Callie has been saving this shirt she found at DI for five weeks.

This morning I told Callie that St. Patrick was the missionary who took Christianity to Ireland. I have no idea if that’s entirely true, and I didn’t have four hours to spend on Wikipedia, not that it would take that long to look up, but when you add in the seventeen other things I need to know, it would be dinner time and this was a breakfast conversation.

Callie: “So . . . St. Patrick was a leprechaun? and green was his favorite color?”

I put green food coloring in the whipped cream for our pancakes. Lucy: “So our food won’t get pinched?” And as a hint, mint is not the best flavor for whipped cream, no matter the temptation. It’s too toothpastey. Better stick with mapleine or almond if vanilla is getting old, not that we eat whipped cream every single day so we feel the need to branch out.

Tara served us corned beef and cabbage a few years ago and ever since then I’ve thought that that would be a great idea, usually at about 5 pm on March 17th. So it hasn’t happened. But today I’ve got this crockpot version cooking away, with apple juice instead of water — reviewers call for beer but I’m out, and real carrots instead of baby-cut. And I made Irish soda bread, with a handful of craisins.

I think I cut the x a little deep.

If this sounds like a lot, please note that it’s the first time I’ve done anything for St. Patrick’s Day ever, and my kids also have no idea I love them because I didn’t give them Valentines. If it seems like a little (where’s the pot of gold place cards and shamrock centerpieces?), well forget you, it’s not a competition. (is it?)

This should probably be a food photograph, but Molly is more delicious.

I have tried several different things to solve the problem of “What’s for dinner?” I’ve tried making elaborate menus and I’ve tried buying what’s in season and experimenting. I wish I had what it takes (the flexibility, the commitment, the close-by foodie friends, and the desire to interact that much with said hypothetical friends) to start up a dinner co-op like Rixa’s.

I’ve put scrumptious things in the crockpot right after breakfast and I have stared at the stove while Tom walks in the door from work (ok, not really — I usually try to look more on top of things right at that very moment, even if it only lasts a second). I love trying new things, especially Asian dishes right now, and I’d definitely like to move towards an even more plant- and whole grain-filled diet.

So this is my latest brainstorm. It is both totally set in stone and completely flexible. It gives me the control of knowing what’s for dinner every day of the week for the rest of my life (or until I get tired of it) and the freedom of making any variation on these dishes based on ingredient availability, fluctuating desire for gourmet versus easy, and whim. I can throw each of these dishes together from scratch and a memorized-from-long-use recipe, or I can google up a new variation, or I can tell Tom that since Saturday is Asian perhaps we better head down to Thai Drift. All in the name of following through, of course.

This is all the foods we eat all the time anyway. You can use it if you want — or tell me if I’m missing a kid-friendly type of dinner altogether. It is lacking outdoor grilling- type food, but I’ll fix that come summer.

Apologies to Steph for not observing Thursketti. Something about Thursday screams out for leftovers to me. In fact, most days do, but the beauty of this menu is that most of the dishes can absorb a lot of different leftover ingredients. And none of them are elaborate or preparation intensive, beyond the chopping, which is kind of inevitable if you want to eat healthily.

Monday: Pasta (spaghetti/alfredo/tortellini)

Tuesday: Salad (chef/cobb/spinach)

Wednesday: Mexican (taco/fajitas/burritos)

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: Pizza (tomato&basil/ham&pineapple/bbq chicken)

Saturday: Asian (curry/stir fry)

Sunday: Soup (cream of veggie/stew/white chili)

Now that I’m writing this down, I think I was heavily influenced by Meagan Francis, though I didn’t realize just how appealing her Six-Meal Shuffle was when I read her post months ago.

I keep staring at this wondering on the one hand if Wednesday really is the best day of the week for refried beans, and on the other, why didn’t I do this years ago?

One thing that has made this experiment possible (besides financial necessity, which is always a great motivator) is that my relationship to food has changed this pregnancy. Instead of wanting to try new things every day, I am often just trying to get something on the table. It has to be relatively healthy, and I’m finally feeling up to making some of my favorites (bread, yogurt) from scratch again, but now that shopping and cooking are more of a chore that just has to be done on a more regularized schedule, it’s actually less of a hassle than it sometimes was before, and I find it just as satisfying to make a meal plan once a week, as it once was to get a craving and make that dish hours later. A case of restriction feeding rather than starving the creative impulse.

