random thoughts

I posted recently that my food goal for 2007 is to get a better handle on side dishes. While perusing my recipe card collection (which oddly has a very large section for 'veggies') I realized that most of my recipes I don't make that often. I've made nearly all of them once but rarely twice. And there are a bunch from this past year's cookbook purchases that have never been made at all. I've intended to make them, put them on menu, but then never got around to making them. For the past 2 months especially, the majority or my meals have been basic and for the most part recipe-less. Meatloaf, pasta, chicken with couscous, chicken in a crock pot, pot roast, london broil, broiled fish, pizza and things stuffed in crescent roll dough. Various pastas, various fish, various types of pizza and various things stuffed into crescent roll dough, to keep it from being too monotonous. But basically the same 9 dishes show up every 2 weeks. Occasionally I'll make something or other that found like Cooks Illustrated Coq au Vin but the last time I did that was in September. I've intended for a month now to make Turkey Tettrazini but haven't.

Part of the problem is at least 3 out of the 5 nights I cook, I am basically cooking for toddlers. Turkey Tettrazini has zero toddler appeal. Tyson's breaded chicken patties have toddler appeal. DH is supposed to come home by 6:30 but something tends to happen fairly often to screw that up & I cannot put off feeding the kids beyond that. They go to bed at 8. I find it frustrating to hear at 5:30pm that he won't be home until 7pm & if I have been having a stressful day with bickering boys, the news that I will be alone with demons for dinner often means toaster waffles with peanut butter rather than braciole. Cooking for myself just isn't that much fun. Cooking for the boys can be fun, if I am in the mood for pizza or pasta, but I'd like adult food, with adult people every now and again.

So another part of my cooking resolution for 2007 is to make a new meal for dinner twice a month, every other Sunday. On alternate Sundays I will make again a recipe I have made before, like Coq au Vin. Or at least I will try. Realistically at least one Sunday a month this won't happen. Random food will be eaten. That's fine. What I need is a plan. It's ok to deviate from the plan, but you have to have the plan first.

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In other news...Xmas is coming (and on a side note I often wonder if 'xmas' offends people. I seem to be the only person on the internet that uses it. i was taught in Catholic school religion class that xmas was a perfectly acceptable abbreviation, along with xtian - and this was decades before IMing became popular, but maybe times have changed.) I need to make presents for my folks. Once again I am making a calendar for my mom. I've picked out the layouts I want to use & just need to add the month names to them. I already have the calendar templates (and you can have them too, they are for sale at 1hourscrap.com). I need to make some bookmarks for Dad & am not sure where to start. I used some premade templates last year that had calendars on them. I'm not sure if he really needs the calendars. I need to pick out photos for them. One of each grandchild. I can't remember if I laminated them or not last year. All xmas present have been bought for the boys, including the last minute "Hot Rod" that Drake asked Santa for. Fortunately he mentioned it was at Safeway which helped me figure out what he was talking about. I still need something for my 14 month old niece that is not a doll or stuffed animal, does not make unnecessary noise and is under $12. Finding something that meets all three criteria is proving impossible. I may have to surrender on some point - not the noise though. I'm pretty adamant about the no unneeded noise thing. I don't want it for my kids & I won't buy it for others' unless specifically directed to do so. I've never understood the whole singing dancing Elmo thing. I just look at it and wonder "Who would want that in their house?" Maybe if your kid specifically asked for it & really really wanted it, but just to buy it, with out being asked to,... why? But I admit I am not an Elmo fan and am thankful to the Divine that the boys have never shown any interest in it. I did buy a Wiggles Murray's Guitar last year, but only because DS1 specifically asked for it. I would never have volunteered it to him.

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I set up that audiobook spreadsheet and promptly failed to update it with the 3 new ones I got from the library. Also, despite all my cross referencing,somehow my Douglas Adams books got deleted from the computer. Not a serious issue because I have the original CDs but I could have sworn they were on my computer and converted to .mp3. I discovered this while setting up my book list for our trip. We'll be spending a total of about 36 hours in the car, coming & going. Thats about 5-7 audio books. Dh & I have made this trip every year since 1994 (except the last 2 when we flew) and we always listen to at least one Douglas Adams book. One year we listened to the first 3 books of Hitchhikers and both Dirk Gently novels and a BBC audio show of HHTTG. We later agreed that yes, you can have too much Douglas Adams. So we now limit it to just one. This year it's Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul. We're also doing Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, Agatha Christie's Man in the Brown Suit, Lindsey Davis' Scandal Takes a Holiday, Peter Mayle's Provence A-Z and another book to be determined. Plus a half dozen or so other books that are already on my iPod. Those are just the ones we know we want to listen too. This will be our first trip with talking active boys. DS1 was 13 months old the last time we went & didn't have much to say, so we had no problems with listening to books. We're hoping since we have the DVD player now we'll get to listen to at least 2 books. We tried it out a couple weeks ago on a 2.5 hour drive. They watched a movie with their headsets on and we listened to a book & it was great for everyone. Naturally I don't expect 36 hours of that but if I can get 4 or 5 intervals like that I'll be happy. Next year or the year after we'll start including some children's books in the mix. I've tried a couple with the boys but they aren;t that into it yet. Stories have pictures & pages. Music is listened to and never the 2 shall meet.