What's For Dinner...what are you cooking?

I'm in trouble.  I've started working out at the gym again.  Thus, I've started watching the Food Network again. The children should know what that means...I will be experimenting with FOOD.
They will suffer.   Because I like experimenting with FOOD.

Friday:  We're doing blueberry waffles and bacon for dinner.   It's festive, warm, filling and perfect for a Friday night when we're planning on watching SHERLOCK: The Abominable Bride.  Yes, I've already seen it.  I will watch it again, so I can catch some of the very sly humor laced in this episode.  Enjoy.

Saturday: Marc loves to make baked ziti with sausage.  So we're having baked ziti with sausage.  

Sunday:  On Saturday, I defrosted two briskets which I trimmed of some of the fat, scored and then coated with brown sugar, salt, white pepper, black pepper and kosher salt.   (1 cup, 2 tablespoons 1 tablespoon, 2 tablespoons, 3 table spoons).   They sat overnight in a plate, sealed in a ziplock.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Put meat in a foil tray, let cook for one hour.

Take brisket out.  Drop temperature to 300.

In the tray, make a bed for the brisket.  (Long carrots and celery laid on the bottom of a foil tray).   I placed the meat on top of the tray and then put 1 bottle of brown ale and two cups of chicken stock or one coca-cola and two cups of chicken stock or two cups of coffee and two cups of chicken stock in the bottom of the tray. (Bottom line, 4 cups of liquid on the bottom of the tray so the meat will get steamed in it, without soaking in it).  

Cover the tray with foil.

Let it cook for three hours. Take out, let sit for 15 minutes.  Cut against the grain.  
Save 2 cups of liquid, mix with your favorite bbq sauce in a sauce pan.  Serve and stand back.

Monday:  Pasta Night with Meatballs.

Tuesday:  Caesar Chicken Breasts  

Preheat oven to 350.

Foil tray.  Pat dry chicken. (Skin on).  Place chicken breasts on a tray.  Salt. Pepper.  Pulse in a mixer or food processor, one tin of Anchovies, the juice of a lemon, five garlic cloves, three tablespoons of mayo, salt, pepper, chopped parsley, and olive oil (1/4).   Paint chicken skin with a homemade Caesar.   Salt and pepper again.   Cover with foil.  Put in oven, forget about for an hour. Take foil off, let crisp at broil for 5 minutes.  

Grate Parmesan cheese over the chicken while it's still hot.  

Toss a salad of greens with a Caesar or oil and vinegar.  Place chicken on top.  Serve with fresh bread.

Wednesday:  Pork tenderloin tortilla wraps.  
Marinate pork tenderloins in oj/soy garlic olive oil marinade for 1 hour before cooking.  While waiting for it to get tender, make the yellow rice, black beans, cucumber salad and guacamole.
Sliver the tomatoes, peppers and onions.
Saute tomatoes, bell pepper and onions in oil until soft, carmelized yummy mess.

Broil the tenderloins 5 minutes, turn, 5 minutes, turn, 5 minutes turn, 5 minutes.
Let rest for ten minutes while you prep the meals.
Wrap tortillas in foil.  Place in tortillas in already warm oven, turn it to 350 to let them get prepped.
On each plate place rice, beans on top, and then guacamole on the side.  No chips on the plate, they'll eat them too fast.  Put the chips in baskets in the middle.   Shred the meat.  Serve on tortillas with the sauteed vegetable yumminess.   No leftovers. No one upset.  Very festive, very happy food time for all.

I do have some squash, I'm going to broil vegetables this week, and serve them.  I also plan to toss in some kale somewhere, so if the kids are reading this....be afraid.  Be very afraid.

Kitchen Crusade

In the kitchen war, the budget, planned menu and my sanity are the first casualties.

It's not that I'm not vigilant,  I shop, I plan a week of meals, I try to teach nutrition and good choices. But there are 9 people under 18 going about this house with full belief in their skills, real and otherwise, who can at any moment decide they're feeling peckish and thus the galley ought to be open.  I find teens eating cereal at midnight and chili at ten in the morning, I've even found the six year old up washing an apple because she wanted breakfast, it was Saturday and no one was up. In fairness, it was 5:30 am and she had the courtesy to get an apple, wash it and sit at the table eating while reading a book.   She knows how to snow me, she was reading and at the table.  How could I possibly object?

