thinking about food is my favorite pastime

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Dinners This Week; Birthday Plans; M&Ms

First, a warning: I bought myself a bag of Easter-themed peanut butter M&Ms. They are delicious, but they are the exact shape/heft of a peanut M&M, which means that I am always, every single time, surprised when there is no peanut inside. 

Now, a heads up: Looking up a link for the peanut butter M&M eggs, I discovered that there is something called M&Ms Easter Mystery Mix Eggs, which is a bag full of eggs and some are chocolate and some are peanut butter and some are double chocolate. FYI. There is only so much time left until Easter, so I advise trying them right away to determine how many bags you need.

This week is my birthday and birthday plans are in the offing. We are having not only tacos on The Day, but we are also getting Mexican takeout (including margaritas) on the weekend. AND my husband is making me a lemon cheesecake, which is VERY exciting and also darling (he has never made a cheesecake before! he is also planning to make his own lemon curd! plus he took the afternoon off to make the cake and spend extra time with me!). AND a friend is taking me out for birthday tea (we plan to park next to each other and chat between cars). In non-food fun, I have a Zoom happy hour planned with my high school girl friends; it has nothing to do with my birthday, which is ideal. AND my family and I have an outdoor excursion planned with another family. If we have any energy leftover, I have requested that Carla and my husband and I play games; I bought Clue for this very reason, but we have many other games as well. (Apparently there are TWO Clue movies?!?! Perhaps I will force encourage my husband to watch one or both with me!) I am going to buy some champagne to sip while we play. Should be a lovely celebratory weekend!

Since not everything is about me (gasp), Purim falls during this week, so I will be attempting to make hamantaschen. (They will be filled with apricot and raspberry preserves, per my husband’s request. The recipe makes plenty for sharing with the neighbors.) Also also, I am cooking dinner for a friend and her family one night this week and I am planning to make some chocolate brownie cookies for them. I have already made a banana chip snack cake with the inevitable overripe bananas that accumulate when I try to meet my family’s banana needs; there is no way to achieve an ideal number of bananas at an ideal level of ripeness: I have either too few bananas or far, far too many; they are either mostly green or nearly black. Thank goodness for banana snack cakes, amirite?

It is indeed a food filled week! Which, as you know, is my favorite kind of week.

Dinners for the Week of February 23-March 1

OMG INTERNET NEXT WEEK IS MARCH.

If nothing else, I will start my fifth decade with a full, happy belly. And I will definitely report back on the cheesecake. 

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Dinners This Week, Go-To Snacks

Man, I don’t know WHAT it was about yesterday, but I was feeling snacky ALL DAY. I tried to quell my snackishness with the usual recommendations: drink a glass of water, eat a bunch of veggies, eat some protein. I ate a green pepper. I ate carrots. I ate a pickle. I drank water. I drank tea. I ate a protein-packed lunch. 

None of it worked. I just wanted SNACKS. 

(This reminds me that Carla, when she was in the one-ish and two-ish age range, did not say her initial Ses very well. It came out as more of a nasal H sound, made between the nose and the back of the throat. So instead of saying “snacks,” it sounded something like, “Hnacks.” This is still my husband’s and my preferred pronunciation. Man, I wish I had recorded more of those babyisms before they’d vanished from her vocabulary.) 

What’s your go-to snack? 

Mine is always chips. (My husband is the opposite – he’s a sweet snacker. He’d probably go for a big spoonful of peanut butter and a little bowl of chocolate chips, or some cookies.) If I had a magical metabolism, I would eat chips all day every day. Tortilla chips with salsa. Tortilla chips with guacamole. Tortilla chips with queso. Tortilla chips with melted cheese and hot sauce, which is how I staunched my snack attack yesterday. Nachos. Ruffles dipped in Marzetti Southwest Ranch. Salsa Verde Doritos. Miss Vickie’s Jalapeno Potato Chips. The mix of crunch and salt and fat and spice is my idea of heaven. In a pinch, I’d eat cheese and crackers. A nice sharp cheddar or a nutty Manchego or a creamy Brie paired with a delicious Triscuit cracker or a crunchy, buttery Ritz – yum. Have I just talked myself into a second day of snackishness?

