I think I hear an echo in here.

Tap, tap, tap… this thing still on?

So, Chris, what have you been up to? Eating bon-bons while reclining on a tropical getaway?

I wish I could say that was what I have been up to, even though I know it would make all of you hate me just a little bit. The truth of the matter is that I have moved again. I have been sick twice or is it three times now– it is all just blending together. I transitioned my children to public school and have four kids playing on four different sports teams.

The organization of my household has all but disappeared. And cooking? Forget about it. I had been making quick things, the old stand-bys, and take out. How could I write about cooking quick nutritious meals when even I was failing to do it.

At the end of last week, I think I finally turned the corner on being sick, knocking furiously on wood here. And so begins the catch up, the delegating, and the letting go of perfectionism. Because at this point things don’t need to be perfect, they just need to be done. My clothes need to be hanging in the closet. I can color coordinate it all again LATER.

And so it is the same with writing back here. I have a great recipe I want to share for macaroni and cheese. It is so good that my children said it is BETTER than the stuff out of the blue box. I know! That is a compliment of the highest order.

Do you know what has been holding me back from sharing it the past couple weeks? I don’t have any photos of it. I kept telling myself that I would make it again and photograph it… but that never happened. (See above for mention of foods we have been eating lately)

Today I was cleaning up my house and unpacking some boxes when I thought, does it really matter if there are no photos. No, it probably only matters to me.

And so look for the baked Macaroni and Cheese recipe later today. And bring your imagination for visualizing photos of me cooking, stirring, and mixing. Why yes, I have lost weight and my hair is perfectly colored and styled. Thank you for noticing, um in your imagination. Sometimes it really is better than the real thing. And might I say, you look fabulous too.

These are so easy to make… are you beginning to sense a theme with my cooking? Yesterday I whipped up a platter of these and brought them outside to my sons’ friends that were hanging out in yard with him. Yes I realize teenage boys will eat anything, but they will also tell you if it isn’t good while they are eating it. They inhaled the peppers.

One boy picked one up off of the platter and said, very seriously, “Everything is better with bacon.” If I had a teenage daughter I would have immediately proposed an arranged marriage.
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I love fajitas. Every time I make them I wonder why it is that I don’t make them more often.

You will need:

Chicken breast and/or steak
Marinade (recipe below)
Peppers, red and green
Onion
Tortillas (the large flour ones are the easiest to work with)
Sour Cream
Salsa
Shredded Mexican blend cheese

The first part of the recipe is to put together the marinade.

Marinade:
2/3 cup water
2/3 cup soy sauce
1 1/2 T Worcestershire sauce
1 2/3 cup honey
1/6 tsp ginger
4 cloves minced garlic (or garlic powder)

I put the meat into a ziploc bag and pour the marinade right into the bag. You can do this even if the meat is frozen and allow it to defrost in the bag while it marinates. You want the meat to marinate for an entire day to really soak up the flavors. Trust me, it is worth it.

Then you are going to grill your meat. I finally joined the rest of the world in owning a George Foreman grill. I really did not buy the hype about how great it cooked food. Nor did I think that I needed another kitchen appliance that I would have to store somewhere. But after using it, I too have seen the light. That little grill is awesome.

Slice up your peppers and onions. I like to use both red and green peppers.

Pour a couple teaspoons of oil into a large pan and saute the peppers along with your onions. You want to cook them until they turn slightly soft. If you keep cooking them too long they will turn mushy and lose some of their flavor.

Before you put your food into the tortilla, you will want to heat your tortilla in some way. You can heat them individually by frying them quickly on both sides in pan on top of the stove. You can heat them in the microwave. Or you can do what I do and wrap the entire stack in tinfoil and stick it in the oven for a few minutes.

A quick tutorial on how to roll up your tortilla so nothing falls out while you, or more importantly your children, who do not know the meaning of EAT OVER THE TABLE, are eating.

Step One:
Put your food into the tortilla approximately a third of the way down.

Step Two:
Fold the sides of the tortilla in. Both sides. I only have it shown with one side folded in because my other hand was holding the camera. My third hand was probably also buy holding back one of the ravenous children who live me. Where is that fourth hand when you need it?

Step Three:
Bring the bottom of the tortilla up.

Step Four:

Make it nice and snug. Then roll it again.

Step Five:

And again.

Now all your food is nice and contained and not spilling out of the bottom while you try to eat. Unless you are a four year old, in which case the entire thing will just explode in your hand as soon as you touch it.

or as I like to call it, chicken pot pie for the lazy folks.

Did you know I moved?  Yes, yes I did.  from Connecticut to Texas.  And I am drowning under cardboard boxes and tissue paper.  I feel slightly guilty for the number of trees that gave their lives so that my crap from Target could make it here in one piece.

