fixing the site up

I upgraded this template to blogger's new version with the supposedly easier to use interface. I suppose if I hadn't tricked out my blog with CSS and HTML then I would be fine but I had so I am not. I have managed to get a background & the font colors are not too bad. I cannot get my Bloglines blog roll to work though. I keep getting a message about XML wants a ; after the command 'folder' or some such & if I put the ; where they want it the blog roll appears as a message saying 'user not found'. I suppose that will get sorted out by Bloglines eventually. I don't have the patience to learn XML at the moment. So I opened each blog I really like & added it manually

I spent yesterday surfing around, jumping from blog to blog and eventually added about 45 blogs to Bloglines, about half food and half parenting. I think I have 112 blogs at the moment, about half are digital scrapbooking related & the other half split between parenting & food, with a few about parenting and food. The blogger all sound like nice people, obviously some have known one another for awhile now. I hope to get to know at least some of them. but I think you have to post regularly to really get to know people & I just don't know if I will have the time. I'm on vaction right now with endless hours of someone else playing with my kids. So I can surf and scrap & post. but come Jan 1 real life begins & we'll see how it goes.

the glass 8x8 pan

DH came to me this evening and said "Where is the square baking pan? Is the 13x9 the smallest we have?" This is an odd question for him to ask me. He does most of the baking and nearly all of the dishwashing & putting away. Therefor he should have far more knowledge of our baking pans & their locations than I should. But *women know where things are* and I was able to say "We have a square glass one. It should be in the island cupboard, or inthe stove drawer, or under the sink. Or it might possibly be in the pantry" I keep the glass & silicon bakeware in island cupboard, the flat baking sheets in the stove drawer and the metal bakeware under the sink. Ceramic bowls go in the pantry. But I've never actually fully explained this system to DH, so he tends to leave clean bake pans on the counter for me to put away. I hadn't realized the connection until he asked me about the square pan. I would just get mildly irritated that he hadn't put the pan away, put it away myself & that would be that. This may be the reason why *women know where things are* and men don't - we simply forgot to tell them.

Anyway, a quick search through the aforementioned locations failed to turn up the square baking pan. My kitchen space-wise is average, storagewise is it tiny. There are really only 5 places a baking pan could be and one of those is the dishwasher. The other 4 I have already mentioned. It wasn't in any of them. It also was not in the cupboard with the glasses or the one with cereal, soup and other frequently used dry goods, nor was it hiding under the numerous mostly empty bag of stale tortilla chips. It was not in the refridgerator with something already in it. This meant it must not be in the house, though I had no recollection of taking it anywhere. The last time I used it, I think I baked tilapa in it. Not something you normally take to a pot luck.

We gave up & DH decided to make brownies in a round cake pan rather than make really really skinny ones in the 13x9 pan. He goes to rinse out the round pan in the sink and there, under the pile or small plastic bowls that accumulates in after a day with toddlers, was the square glass 8x8 pan. He washes it out, picks up the box of brownies and reads "Do not bake in square glass 8x8 pan."

Menu for the next 2 weeks

only need 8 meals this time. We had pasta for dinner tonight, we go out to eat Saturdays and Sunday we will be celebrating Yule (early) with my coven & having dinner there. Somehow the 4 meals I chose from the card catalog all ended up being Rachel Ray 's, (one for each book I own). The other 4 are standards of mine.

Crock pot chicken & stuffing
Chicken crescent pockets or calzone (leftovers)
Loaded baked potato soup & spinach salad
Rosemary & ham scones & more spinach salad
Turkey cutlets with ravioli - NEW!
Braciole
Fake tandori chicken
Mini meat patties

and if one of them doesn't appeal one night I have tilapia filets in the freezer ready to marinated in lemon & garlic and the broiled.

Next time I do a 2 week menu I have to come up with side dishes that are more than 'nuke some frozen peas' at least some of the time. Most of Rachel Ray's meals include side dishes. I just never make them because...well...I don't think I will like them. But the time has come to try them. So I am suspecting lots of Rachel Ray dinners in my future.

for the new year

My food goal for 2007 is to get a better handle on side dishes. While perusing my recipe card collection (which oddly has a very large section for 'veggies') I realized that most of my recipes I don't make that often. I've made nearly all of them once but rarely twice. And there are a bunch from this past year's cookbook purchases that have never been made at all. I've intended to make them, put them on menu, but then never got around to making them. For the past 2 months especially, the majority or my meals have been basic and for the most part recipe-less. Meatloaf, pasta, chicken with couscous, chicken in a crock pot, pot roast, london broil, broiled fish, pizza and things stuffed in crescent roll dough. Various pastas, various fish, various types of pizza and various things stuffed into crescent roll dough, to keep it from being too monotonous. But basically the same 9 dishes show up every 2 weeks. Occasionally I'll make something or other that found like Cooks Illustrated Coq au Vin but the last time I did that was in September. I've intended for a month now to make Turkey Tettrazini but haven't.

