Ancient Chinese Recipe

There are certain types of food that are meant to be eaten out.  In my opinion, Chinese food is one of them.  I've tried to make stir fry and yes, it's good, but it never tastes totally right.  So when I decided to try again to make my own Chinese food, I had very low expectations.  I tried to make lo mein once, and it was downright inedible.  I did learn that more does not equal better when it comes to grated ginger. It was a valuable life lesson.

Tonight's dinner consisted of chicken and vegetable potstickers along with homemade fried rice.  I needed a recipe, so I went on food network to find whichever recipe for fried rice didn't involve a $30 trip to the grocery store, and was pleased to find this recipe from 30 Minute Meals for Special Fried Rice.  The final product looked pretty good!

Steve gobbled it up (Will, not surprisingly was not a fan), and it tasted pretty close to take out, but it seemed to be missing something.  Next time I'm going to make a couple changes: 1) Less soy sauce.  I thought it was salty, and I used lower sodium soy; 2) it needed some heat.  I think next time I would add some sweet thai chili sauce and see if that helps; 3) I wouldn't serve it with the dumplings again.  I think I'd mix in some teriyaki marinated chicken or something similar.  The dumplings with the Gyoza dipping sauce was total sodium overkill.  Aside from those three things I'm really proud of myself!  It was loaded with organic veggies and I used brown rice to make it a bit healthier.  On an aside, I didn't buy the shredded carrots from the grocery store, but instead attempted to grate baby carrots.  Big mistake.  BIG.  I'm surprised I still have the tips of all my fingers!

One other change for this week's menu.  Steve has requested that we join the 75 and older crowd on Friday night for the Trenton Order of the Hibernians Friday night lenten fish fry.  If you're interested, here's the link to their website. No, we're not Irish.  But I do enjoy using fried fish as a vehicle for consuming malt vinegar.  They also have a liquor license, and we can feed the three of us for under $20.

On an aside, Emma is cutting her first tooth (finally!!!)!  She's pulling up on the furniture & trying to cruise & she's not even 9 months old! Also, I downloaded my Disney pictures the computer, and most aren't appropriate for this G rated blog, but here are two good ones.  One of me "Singin' in the Rain" at Hollywood Studies (otherwise known as The Park Formerly Known as MGM):

And one of me outside the French pavilion at Epcot just as the sun was setting.

Tomorrow night is going to be another menu crapshoot, so we'll see what I can cook up using a box of couscous, freezer burned Lender's bagels, and Trader Joe's boxed macaroni & cheese. Suggestions? I'm thinking leftovers.

Steve for President in 2012

I'm back from Disney!  We had a great time, but I'm SO happy to be home!  It had been almost a week since I saw the kids and this morning when I got Will out of bed he kept hugging me and saying "MAMA!" It was the best welcome home I possibly could have gotten.  Steve was also reasonably happy to see me :)

One of the highlights of our trip was seeing this guy in the airport:

In case you're not a 12 year old girl, that's Robert Pattinson, the star of the Twilight movies.  Of course, our students were going berserk. He was kind of a jerk, and wouldn't confirm that it was actually him, but it obviously was because he didn't deny it.  Plus, I would assert that you aren't a big enough celebrity to be a jerk if you have to fly commercial. You need a private plane before you get to be mean.  The other thing was that he seemed irritated that the kids noticed him, but in all honesty, he looked JUST LIKE Edward.  I mean, obviously he looks like Edward since he plays him in the movies, but he was dressed just like the character and needed a spraytan in a fierce way.  He should stop dressing like a vampire and just wear a baseball cap and his life would be MUCH easier. I should write a book on how to be a celebrity, because I think I would be better at it than Robert Pattinson was at the Orlando airport.

On an aside, my husband should run for president in 2012.  The man could have solved the nation's fiscal issues, the social security crisis and calmed Libya and Egypt with the level of intellect and logistics that it took for him arrange to never have to cook dinner while I was away.  Of the 6 nights that I was away for dinner, Steve cooked for one of them.  His meal of choice:

I would like to thank all our family and friends that came to his aid and fed him and Will.  Steve seemed rather proud of himself, and let's be honest, it is commendable that for 6 days all you had to cook was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, yogurt, and one frozen pizza. It's impressive!

This week is going to be in true pantry raid style because I haven't gone grocery shopping and won't be going until Saturday.  I'm going to try to do some makeshift menus tomorrow & take some pictures of our updated, almost empty fridge & cupboards. In the meantime, I am catching up on a week's worth of reality tv.  Bye bye Disney, Hello Bethenny Ever After and Amazing Race! What I won't be watching: Twilight.



