Category Archives: Eating

Chomp it up.

menu plan Monday

In which I grow something for dinner

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I finally marked “Grow My Own Vegetables” off of the Mighty List yesterday. Our little garden has been growing nicely, but yesterday was the first time we really harvested anything out of it. (Pete and I have been grazing for a week or so, but that didn’t count.)

Yesterday Rockford went out in the rain and picked a salad for dinner. It was the most delicious lettuce I’ve ever had. Seriously. It was super tender, and it didn’t taste like plastic. I think we’re going to expand our produce empire next weekend with some strawberries, watermelons, cucumbers, eggplants and pumpkins. Unless it’s too early to plant those things. I haven’t really looked into that, yet.

My hope in starting a garden this year was that Poppy would finally yield to the experts who say if you involve your kids in cooking they’ll eat vegetables. We started with Letting Her Pick The Veggies At The Store, then moved on to Letting Her Help Cook The Veggies. Neither worked, so we thought we’d try Let Her Grow And Harvest The Veggies. She very much enjoyed planting the seeds and watering the garden, but she won’t so much as touch the lettuce, much less eat it. Oh well. More salad for the rest of us, I guess.

Monday: Subway

The children have been asking when we could go to Subway again. Tonight we have some out-and-about busyness to attend, so they’ll get their wish.

Tuesday: Spaghetti

I think I may be in a pasta rut.

Wednesday: Birthday dinner

We’ll be celebrating a fourth birthday with a friend. I hope there’s cake.

Thursday: Zatarain’s Jambalaya

I fell for one of those Buy This Thing and Get a Bunch of Stuff Free Meal Deal things at the grocery store a few weeks ago. So we’re going to give this a shot!

Friday: Baseball food

We’re going to a baseball game, so it’ll probably be hot dogs or nachos.
recipes

Thank me later

You should make this. Right now. No, really.

Southern Living’s Lemon Icebox Pie Ice Cream

3 to 4 lemons
2 cups half-and-half
14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
3/4 cup coarsely crushed graham crackers

Grate zest from lemons to equal 1 tablespoon. Cut lemons in half; squeeze juice from lemons into a measuring cup to equal 1/2 cup.

Whisk together half-and-half, sweetened condensed milk and lemon juice. Pour mixture into the freezer container of your ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions. Stir in graham cracker crumbs and lemon zest; transfer to an airtight container. Freeze two hours before serving.

Eating

Bakin’ bacon

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or

How to Make Perfectly Crispy Bacon Without Getting Bacon Grease All Over Your Shirt

works for me wednesday at we are that familyEach and every time I want to make bacon, I Google “bacon in the oven” and find a post called “How to Make Perfect Bacon.” And then I make some bacon, and it is quite nearly perfect, and I don’t have grease splatters all over my person. I thought I might make things a little easier on myself by saving the link and my few alterations to the recipe here for posterity. And also because I’m making some bacon today for sandwiches later and so it seemed like a good day to take some pictures of bacon.

Step One


Put some bacon on a baking sheet. The instructions over yonder say to line it with aluminum foil to make cleanup easier. I have yet to be convinced that it does make cleanup easier, because there’s still quite a bit of bacon grease to deal with when all’s said and done. But I always use foil anyway, because I’m a rule follower.

Make sure the bacon doesn’t overlap. I learned this the hard way. If your bacon overlaps, it won’t achieve maximum crispocity.

Step Two

Set the oven to 400 degrees. Put the bacon in while the oven is still cold. I don’t understand why, exactly, but who am I to question the ways of the bacon?

Step Three

Walk away for 13 minutes. Enjoy the smells of bacon.

Step Four


Flip the bacon slices over. Put them back in the oven. Walk away for 13 more minutes.

Step Five

Put the bacon on some paper towels to drain away some of the grease. Dispose of the bacon grease. (Don’t pour it down the drain. I usually pour it into a big jar that I keep under the sink. When it’s full, I throw it away. Other people use it to season veggies and other foods.)

Step Six


Try not to eat all the bacon before dinner.

(I haven’t done a Works for Me Wednesday post in a long time, but this is a trick that’s been working for me a lot lately. So I thought I’d share it.)