. Like… they develop the bell pepper equivalent of B.O. I don’t know what it is, or why it affects only the red ones, but it makes me a little reluctant to cook with them. The only reason I even have this on the list is because I have to find a way to use up the red peppers!

Tell me all your meal plans for this week, and what’s going on with your grocery situation. 

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Dinners This Week; Banana Problems

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 bread

Banana chocolate chip snack cake

Banana muffins

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.