My Love/Hate Relationship with Eggplant

I love eggplant. No really, I LOVE it.  I love it fried, grilled, in pasta, however.  But until recently, I have only eaten eggplant when out at a restaurant because it is seriously such a pain to make at home. This summer I threw out TONS of organic eggplant, mostly because we were just trying to stay afloat with a newborn and a toddler and I didn't have the foresight to think about any meal that took more than 30 minutes to prepare,and ALL recipes involving eggplant take more than 30 minutes to prepare.  But since we decided to really commit ourselves to Meatless Monday, I am having to revisit my love/hate relationship with eggplant or else we're going to be eating pasta every Monday. Now, I have nothing against pasta.  That too, I love.  However, it really isn't healthy to eat like you're running the NYC Marathon the next day, when in fact: a) I have not run since probably 2005, and b) while mentally strenuous, my job as a teacher isn't physically demanding enough so as to require me to carboload.

Battle Eggplant:
As I drove home from school today, I knew what I had in store: eggplant that had to be peeled, seeded, salted, drained, grilled, then baked.  I also knew that the time was already 4:45, so dinner wasn't going to be until really late. For a second I felt like Julie from Julie & Julia when she would come home from work, debone a duck, and serve dinner at 11:30pm.  The only difference is Rachael Ray is decidedly NOT Julia Child, and stuffed eggplant is NOT beef bourguignon. I thought about just making the frozen pizzas, except that then the eggplant was going to go bad (no chance in hell Steve was going to make it in my absence), and the whole point of this experiment was to actually save money and if you throw away the groceries, then you definitely don't save money.

Long story short, I sucked it up, and made the Stuffed Eggplant Steaks. They were beyond good!  Steve loved them.  Will chose to eat carrot sticks and salad instead (weirdo, but whatever). They were kind of like a grilled eggplant parm with spinach. They are totally going into our rotation, except in the future I'll salt, drain and grill the eggplant on the weekend so that I only have to do the easy part (stuffing and baking them) on a weeknight. Another plus, in real life, they totally looked like the picture on the website:



That almost never happens! I think it took me about an hour start to finish, which really isn't that bad, but on a Monday an hour feels like an eternity!

I'm off from cooking tomorrow - be back Wednesday!

Operation: Fend for Yourself

My husband is running the biggest scam ever!  Let me give you the backstory: this winter my school accepted applications for chaperones for the Senior Class trip to Disney World.  Before I applied, I asked Steve if I could go - of course like a good (read: scared) husband, he told me to go ahead and apply, just as long as it was ok with me if he chaperoned his school's ski trip.  I said ok, applied and was accepted.  In the meantime...his school's ski trip was cancelled.  So, he has to watch the kids for 5 days while I'm in Disney with 300 high schoolers, and I don't have to watch the kids alone at all!  Score! Which brings me back to his scam.  I'm leaving Thursday at the ungodly hour of 2am, and returning on Monday.  His schedule is as follows:

• Thursday: drop kids off at my parents, go to work, pick up kids from daycare, drop them back off at my parents in the evening.
• Friday: go to work, drive up to the lake for skiing with my dad
• Saturday: more skiing
• Sunday: drive home, see the kids, put them to bed.  drink beer.
• Monday: drop off kids at my parents, go to work.  Since I'll be getting home during the day, I'll probably pick them up.

Rough gig, right? He only has to watch them for probably a combined 5 hours (not including sleep).  He'll probably manage to get in a free dinner at someone's house on Sunday as well, not that I can blame him.  The man could be the next President of the United States with the logistics it took to pull this off! I have to give him credit for that! If left at home, I probably would have just watched movies and ordered Papa Johns!

Which brings me to this week's Pantry Raid menu.

• Monday: Meatless Monday! I'm trying this recipe for Stuffed Eggplant Steaks, since I had everything except the eggplant and the ricotta in the house. I might do pasta with olive oil & garlic on the side, but it looks pretty hearty, so it might not be necessary.
• Tuesday: It's Fat Tuesday, so we'll be going to Nonna's for "Cutta Di Yeg." She swears it's an Italian thing you do the night before Ash Wednesday. I think it's an "I grew up on the tippity top of a village with a total population of 45 people, 7 dogs, 35 chickens, and 1 priest" thing.  Regardless, she's cooking and I'm eating so I'll go along with the story.
• Wednesday: I will be at a doctor's appointment with Will, then Disney luggage check, so Steve is making Trader Joe's Organic Spinach and Feta pizzas, courtesy of our freezer.
• Thursday-Monday: Steve can figure it out! He's the one who got me into the pantry raid, so I'm excited to see what kinds of crazy recipes he makes.  I feel like there's probably alot of sandwiches in the future!

My menu for Thursday-Monday is as follows:
Everyone knows that Disney World has the best popcorn:

And as an homage to my father, I'll have one of these (ears ALWAYS consumed first):

And finally, on Saturday night, I'll be at Teppan Edo in Epcot for hibachi! I never can catch that damned zucchini in my mouth though...But I feel like when you're at the Happiest Place on Earth, they let you keep trying until you get one!

What is your favorite Disney treat?  I'll have one, then gloat!







The Best Part of Wakin' Up...

