Well, school has started, and we are in the super nervous crowd of parents. We’ve kept the kid pretty well locked down since March of 2020 with lots of virtual play dates to try to maintain the socialization. And with schools opening across the country and seeing some of the rate spikes, we are preparing ourselves for another really interesting school year. But fall is also coming, and I love fall. So I’m excited to dive into some of my favorite cool weather cooking!
Thursday (8/26) – This was a Katie cooks night. I kind of sprang it on her. She made chicken adobe and steamed rice. I think she went a little heavy on the spice this time, but it was still pretty good.
Friday (8/27) – As you know Friday nights are pizza nights when we have the kid. The hubby was tired of the pesto pita pizzas, and I don’t blame him. We’ve been kind of stuck on those for a while. So we ordered pizza. There is this local restaurant that we used to always order pizza from. They changed their sausage a while ago, and we went on a hunt for the perfect pizza again. We decided to give them another try. The sausage is back to what we like, but I was not such a fan of the pizza overall. However, we ordered some sautéed spinach with it, and that was delicious. But I’ve rarely found spinach I didn’t like.
Saturday (8/28) – We started the day with breakfast burritos. The kid’s burrito had just eggs, cheese and green chilis. Ours also had chorizo. And I grilled them, so grilled stuffed burritos. For dinner, I was kind of stumped. I had something on the menu but wasn’t excited. Oh yeah, it just said “Asian.” So the hubby and I brainstormed and came up with a pretty decent summer pasta dish. I used some leftover steamed cauliflower and tossed it with diced fresh tomatoes and garlic in olive oil, and then added shredded parmesan once it came off the heat. It was really simple but really good. And the kid ate it up.
Sunday (8/29) – I smoked a pork shoulder roast with harissa seasoning. It took so long for such a small piece of meat. I wanted to smoke it to pullable instead of sliceable, and that takes forever. Honestly, we ended up shredding it and putting it away after eating some chili because I also made a nice pot of chili. It was a big pot too!
Monday (8/30) – We had more chili! Did I mention that pot was big? I literally ate chili for at least one meal for four days before deciding I needed to freeze the rest. I froze about eight quart-sized bags and two half filled quart-sized bags. The smaller ones are for single servings for when my husband has to go into the office.
Tuesday (8/31) – I tried my hand at those crunch wraps again. I think I improved the nacho cheese sauce this round. And I rearranged how they were assembled to try to keep the crunch crunchy. It still doesn’t stay as crunchy as I had hoped, but I think they were better. We left out the lettuce, as it wilts when you grill them and doesn’t do well on reheat. But check out my wrapping technique cause that has definitely improved!
Wednesday (9/1) – We did a fridge clean out. At this point, we had so many leftovers. The kid had leftover pasta from Saturday. The hubby and I had leftover chicken adobo. On reheat, that excess of spices was a bit harsher.
We made it through the first week of school. There were five whole days of in-person learning. And I think I’m getting bored with pizza night. We might have to come up with a more exciting Friday night meal concept. We’ll see what happens.
Foodie's Delimma 