Chicken broccoli pasta surpise!

Surprise surprise! I managed to fix something that everyone liked. It's a Christmas miracle.  Just a simple past dish and yet everyone ate dinner and there was no complaining.  Now, don't think this means everyone ate all the ingredients. Oh no, of course not. That would be the Christmas miracle to end all Christmas miracles.  Maybe even more miraculous than the birth of Jesus himself. The kids only at the pasta and picked out the chicken and broccoli, but I'm willing to take a victory when I can get one.

So where did I come up with this miraculous dish? I read some blog over on the Huff Post and stole the idea.  All I could remember was that it had chicken, broccoli, penne past and some sort of flavor pack found at Trader Joe's. Since the nearest TJ's to me is probably in another state, I made do with Publix and Aldi, cause I'm cheap like that. And clearly don't love my children enough since I didn't use organic foods and flavor it with love. But, the ate it so I don't care.

So here's what I did: Put the pasta water on to boil. Add penne when it comes to a boil and cook until al dente.  Meanwhile, sprinkle 2 or 3 chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Saute in a skillet with olive oil until browned on both sides.  Add broccoli florets and about 1/4 cup of water so the broccoli will steam a little. When the chicken is done and the broccoli tender add some diced garlic and this nifty little concentrated chicken broth cup thing. It's made by Knorr. It was the magic ingredient. It gave everything lots of flavor and I didn't have to spend time chopping herbs and stuff.  Also, I squeezed a lemon over it all and sliced the chicken into strips when it is fully cooked.

When the pasta was done, I tossed it with the chicken and stuff and topped it all with some Parmesan cheese. Wah-la! Dinner. And it only took about 15 or 20 minutes. And it got eaten and no one whined at me. Amazing.

Pork fried leftovers

I just know you're so glad to see me back after a long hiatus. If anyone thought that I'd stopped blogging because my family had suddenly starting liking food, then you were sadly mistaken. They are still as picky and ungrateful as ever.

Tonight's dinner was an exercise in using up leftover, which my family hates. Bill is the president of the leftovers-belong-to-the-devil club as evidenced by the fact that anytime I say we're having leftovers he decides we need to go out to eat. Since throwing away perfectly good food offends my Depression Era sensibilities and there is a limit to how many leftovers I can personally eat, I'm constantly trying to both prevent leftovers in the first place and to figure out ways to disguise them in the second place. Tonight's attempt was pork fried rice.

Here's what I did:
Cook some rice. While it's cooking take an onion and saute it. When soft, toss in some sliced carrots and some leftover teriyaki pork loin and some diced garlic. Once the pork is heated through, add the cooked rice to the pan. Toss in half a cup or so of frozen peas and add a few glugs of soy sauce and some sesame oil if you've got it. I also added some diced fresh pineapple. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, if desired and serve with more pineapple. Yummy.

And much to my shock and amazement Bill actually like it. Yay! However, Sam completely refused to even try it and fixed himself a bowl of cereal. Ellie and Emma at least picked the pork and pineapple out and picked at the rice. But woe to me for suggesting they let the tiniest bite of vegetable pass their lips, even though they both like carrots. Or at least I thought they did. Ellie informed me that she no longer likes carrots, leaving her with even fewer vegetables that she will consent to eat. Honestly I have no idea how she has managed to stave off scurvy so far.

Of course the end result of dinner was that I have used up one leftover in the creation of a different leftover. Fortunately there isn't much of it left, so I suppose it will be my lunch tomorrow.

My kids are so weird.

Picky is one thing, but sometimes they just take the cake. They really will, too. They will take it and run away with it and eat it all. But I digress.
On the menu tonight was steak tacos, black beans and fruit salad. Toppings for the tacos included a lovely mix of yellow and red tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, sour cream and salsa.
Guess what the kids ate. Go on, guess. If you guessed a tortilla with cheese and sour cream on it, you'd be right! Sam ate his with lettuce and cheese.
No steak. Not one bite. Not even on the side. And I know that Emma likes steak, and I was pretty sure that Sam did. Ellie's iffy on it. Steak has to be tender and not too hard to chew before she will eat it. Which I get. I really do. I don't like to eat shoe leather either. Just chase the cow through the kitchen and I'm good to start nomming on Bessie.
But THEY TURNED THEIR NOSES UP AT STEAK!! What's wrong with my children?