As a kid, I remember feeling as if the kitchen was somehow off limits.  At least I knew after that French toast episode, the day my parents taught me how to make coffee, that I had at best, restricted access.   But with ten children, I've promoted/encouraged some level of independence and as such, every child in my house seems to have gained fully authorized clearance.  The end result, at all hours, soup's on. 

To cope with the needs of this battalion's constant need to operate on its stomach, I've developed a couple of strategies.  First, I purchased specialty items for those older ones, foods no one else likes, that serve as the equivalent of MRE's.  They include such things as microwavable soups, frozen pizzas, protein shakes and oranges.  None of them are easy to open or eat and thus they enjoy a level of security apples, juice boxes, cheese sticks and crackers lack.  

It gives me a layer of defense, but not necessarily against the ones where I need it.  The older ones can delay gratification. They don't often, but they can.  It is the younger ones who view all apples as made to be eaten, who run across the refrigerator like a pack of locust wolves, devouring everything I thought I had for the week. 

So I'd taken to hiding the food, the cookies, the cheese sticks, the yogurts, in short, anything tasty, under the vegetables. No one looks under the salad or the carrots. I also stashed the juice boxes behind my boring diet coke.  All this would have worked perfectly except I have two children who of their own free will, eat healthy things. 

As such, my perfect disguise was outed when they went into the drawers where the green things are, thus disclosing the whereabouts of said snacks.  Once discovered, the child solidarity call went out and all the children descended upon the treasures, resulting in an empty drawer.  

I'm going to have to have a new strategy. 

Foraging

Despite the extra pain of inconvenience, expense and time, I am considering grocery shopping for my family for each day on the day.

Sunday, I went shopping. I bought what we needed for the week.  This morning, looking at my refrigerator, it seemed closer to empty than full.  I'd fixed them dinner last night and breakfast this morning so I was looking for items that I knew I'd purchased so I could make their dad his lunch for work.

The cheese sticks I got yesterday? Gone.  Ten of the twenty yogurts? Gone.  A gallon of milk? Emptied and dutifully returned to the fridge with the cap on.

Then I spied three of my children walking by, one was holding a clutch of freshly washed grapes, the other two, buttered toast on paper plates.  "Didn't I feed you breakfast?  Yes.  Yes I did.  You had Cinnamon Toast Crunch...I haven't even done the dishes yet..."

"But Mom..." my five year old daughter explained. "Breakfast was a long long minute ago."
I decided I'd let the kindergarten teacher tackle the concept of time and turned on the other two culprits who should know better.

"And we used paper plates." my seven year old son reasoned.
"I even washed the grapes." my nine year old volunteered.

Recognizing a lost battle, I told them, "Fine, but sit at the table." and the food thieves trooped happily over to the kitchen.  I opened the freezer to get out tonight's dinner and let it defrost.

The ice cream had been heavily raided.  The popsicles and Klondike bars were half gone.  Knowing I hadn't seen wrappers in the trash when I bagged it up this morning, I issued a general alert. "Who had ice cream?"

"Last night while we were playing magic." my 18 year old answered.
"Dad let us." the 12 year old added.

I went to get my breakfast.  Meanwhile, my infant daughter woke up hungry.  I started fixing a bottle for her while my ever helpful nine year old held her nearby to show her that food was coming.  My 8 month old was excited about eating and flapping her arms and legs in excitement. 

My nine year old was enjoying the show and not seeing what felt like it was happening in slow motion.  The baby slapped the cantelope on the counter which began to roll towards the edge of the island.  I tried to catch it but I was in mid fixing bottle so I sloshed mixed formula into the can of powdered formula, ruining the can and my outfit and the bottle while still failing to catch said melon.

My fifteen year old entered the kitchen to make herself some food.  "Is this all the milk there is?" she started to ask but I already had my keys and purse in hand.  "Mind the house, don't feed any of them and I'll be back with more...and a padlock and alarms so maybe we can get through lunch and still have something left for dinner."