Unpacking really, really, no I mean REALLY, stinks.  And to make it worse, when I unpacked all of the kitchen stuff my 11 yr old  son was helping me.  That sounds nice in theory.  Having help doing tasks is usually nice. 

But I said to him, “Oh put the stuff anywhere.”  Something he took it to heart. 
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A couple weeks ago a friend of mine came over for dinner and brought this dip. All of the kids went wild for it.

Okay, so it doesn’t really even involve cooking, per se. But the kids can make it by themselves and it is a great snack for when they have friends over.

You will need:

2 blocks of cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
3T brown sugar
1T vanilla extract
mini chocolate chips
toffee bits

Dump the two blocks of cream cheese into a mixing bowl. Add the powdered sugar.

And the brown sugar.

Add the vanilla.

Use your hand mixer to blend well.

Sometimes you might need a second pair of hands to hold the bowl still. Bonus if you have a helpful older brother.

Mix the chips and toffee bits into the mixture by hand. I just eyeballed this since I didn’t want too much. I would estimate that it was probably one-third of the package.

Serve with graham crackers or apple slices.

Stand back while it is devoured.

This is the best new recipe that I have made in a long time. I hid the leftovers in the back of the fridge so that I wouldn’t have to share.

I had made ribs a couple days before and had made way too much. I know you are thinking how can you possibly make too many ribs? Is there such a thing as too many ribs?

Well, I misread the package and did not realize I was buying the boneless kind of pork ribs. I thought they had the bone in. So 12 pounds of them seemed perfectly reasonable. After I opened the packages and realized my error it was too late to freeze the extra. And 12 pounds of meat is definitely not reasonable, even for my gang.

I cooked all of them in the broiler and set out to find a recipe that would utilize the leftovers.
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This recipe is a great way to feed a crowd or to feed your family on those nights when everyone is in and out of the house, eating dinner at different times. It is also a nice variation of the pulled pork recipe.

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We all have those foods from our childhood that make us feel good.  The foods that comfort us.  That make us feel loved.  That remind us, yes, winter will eventually end and the sun will shine again.  I am speaking literally here, but it also works metaphorically doesn’t it?

My mother was not a good cook.  She despised cooking and saw nothing wrong with serving frozen tv dinners several nights a week.  Ah, the 70’s a decade when mother’s were still free from guilt and junk food.  Now I feel guilty serving my children the occasional dinner of organic chicken nuggets. And for letting them watch tv. And for not doing enough crafts. Damn Martha Stewart making us all look bad.

I can’t blame my mother. She was a single working mother long before it was really an acceptable choice. She worked long hours and came home to just the two of us. I am not sure I would have felt like cooking a big meal for a picky unappreciated eater either.

Tuna Casserole is one of the few foods that I remember enjoying when my mother made it.

You will need:

26oz can of Cream of Mushroom soup
1 cup milk
2 cups frozen peas
2 cans tuna, drained
1 bag hot cooked egg noodles
2T dry breadcrumbs
2 tsp melted butter

Cook noodles according to the directions on the package.

In a large bowl or casserole dish, mix together the noodles and soup,

and peas,

and tuna

and milk.  Mix well.  Put into an oven safe casserole dish.

Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove from oven.

Melt butter.

Mix breadcrumbs with butter.

Sprinkle on top of casserole.

Bake for an additional 5 minutes.

Serve. Feel the love of your childhood come flooding back to you. I am hoping that my children feel this love too. So far only one of them has noticed the casserole and that child wrinkled his nose and said, “What else is for dinner?”

(Updated to add: My children LOVED it. LOVED. Except for my newly turned 4 yr old who is going through a picky phase. Completely random pickiness of the like it one minute, hate it the next variety. So I don’t think that he counts.)

If you want to fully embrace the 70’s serve this with salad made completely of iceberg lettuce and topped with that exotic orange French dressing. Or not.

My children love baking for the holidays, probably because they love eating all of the holiday goodies.

This year, instead of baking over the period of a couple weeks, we did power baking. Baking four different kinds of cookies in a single day.

I thought I would share the kids’ favorite tried and true, already been tested cookie recipes.

Peanut Butter Cookies, Sealed with a Kiss

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup white sugar, with extra for rolling dough in
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 package chocolate kisses

Preheat oven to 375.

Before you begin making the cookies, unwrap all of the Hershey’s kisses.

Once you have done that, and sufficiently sampled the kisses, you are ready to move on to the cookie making.

Beat the butter, sugars, and peanut butter in your mixing bowl. Beat them together until they get all creamy. Then add the eggs and vanilla extract. Beat that up.

Then add the flour, salt, and baking soda to the mixing bowl and combine it all together.

