Just Heather
3
How Funky Is Your Chicken?
Nov 20, 2005 | Filed Under: Family Ties, Hectic Holidays, Picky Eater

We are not hosting a Thanksgiving feast this year, though I will be cooking a turkey. We are having lunch at hubby’s grandparents and dinner at my aunt’s house, where there will be no turkey. My cousins are always coming up with some weird turkey concoction to try.

The first time it was a Cajun-injected turkey. For our next dinner he was going to fry a turkey in under 30 minutes! I roasted mine and had the entire dinner ready and waiting for his turkey to be finished 4 hours later! This year we will have the pleasure of dining on Turducken—Turkey-Duck-Hen—a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey. I only wish I were joking.

Since this “uniquely American development” requires 12 to 13 hours to roast, I will not have access to an oven. To solve the problem, I bought a roaster ovenlast night. The advantage of my new purchase is that it will double as a buffet server for a few of our side dishes once the turkey is removed for carving. Now to figure out how I’ll bake the vile green bean casserole concoction that has somehow become a yearly tradition.

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1
Lifting a Girl’s Spirits
Sep 19, 2005 | Filed Under: Calendar Girl, Making Connections, Picky Eater

Here I sit, wallowing in self-pity, doing nothing when suddenly it’s mail time! What normally consists of bills and junkmail, today had the added addition of presents! Well, more accurately a prize. Adelle ran a fun play-along contest for The Today Show’s Hometown Wedding. Somehow I managed to guess nearly every aspect correctly and won. Dell sent me Betty Crocker’s Easy Slow Cooker Dinners from my Amazon wishlist—a gift to warm my heart and soul!

Maybe now my family will be able to eat this week. Cooking isn’t nearly so taxing when you can toss it in a crockpot and walk away. The timing on this one couldn’t be better. The meetings and activities are in full force starting this week. Tonight it is a Brownie Leader meeting. Tomorrow is PTO. Thursday Stacia has church choir, and Friday she’ll go to soccer practice. Somewhere in the middle of all that I have to find time to get well and hit the post office, bank, and grocery store. Cooking would have definitely gone by the wayside this week.

I already found a few recipes I want to try. Pizza Fondue—who wouldn’t love that?— Swiss Steak, Pot Roast, Stroganaff, and Pulled-Pork Fajitas. I’m not one for Mexican-style dishes, but “it’s always fun to pull your own pork.” I’ll have to check the freezer for what’s on hand and put some of these together this week. Not today though. They’re on their own tonight.

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2
Snack: Lunch 2
Aug 19, 2005 | Filed Under: Picky Eater, Quotable Kids

We have a daily ritual—the after-school snack. Dinner is not until 7, and my kids are on full feed, so no way am I stupid enough to expect them to last 7 hours between meals. Lately, the “snack” has taken on a life of its own. Yesterday, she fixed cinnamon toast. Not just one piece as you might expect for a snack, but a plate more full than she would eat for breakfast.

Today, she’s having leftover chicken dumplings. Her choice after I vetoed the chili. The little one isn’t much better. I asked her what she wanted for snack and she said “peanut butter.”

“You want a peanut butter sandwich. For snack. Really?”

“No. I jess want peanut butter.”

My family is so weird.

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2
Out of the Box
Jul 20, 2005 | Filed Under: Part-Time Geek, Picky Eater

I’m not much of a cook—wait, that’s not quite accurate. I cook all the time, but I’m not so big on “from scratch” cooking. My motto has always been “If you make it at home, it’s homemade.” My home-baked goodies are courtesy of Pillsbury and Betty Crocker. I do tend to use a lot of fresh meat and veggies in my meals, but I cook nothing elaborate. As a result, it is very easy to get stuck in a rut, cooking the same meals week after week. I’m not an adventurous eater, but I’ve been trying to branch out a bit.

Chelle posted an easy Egg Muffin Sandwich recipe the other day. She, of course, made her English muffins from scratch. When I decided to try it for Spencer—who stops at McD’s for an egg mcmuffin every single time we’re awake early enough—I bought a package instead. I had fully intended to use her recipe—really, I did—but the sale price on the packaged goods called out to me louder than the full price on the yeast I needed for the homemade variety. I think they turned out decent, though I don’t do eggs so I wouldn’t know personally. My big clue is he’s been taking them to work for breakfast every morning and not heading straight for the fridge when he gets home.

As for dinner, I’ve become rather addicted to All Recipes in the last few months. Did you know you could search solely in the “Quick and Easy” category? I picked up on that real fast. You can also search by ingredient if you have something you want to use up before it expires. Last night, I fixed Chicken and Dumplings. I’ve never made them before since dumplings require actual work so when I found this recipe that called for my favorite doughboy I just had to try it. Of course, I didn’t have any of the actual ingredients listed. I’m famous for substitutions (yet another great feature of AllRecipes.com).

Instead, I made a close facsimile with what I had on hand:

  • 4 boneless chicken breasts
  • 2 cans condensed cream of chicken soup
  • salt and pepper (I had this one!)
  • 1 11-oz package of refrigerated breadsticks

The breadsticks took longer to cook than the biscuits would have, but I liked the way it turned out. In fact, I’ll be having the last bowl for lunch. Poor Spencer is stuck with a turkey sandwich for about the gazillionth workday in a row. I’m working on a solution for that one, though with the fresh lettuce from our garden he doesn’t seem to mind too much.

