The cook-a-thon: Part I

When it rains, it pours. And this week, it is a cook-your-butt-off-week.

I have been trying meal planning lately, because my lack of meal planning is 1. time consuming 2. frustrating 3. expensive.

I have also accidentally volunteered myself to cook up a storm this week. I don't have a ton of my own pictures because I'm too busy trying to get this done, but here's what is cooking in my kitchen.

-Meal #1, For some friends: Homemade Pizza
Since I had a vegetarian and fellow pizza-obsessed guest, I made homemade pizza. We had pepperoni, veggie {spinach, basil, red bell pepper} or cheese pizza. Served with grapes. Brownies a-la-mode for dessert. Here is the brownie recipe, it was one my favorites yet! http://www.ghirardelli.com/bake/recipe.aspx?id=1099
I did melt the chocolate & butter in the microwave using a glass bowl and a tempering method. WAY easy.

-Meal #2, For a family at church with a newborn: Chicken Penne Florentine Bake
http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/chicken-penne-florentine-bake-119144.aspx
We will pretend that the one I dropped off looked just like that picture. I have to thank Rob & Leah for introducing me to this recipe. It's easy, universal, and delicious. I paired it with a cesaer salad and some {easy} fun, yellow cupcakes with whipped cream frosting and M&MS on top.

After I do some more tomorrow, I'll blog about meals & dishes 3-5. Included will be what I'm planning for our party on Sunday, so check it out and COME ON OVER!!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!!

This is going to be a kind of sad post with a happy ending. We have a patient who is very sweet. I really like her. Her husband is... a total asshole. You know he's bad if I'm willing to say that on a blog that my mother reads. He acts like he knows more than the doctor (he doesn't). He acts like his wife's opinion about her pregnancy does not matter (it does). And he hates women. He hates that some times they have to get instructions from the nurse and not the doctor, and that the doctor respects his nurse (and all female staff). He hates that I have to tell him what to do, when the appointments are, how much to pay. He threw a fit over copays and co-insurance today. As his wife was sobbing. Why was she sobbing? They found out their baby most likely has down syndrome. And he was being a complete ass about it. Oh yeah, and he gave her herpes. She was really stressed out. So as I'm explaining to him how it works between his insurance company and our office, he in...
Read more

and then Justin Timberlake wrote that song

{written on the 20th anniversary of the passing of my paternal grandfather} Did you ever feel grateful our generation's Justin was Timberlake and not Bieber? Who would have ever thought JT was actually kind of ok, all things considered? In the past couple of months, I've felt like our youth is sort of slipping. Not like Robert and I are getting old (though I will not comment on how I fall asleep at 9:30pm regularly), but how I can feel our 20s ending. Robert had his gallbladder out. We are making big life/career decisions. We aren't buying time like we used to. There are realities to this stage of life, good and hard ones. One of the hardest ones, for me, was the cancer diagnosis of my only living grandparent. My days with her are ending. I am no stranger to death, or even death before it's time. So even I am surprised by how hard this reality is for me, though my grandmother is in her 80s. This has all been swirling around in my head, emotions I couldn'...
Read more

packing up the newborn clothes.

Image
Joe, day 1 today i packed up the newborn clothes (well, minus the pants because you are so skinny that's the only size that really fits you). today i packed the newborn clothes. you still seem so tiny, yet they are impossibly even smaller than you. today i folded the first outfit you ever wore and i remembered that strange, sleepless, dream-like hospital stay in which you entered the world. where we met face to face for the first time. has 10 weeks gone by? or has it been one? or a thousand? it's so fast, yet so much has changed it's hard to imagine it's been only 10 weeks. it's hard to imagine a time you were not here. Joe, a few weeks old as you drifted off to sleep in my lap, i traced the outline of your face. i'm looking down at my forehead and eyes, yet you look just your father. but then you flinch, i see your aunts, your father's sisters. but if you half grin as you dose off, you pull your mouth back on one side like my nephew, like...
Read more