Part of the problem is at least 3 out of the 5 nights I cook, I am basically cooking for toddlers. Turkey Tettrazini has zero toddler appeal. Tyson's breaded chicken patties have toddler appeal. DH is supposed to come home by 6:30 but something tends to happen fairly often to screw that up & I cannot put off feeding the kids beyond that. They go to bed at 8. I find it frustrating to hear at 5:30pm that he won't be home until 7pm & if I have been having a stressful day with bickering boys, the news that I will be alone with demons for dinner often means toaster waffles with peanut butter rather than braciole. Cooking for myself just isn't that much fun. Cooking for the boys can be fun, if I am in the mood for pizza or pasta, but I'd like adult food, with adult people every now and again.

So another part of my cooking resolution for 2007 is to make a new meal for dinner twice a month, every other Sunday. On alternate Sundays I will make again a recipe I have made before, like Coq au Vin. Or at least I will try. Realistically at least one Sunday a month this won't happen. Random food will be eaten. That's fine. What I need is a plan. It's ok to deviate from the plan, but you have to have the plan firs

2 week menu

DS1 starts school Thursday. His school is 40 minutes in the opposite direction from the grocery store, so it is important I get back on the ball with the menus. Groceries now require more effort & planning. I got 365 No Repeats by Rachel Ray recently & am going to try out a couple new recipes from it.

Broiled salmon with cousous
salmon cakes or fish sticks
pasta to be determined
veggie soup & sandwiches
Scotch eggs & spinich salad
calzone/deep dish pizza or PapaJohns
Squash mac & cheese (365 No Repeats)
braciole with 'oven fried' zucchini
apple cider chicken (365 No Repeats)
Chicken salad
meatloaf w/hidden veggies
Turkey roll ups (365 No Repeats)

I've been going through my pantry to make my grocery list & have discovered that I need to keep up with rotating my stock. I am making veggie noodle soup for dinner (not on the menu) & need 2 cans of broth for that. I grabbed 2 from the shelf & then as I was opening them I glanced at their 'use by' dates. One was Feb 2007, the other was Sept 05. The other cans are all still good, so I assume that one got overlooked. I've had that problem with Couscous & flavored rice sides lately too. Everything seems to have expired in mid 2005 and I never noticed. I guess I must have stopped rotating things around then & just put the new purchases in front. Makes me wonder how old the cans of beans & tomatoes are. They don't have dates on them. I buy them sporadically so I can't say if they have been there for 3 months or over a year.

Menu for the next 2 weeks

Tilapia in foil
lasagna rollups
mini meatloaf
veggie soup & sandwiches
chicken & rice stir fry
steak & spinich salad
spaghetti with spinich pesto
veggie fritters
slow cooker BBQ chicken or pork sandwiches
potato frittata
BBQ pizza
orzo with squash

The goal is not to run the oven more than absolutely necessary. The tilapia & steak cook on the grill. The pizza could too if I felt like experimenting. The lasagna may be replaced by burgers, depending on the heat.

some pricy chocolate

I love Dagoba Organic dark chocolate bars. They are kinda pricy $3-4 a 2oz bar but they are so good & they are slow eating chocolate. They are not Hershey's that you can just eat without really thinking. The dark chocolate bars *demand* you sit & pay attention to them & 2 small pieces is really all you need at a sitting. They come in an assortment of flavors but I have to go out of my way to find them just in general, & I have not come across all the flavors yet. These are my favorites

New Moon 75% cacao
Roseberry
and Lavender,which is not available individually on their website for some reason. It's a lavender essence with blueberries in it. Sounds weird but tastes good.

I have not encountered the XOCOLATL, which has chilis, the MON CHERI or the LIME flavored ones. The plain DARK is ok, but I prefer a Hershey's Special Dark.

I amnot fond of their milk chocolate flavors. I've tried the LATTE and the CHAI & was disappointed both times. Too sweet & bland & the spicing was too strong. I have not tried the HAZELNUT, BRASILIA or PURE MILK because I have not seen them yet.

So if you are looing for some good, bittersweet chocolate bars, the kind you indulge in when you have 10 minutes to slowly nibble your way uninterrupted through a couple of pieces, try the Dagoba bars. They are worth the price.

Menu for the next 2 weeks

in no particular order:

broiled salmon
salmon patties (with leftovers)
deep dish pizza or calzone (toppings dependant on leftovers)
hamburgers on the grill (Saturday)
chicken with rice
spaghetti
london broil
pork loin crock pot
grilled chicken
veggie soup & sandwiches
baked ziti
steak & spinich salad (leftover london broil)

I think we will have the pasta tonight, since it is too late to start the pork. Tomorrow night is bunco at my house, so Brad & the boys will go out to eat. I'll make a sandwich. I'm going to have veggies & dip, guacamole & chips and the Cafe's spinich & artichoke dip with bread, plus cookies, for bunco. My folks will be here Friday & we'll probably get Chinese take out. Saturday we'll do the burgers and one day the weekend after that I am owed a Mother's Day dinner. So technically I should have more plans than actual meals. we'll see.