Resist the urge to eat the peanut buttery goodness right out of the bowl, you know that whole raw egg thing and all. (Though we mostly ignore this at my house. Shhhh, don’t report me to the CDC.)

Shape the dough into little balls and roll them in the extra white sugar. Place them on an ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart.

Bake for 8 minutes. Then you want to pull the tray out and stick a Hershey’s kiss in the center of each cookie. Return the cookie tray to the oven for another 3 minutes.

*****

Snickerdoodles

These cinnamon sugar cookies are always asked for by my children, even when it isn’t the holiday season. It is a quick, not fussy cookie recipe.

1 1/3 cups flour
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup white sugar
1 large egg

For rolling dough in:
2T white sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and 3/4 cup sugar. Then add the egg and beat that into the creamy mixture.

In a separate bowl mix together all of the dry ingredients. Then add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and blend well.

Mix the cinnamon and sugar together on a shallow plate

Pinch off pieces of dough and roll into balls. Roll the balls in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart.

Flatten the cookies with the bottom of a glass jar or cup. Or random can from your pantry. These will spread. Be warned. Unless you want them to grow together and make one big cookie leave enough room for the expansion.

*****

Jam Thumbprint Cookies

Another easy recipe that is asked for again and again by my children.

1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups flour

Seedless jam of your choice. We like strawberry and apricot the best.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla extract. (Are you sensing a pattern here?)

Mix the salt into the flour and pour it slowly into the butter mixture until the dough is crumbly but holds together when you pinch it.

Roll a ball of the dough and squeeze it a few times to make it stick together. Place the ball on an ungreased cookie sheet and then with your finger make a little well in the center of the cookie. Fill the well with 1/2 tsp of your jam.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies.

While they are baking, lick your hands clean.

Life has been getting back to normal around here. Slowly getting back to normal. At least I hope it is. Who knew that having your children play sports would wreck such havoc on meal planning. Not me, that’s for sure. I feel like for the past few months we have been limping by with me making all the same old stand-bys and resorting to making hot dogs way more times than I would like to admit.

But our football season has officially come to a close and I have no more excuses. Or at least I shouldn’t. I was lamenting to a friend that I really have no recipes to post because all of the things that I have been making are not even worthy of the term “recipe.” But she encouraged me to just write about it anyway, so that we can all commiserate together.

This week I found a recipe in a magazine that sounded delicious and easy. AND went into the crockpot. What could be better? I jotted it down.

1lb chicken breast
1 lg onion
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes with peppers, drained
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
3/4 cup lima beans
3/4 cup frozen corn
1 T dijon mustard

And because I can never follow a recipe I began changing it. I hate lima beans. Hate them with a fiery passion that is reserved only for truly awful things like holiday applique sweaters, nude pantyhose, and those orange circus peanut candies. So I substituted white beans.

I also didn’t have the canned tomatoes with peppers, so I used the regular plain diced tomatoes.

Then I used chili powder rather than the cayenne pepper.

So already the recipe isn’t resembling the original that much. I had procrastinated getting it ready and so decided that I would cook it in a dutch oven instead of the crockpot. I turned the stove on. And then promptly forgot all about it.

FORGOT ALL ABOUT IT.

For hours. Until my oldest son came to me and told me had turned off whatever it was that I was burning on the stove. And couldn’t I smell that burning smell? he wondered.

I went into the kitchen, which really is not at all far away from where I was sitting working, some might even say it is the same room, and looked into the pot to discover that everything was burned to the bottom. All the liquid was gone. I managed to salvage most of the chicken, but nothing else. I stood there looking at my chicken on a plate and thought, “What now?”

I got out a different pan and pour a bit of olive oil into the bottom. Then I sliced up an onion and tossed it into the pan. I sauteed the onion until it was clear. Then I dumped two large (28oz) cans of crushed tomatoes into the pan and turned the burner down to simmer. I shredded up the chicken I had salvaged and dumped that into the pan. As it simmered away I looked in the pantry and came out with a can of black beans. I rinsed and drained them and dumped them into pan also. I added some chili spices.

I boiled up a pot of pasta and used the new “stew” as a pasta sauce. I spooned it over the top of the pasta, sprinkled a little shredded taco cheese mixture on the top and viola! A completely new meal. I didn’t feel like making my own pot of gluten free pasta so I ate my portion with tortilla chips instead.

The kids loved it. Most of them had more than one helping. I thought it was okay. It was sort of boring and bland, which is probably the EXACT reason the children liked it so much.

I will probably make this again sometime. Though I will definitely skip the part where I burn and entire meal and have to salvage burned chicken breasts.

So tell me, do you all feel better now knowing that my disorder is not very ordered afterall either?