For the record, this stuffing substitute^* is fabulous, and really can be a meal on its own. My only differences were the addition of a large, minced clove of garlic and french thyme instead of sage. Also, next time, I might try toasting the nuts and throwing them on after cooking or putting them on top at the end of baking time. I think I’d like the crunch over chewy.

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It has been one of those days.

It is only 12 lbs, so with the general rule of 5 lbs/day, perhaps I’m safe to use it Thursday early morning. I just didn’t want to take the chance. We can eat a Thanksgiving supper instead of Thanksgiving lunch if need be. Since this is a last minute change of plans, we aren’t on any timetable as to when we eat.

Mac is downtown again with the kids for the Lawrence South Park egg hunt. I’m enjoying the gift of silence, sipping coffee, looking through my latest Saveur and planning what I’m going to cook to take tomorrow. I’ve already decided to make some bacon wrapped scallions for tonight if we eat at home. I also decided that I must make some curried pickled cauliflower. I’m going to try two–one with sugar^* and one without. I’m hoping I like the one without. I love pickled vegetables, and I don’t know why it isn’t something that I haven’t tried making myself.

And now I’m shutting down this laptop to pop in my recently purchased RAM upgrade in 3,2,1…

ETA: That was surprisingly easy, given my bad technology juju. Now I’m running on 8GB in my laptop instead of 4GB. Also, the case underneath the hardshell has been wiped clean and the small amount of dust inside the laptop has been blown out. I need to pop the top hardshell off and clean it up, and perhaps purchase a new hardshell because the bottom one has a couple of big cracks in it in the name of protecting my laptop from Jay.

*I know. I KNOW.

Today I made an attempt to get food back on track by doing a Sunday cooking day. I have made braised beef short ribs, meat muffins, squash fritters, sauteed mushrooms, hardboiled eggs, sauteed swiss chard, diced and stored three bell peppers, prepped pork chops and green beans for tomorrow’s meals, and have one entire load of prep dishes in the dishwasher. I was also going to make some pumpkin custard, but I’m currently mentally and physically done with cooking for tonight. My ripe bananas will wait for tomorrow, or they will be thrown in the freezer, and I’ll save it for next weekend. Between hitting the grocery and the big cooking session, it takes up a big chunk of my Sunday, but I am really grateful during the week when I come home from work and meal prep is a snap. I even picked up two easy to make meal items for Mac this week. He makes Tuesday/Thursday meals. I’m braising pork chops tomorrow, but with most of that prep done, and just needing to actually cook them, I really have no big food worries until Saturday. Unless I polish off leftovers for lunch and have nothing for Friday.

Mac had bought us a Kinect for Valentine’s Day, a gift we finally opened last week. To say that the kids think it is okay is an understatement due to my exhaustion to type anything more exciting. We have the general game one that came with it, along with the dancing, driving and Zumba game.

Here is to an improvement next week in both food intake, mental attitude and physical activity.

I made it for my dinner tonight. My changes: leave out the English muffin, add more spinach, add a few dashes of Mural of Flavor to the spinach while cooking, sprinkle on some fontina cheese before baking. This was good, and now my mind is thinking of different flavor combos. Ada and I have been enjoying hard boiled eggs with smoked salmon for breakfast, so my next one might just be with salmon and goat cheese.

Since the spinach is cooked before baking, this would be a really easy breakfast because everything can be prepped the night before and then assembled and placed in the oven while I get ready in the morning. I’m hoping it will be even faster once my new oven is installed^*

My fake wood panel 1989 microwave is finally being replaced. I’ve always passed on the opportunity because all I do with it is reheat some foods^** and cook bacon. The bacon cooking is starting to take a long time, so Mac got me a new microwave/convection oven combo for Christmas. Now all my appliances will coordinate, and I will have another, small convection oven for cooking, which I’m hoping will pre-heat faster than my big convection oven. Perfect for making ramekin-sized quick breakfasts.

