My new thing since school has started has been to sit down on Sunday and prepare my next week's worth of meals. I find that if I plan ahead and decide which days I'm cooking and what I'll be cooking and then go out and purchase all the ingredients then the chances of having dinner are greater for my family. Let me start off by saying that I am not a chef. I can cook, but most of the time it is not an enjoyment, and other than salads I'm not famous for any certain meal.
I grew up having to help my mother in the kitchen against my will. I was the person, having learned this in Home Economics Class, that insisted on following the recipe and measuring everything. My mother was not a measurer. She tweaked recipes and mostly thought them up as she went along. She was a cook, and mostly I was in her way with my measuring cups and spoons. Our togetherness in the kitchen usually ended with her telling me to forget it she could do things much faster without my being there. My brother, on the other hand, was like my mother and the two of them were better in the kitchen together. Since I didn't particularly enjoy cooking I was quite happy to step aside and be the person who cleaned up the mess after dinner.
Once I struck out on my own I cooked a lot of spaghetti. My friend, Sharon's mother, use to make fun of me because I always seemed to be making spaghetti for Tom when he came over for dinner. She offered to help me in the kitchen, but she was from Alabama and whipped up lots of fried foods, among them okra, which I didn't even know how to spell. Cara's Rule #1 - If a recipe calls for something I've never heard of then I don't attempt the recipe. For the most part I just experimented with cooking and winged it. Then Kelly, or as we called her back then, Haze,l appeared in our lives and she began cooking for us several nights a week. I probably learned more about cooking from watching her and having her assist me in the kitchen. Eventually I was on my own, and I don't think I'm such a terrible cook, but I'm no gourmet chef either.
The worst thing for me is coming up with what meals to cook. There are a handful of meals that satisfy everyone every time, but for the most part one likes this and the other likes that. Cara's Rule #2 - Everyone eats what is on the table. This is what we are having so if you are hungry you eat it. There are a few occasions where I have substituted things. I make a Monterrey Chicken dish that is too spicy for Darcy and so I make her just a plain chicken breast, but for the most part they must try what is before them. Doesn't mean that they don't come back later for fruit or some carrots and ranch dressing before bed though.
I began the first week of school by writing down the meals that I know how to prepare first of all. I'm not one to repeat dishes nightly or even weekly. Everyone in my family likes variety. We are really awful at eating leftovers, but between Connie and my recently widowed neighbor Sid, I've had fewer of those lately. I use to use a site called Menus4Mom, but eventually like most free sites, they went to a subscription and I just didn't think she was worth shelling out the dough for when there were other sites on the Internet. The first week I found a site that offered weekly menus, but the first week didn't have anything that appealed to me. Caras' Rule #3 - If I don't like it, I don't make it. It did, however, have a sidebar with lots of different choices and I perused them. I ended up deciding that it would be a crock-pot week because heating the oven in this heat makes my house unbearable to even sit down and eat in. I found four recipes that sounded interesting and different and I tried them all out; three were a hit and one wasn't. The three that my family enjoyed were Chicken Divan, Beef Stroganoff, and Herb Chicken Drumsticks. The one that wasn't such a hit was Crock-pot Cheeseburgers. While Madison liked it Darcy didn't. Kelly thought it would be fine with some pasta thrown in like a Hamburger Helper and eaten by itself and not on a bun. Tom ate it cold in his Greek Salad, and I thought it just fine because I was starving at the time.
This week I had to find something new as I had run out of recipes from that site. I surfed the Internet for awhile and landed on a site called Tasty Planner. I'm not sure how outdated this site is since after joining it, free of charge, but a necessity if you wanted to see the recipes, I found several items such as "male enhancement" and "exercise for today's woman" and things like that so obviously no one is maintaining and updating the site. It is a site for people to share their recipes with one another, and I found quite a few tasty little delicacies under the crock-pot heading. I have only three recipes that I'm trying this week as it is a short week. I cook Monday thru Thursday. Friday is usually pizza night. Saturday we go out. Sunday is a day that either Tom cooks or I might or even Madison might. I try to have at least four recipes and the ingredients at the start of the week.
The thing I liked about this site was that once you found a recipe that looked good you clicked on it to send it to your recipe box. That way I didn't have to print anything or copy anything it just went into a box that I could then refer to when needed. There was also a grocery shopping list, but I didn't check that out and instead wrote down what things I would need. Cara's Rule #4 - If I don't know where it is located in the grocery, then it isn't a recipe I will try. This week we are having Italian Chicken, Crock-pot Meatloaf, and I'm going to try a crock-pot chocolate dessert for Wednesday which is a late Connie foot appointment and thus a night to eat out. I'm also doing Enchiladas which is one of the things I already do. I shall post the recipes and share if they turn out to be something I recommend. That's always good for a post. In the meantime if you need cooking suggestions you can try the site at www.tastyplanner.com.
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