A couple other things: being on a strict budget ($150 a week total for all grocery/discretionary/household/entertainment spending, except gas, which I’ve cut back a lot on incidentally) makes me realize how little we need, especially in the way of prepared or convenience foods (or toilet paper. Kidding). Also, once I make a rule for myself, it becomes a matter of honor to stick to it, and since it’s not a forever thing but more in the manner of a goal, it’s almost fun. So we may not have any fresh fruit on Friday night: that’s a good excuse to eat the canned apricots in the pantry. $150 sounds like a lot to me; I’m sure many frugal people are able to live well on less, and before this month I would’ve guessed (hoped) I spent that little (though my bank account knew better).

But what I always want to know (especially when I’m in a rut) is what’s for dinner? I once made a seven-week meal plan that carefully balanced beef/chicken/fish/vegetable meals with rice/noodle/potato/bread accompaniments, but then I never felt like making things in that proscribed order. So now I look at cookbooks and AllRecipes and TastyKitchen for ideas and take things one week at a time. I usually add a salad or veggie sticks or frozen peas and corn or green beans or brussels sprouts as a side. (Costco has the best frozen corn ever. My kids like brussels sprouts so much I start to worry they’re aliens until they do something kid-like and complain about onions. In the spaghetti sauce! Call 911!)

My sister keeps binders of recipes and always makes notes of what worked and who liked what, along with the date and any alterations. I can’t imagine going to that much work without hoping that someone, somewhere will learn from my misadventures, so here you go:

What was  for dinner last week (I can’t remember the order, and I can’t assign days beforehand either. That just seems too regimented):

Chicken Piccata (The chicken and noodles were a big hit, but the sauce was a little tangy for the kids, and, fine, me too. I added lots of extra cream and broth, which made a huge quantity of sauce to languish in the fridge.)

Spaghetti Squash Lasagna (I make this just like regular lasagna, only I substitute baked spaghetti squash for the noodles.)

Sloppy Joes (It’s a long, tragic story, but I accidentally added about a 1/2 cup of salt to this recipe, (which I had doubled), so then I quadrupled it. It was still too salty, so nearly three pounds of sloppy-joed hamburger are in the freezer waiting for redemption. This is a good, easy recipe for serious comfort food, especially on homemade buns.I’ll make it again, once time has dimmed our memories.)

Chicken, Vegetable, and Barley Soup (This was good. I threw in the leftover sauce from the chicken piccata which gave it a lemony tang. My kids weren’t impressed with the barley. They wanted “noodles.” A couple days later I threw in some cooked ramen and they fell on it like devouring beasts).

BBQ chicken pizza and a pepperoni one for the kids, though Susan preferred the chicken. I used the 5 minute artisan bread as the crust, and it was the best pizza crust I’ve ever had, soft and chewy on the top, crusty and crunchy on the bottom. I didn’t have purple onions, and I’d used up my parsley, but I sprinkled fresh basil on it. Basil is good on any pizza.)

What’s for dinner this week (again, not in this order. Probably):

Thai Curry Chicken and Rice (I bought green curry paste for this — now I could make a rainbow of curries — and I’ll probably have cilantro and limes on the side, because it’s Thai, and I love cilantro and limes. Oh, and I’ll use chicken that we canned this summer, which means it’ll be on the shredded side, but with strong flavors like this it’ll be a fine economy.)

Stephanie’s Macaroni and Cheese (I’ve wanted to try a baked macaroni and cheese with swiss cheese even though I don’t like swiss cheese by itself. Stephanie makes good food, so this seems like a good one to try.)

Spinach and Feta Pita Bake (I have a great recipe for pita bread from Chrysanthemum, and this’ll be a nice change from the (delicious) chicken salad we’ve been stuffing our pockets with.)

BBQ chili (Yes! Inspiration strikes for my too-salty sloppy-joed hamburger in the freezer. I bought dried black and red beans and have 5 gallons of dry pinto beans. Beans will soak up that salt like nothing else. And Tom has been asking for BBQ chili ever since we had it at that church cook-off when my white chicken chili took the Honorable Mention. Ingrate. I’ll also make Marcy’s cornbread that’s really more like corncake even with the buttermilk. I haven’t found a great recipe online for BBQ chili, so unless someone has a link, I’ll just throw stuff in.)

