Okay. Breathe.
I've done very little house stuff over the past week. It was spring break here and everyone was home and who wants to waste family together time with cleaning up? Not me. So it's a mess right now. I think I've done more in the past 24 hours than I have since Good Friday.
The most crazy bizarre thing I did was a monthly meal plan. Yes, I did one for March, but that was by hand on a piece of printer paper, with errors and arrows and whatever. This time I created a 10 page document, not including the recipes I've been printing out. (Miss work much? This is really starting to resemble stuff I used to do for work...so strange.) I have month at a glance, then week by week, then grocery lists, then I sketched out this week in terms of meals, cleaning, outside of the house obligations...I'm getting tired thinking about it.
A lot of it comes back to the writing workshop that I did last week, about finding the time to write. There's a lot that I want to do, that I think I can get done because I am not working full time/am in the house/have a fairly flexible schedule. I'm still busy as hell, just like when I was working, but I feel like I've been under-utilising my time. I want to do more writing, more productive writing, writing with goals. I want to do more crafting, not just shopping for possible crafting then leaving it in a mess in my crafting room. And healthy stuff, like exercise and eating better. And kid stuff, getting a better variety of activities, getting out more, which needs some preparation (again, miss work much?). So, I feel like I need a plan, and that's what I made for myself. Having the meals planned out for March was great; I could forget about cooking until suppertime, or start-the-slow-cooker-time, rather than freaking out and scrambling and getting pissy about it.
Anyway, enough of that. My list is a review of last week's recipes, then I'm off to the other blog to post my first week's menu for April (April! Spring is here! Or coming, at least!).
- Mon. Mar. 24: Balsamic Steak with roasted tomatoes and polenta (Everyday Food mag) The best meal of the week. Amazing.
- Tues. Mar. 25: BBQ beef on a bun with fresh buns (from frozen dough) We make the beef quite often, no surprises. Didn't have frozen buns so we made bread from frozen dough; a little slower to bake, but very good.
- Wed. Mar. 26: fish sticks for the kids, breaded shrimp with garlicky beans for the grown ups (Real Simple March '08) Didn't bother with the shrimp, but I still want to make that one of these days.
- Thurs. Mar. 27: Glazed pork tenderloin with pineapple (Everyday Food cookbook) Wait, did I say the steak was the best? This came very close. I think if I'd done more exciting sides and the ginger sauce they suggested, it would have beaten Monday's. I don't know...it was close; they were both awesome.
- Fri. Mar. 28: sesame chicken (Everyday Food) Switched Friday and Saturday. I love this chicken, and it's supper easy.
- Sat. Mar. 29: chili and corn bread (in a pan or as muffins) Invented the chili recipe but underseasoned it. Used a cooking light recipe for the corn bread and it was pretty underwhelming. But, not a bad meal, just not as exciting as the other stuff.
- Sun. Mar. 30: for brunch, oeufs en cocotte (Nigella cookbook); if
we stay home, slow roasted Asian beef (Chatelaine magazine, March '08) I made banana bread and scrambled eggs instead of the Nigella recipe. Couldn't find my ramekins and it seemed like a lot of work to cook four eggs. And we were out for supper, so the beef is for tomorrow.
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