So, we’ve hit the third trimester of this thing…kidding. I wish I could say it would only last 9 months, and at the end we’d all get a beautiful reward. I’m just not sure that is how this thing is going down. But it would be nice. So our house is coming together. I have way more cabinet room. I don’t even have to put things in storage like my cake pan or my grandma’s cookware. I am still learning my way around the new kitchen, but I’m also back to cooking and meal planning. Getting ready to do some stock up projects like making broths and such soon, as I lost many of them during the move.
Thursday (9/3) – My husband made shells and cheese because we found a block of Velveeta queso blanco cheese, and I had a client a meeting. My husband made his old recipe and was sure to advice the kid this was a one off, as we don’t buy that unhealthy stuff anymore! Seriously though, mac ‘n cheese is way better with real cheese. Oh and yes, I said client meeting. I met a client outdoors with proper social distancing and masks.
Friday (9/4) – I took some leftover pork enchilada filling I had frozen and baked it in a casserole dish with Jiffy cornbread on top. I topped this with some shredded cheddar. It was delicious! I need to remember what I put in that enchilada mix other than that it was smoked pork. It had the perfect balance of spicy and sweet with the Jiffy mix.
Saturday (9/5) – I baked a chicken with some potatoes cooked in the juices! Our new stove is fantastic. I cooked a chicken at 500 degrees for 45 minutes and you could barely feel the heat right next to the stove. No more being limited to only using the oven on days that are below 70 degrees! Also, cook all your potatoes in chicken juices…YUM.
Sunday (9/6) – For the end of our no-kid weekend, we decided to be totally healthy. I used the rest of that block of Velveeta to make chorizo cheese dip. Once I added the homemade chorizo, you really could not tell it was queso blanco anymore, but it was delicious. I just mixed queso blanco, a can of diced green chilis, and most of a pound of chorizo. Grab a bag of tortilla chips, and you have a college sophomore dinner.
Monday (9/7) – I had some frozen veggies that just didn’t fit my freezer after move in day, so I just tossed them in the fridge. The last of these was a bag of frozen, well not anymore, corn. It just happened that one of the NYT recipes this week was a creamy corn pasta. So, I made creamy corn pasta for dinner. It was okay, but I and a friend who happened to also make it this week agreed it needed a punch up. When reheating the leftovers for lunch later, I added some peas, and that definitely improved the dish.
Tuesday (9/8) – We just did leftovers. I had some chicken salad I made using the leftover breast meat from the baked chicken on Sunday. Neither my husband nor I eat breast meat generally, so I always use the meat to make either chicken salad or some similar dish that involves covering and masking the dryness of breast meat. I don’t care how good a cook you are, breast meat is just dry. We made some toast and voila! dinner.
Wednesday (9/9) – I made spinach Alfredo pasta. I still had not yet started meal planning, and coming up with dinners on the fly is totally stressful for me. But I had the stuff to make Alfredo, which everyone loves. I feel bad that we had so much pasta this week, but we are all just doing our best to get through, so I’m going to accept it and move on. Now that things are more unpacked, I’ll get back into meal planning and stock up my freezers and cabinets.
I consider this our “recovery week” from the worst move I have ever had. I know, things could have been much worse, but the amount of stress the move caused my husband and I just sucked. There’s no nice way to say that. However, I am proud that we did it, we did it without bickering the whole time, and we are very happy with our new place. Now, I need go to work on restocking my broths and some other freezer goodies.
Foodie's Delimma 