Crab Salad (This is one of my favorite pasta salads ever. I use sugar instead of artificial sweetener, of course, and fresh herbs whenever possible instead of the dried, and twice as many vegetables as noodles. I’ll used canned chicken in this too, because even fake crab costs more than what I’ve got in my pantry, and the kids aren’t crazy about crab anyway.)

In conclusion

I hope that gives you some ideas, even if what not to do, and at the least, I can look back at this in a few months and have two weeks planned for me. If you have any (easy, cheap, delicious) favorites, I’d be most grateful for a link or notes. I try to let each child pick one of the five meals, and involve them in cooking with me. I find they’re more likely to try things when they’re invested that way, plus I can’t wait for the day when each of them has a day of the week to cook from start to finish. Five meals works out well; then we have leftovers for Tom’s lunches and ours, a night for quesadillas or breakfast for dinner, and a night for cleaning-out-the-fridge-you-don’t-get-anything-else-until-this-casserole-is-gone.

I mentioned how yummy my compost is looking, from the point of view of next year’s seedlings. It’s dark and earthy and rich. Except for the golden zucchini plants I haphazardly chopped up into it. They’re resilient buggers. When I ripped them from the earth, I discovered my poor, stunted cantaloupe* vines cowering beneath. One of them has an runty melon on it, about two inches in diameter, rind withering prematurely. I mourned the loss, after tasting the magnificent fruit my mom’s ministrations produced.

But, said my mother, I thought you didn’t like cantaloupe?

Well, I do like cantaloupe now, actually, though it was Susan who picked those plants.

I like a lot of foods I hated as a child.

Foods I hated as a child that I now love

avocados

onions

nuts

garlic

bell peppers

olives, black, canned

shrimp

most all other seafood, though I think I used to choke down fish sticks

mushrooms (still hate canned mushrooms, ick)

cantaloupe, honeydew melon

pickles

asparagus, brussels sprouts

eggs over-easy

ginger, sparingly

crunchy peanut butter

celery (used to make the inside of my ears itch. I don’t really love it now, but it gives a crunch, doesn’t it? Kind of a necessary evil, like water chestnuts).

Foods I still don’t like despite pretensions to a sophisticated palate

corn tortillas

sesame seeds, except in awesome Asian-style sauces

stinky cheese

octopus, squid (I do like a good fried calamari)

kimchi, except in very small amounts as a prelude to awesome Korean barbecue

wasabi, no exceptions

gourmet olives (you know who you are)

poppy seeds, unless drenched in glaze atop lemon muffins

malt, even disguised by chocolate

I think there are a couple lessons to be learned here. 1) If you have a picky eater, don’t despair. 2) You can take the girl out of Utah and introduce her to the best cheese and olives Zabar’s has to offer, but you can’t make her like it.

I wonder if I like as many more non-food things as food things now?

What foods do you now like that you used to hate?

Maybe she’s not the logical prodigy I thought she was. Or, maybe she really is like those apparently angelic kids who lived in Christ’s time (the ones He said were meek and mild).

Soup is forgiving: it takes a little of this and a little of that and a whole lot of heavy cream. So forgiving, in fact, that it’s hard for me to write down a recipe, because it’ll look like this: a handful of spinach, a pinch of curry, enough salt, a little more cream.

But i have to say (they of the great blog title) is having a Recipe Box Swap with a money-saving theme, and so I’ve decided to write down my take on a fantastic dish at my favorite Indian restaurant, Bombay House. I searched for a copycat recipe (because we’re cheap like that) and found this to be a good starting point.

I serve my Saag Shorba with homemade flour tortillas. I know, naan would be more authentic, but I’ve had a lot more success with tortillas, and the main ingredient difference is the yogurt, which we don’t miss enough for me to keep struggling with naan. If you have a fail-proof naan recipe, please share! In the cost-saving mode, you can also buy huge bags of ready-to-cook tortillas in the refrigerator section of Costco. Once you make your own tortillas, it’s hard to go back to the ready-made.

At the store

My soup calls for ingredients you can find at your local grocery store (or even Walmart). Ethnic groceries are sprouting everywhere, but they’re usually not so conducive to saving money. If you want to mince your own fresh ginger and mix your own curry powder with real saffron, go for it, and send me a picture. We’re pretty much philistines around here, and easily satisfied with generic versions of most things.