Anyway, chips. Food of the gods.

Of course, a person cannot live on chips alone. 

Dinners for the Week of February 2–8

  • Crockpot BBQ Pork Tenderloin with Baked Potato: I haven’t had this in forever and I am CRAVING it.
  • Creamy Shrimp Pasta: Speaking of cravings, this sounds SO yummy.
  • 5 Ingredient Spicy Pork with Roasted Broccoli: Since the pork tenderloins usually come in a two-pack, this pork dish would be a good second-tenderloin option. I haven’t tried it before but it sounds delicious. 
  • Crockpot White Chicken Chili: Ever since I tried and loved chicken tortilla soup, I have been inspired to branch out into more chicken-based soups and stews. I have never in my life eaten a white chicken chili, but this version may persuade me to finally dip my toe in. (Not literally.)

We have ground beef in the freezer, so there’s always the possibility of tacos. And romaine in the fridge and salmon in the freezer, which could easily result in a delicious salad. Lots of options. 

Happy eating this week, Internet! 

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Dinners This Week

(La la la, continuing to ignore current events.) 

Usually I try to blather on a little bit before I list the meals I’m planning for the week – I don’t know why; so this will feel more like a Regular Blog Post? Who knows. But I’m fresh out of topics for today. Literally the only thing I can think to tell you is that I saw on Instagram (I think?) that you can store your asparagus in half-filled jars of water to keep it fresh longer. Who has room for THAT in their fridge (besides the Instagram poster, whose fridge was FULL of veggies and fruits in matching glass jars that no one would ever have to worry about knocking over while reaching behind it for the milk), is what I thought. But I also thought of some asparagus that has been in my fridge for ** a while ** and that I haven’t been able to motivate to cook and eat. So I tried it. It is in my fridge now, in two small jars. We will see what happens. Now I don’t even HAVE to eat it, because it is An Experiment. 

They’ve been in there for about twelve or so hours and don’t seem the worse for wear.

Look at that – I managed to blather on for a whole paragraph! Never put it past me to come up with some words about nothing, I guess. 

Dinners for the Week of January 19 – January 25 (whew – I looked at my calendar wrong and originally wrote “February 1” instead of “January 25” and TOTALLY ACCEPTED IT AS FACT because time is meaningless) (thank goodness for very minimal proofreading!)

  • Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup  : This was SO GOOD last time I made it, and I have been thinking about it ever since. Like last time, I will add a can of black beans and a cup of frozen corn. Also, like last time, I suppose I will omit the lime juice? At least, I can’t remember putting lime juice or cilantro in it at any point? And it was delicious? How can I recreate a recipe I enjoyed when I apparently didn’t follow the instructions, but not in a purposeful way but in an I-clearly-didn’t-read-the-recipe-all-the-way-through way?
  • Chicken and Zucchini Stir Fry: This has become such a solid standby. It’s easy (even though I also chop up an onion to throw in with the zucchini) and it’s tasty and I feel very pleased with the amount of veggies it contains. 
  • BBQ Salmon Bowls with Mango Salsa: Okay, I get squicked out by the combination of avocado and mango, so I am just doing a plain old mango salsa with this one. And I think I may put everything on top of some romaine instead of rice. (I am every food blogger’s nightmare.) Hmmm. If I do lettuce, I’d have to make a dressing, wouldn’t I. But I could do a nice honey-and-lime vinaigrette. Yes, that sounds yummy.
  • Something with the asparagus.

I AM going to eat the asparagus. But come on – you do this, too, right? You buy something, fully intending to eat it, and then it loses all appeal before you can do it? I bet you have something like that in your fridge right now, no?

Okay, Internet. That’s it for me. I wish you good health (mental, physical, and emotional) and happy eating this week.