The week in food

I feel like I spend half my natural life cooking food for people. So I thought that I would document my week in food. I will post the blog, and then just keep adding to it throughout the week.

On Saturday, I made apple butter from a recipe on NPR. I was curious to try the recipe because it has cinnamon red hots in it. It took 8 hours to cook, but we have a slow cooker, so I didn't have to do anything for most of the time. I am not a fan of apple butter, but it's pretty good--the red hots add a little heat and make it pink. The flavor is vaguely familiar, but I never would have guessed what it was.

On Sunday I cooked corned beef in the slow cooker. The kids love corned beef, but it's pretty fatty, so I try not to make it too often. When I went to Baltimore I brought back a bunch of rice, so I made a mixed rice from black rice, sushi rice, bulgur, and a couple of kinds of brown round rice. It came out pretty well--the whole thing was purple and glutinous, but it had kind of a nice nutty flavor with the texture of wild rice. Also, salad and green beans.

Monday brunch after skating. I fried up the corned beef, with eggs and toast. I like my eggs over easy on rice--if you add soy butter, salt and pepper to the rice, it tastes like hash browns. Also, leftover pineapple. After reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, I have been buying cage-free organic eggs. The problem is that because they are expensive, we can no longer afford to have eggs as often. (So now I am just exploiting all the other animals more.)

Monday dinner: Radiatore and meatballs with salad and green beans. The kids really love green beans--I swear. Every time I go shopping, Joseph makes me check to make sure that we have enough French-cut green beans. He is very specific.

Tuesday lunch: I had corned beef curry with peas over rice. Danny had radiatore with chicken and peas. (The peas aren't moldy, they're still frozen) Corned beef is really good in Indian Masala sauce or Thai green curry sauce, too. Irish-Asian fusion food?

Tues dinner: Salmon with little red potatoes, broccoli and salad. The salmon at the grocery store usually looks terrible, but not this week.

Joseph loves salmon!

Joseph likes to bake while Sam is at TaeKwonDo. So we made peanut butter bars. Mine are popcorn, almonds, dates, cranberry and dried mango. Joseph's are Kix, Quaker Oat Squares, Meijer Essential M (like Special K--get it??!), and alphabet pretzels. Yum!

Wednesday lunch: I have corned beef curry with broccoli over rice, and Danny has potatoes with broccoli and chicken with black bean garlic sauce.

Wednesday night, I was late coming home, so Danny made pizza with pepperoni and meatballs with green beans and grapes. (The meatballs were accidentally left in the microwave until after dinner, but the kids ate them with dessert.) I came home and ate a salad with meatballs.


I make lunch for the kids every day, too, but not so much cooking is involved, so I have not included pictures. Sam could have school lunches, but they are a little gross, and he is a slow eater: if he has to wait in line for lunch he is unlikely to be able to finish much of it. He gets to pick one school lunch a week. Joseph's school does not have a lunch program. I usually give each kid 5 things in their lunches: half a sandwich with some sort of protein in it, two fruits, a cheese stick and some carbohydrate thing. Yesterday, Joseph made bagel snowmen in school and he wanted to make some for lunch today. So, he helped me make snowmen out of bread with soy cream cheese with grapes and pretzels for decorations.

Thursday lunch: I had salmon and broccoli over radiatore with hoisin sauce, and Danny had potatoes, salmon and green beans.

Thursday dinner: oven-baked chicken with lemon pepper, rolls, green beans and salad. Whenever there are rolls, the kids go nuts, so we have to dole them out slowly over the course of the meal to prevent too much carb-loading/anger and retributions.

Friday lunch: I am having chicken curry and peas over mixed brown rice, and Danny is having chicken curry and broccoli over radiatore. I put chopped pecans on top, because I don't like peanuts so much.

I just realized that the Mulberry School Intergenerational Karaoke and Spaghetti night is tomorrow, and I am supposed to bring dessert. (Crap! If I had remembered, I would have baked it with Joseph on Tuesday while Sam was at TaeKwon Do!) So these desserts were made with annoyance, rather than love, but whatever. The first one is cereal/popcorn bars with peanut butter chocolate sauce holding them together. I basically cleaned out the cabinets here, so they are a mix of popcorn, Kix, Quaker Squares, alphabet pretzels, mini marshmallows, white chocolate chips, and mini m&ms. The second dessert is cookie bars with red hots and red sugar. I just make chocolate chip cookie dough, and mixed in cinnamon red hots and red sugar and pressed it into a pan (for speed). Both are pretty good. I might try to make the red hot bars again on purpose.


Saturday the kids made snowmen for lunch. Danny made pancakes for breakfast, so they are made out of peanut butter on pancakes, cereal, grapes, apples and pretzels. Joseph's has a lot of legs for some reason.

Saturday night: Chili with quesadillas, salad, green beans, rice and pineapple