Saag Shorba, WAM?-style; serves 4

1 onion, chopped fine
2-5 cloves garlic, minced
butter and oil for sauteeing (butter for flavor, oil to keep the butter from burning easily)
2 handfuls of frozen spinach, drained
1 15 oz can of tomato sauce
1-3 TBSP curry powder
pinch of ground ginger and/or cayenne
2-4 TBSP of chicken stock base OR 1-3 cups chicken stock (or vegetable), depending on how soupy you want it. We actually roll up our tortillas with the “soup” inside almost like a burrito, so we like it really thick.
1/2 – 1 cup heavy cream (or milk, you diet-happy people)

Saute onions and garlic ’til translucent and sweet; add spinach and tomato sauce, simmering until spinach is tender. Add seasonings. Pour heavy cream into blender and add soup; blend until desired smoothness. Enjoy!

One thing to keep in mind is that, as with other spinach-rich foods, it’s important to introduce this slowly to your kids’ diet. My two youngest (18 mo and 3 1/2) love this, but an overdose can have seriously messy consequences.

Soft Flour Tortillas (thanks, Suzy A.); makes 8 tortillas

2 cups white flour (wheat would be healthier, but I just can’t do whole grains for everything, and tortillas are one food that require that bad white flour)
4 TBSP butter
1 tsp salt
water (start with 1/2 c)

Combine ingredients, adding water slowly until dough is similar to bread dough but maybe a bit stickier. Knead 30 times, cover with damp cloth, and let rest 30 minutes. (Good to start these first, then do soup, then while it simmers after blending, cook tortillas). Heat heavy skillet to medium high.

Divide dough into 8 balls and keep covered while rolling out each ball into a 8-10 in diameter on heavily floured surface. Place on skillet and turn as soon as brown spots appear (you’ll see corresponding puffs on the top side). Remove from skillet and place immediately in airtight container or plastic bag. This keeps them soft and steamy.

I had some leftover homemade play dough that the kids played with while I made these, which was good, because you have to keep the kids occupied if you don’t want them poking in your dough and touching hot skillets. The two doughs looked identical, so no one felt left out.

Easy Salt Dough: 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, 1 TBSP oil, enough water to form dough, food coloring if desired. Mix and enjoy!

There, cheap restaurant-quality dish AND cheap play dough. Who could ask for anything more?

And why do I feel like the guy on the right instead of the girl?

I like to:

• Stay up late
• Drink soda fountain drinks
• Eat French Fries
• Read trashy novels all day
• Ignore my kids while reading trashy novels all day
• Lie on the couch

But I am happy when I:

• Get enough sleep
• Drink lots of water
• Eat stuff I’ve made myself, including Shrek Shakes and Muffins
• Read some scriptures and contemplate the state of my soul
• Interact with happy, well-fed, well-rested children
• Exercise for about 45 minutes

What’s my problem? If it’s all about the journey, or if the process is more important than the product/answer (hey, I remember AP Calculus), then what the heck am I doing wrong? How come what I like to do doesn’t make me happy? And let’s not even talk about the things I THINK would make me happy. What I’ve listed are things I already KNOW make me happy, and yet I still usually prefer to do the other things.

So that’s what’s not working for me today. Any insight would be much appreciated.

Or when Sally talks Susan into taking off her panties while they’re in a mutual time-out. Why? For the love of everything holy. For the love of ponies and princesses and pink, why would you do that? We were playing ‘jokes.’ Please, please tell me this isn’t something you learned at school.

So. Since it’s only 9 am, and not physically painful enough for a Vicodin, I need some chocolate.

You know oatmeal’s good for you. Oatmeal cookies, with chocolate chips? Not so much. Since I am uber-healthy, I compromise with Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins. And if you buy me this cool muffin-top pan, I’ll whip you up some.

They’ve got applesauce (fruit), semi-sweet chocolate chips (anti-oxidants), oats (fiber), sugar (energy) and butter (dairy). Basically, all the food groups. You can see the original recipe at that greatest of recipe websites, allrecipes.com, but, as usual, I made a few changes.

At least if I die, Dick can look back through this blog and make some of my favorite foods.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins

1/2 c butter (you could use margarine, but, why?)
3/4 c brown sugar
1 egg
almost 1 c applesauce (unsweetened, because this is a health food here)
1 c wheat flour (white or red)
1 c quick-cook oats
1 1/4 t baking pwd
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips (bittersweet and milk chocolate have their places, but they’re just not right for this recipe).

