Weekly Gourmet

Lent is coming! Try this one for your "Fish On Friday." Do you guys ever wonder what I make when the rest of normal people everywhere go through a drive-thru? First of all, I can't patronage places with misspelled words like "thru" so that's off the table for me already. Secondly, nowadays these places idiotically list all their calories on their menus. Who is this helpful to? People who watch their calories' heads explode when they see these numbers. People who don't watch their calories don't care how many calories are in their fried crap. Maybe like medium people? Like 14 year old boys who want to beef up? Are the calorie listings for them? They note these for their files? It makes no sense to me, and further, causes me to order one small frozen yogurt every time. Frozen yogurt does not a meal make. SO, therefore, I have come up with a whole list of Liz-Friendly Fast Foods, such as the recipe I have here for you. This meal is finished in ten ...

Today is Monday. Today's recipe I used more as a suggestion rather than a guide. I took out some chicken this morning because that sounded healthier than anything I had eaten in the prior 72 hours, and then proceeded to laze about the house. At one point I zoned out at Jewel and walked around buying things that seemed necessary, mostly in a bored trance. I then spent the afternoon hours ramped up on coffee, finally remembering I have a house and several children over here that needed attention. I organized our new mudroom cabinets, helped my kids write their names in the "to" section of their Valentines (we have to mess up something), there was tidying, dust-busting - it was a whole thing today.  So anyways, back to 4:52 p.m. without a plan in my head. I used what turned out to be boneless, skinless chicken thighs and the last of the vegetables I bought last week and hadn't used yet to make a super homey, creamy, mushroomy chicken in a saucy-thing. I think it was Fren...

Today is Monday. Ahhhh the boneless, skinless chicken breast - nature's blank canvas. It would be my most dreaded ingredient were I ever to appear on "Chopped." There are just too many ways to go with it. I chose tonight's recipe based on two features: 1) It calls for pineapple, and I happened to have a pineapple on hand that was about a day away from getting tossed and 2) It calls for cardamom and I have a cutie-mom who buys cardamom pods and grinds them up and delivers them to me in tiny, adorable jars. Notes: A) Steve hates fruit mixed with meat, but see item #1. B) My kids THINK they don't like pineapple, but I know better, and please refer back to item #1. C) They always groan over pineapple on "Chopped" and talk about how it is the one food that ruins any dish when introduced. Did that stop me? Nuh uh. See. I set up everyone to hate their dinner like the evil non-food wasting person that I am, and everyone LOVED it. FYI, the pineapple was surprisin...

  Today is Sunday. Tonight I was ZONKED due to the fact that I went sledding with my kids for OVER one hour today, hung up soggy coats and gloves for the next hour, and wiped little puddles of water off my floor for the next 17 hours. All worth it to hear the little squeals of joy escaping from their rosy-cheeked faces as we whizzed down the hill together. And then to be able to let them watch TV for the rest of the day without even feeling bad about it. Back to my exhaustion. I was exhausted! So I wanted just a quickie Sunday pasta dinner. What I made took almost no time at all. Shrimp defrost so fast. Run some cold water on them and they are ready to go. They cook even faster - just two minutes here. The angel hair cooks in three minutes. The sauce took maybe five minutes. I feel bad even making it sound like I did something fancy because of the shrimp. It took me longer to beg someone to set the table than it did to make the dinner. This one comes from epicurious. Shrimp Scampi ...

Today is Saturday. Everyone loves a good millennial joke right? Just get a job and stop handing out participation trophies already! Hardy har har har. Ha ha ha. I just get a touch squirmy when I hear millennial comments though, because I have this mini fear that I am one...and I just confirmed via Alexa... I am. I'm a millennial. If you're my age, then you're one too. Also I don't "work for a living" either... awkward. But hell, we do have some positives, right? Like avocado toast! We millennials just love our avocados. I believe those are a healthy source of fat and nutrients, so really, we are quite savvy. Wouldn't ya know, I happen to make the world's best avo toast. I'm legit eating it right now, sighing with every bite, loudly claiming to my family and cat how I can't believe how awesome it is, while they look away, annoyed by my constant self-praise. It's got spice, sweetness, and a kiss of lime (how 'bout that?). Throw an over-e...

Today is Friday! TGIFF if you know what I mean. Today I needed Friday equally as much as I needed chocolate. The food gods were smiling down on me this morning with this recipe from epicurious.com (isn't Epicurious the Greek god of food or something?). Three Ingredient Nutella Brownies SOUND like someone is punking us but they are totally real and they are glorious! Fun fact about Nutella: my daughter used to be allergic to hazelnuts, and a medical professional SAID we (she) HAD to eat Nutella (hazelnuts) a few times a week to help her grow out of her allergy. We followed those doctor's orders like he was curing her of leprosy. And we prevailed! She can eat hazelnuts now! See what a good mom I am! Also I have gone on an outing to downtown Chicago just to go to the Nutella Cafe. "Pride" isn't the word I would use exactly- unless that's what you were thinking because then I would. Dedication. Determination. Longing. All work. Decadent. Easy. Stackable. Thre...

Today is Thursday. "Mama said there'll be days like this, there'll be days like this, my mama said...mama said...mama said." I think that's how it goes. Having a day over here - got in a car accident (oopsie whoopsie), my kid had swimming lessons in -17 degree weather, Diet Coke can (that I only keep on hand for my mother-in-law) exploded in the garage fridge, and I didn't have time to go to Home Goods like I wanted to! WAHHH! I haven't washed my hair in like 332 days, which is the norm, but I just realized I have book club tonight so now I have to shower when I didn't even work out! What a waste! Anyways, obviously what I am getting at is that we ate carbs tonight. Yup. I'm not even sorry because I felt happier after I ate them. But I won't eat or drink any treats at book club tonight...ba ha ha ha ha ha ha ha that is a lie. Hope all you little Blogadears had a better day than I did!  And I just realized this meal is gluten and diary-free if y...