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2
Fruity Family
Jul 19, 2005 | Filed Under: Living Inexpensively, Picky Eater

I buy fresh fruit constantly. My girls love it, as does Spencer when he remembers to actually eat it. Next to diapers, it’s probably my biggest grocery expense. I have my limitations though—I still won’t buy it unless it’s on sale.

We will sometimes have apples and oranges, sometimes bananas and strawberries, but there is always fresh fruit on hand. This week I hit the motherload—apples, peaches, strawberries, grapes, and blueberries were all on sale. I stocked up, thinking I’d be tossing fruit by Saturday. It’s nearly gone and we’re not even halfway through the week. These people are insatiable!

I’m not complaining—well, too much anyway. At least it’s healthy and not bogged down with sugar. Sugar is something my kids just can’t handle. They don completely different personalities and become these monster children I can’t believe I spawned. Fruit is sweet—but not too sweet. It’s good for you—but not so good that it’s really a vegetable. And it’s something the whole family really enjoys.

Now if only they’d let me eat some now and then. That’s what I get for being so picky as to demand clean food—there’s probably an entire bowl of fruit salad littering my kitchen floor.

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2
That One Place
Jun 08, 2005 | Filed Under: Girls' Night, Making Connections, Picky Eater

I met up with Rachael for dinner again last night. She picked a local place called Bub’s Home of the Ugly Burger. I’m not really very adventurous, but burgers are burgers so I decided to give it a shot. Besides, the house that it runs from used to be a restaurant called That One Place and I always wanted to go there just for the “Who’s on First” humor of discussing it.

Per our usual style, we had a fun marathon dinner. I had half a burger and 2 orders of fries. They were so close to the ones I used to love from Red Robin, which closed a few years ago. I was just recently talking about that with a friend and craving them so it worked out perfect. After dinner we headed to Ritter’s where I had a banana split for the first time in 8 years! We talked and ate ice cream until they turned out the lights to kick us out.

I don’t know what it is about us that make our dinners last so long. Maybe it’s because we’re still just getting to know one another and have lots of stories to tell. Perhaps it will taper off eventually, but somehow I doubt it. Though, sometimes I fell like I dominate the conversation too much. I’m a bit of a talker, in case you hadn’t noticed! I am learning a lot about her though, so maybe it’s not as bad as I think. We just seem to mesh, despite the age difference.

I don’t always feel like an old soccer mom when we get together. Of course it probably helps that she’s the one driving around in the soccer mom mobile! I do usually feel like a fashion retard though. She always looks great, and I just throw on whatever is clean. To top it off, I get home and find something stuck in one of my teeth. Who knows how long that had been there looking all hot. We did eat outdoors at both places so maybe it was dark enough that I didn’t look like a total heel.

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2
A Day Late and (Always) a Dollar Short
Jun 04, 2005 | Filed Under: Making Connections, Picky Eater, Waxing Nostalgic

Laughing at Mir’s Friday Flashback, I suddenly realized I could rival her myself in the food follie department. I love to cook, but I’m the biggest disaster you’ll ever see in the kitchen! Here are a few of my more memorable disasters.

  • When I was 12, I made chocolate chip cookies with a friend. Nothing fancy, just the Nestle recipe—with a twist. We added 1 cup of salt instead of 1 teaspoon. Worst cookies I have ever eaten in my life—and that includes the Zeer-oh’s I once got for free with coupons (never, ever eat fake Oreos).
  • We got a call from our mortgage company as we were buying our first house saying we needed to come down as soon as possible to sign something we missed. Not wanting to screw up our closing date, we got right in the car and went—leaving potatoes boiling on the stove. Needless to say, we returned to a pot of black lumps. I didn’t even attempt to clean it.
  • Several years ago, my one and only attempt to make an apple pie from scratch almost resulted in a trip to the emergency room. I have this fancy-schamncy apple peeler-corer-slicer that does exactly what it sounds like. It was dirty and, being the lazy ass that I am, I decided to use a paring knife instead. I sliced right through that apple and into my thumb. It bled for an hour before I decided to get a second opinion. I called my dad—if you knew my sister, you would understand why I thought of him as an expert—and described the cut. He says “Give it another 20 minutes. If it doesn’t stop bleeding, you probably need stitches.” Dad has always been a fan of the wait and see medical method. I butterflied it and eventually it did stop. I still have that scar.
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5
The Lost Recipe
May 18, 2005 | Filed Under: Family Ties, Picky Eater

No, I’m not talking about some ancient, secret, family recipe. I’m talking about my mom’s famous No-Bake Cookie recipe that I just can’t seem to hold onto. I’ve written it down—numerous times. Yet everytime I have a craving for them, the recipe is no where to be found. One night last month I called mom after midnight for it. Today I called her as she was putting her makeup on. She’ll probably be late for work, but my No-Bake Cookies are smelling good on the stove!

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