What I've Been Making for Dinner: August 17-21, 2010

Oh, things.  You know how it goes.

Actually, I've been making dinner.  A couple of taco nights here and there; some breakfast-for-dinner; there was teriyaki salmon in there someplace.  I'm not that excited about my dinners because other things have intervened. What's been on my mind:

• Alex had kind of a rough start to school.  I think things are adjusted now, at least to where he's okay with them, but it took an enormous amount of drama and emotional energy to get there.
• I've started back to work after a long and relaxing summer break.  Working all day is hard.  Waah.
• The kiddos' fall schedules may kill me.  I am trying hard not to freak out about the family being over-scheduled.  
• The transition back to the school-work schedule, combined with the impending start of preschool, has Eli all discombobulated.  The potty training suffers accordingly.
• I could use a better rice cooker. 

One bright spot has been Alex hitting a growth spurt that has made him hungrier than I've ever seen him his whole life.  One night last week--a breakfast-for-dinner night--he ate a full plate of bacon omelette and zucchini hash browns and fruit salad, and then an hour later asked if I would make him a peanut butter sandwich.  And some milk.  And maybe the rest of the fruit salad.  He's so hungry that he's forgotten to be picky:  Note that he actually ate the zucchini hash browns. 

So that's kind of cool.

What I Made for Dinner: May 5-9, 2010

A little of this, a little of that.

I don't even know, I'm so deep into the grading process and end-of-school-year activities for the kids. Every time I turn around, there's a Last Dinner for this and a Dinner Meeting for that and an anxiety attack for that other thing I forgot about. Before you know it, it has been a week and the kids have been eating frozen pizza and scrambled eggs and the grownups have been eating sauteed asparagus and popcorn and Eli has had more than one dinner of pretzels and carrots dipped in peanut butter.

There was something last weekend, I think . . . a night when Chuck grilled hamburgers. I made pasta salad with kalamata olives and the last of last summer's basil pesto. Sunday was Mother's Day. What did we do? We got a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store and I made some really good wilted spinach with caramelized onion. It's all getting a little blurry.

Anyhow, tonight I am heating up leftovers, although not of anything that I personally cooked. There's a little bit of India Palace takeout that's looking pretty good. The leftover rotisserie chicken will go into pasta with sauteed broccoli and garlic and olive oil, which I will admire for its thrift but which the children probably won't eat.

Next week will be back to our regularly-scheduled programming, I am pretty sure. I surely hope so.