The Meal Plan of October 2 was basically a bust. Let's start with the sausage, onions and peppers. I have made this meal 1,000 times before (hello, I'm Italian). I've made it on an outdoor grill, my stove-top grill, and in the oven. Basically I grab some mild and sweet sausages (not hot because the little man eats all the same things we do... even though he would probably like the hot ones), at least 2 onions, and at least 2 different types of bell peppers (in this case I did green and red). Since I started dinner prep late, I threw the peppers and onions on my stove top grill to get them going and then found online that I could put my sausages in the oven at 200 for 20 minutes to cook them and just throw them on my grill at the end to make them crispy. I read this in a few different places so it seemed legit.
It wasn't.
My sausages weren't cooked at all when I finally went to serve dinner. So, I grilled them for 10 more minutes and finally cut them up and threw them in the microwave. This meant they just tasted really weird and we didn't eat until 6:20, which also meant the little man was super hungry which equals super cranky, which also means that since I was cooking my hubby was watching the super hungry and cranky little mean which equals a super hungry and cranky big man. Let me tell you... dinner was fun.
It's going to be some time before I can make sausage, peppers, and onions again,
And then I tried the Chicken Stuffing Bake on Monday night...as planned. Before I go any further I need to confess a weird thing I do... for some reason if a recipe calls for cream of [insert item here.... chicken, mushroom, etc] I'm immediately intrigued. I don't really know why since I can't remember my mom ever cooking with these soups so it isn't like it evokes some childhood memory, but I want to try that recipe. I always think the recipes will be easy, flavorful, and will bring me back to a 1950s nostalgia that I am way too young to (yes... "too" young... comments?) know anything about. And here is the thing - so far, in the last 16 years when I've really been cooking my own evening meals consistently, that has never happened. Not even once that I can think of.
Here's the truth... when I make a meal that calls for cream of "something" often that meal tastes like the glue from first grade - that big vat of white glue. Or, it tastes like next to nothing. And this recipe was no different. After silently eating for a few minutes Brian asked, "What's the glue-like stuff?" My answer, "It's the stuffing." Let me tell you, that was not a good omen for this meal. And it only got worse.
I would love to find a quick cooking and prepping one dish meal that tastes decent but I haven't yet. And, if I ever do, I'm pretty sure it won't contain any cream of anythings.
So, since I had hit it out of the park on Sunday and Monday night (that was dripping with sarcasm by the way) I completely freaked and ditched the other 2 recipes I was planning on making. Instead I made pasta with jarred sauce one night (bigger raves than Sunday or Monday) and I made baked barbecue chicken (just bake the chicken with barbecue sauce and brush some more on throughout the cooking process) with roasted brussel sprouts and mashed potatoes from some almost-bad potatoes. No one complained... phew.
Then we went away and Brian got to eat my mom's cooking for 5 days. He ate every last bite. Kind of made me a little jealous that he loved it so much so I felt I had to do something big to recover. And I called in the aid of The Pioneer Woman.
I made Chipotle Steak Salad and we are still dreaming about the dressing (this was a Brian dish for sure) and I made the Beef with Snow Peas. Brian ate the beef, the brown rice (yes, I said "brown" rice) AND the snow peas. He went back for seconds on the entire thing... another Brian dish. I also made the Baked Chicken Parm that I talked about in an earlier post and that is quickly becoming a staple in my kitchen. With the chicken I also had some oven baked zucchini and apparently I'm the only person in the house who likes zucchini.
One night last week I also made the Pioneer Woman's Crash Hot Potatoes. Here's the deal... these potatoes are so good I can't even remember what I paired them with... I just remember these potatoes. They were divine. And they were soo good that I put the leftovers in my fridge and Sunday morning I fried them up in a scant amount of olive oil and served them with eggs. Just writing this makes me wish I had some still in the fridge - they were that good. Make them now (and it doesn't even matter that I had to use 2 dishes to make them... it was well worth it). And if you make them be forewarned that Brian might show up at your back door asking for some.
I'll let you know what I'm cooking this week soon. I'm assuming that at some point I'll catch up... but don't hold your breath.