Let's be clear - I am writing this at 6:08am on a Saturday.  This is my new thing - I go to bed at 9pm, then wake up at 6am get up, watch my reality tv on DVR and drink my coffee alone.  Don't get be wrong, I love my husband, kids, dog, but the time spent alone in the morning, when the house is quiet and I can drink my coffee, watch tv, blog, whatever, is wonderful!  This morning I'm watching 2 guilty pleasures - Season 25: Oprah Behind the Scenes and Say Yes to the Dress.  Both wonderful, and better yet, since the hubs is asleep, I don't have to hear any complaining!

Back to this weekend & the pantry raid...We have the busiest weekend EVER! This morning I'm getting a much anticipated treat in preparation of my trip to Florida - a pedicure! And because we don't want either child breathing in nail salon fumes, I get to go alone - woohoo!  After lunch Will and I are going to my school's performace of :

We've been prepping him by watching the movie for weeks, so I'm optimistic that he'll actually sit and watch the show.  It will either be great, or he'll run around like a lunatic and we will be :those people: at the show.  The good news is that if he acts like the wild man of Borneo, I only spent $10 on the ticket, so it's not like it cost us a mortgage payment.

Afterwards we're going to our friends M & G's house for dinner.  I got the Lazy Greek Chicken recipe from them, so there might be an addition to the recipe book after tonight. We're supposed to bring dessert, and while I would love to get cupcakes from my favorite bakery, Sugar & Sunshine, in pantry raid fashion, I have all the ingredients for Rice Krispies Treats, so I think I'll take the responsible (read: boring) route and make them instead.

Tomorrow I'll have next week's menu, aptly titled "Fend for Yourself," since I'll be in Disney for most of the week!

Pork Rollin' with my Homies

What exactly is pork roll?  In a word, pork roll is: delicious.
In The Search for Delicious - I know I can't be the only person that read that book as a kid! - "delicious" never should have been defined "a tall glass of water on a hot day."  "Delicious" should have been "crispy pork roll on a toasted hard roll, with American cheese and egg." Pork roll is tasty and gluttonous and wonderful.  It's the processed meat that can't be beat.

We do breakfast for dinner about once a week mostly for two reasons: 1) it's fast, and 2) we know that everyone (read: Will) is going to eat it.  We had pork roll, egg and cheese sandwiches on flatbreads with homefried potatoes (aka Potatoes Robert) and fruit on the side.  Everything was delish, and even Will decided to eat tonight. It wasn't exactly worthy of a spot on the Food Network, but I'm sure that given that he's from NJ, even Mario Batali enjoys a pork roll, egg and cheese.

Given that we are trying to clean out our pantry, fridge and freezer, last week I took some "before" photos.  Here we go...The pantry before:

It may not look like much, but all those fabric bins are also filled with food, baking supplies, snacks, etc. etc.

Here's the fridge:

You know we'll be super pathetic when 2 weeks from now I'm arranging meals around condiments! I already have mental notes attached to the thai chili sauce and the sweet & sour sauce for next week!

Lastly, the freezer.  I expect this will be empty when I return from Florida. Let me save everyone the jokes and acknowledge that our freezer looks like a college student's.  The Lean Pockets are mine, not Steve's.  I stand by them. They are delicious and fast and won't give you too much junk in the trunk.  Try the new Pretzel Bread Jalapeno Chicken ones and you won't be disappointed.



Don't you feel like you just watched an episode of MTV Cribs? I know that my freezer looks eerily like Mariah Carey's or one of the members of 'NSync.

I'll take some update pictures this weekend - it already looks less crowded!

See you later!

My Big Fat Greek Chicken

So it's only Day 2 and I already messed up the menu. We were supposed to have breakfast for dinner - Bacon, Egg, & Cheese sandwiches on biscuits with homefries and fruit.  But, then when I looked at the schedule for the week, I noticed that I wasn't going to be home for dinner tomorrow night, and there better be some leftovers for Steve and Will, so I swapped Thursday's dinner (Lazy Greek Chicken) with Tuesdays (Breakfast for Dinner). 

The recipe title "Lazy Greek Chicken" is really false advertising.  It involves butterflying chicken breasts, chopping onions, making breadcrumb mixtures. Let me tell you what my version of "Lazy Greek Chicken" is: take some chicken breasts, marinate them in greek salad dressing (aka. Good Seasons), then grill them.  This recipe, while not difficult, is definitely not for a couchpotato.

I added garlic mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli. Here's how it came out:


Steve and I enjoyed it, Will is right back to freeing India from the oppression of the British Empire via hunger strike.  He ate exactly zero bites of food, and ended up with a banana for dinner.  He tried to throw his plate, but it was out of disgust and not to celebrate how wonderful dinner tasted with a traditional Greek plate smash. 

As I mentioned above, I have a meeting tomorrow night for the Senior Class Trip (bye cold Chesterfield, HELLO warm Disney World!) so I won't be home & won't be cooking.

On a tv side note, was I the only one who was underwhelmed by the new Dancing with the Stars cast (thanks, but no thanks Kendra & Chris Jericho)?  I have also sunk into a depression over the lack of Glee this week.  Luckily Top Chef is "supersized" this week and Carla's still in it to win it - LOVE her! - so that should pull me through!

See you on Thursday!