Wednesday, December 07, 2005

What's for dinner?

It's days like these when the baby was up 4 times last night and Sister was dragging ass to school this morning, causing me to lose my mama-cool, and Husband is going out of town for the weekend to run a marathon (again) and I'll be stuck on my own with the baby and we're broke and there's still so much to do for Christmas and I somehow got roped into volunteering to make cookies and brownies for 100 teachers and staff members at Sister's elementary school for teacher appreciation...(gasp for breath)...yes, it's at times like these when I don't know what the hell is for dinner. It used to be that when I was working out with the grown-ups in what today I remember fondly as a lovely job in a cozy bakery, if I was at a loss about dinner I would ask loudly of the bustling room, "Okay, everyone, what's for dinner at your house tonight?" The bakers would all come forward with their families' meal plans and I would invariably find some idea to copycat. Since said bakery was situated within a natural foods grocery store, any ingredients I didn't have were just a lunch break's shopping trip away.

But I'm not in a room full of adults at the moment. I have to rely on all you out there in the blogosphere. Since it's only fair, I'll kick things off and tell you what we had last night. We had Sister's favorite, Build Your Own Tostadas Night, which involves preparing lots of little bowls of Mexican-themed ingredients (guacamole, refried beans from a can, sour cream, chopped tomatoes, grated cheese, you get the idea) and setting them out on the table along with some fried corn tortillas. Everyone puts whatever they want on them and chomp happily away. Lots of little bowls to wash, but that's what dishwashers and 7-year old table-clearers are for. Oh, and Thursday night is a noodle casserole with tomatoes, ground beef, and cheese. Husband's carbo-loading for his marathon and loves this stuff. That's it for my ideas for the week.

What's for dinner at your house?

6 comments:

Piece of Work said...

Well, we're having spaghetti tonight, which won't much help you, since you're having something similar later in the week.

You could always try fondue! ;)

Anonymous said...

. . . i too miss those days being in the bakery when i could just go and immediately buy "what's for dinner"; living where we do now - 7 miles from a grocery store and at least 10 to the closest co-op - well, it's much more difficult to figure out the answer. i haven't got the whole planning-and-grocery-shopping-for-many-meals-at-a-time thing down yet. . . have i answered your question? sorry, i digress. well, you could do what we did the other night when faced with a barren pantry and very little in the fridge - bacon and eggs! now, what am I going to do for dinner?

cubmommy said...

I took chicken, green peppers, and carrots with a little olive oil in a skillet then put it over brown rice. It was what I found in the kitchen. Sorry it is not much. I am not a good cook.

Mommygoth said...

Ack - too many brownies - ack! Well, I made chicken with curry rice and peanut sauce, but I cheated - my peanut sauce is good, but there's a mix that's just as good, so I cut out the 20 minutes of stirring and used the mix. Tonight I'm on my own, so I'm guessing it will be cheerios.

Do you ever do breakfast dinner with your family? I know we do it together sometimes, but I always love that - it seems so rebellious somehow to eat cheese eggs and bacon and grits at suppertime....hmmm, maybe I won't be having cheerios after all!

Sugarmama said...

I love breakfast for dinner, and Sister finds it thrillingly novel whenever we do it. POW, I'd love to try fondue, despite your post the other day about it (he!he!). However, a fondue set is the one piece of obscure kitchen equipment I seem to have emerged from 2 weddings WITHOUT. I'm not sure how that happened...

Anonymous said...

Do your kids like fried rice? My almost 4 year old loves it. Cook up a cup or two of rice and let it get very cold in the fridge. Saute some chicken (or whatever) and put it aside. Saute some chopped onions, red peppers, or whatever veggies you like in some olive or canola oil. Mix in a beaten egg or two to scramble with the veggies. Add in the rice and chicken. Mix it all together with soy sauce to taste. You can spice it up with chile sauce, add fresh garlic or ginger, make it thai style with curry paste and cilantro... basically whatever you have on hand.