High praise from a 5 yr old?

Em has been asking for a while if I would make chicken nuggets and french fries for dinner. I know what she wants: nuggets from a bag in the freezer section with lots of honey mustard on them. Well, I finally got around to making nuggets and fries and she did not get unrecognizable chicken from the freezer section. I cut up chicken boobs, dipped in egg, flour, egg, cracker crumbs then baked them. And served with the evil sweet potato fries, salad and fruit.

Sam informed me that they were delicious and tasted just like McDonald's. Har. Har. Har.

Everyone snarfed them up, though. I'll add that to the menu rotation, as they certainly aren't hard, just slightly messier than I usually want to deal with on a Tuesday night.

Sneaky, sneaky mama.

Last night we had turkey burgers, fries and fruit salad for dinner. What's not to love, right? Well, sneaky mama decided to see if I could slip some sweet potato fries over on them. It's still a french fry. It's still not good for them. But it at least has more nutrition than regular french fries. And its a new taste.
So, I pull them out of the oven and immediately Em asked "What is that?"
"French fries, what does it look like?" I scoffed, totally ignoring the fact that they were, you know, bright orange.

I had the conversation two more times with the other kids. Fortunately for his health and well being, Bill had sense enough not to ask.

Seeing as how they all completely doubted the fact that they were, in fact, french fries, I was really thinking that no one would like them and I would be subjected to wailing and gnashing of teeth for torturing them with false french fry hope. Imagine my amazement when they all happily noshed away on bright orange sweet potato fries.

Even El, who didn't really eat much because she wasn't in the mood for a hamburger, ate some of them and like them. Really I think the carton of strawberries that she put away by herself for a snack might have had something to do with her lack of mood, but at least strawberries are good for her.

So, newest strategy, disguising new foods as something familiar and yummy.

Oh the cheesy goodness of it all.

Sorry for the lack of blog postage lately. Between Girl Scout cookie season (did you buy your cookies yet? huh? Didja? Huh?), the cold I had last week and the ulcer that I've developed this week, I haven't done a hell of a lot of cooking. The few times I have this week I've been holding my stomach and crying while I cooked. Tonight was the first time in a while I've looked at food and thought it looked yummy. But then, as the title says, there was cheesy goodness and I think I'd have to be dead to not be happy about cheese.

I made chicken noodle casserole tonight. It's basically what it sounds like, chicken noodle soup turned into a cheesy, yummy casserole. It was so damned good it made me want to smack my mama. Fortunately for her, she's 125 miles away.

Bill of course didn't touch it because it was full of the dreaded cheese. I need to make it again and figure out where to leave the cheese out of some of it for him.

Ellie and Emma both thought it was good and happily ate it.

Sam refused to even bring his plate to the table and acted like we were trying to poison him.

I think it was a partial win. Actually, it was a total win because I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow! Yay me!

Here's the recipe I used (mostly):
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/chicken-noodle-casserole/Detail.aspx

I added some crumbled up saltine crackers to the top and a sprinkle of cheese, with crackers smashed up in it, because we're a little odd and like our chicken noodle soup. So, I thought it would be good on top of the casserole but otherwise followed the recipe. Oh, and I've commit the sin of running out of garlic, so I didn't put any garlic in it, but I can only imagine it would be even better with some. If you love cheese and you love chicken noodle soup, this dish is for you!

Stirred, not shaken, once again

Stir fry is one of my go-to quickie meals. Throw some rice in the rice cooker, chop some veggies, slice some meat, throw it in the pan and 20 minutes later you've got dinner. And I pretty much always have onions, carrots and broccoli for veggies. Soy sauce, ground ginger, garlic and a OJ for the sauce are pretty much staples, too. This time, I had some bok choy to throw in there, as well, and some green onions to sprinkle it with. I usually grab some chicken boobs for the meat, but this time I had some pork that needed using so we had pork stir fry.

As usual, the kids pretty much turned their noses up at it, except they liked the meat. All three of them ate the pork and the rice. Emma ate the carrots, too. The pork did come out incredibly tender, almost melt in your mouth yummy. Maybe I need to grab pork a little more often and leave the chicken boobs unmolested when making stir fry.

You'd think that since the kids don't really like it, I'd give up and stop making stir fry, but I love it. And I get to eat leftovers for lunch the next day.