All the wet stuff in one bowl, all the dry in another. Whisk the dry and then whisk the wet. Mix the wet with the dry and add chips. Bake in a paper-lined muffin tin (unless you have the silicon muffin-top pan) and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean.

Now that you’ve got heaven in the oven, let’s talk technology. You know you’re a really cool blogger or internet reader or just a geek if you know what a favicon is. Like I found out a couple days ago. Maybe you’ve always known what they are, in which case, Why didn’t you tell me? They’re those little doohickies to the left of the “http…” in your address bar. Look at mine, isn’t it cool? (or, like, descriptive? — Maybe I should get a diaper favicon and re-name my blog We don’t eat poop.)

Don’t Try This at Home‘s was the first favicon I noticed, and here’s a clever, yet potentially disturbing one from June’s new review blog, Chic-Critique. I can appreciate the blog name without having any burning desire to read more beauty product reviews. But June somehow makes even talk about foundation not make me want to poke my eye out, much.

Also check out Dick’s bold yet simple, and Sally’s cuddly yet trendy (in Japan) favicons. Once you know what to look for, favicons are everywhere. Learn how to add a favicon to your own site by googling “how to add a favicon to blogger/typepad/wordpress blog.” I know, you never would have guessed, right? I would link to Blogging Basics 101 for a tutorial, but they don’t have one. Crazy. You can make your own favicon, or choose from a collection.

So, eat, drink, make a favicon. It’s kind of like marking your territory, without the mess.

***

Those smart women at BB101 DO have a post on favicon (Fave-Icon, long A, long I, though I think fahvicon rolls better) making and placing. Guess I mis-searched or made a mistake (don’t tell my kids; I’m trying to keep that possibility a secret for a few more years). If you’re interested in starting or expanding a blog, you can’t go wrong checking out BB101. They even have a podcast, which, besides great information, features cute Southern accents.

Before each school year, I map out our day in 15 minute increments, and this autumn I spent hours on an incredible meal plan that includes this color-coded table.

The colors indicate the suggested starch accompaniment. I have another document with weekly shopping lists and hyperlinks to allrecipes.com.

Do I ever meet my goals? Sometimes. Do I start the dishwasher every night? Maybe three times a week.

Have I ever, ever used this meal plan to guide my shopping and cooking? Nope.

But still I stick with the list-making and the illusion-of-structure perpetuating. The planning and preparing satisfies my desire for control, my optimism that if only I lived one day perfectly, everything would fall into its proper place.

In reality, if I’ve exercised four days this week already, and I get a day off unexpectedly, it’s as exciting as finding a ten dollar bill in an old purse. If I have this idea in my head of what dishes I could make, when I get to Wal-mart and the kids are screaming, I can usually think of three things to make in under thirty minutes.

Whatever chaotic plane I really exist on, my myth-building of organization and order keeps me sane. And that’s what works for me.

Don’t ask how I know what she’s doing. I have my eyes closed and am in a near-meditative pondering state.

At the end I throw my arms wide and say Amen!, just as I did when the older girls were this age, to teach them the proper reverence protocol. Spot lifts her hands a little, and grunts.

Susan is doing her theological instruction part too. She’s taught Spot to crouch and bounce up during Jesus wants me for a sunBEAM. Sometimes Spot crouches so low she can’t recover, and ends up on her bum instead. I think she’s inherited my body and grace.

Today, as I whipped up a gourmet meal of wieners and eggs (a splash of milk and some fine aged cheddar), we sang Jesus wants me for a sunBEAM. Spot and Susan clung to the oven door handle, perched precariously on the same (DO NOT USE AS A STOOL) Dora stool.

Spot made a good, abbreviated bouncing motion. I bobbed a bit more enthusiastically as I stirred the eggs, and realized that I sag way too much to cook, sing, and bounce naked.

Naked? Well, I got out of the shower and was switching some laundry when Spot woke up acting like she could murder a cow. This is just an expression to emphasize hunger. (like when those Brits say, I could murder a cup of tea).

I had planned to put on some fake tanning lotion, and after that you have to stay naked for a couple minutes so your clothes don’t get tan too. But then I remembered I have to dress-up tonight, and I’ve found (‘beauty’ tip for the day) that thigh-highs don’t stay up so well over lotion.

So I was naked, stirring eggs in a hot skillet, trying to keep two hooligans distracted from the dangerous stove, singing, and bouncing. Maybe I better leave the multi-tasking to the experts.