**Some food is best warmed on the stove.

Because it isn’t a pancake, it is a egg & squash fritter. It is also the Millennium Falcon. I went for a walk during lunch on Friday straight to Williams Sonoma to purchase the two sets of Star Wars pancake molds. I made pancakes for the family, and they didn’t work out too well. At least not with my pancake mix, which is not from a box and isn’t runny enough so I had to spoon it in all the places and then it fluffed up enough that it bubbles right over the top. I’ll adjust that recipe and try again another weekend.

However, for those runny egg and squash pancake replacement fritters, the molds are perfect. Next time I may have Darth Vader and Yoda fritters. I have extra Millennium Falcons waiting for me for breakfast tomorrow morning.

We discussed and worked it out that we are going to make Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs and either Ecuadorian Potato Soup, with sweet potatoes taking the place of yukon gold or a Creme of Celery soup recipe that I’ve made in the past where potatoes thicken it instead of flour, and again, I’ll try a Sweet Potato Creme of Celery soup. Sweet potatoes is the rare starch that I allow in my diet, so it steps in for any thickening. Although, I’m toying with the idea of using xanthan gum.

I’m going to put on a pot of chili for Mac and the kid’s Tuesday/Thursday meal and perhaps some for the freezer. I have baked Pesto Chicken with a yet to be determined vege for one night.

I’d like to get where I can survive the week with Sunday pre-cooking and leftovers so dinner is either easy leftovers or just assembly and cooking with very little to no prep time, saving more elaborate meals for the weekend.

I am going to make one change this week. Mac is going to cook dinners on Tuesday and Thursday, and I’m not going to eat. Well, sort of. Mac has a small arsenal of things he can make, and not much desire to learn much more. However, I can’t eat most of the stuff in his arsenal. Also this past month, I have moved running to after dinner, and it has been hurting my stomach. I can’t run 1 hour after eating a full dinner, and I can’t wait much longer or I’ll never get to bed especially since running energizes me and wakes me up. On Tuesday/Thursday, I’m going to take a banana or apple with me to work and eat it on the drive home to pick up the kids. When Mac gets home, he can fix dinner for them, and I’m going to go run. He can make whatever he wants without being baffled about what to make me. When I’m done running, I’ll have my recovery drink and some sort of protein–nuts or leftover meat or whatever I find. I really am not that hungry after I run and the protein/carb ratio in my after run drink will probably be enough.

Pre-cooking today
Meat muffins and roasted root veges– which is meatloaf mix made with pork, lamb and sirloin cooked in muffin tins. It cooks faster, reheats faster and is in convenient individual servings for freezing. The root veges can be put in the fridge and just rewarmed as well.

Pumpkin breakfast casserole — which is pretty much a baked custard that can be grabbed on the way out the door. I’ve been meaning to make this for two weeks or so.

Pizza crust and sauce: I’m going to make and par-bake crust for Mac. Then I am going to freeze them. Hopefully taking them out of the freezer the night before will mean all Mac has to do is put on toppings and cook for about 5 minutes. Ditto with sauce.

For dinner tonight: Filet steaks wrapped in bacon with mushroom and Madeira sauce and buttered artichoke hearts. I was going to also make green beans, but I should have looked at those before I went to the store. My schedule is screwing with my ability to use fresh veges before they go bad. I’ll get it figured out soon.

With taco makings for Mac’s second meal this week and leftovers on Wednesday, I’ll only have to worry about dinner on Friday.

Time to change and get cooking.

Tomorrow I was going to pick up a rotisserie chicken and some vegetable, leftovers that make great chicken salad. However, tonight Mac gave me a raclette. Now I want to pick up the cheese for melting and scraping over meats and veges. It also has a molded plate for crêpes, which can be made with just eggs. Plus, indoor grilling plate!

Perhaps I’ll save that easy meal for next week. Or use it tomorrow just to grill veges to go with the chicken.

Next: figure out where I’m going to store it.