What I'm cooking, and big news for next week

I made the mistake of eating lunch before sitting down to make this week's menu.  I chopped a big romaine salad with green pepper, red cabbage, toasted cashews and feta.  It was great.  Then I ate two pieces of leftover caramelized onion and prosciutto pizza.  Now I want a nap.

Because I'm full, and my jeans are tight, I'm browsing through old Cooking Light mags given to me by my sweet friend Becca back in 2006.  I rotate them by season and manage to find something new each time I dig in.  Thanks, Becca!

So.  The menu.  In no particular order:


The breakfast we didn't have last week.  I want breakfast on Monday because the WH and I are going to make smoothies for everyone at home group (small group?) and the two together just work for me.  Plus, Mondays are crazy with two ravenous track kids and one ravenous wrestling kid all walking in approximately 30 minutes before we need to walk out.  I can have the waffle iron hot and the bacon and eggs cooked and waiting...and then I WILL RULE THE WORLD!!!!

White Bean and Turkey Chili. I do believe we'll have this over baked potatoes, because we didn't eat them last week.  When you bake potatoes, whether you have a convection oven or not, please use this recipe.  And please do the olive oil rub with sea salt.  They'll rock your world.

Pulled Pork Sammies with Coleslaw.  Using my easy-breezy crock-potted-with-a-can-of-Coke pork loin and piled high on potato rolls.  Perfect for a multiple-sports-plus-youth-group night.

Posole (or Pozole).  I have a great recipe somewhere, will have to dig it up.  Served with Boy Cheese Sandwiches.


Spaghetti and Meatballs.  When Mel is here, we make Grandma Maroni's meatballs, but when he's not, I buy meatballs at Ikea.  The secret, should you choose to do this, is to enter through the exit doors, grab a bag of frozen Swedish meatballs in the cooler by the checkout, and get the heck out.  When we lived in Germany, Ikea was a grand adventure, but here in America it's nothing more than a giant, annoying maze. (Unless you're a teenager. Then it's a great place to play Manhunt.)  I always, always make my own sauce, using the Cooking Light Basic Pizza Sauce recipe as a starting place, and sometimes subbing red wine for the white.

Thai Chopped Chicken Salad, because I didn't make it last week, and for the life of me, I cannot come up with anything else.

There will be much baking this week.  First, my Mom's Lard-Arse Brownies (I swear that's the title) to go with an unopened container of ice cream found languishing in the back of the freezer.  Also, chocolate chip cookies for lunches, because a dude at Costco tried to sell me some cardboard thing dotted with chocolate chips, and I told him I would bring him a real cookie.  Last (term used loosely), whatever the birthday boy wants for the party he's having this weekend.  My award-winning (seriously!) cheesecake is usually his first choice, but I'll have to let you know.

So.  The big news for next week is that my fabulously witty and artistic and well-traveled and adventurous and vegetarian friend Mary Dene is sitting in her apartment in Korea, making next week's menu.  I asked her to be my guest-blogger, and promised to cook whatever she puts on the menu.  I foresee a grand adventure, for two reasons.  First, her cooking skills faaaar outreach my own.  Second, when I asked the Wonder Hub if he was game for a week of veg meals, he said, "Sure, as long as you add meat."