Chicken & potato salad

One of my favorite meals is a chicken & potato salad combo I've been making for a few years now. It is loosely based on a recipie in "Cooking for Two" by Suzi Smith (1996) called "Grilled Chicken Salad with sour cream dressing". I'll give the book version at the end, but first some commentary.

1. The original recipie has you mix the chicken, avocados, bacon & tomatoes together with the dressing & serve on a bed of spinich with potatoes on the side. I mix all of it together with the dressing at once.

2. I prefer to use sweet potatoes rather than white ones. They taste better. They add a nice flavor that you don't get with white potatoes. They are also more nutritious. It's still good with white potatoes but its better with sweet ones. Try the sweet potatoes. They are not just for pie & marshmellowy Thanksgiving side dishes. Really, they are wonderful in savory dishes.

3. Steam the potatoes, whichever you use, if at all possible. The flavor is much better than boiled.

4. If you are serving this chilled, mix the chicken & potatoes with half the dressing & let chill, then add the other ingredients & the rest of the dressing before serving. It is also very good warm

5. The easiest way to make this is to use planned leftovers. Grill some extra chicken for it when you make grilled chicken for dinner. Or if you are roasting a chicken, roast a slightly larger one than you normally would. Leftover turkey is also delicious in this. White & dark meat both work well.

6. The base recipie serves 2-3 people & it scales up easily. This is a great dish for pot lucks & picnics.

Some other things I change from the original when I make it:
I leave out the tomatoes because I don't like raw tomatoes.
I've used Miracle Whip when I haven't had any sour cream. It adds a nice zip. Regular mayo is not as good IMO
I experiment with the vinegar, my favorite is garlic wine, tarragon is second.
I often leave out the garlic clove in the dressing & marinate the chicken in garlic & olive oil before grilling.
I prefer prosciutto to bacon when I remember to get it.
I've left the spinich out many times & don't miss it a bit

Recipie: - serves 3
12oz chicken - cooked & cut into bite sized pieces
equal weight in potatoes (white or sweet) cooked & cut into bite sized pieces
3 slice cookd bacon crumbled
2 small tomatoes - diced
1 ripe avocado - diced
5ozs spinich or arugula

Dressing: (coats 3 servings)
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 teaspoon Dijon
1 clove garlic
salt & fresh ground peppper to taste

So far so good..I suppose

I have made 3 meals from the menu & since there have only been 4 meals since I went shopping for it; that is pretty good. Tuesday I made spaghetti with creamy pesto & chicken because the grocery store had no leeks for the Beguine soup I had intended to make. Wednesday I made the Salmon cakes. I had intended to make this asian version with fresh ginger & edamame beans. The grocery store had no fresh ginger & the bag in my freezer I had thought was shelled edamame was in fact, peas. So I made it with ground ginger & peas. Very tasty!! I bet the original version is even better (note to self: do not grocery shop on Tuesdays, everything is restocked tuesday night) Last night I was going to make veal milanese, but it became instead veal positano, with a creamy tomato sauce. Today's baked ziti is now baked penne (note to self: a glance is insufficient when checking supplies before grocery shopping) made with the extra positano sauce added to tomato sauce and leftover diced veal.

Tomorrow night I am taking the boys to Burger King for dinner & picking up sushi for myself on the way home. The boys liked the pesto pasta, were so so onthe salmon caked (try breading them next time) and very dubious about the veal. I'm fairly sure they will eat the penne, pasta is one of the few things I can be 90% certain they will eat. Sunday night is DH's problem. We may do a cook out with the neighbors or he'll make pork chops. If he asks nicely I may make the beguine soup or the chicken velvet soup. I forgot the ground beef while shopping so the meatball soup is out until I get to the store again.

really, I am going to get my act together on this. I swear.

Menu for the next 2 weeks

I have decided to plan 12 means per 14 day period this year,and actually cook at least 10 of those, putting me one up from last year. We go out to eat one weekend night & the other can be fairly random, but this way we know at least *most* ofthe ingredients are available for something. May have to run out for fresh veggies but the basics will be there. This has been working out fairly well so this year, espeically since the random meal works out to be pasta with whatever veg is avaiable or veg soup.

Most of my meals have been coming from Rachel Ray's books lately, though I often end up altering them to suit me over time. This time I am using her
Mini Meatball Soup
Garlic Roast Chicken
Veal Milanese (new, we'll see what the boys think)
Salmon Cakes
Bracioli with mushroom tomato gravy

I've been into EveryDay Italian too
Chicken Parmesan
Simple Bolonese sauce (I put on several dished this time period)

There there are some soups
Beguine Soup - from 12 months of monestary soups
Velvet Chicken Soup - from complete book of soups & stews

An my own stuff
Pasta Carbonara
Baked Ziti
Salmon with leeks in foil

Next year I hope to have this main meal thing down & will work on side dishes