Much of my plan fell apart last week, starting with Tuesday night. My chicken was still frozen solid in the afternoon, so I made an executive decision and me and my parents ordered Chinese food with the kids. It was a fun change, but G. ate way too much sweet & sour chicken (and perhaps forgot to chew) and wound up throwing it up later that night. Quite an object lesson for both of us. He was fine once he got it out of his system.
Wednesday I didn’t get any prep done during the day and we wound up just having pasta after getting home from an evening class. On Thursday the chicken was finally defrosted, so I roasted it with fennel, potatoes, and garlic. Oh my — it was worth the wait. Friday G. was at a party until after dinner time, so the rest of us just scrounged in the fridge.
J. and I did get to go out to Benjamin Steak House Saturday night to celebrate our anniversary — a new branch of this NYC restaurant just opened near us. My impression may be colored by the fact that I slipped on their highly-polished wood floors as I entered the dining room and fell flat on my ass, but I thought the dinner was entirely average. A Manhattan on the rocks helped me get over my tumble (though it was too heavy on the vermouth). The steak wasn’t overly salted, which is a plus. The creamed spinach was excellent; velvety and still tasting like the original vegetable, without being soupy or pale from too much cream. Otherwise, it was nothing to write home about. J. liked it a lot more than I did, and had a higher opinion of the steak as well. BLT Steak remains my favorite spot in the area.
Monday:Grilled chicken tacos (bumped from last Friday), chopped tomatoes and lettuce, black beans
Hello, September. Vacation is over. A. starts school this week, and then G. begins next week. Time to get back into meal planning and cooking. I think it’s possible we’ve ordered more take out and eaten in more restaurants this month than we did in January through July combined. On one hand, I’m appalled, but on the other it makes me realize how good a job I was doing the rest of the year!
I’m going to start packing lunches for A. some days this school year, a first for us, so I’ll be writing about packing snack and lunch in the coming weeks. I’ve been thinking a lot about it this summer.
I’m keeping it simple this week, and since our weekend plans are up in the air we may just do some refrigerator dinners or easy pasta and vegetables.
I did use up almost all the buttermilk left over from the Dr. Pepper Cake in my flapjacks recipe — I just subbed the buttermilk for milk and added a 1/2 tsp. of baking soda, per the directions in The Joy of Cooking.
I hate the feeling of coming up on my next farm share pick-up (tomorrow afternoon) and having not made a dent in the previous week’s haul. So I’m jumping into it tonight. I’m chopping and freezing the garlic scapes, probably to make spinach & garlic scape pesto once the spinach comes in from our CSA.
Tomorrow I’m going to make zucchini muffins with dried Saskatoon berries and mini chocolate chips (hopefully the boys won’t be able to tell them apart!).
Finally, I’ve got turnips roasting right now with a little kosher salt and olive oil — we’ll have them for lunch or with dinner tomorrow night.
I'm Dara, the Chick in the Kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two school-aged boys and husband. Feeding my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Read more about me and CITK, and keep in touch:
I'm Dara, the Chick in the Kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two school-aged boys and husband. Feeding my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Read more 
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