Make-ahead Monday

Ok, so tonight's dinner couldn't have been much easier. We had chili dogs! As with many dishes we cook around here, this one is our take on a favorite mom and pop restaurant. In this case, the chili dog reminds us of Ben's Chili Bowl, a DC landmark that I've not personally visited but whose food I have eaten at Nationals games (ok, so it was only one game, but the chili dog made that much of an impression). Anyway, I made the chili ahead on Saturday when we ate it in a bowl with cornbread and cheddar cheese. Tonight, all I had to do was heat up the leftovers, pile a top hot dogs grilled on a grill pan, and sprinkle with cheese. It's not one of my healthiest meals, but it sure was good. Emily ate a dog and a half, a pile of cheese, and two cups of applesauce.

A case of the Mondays

We seem to always have a hard time settling into the week around here. I think everyone is ready to head back to work and school on Monday morning, but we're all exhausted by the end of the day. As long as I can remember, Emily has been grumpier than usual on Monday evenings, eats early, and goes to bed early and easily. It has always been tricky to come home and make dinner before she's melted down. So, as part of my new year's meal plan, I've decided to head off part of the Monday evening madness by making Monday night supper while Sunday's is cooking. This week, Andy had a tasty French chicken roasting in the oven while I had chili cooking on the stove. Chili tonight, leftovers in the freezer, and one serving left for lunch tomorrow.

what's cookin'?

I'm not sure why, but every year around this time I go back through cookbooks old and new-- and the pile of magazine clippings I've circled and put in plastic pages in a binder--and reinvent my weekly routine. I think it's a combination of a jumpstart from all the holiday baking I've done, excitment about new cookbooks, and a determination to eat out less often. Don't worry, it doesn't last long. Soon enough we'll be back to the same-old-same-old. But, for the next few weeks anyway, I'm trying some new recipes and rediscovering some old ones. So far, we've had meatloaf and chunky mashed potatoes from Joy of Cooking (an oldie but goodie) and chicken scallopine with linguine from an old Southern Living (not so tasty). I like to make my meatloaf in three small loaf pans instead of one big one so that we cook two and freeze one.

Tonight, it's pot roast sort of from the Dinner Doctor but I'm mostly making it up as I go along. I found it strange that the Dinner Doctor doesn't include instructions for making the pot roast in a crock pot, and I'm too chicken to put a pot in the oven all afternoon, so I'm using the crock pot anyway. I threw in some potatoes and carrots near the end just for fun, though Emily is already telling me (over and over again) that she does not like carrots (must have eaten way too many as an infant.)

Later this week we'll have Dinner Doctor's corn soup and Bon Appetit's penne with tomato cream sauce. We'll see how they turn out.

local food in a modern world

I just finished a wonderful book by Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, that tells the story of her family's spending a year in southern Virginia eating only local foods. (Well, as it turns out it wasn't all local since they had a few splurges here and there like Florida cranberries at Thanksgiving.) Generally, though everything they ate came from their garden or that of a neighbor. I'll admit, I made baby food and buy organic milk but readers of my "Fries with that?" post will quickly note that I have my vices in the food department. Kingsolver manages to argue that buying locally not only supports local farmers, but is also healthier and cheaper than buying "conventional" foods. (She also argues that eating meat is just fine.) She weaves a story of her family on the farm with practical gardening information, recipes, resources on environmental issues. The book seems a bit gimicky at first since the family moves across the country from Arizona to Virginia to spend a year growing their own food, but after the sweat equity involved, I have to believe that Kingsolver is sincere.

Of course, this is the wrong time of year to be inspired to launch a homegrown program of my own, but I can choose local brands over imports and put an organic vegetable on my table every now and then. I'll probably even toss those halloween pumpkins, homegrown I might add, into some mulch to see if they'll come back next year.