A Five Home Run Week, Week Seven

It was another cold, wintery week here with wayyy below temps and a dusting of snow on Friday morning (🤮), but dinners in our kitchen were on fire! Every choice this week was abso-freaking-lutely delicious. So much so, in fact, that I’m yet another week behind on starting my “healthy living” plan to get in shape by July. Ugh. I’m telling you--I basically had to have seconds of every meal this week because I just can’t bear the thought of throwing away food. I mean, logically I know food is better off in the trash than on my hips, but I just couldn't commit this week in the face of five awesome meals.

Sunday: Writing last week’s blog on Sunday and reminiscing about my childhood got me thinking about dinners my mom made when I was growing up. Strangely, I only have two strong memories about her meals--my fave and least fave. We’ll begin with the latter.

Every time Mom answered, “Chili pie” when asked, “What’s for dinner?” I slumped. Chili pie, as a concept, sounded decent. Thick, hearty chili enveloped in buttery, flaky crust? Hell, yes! In fact, I just did a quick Google search and happened up two appetizing options--Reese Witherspoon’s cornbread chili pie and classic chili pie with corn chips--that look good enough to make even next week. Unfortunately, Mom’s chili pie had a crust not of butter and flour, corn chips, or cornbread...hers was made of rice. Rice. Rice that was gummy on the bottom of the crust and crack-your-tooth crispy on the top. Now that I think about it, it may have been some kind of Weight Watchers recipe or something, but it was disgusting. I’m going to use the fact that there is only one online recipe for “chili pie with rice crust” as further evidence of how gross this dish was. Looks like its popularity died in the 90s, along with my size 8 feet.

On the flip side, the absolute best days at the Mancherian house ended with a heaping plate of Mom’s Famous Pepper Steak. I avoided the mushrooms back in the day and instead couldn’t get enough of the rice slathered in sauce. I could have made a meal of that alone. (I even ate it cold the next day. Don't judge me.) So while I nowadays don’t remember to make it as often as I remember eating it when I was a kid, I pulled the recipe out on Sunday and we all indulged in a big heaping pile of pepper steak. And I ate all the discarded mushrooms from the kids’ plates as well as my fair share of rice and sauce. And I may or may not have eaten it cold the following day.

Sorry for the crap picture. I was so excited to eat that I forgot to take a good one (or any while I was prepping).

Monday: I’m not sure what got into N this week but he told me he wanted to make a “kinda healthy” meal this week, so he opted for lettuce wraps. We found a recipe on The Food Network for Thai chicken lettuce wraps, but when I looked at the ingredients we had at home, we adapted them and came up with our own version: Asian Lettuce Wraps a la N. Hahn.

N’s cook this week was pretty uneventful. The only thing I really had to show him how to do was dice the cucumbers. He’s really caught on to most of what I have taught him over the past seven weeks, so it was a really nice, low-key evening together in the kitchen. We’ve gotten into the habit of playing music while we cook, and because he was self-sufficient, I may or may not have spent some of prep time dancing with Dewey. ;)

The only problem with this meal was that there wasn’t enough meat for everyone to eat as much as they wanted--specifically N. He dove right into his wraps, scarfed them down, and wanted seconds and thirds. I think he’s hit that “garbage disposal” phase of his tweenage life and has a metabolism that’s even faster than the rate at which Dewey inhales his dinner; he eats and eats and eats and somehow loses weight at the end of the week (N, not Dewey 😉).

Tuesday: I was back at it on Tuesday (haven’t made two "real" meals in one week in a long time!), this time with Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas. I was skeptical about paying $3.99 for a one pound bag of mini peppers, but they were worth it since they were sweeter than full-size peppers and required very little prep (other than slicing them half and removing seeds). I threw in two bunches of asparagus, too, since it was on sale at Jewel for $.99 a pound, so, topped with cheese and salsa, it made for a one-pan meal. I’m not “sheeting” you!

As for the picture...I asked N to take a picture of me. The first one didn’t turn out great. “It’s a bad angle!” I cried. So he got up on a kitchen stool and pointed the camera towards me, “Is this the right angle, Mom?” Ha! The kid knows me too well.

Wednesday: I have to say, I think Mark is kind of getting into this whole cooking thing. Sure, he kinda groans when I ask him on Saturday to choose a recipe. However, when I walked into the kitchen on Wednesday he had everything under control and was standing over the stove, ESPN 1000 talk radio in the background. My husband has hit the “old man” phase of his life with regard to his listening preferences, and he therefore only listens to talk radio and podcasts these days. So because I know of his affinity for talk radio, and because he was listening whilst cooking, I’ve made the (likely false) assumption that he enjoys cooking.

Either way, my favorite meal of the week was Mark’s. It was creamy, salty, delicious, filling, and holiday-themed (always a bonus). If you don’t want to make a whole corned beef, grab some slices from the deli and make Corned Beef and Cabbage Gnocchi. It his the Irish spot without taking hours in the crock pot. And if anyone knows of any good food podcasts, send them Mark’s way.

Thursday: If you were to ask Mark, he’d probably say M’s meal this week was his favorite: Sloppy Joe Chili. She had a friend over after school who ended up helping with meal prep. When M started dicing the onion (with legit real tears rolling down her face--see center image), her friend remarked, “Oh, I could never do that.” So of course I put a small knife in her hand and taught her how to slice and dice a red pepper. A few minutes later she was browning meat, and after that she and M took turns adding to the spice mixture. It was so sweet to watch M take the lead and walk her friend through the recipe and also so rewarding to see her friend’s face beam with pride once she tasted the delicious end product that she had helped create. She must have said, “This is so fun!” at least four times, and she gobbled up the container of chili I had portioned out for her to take home before she even put her coat on.

I went out for dinner with a friend, so I didn’t eat the chili with the rest of the fam, but I did take a taste before I left--it was deep and rich but with a sweet kick from the ketchup--just like a sloppy joe!

And no sloppy joe is complete without bread, and because I didn’t have the ingredients to whip up a quick batch of cornbread, I pulled this treasure out of the freezer: Cheesecake Factory brown bread! Did you know they sell it in the bakery section of Jewel? It is THE best. Shoutout to my friend Melissa for alerting me to its grocery-store existence back in December. Game changer.

Wishing everyone a great week filled with delicious meals and warmer weather!