Ham and Cheese Calzone

You'll notice that tonight's dinner is not picture perfect -- in fact, most of it is missing.

Along with working full-time now, I realized tonight that I am starving when I get home. This dinner took just 30 minutes, but I was so focused on getting it in my stomach that I forgot to take a picture first.

So this is what little is left over after the wild wolves that are my family ate to satisfaction.

Christian says that this one rivals the Cheddar Braid we had a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure...it has a lot of ricotta cheese in it, which I like in moderation. And I wish I had put some cheddar in it, like I was tempted to do when I was making it.

Tomorrow is tilapia....I can hardly wait. It's got one of my favorite ingredients in it: panko bread crumbs!

Italian Sausage with Tomato Relish

So, I started working full time last week. It was a complete surprise, so I was caught off guard.

I was offered the job on Friday, then went out of town for the weekend, to come back to an email saying I was starting on Monday.

Cool.

E-Mealz couldn't have come at a better time.

Saturday, after a long week getting used to losing 50 hours out of my usual nap time, I made this delicious dish: Italian Sausage with Tomato Relish. Officially, this puts me a week behind E-Mealz menus, but y'know, it all eats the same: gone in no time.

The truth is that I am not known in my family for my cooking. I didn't learn to cook until I married Ross 10 years ago.

So it felt really great to cook this dish for my brother and mom this weekend. And it earned my brother's thumb's up (with second helpings) so I know it wasn't just me who liked it.

Day 9: Adventures in Dinner

Days 7 and 8 got hijacked by worship practice (a highlight of the week that sits squarely on the dinner hour) and a migraine. So Wendy's and Little Ceasar did the cooking those two nights.

I think I've learned that we're a 5 nights a week of dinner family. Sunday and Wednesday nights see us all going different directions.

So I didn't get to the tilapia until last night. I was, honestly, scared. I don't love fish. I've never cooked it. I also have never had capers either. And last night I was tired, so trying out new things didn't sound very appealing.

Still, we had to eat, the fish was thawed, and the worst that could happen was that it would be a cereal kind of night if I totally fubbed it.

As it turned out, though, it was tasty and much, much easier than I thought it would be. Christian cracked me up when he came back for seconds before I was done plating Ross's fish (pictured here). He hoovered the first helping.

I also thought that one lb. of tilapia would be enough, but bought two just in case. Just as I was sitting down to eat, Rayne came home from her friend's house with friend in tow. Long story short...I gave up my plate and went back to cook the second lb. And there was none left over.

Who knew?

The meal would have been perfect if I'd roasted the asparagus the menu called for. But WinCo didn't have any fresh asparagus and I wasn't going to another grocery store just for that. Speaking of which...that's where I'm headed now, to shop for Week 2. I can hardly wait to see how much money I'm going to save...

Day 6: Adventures in Dinner

I wish it were possible to upload smells because this baby smells incredible.

I was supposed to buy the chicken in pieces, but the whole chickens were in two packs. So earlier this week I cooked one chicken in the slow cooker, and if you'll recall, I mentioned that it was tasty but not very photogenic.

Since this chicken was still whole, I thought I was brave enough to try to cut up my first raw chicken, but as usual, the Joy of Cooking scared me to death. I determined instead to just roast the whole thing, slathering it in BBQ sauce throughout. This turned out to be a pretty decent strategy.

I really like breast meat and I like it juicy. I learned from cooking turkeys that they turn out pretty well if you start them out on their breasts, then flip them halfway through cooking. That's what I did this time and it's too bad I couldn't capture how amazingly tender and juicy the breast turned out.

Since I didn't get the chicken in the oven until way late (4:40), and I was anticipating an hour and a half roasting time (which made for a rather late dinner time), I utilized a seldom used feature of my oven and roasted it at 375 on the convection setting. This cut the cooking time a lot. We were sitting down by 6:15, including letting the chicken rest and carving time. Not bad.

Anyway. Totally delicious. I'm looking forward to doing tilapia tomorrow. I've never had capers before...

Day 5: Adventures in Dinner

Day 4 got hijacked by the fact that I was the only one home for dinner. So I got in my pajamas and made pancakes, which was not on the plan, but were nonetheless quite yummy.

Day 5 (Monday) thus got Sunday's brunch planned meal: Pepper Jack Brunch Braid. Except that I didn't think I could get away with pepper jack cheese so my version was Cheddar Brunch Braid. Served with cantaloupe and smoked sausage.

I feel like a repeating record on this, but it was delicious, extremely easy and was ready to eat in less than half an hour. Really.

I cannot begin to say how much this new way of doing food is helping me. My house is not the usual barely on the edge of not a complete disaster -- I can usually see the kitchen counter now at any given hour. There are vacuum marks in the carpet. (I can SEE the carpet.) Laundry is getting done. The bathrooms got cleaned. The sheets got changed.

I feel like I might be making a success of this housewife at-home-mom business.

(Okay, I admit...I did not clean the bathrooms. Ross gets credit for that.)

Sometimes a single thing helps way beyond the expected and obvious.

Day 3: Adventures in Dinner

Day 2 was really delicious -- slow cooked chicken with rice and green beans. But chicken that has been in a slow cooker for 8 hours is not very photogenic. All that yummy spiced meat was falling off the bone.

So we have a slightly prettier Day 3 offering, which is Taco Bean Salad. I cheated a bit, and got pico de gallo (not called for in the recipe) from the Mexican restaurant down the street.

This is the first time I've ever put kidney beans in with my taco meat, and honestly was a little hesitant about it. I don't love beans. But it was delicious! And that wasn't just my opinion -- Rayne ate all the meat and beans on her plate, but nothing else.

This picture is of Christian's second full plate. He complained that I was taking too long to get the camera...he wanted to dig right in.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's planned meal. It's gonna be pretty. And very photogenic.

Adventures in Dinner

I honestly have no idea what my blog is about anymore. But I had to share more this wonderful new discovery: Dinner! At home! On a regular basis! Like. Every. Night. Wow.

I joined e-mealz.com.

I now no longer will plan any of my dinners because e-mealz does it for me, and makes my grocery lists. Now, if it would just grocery shop for me!

And how are the dinners? Tonight's offering was Stuffed Shells Florentine.

As it happened, last week I made spaghetti sauce, which always yields enough for three meals, so even though the recipe for tonight called for canned sauce, tonight's version was entirely made from scratch, super easy. And it was very yummy.

Even better, I spent less at the grocery store for an entire week of meals than I used to for several days of my haphazard method of meal planning.

Tomorrow I try another new thing: cooking an entire chicken. Usually I just do chicken breasts. This'll be fun, I've no doubt.