Coupon Code for The Six O'Clock Scramble

I've already written in detail about The Six O'Clock Scramble here and here.

In about twenty minutes we're going to head to the grocery store and get ingredients for this week's meal plan, which includes Baked Flounder with Fruit Kabobs; Crunchy Chicken Fingers with Carrots and Dip; and Rigatoni with Tomato-Artichoke Sauce.

I just realized, however that if you subscribe to Six O'Clock Scramble and use coupon code GLJEN10773, you get $3 off your subscription. (And, I believe I get a free month added to my subscription.)

All the more reason to try it!

Update on the Six O'Clock Scramble

You may remember me raving about a website I recently discovered called The Six O'Clock Scramble.

Well, I wanted to let you know that I'm still enjoying it quite a bit.

Today we had a meal that all five of us enjoyed (which is very, very rare): Spaghetti Carbonara, which is spaghetti cooked with bacon and eggs, believe it or not.

One possibly downside of sorts is that going grocery shopping is a little more challenging for me these days. Every week I have to ask the Publix workers something: What is Quinoa? Where are the pomegranates? Where do I find bags of sun-dried tomoatoes? What is ginger root, and how do I buy an inch of it?

But we are eating so well!

We had Ginger Shrimp Stir-Fry with rice and oranges yesterday. Tacos del Mar (seafood tacos) with homemade guacamole earlier this week.
Hot Dog Creole with Red Peppers, and Green Bean Almondine on the side.
Cheesy Spinach Strata, served with pineapple and homemade hash browns.

Maybe this is just proof that I have a really dull life, but every day I get kind of excited about what's going to be for dinner next.

A friend recently said to me, "The hardest thing about homeschooling is having to feed everybody all the time!" No kidding. These days I just slide some leftovers into the oven at lunchtime.

Check it out.

What's for dinner? So glad you asked!

I've always thought -- even before I had kids -- that the hardest thing about cooking was not the cooking itself, but the planning of it.

What should I make this week? (Or tonight.) What haven't we had in a while? Let me dig around the pantry and see what we have in the house ... let me write down everything I need to buy to make a lasagna, and a chicken and rice casserole, and a chicken pot pie ... no, that's too much chicken in one week. Can get away with having eggs for dinner again one night?

Oh wait, don't we need to actually need to eat vegetables with all these things? Do we have any in the house? Oh ... there's all in the crisper drawer, rotting away.

My husband has no idea how much time and energy it takes to feed everybody all the time.

And I actually like to cook.

So I am very excited about this website I just discovered, Six O'Clock Scramble.

Every Wednesday they come out with five days of meals -- and the side dishes to go with them -- along with a weekly shopping list.

You make one shopping trip for the week, then each day make what's listed for dinner.

Done.

I'm doing it this week, and so far I love it. When I went shopping on Sunday, I bought more produce that I normally do in a whole month -- corn, green beans, baby spinach, red potatoes, apples -- and hey, it won't end up rotting this time!

Monday we had Penne Pasta with mushrooms and peas. The side dish was salad with beets, pecans, and goat cheese.

Tuesday we had tilapia "fish sticks" (although mine came out more like chunks.) The side dish was apple and carrot salad.

Tonight I am making apricot baked chicken. Side dishes are kasha, plus green beans with lemon and garlic.

I was telling somebody at the park about this today, and they asked how the kids liked it. Well ... Rachael loved the fish. Rebecca didn't mind the carrot/apple salad once we forced her to try it. Benjamin ate the pasta, but not the mushrooms.

But honestly, they don't like most "cooked meals," especially Rebecca. (If you're wondering what that means, I mean that they like things like certain types of fruit, baked beans, yogurt, cheese, etc.)

So this is no worse than normal. It may even help, as it's giving them a bigger variety of foods to try.

This is kind of funny, but it almost feels as if someone's making me dinner. I just look at the list, see what's for dinner, then spend about 30 minutes putting it together. Yum!

My strawberry salad recipe (that I stole)

Here's a really good salad I've made a few times this summer. I'm pretty sure I stole it from O'Charley's or Longhorn's, or both:

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Mix your favorite salad greens (I use whatever "salad in a bag" is on sale that week) with sliced strawberries, mandarin oranges, and crumbled feta cheese.

Toast some pecans in a skillet with a little bit of butter and brown sugar. Add to top of salad.

Add some balsamic vinagrette dressing.

Enjoy!

Cooking Day continues ...

You may remember me talking about Cooking Day a few weeks ago.

We have had two more since then. I like the idea and hope to continue.

So far, I always end up making a double casserole with Rachael, bake a double batch of something with Rebecca, then do a double batch of pancakes or French Toast with Benjamin (although he may or may not be in the mood for baking much.) Then we have lunch, and I feel like I had a productive morning.

One time I tried to also make a strawberry pie later in the day, and that ended up being too much. I also ended up ruining the pie because I was in a hurry and got some yolk mixed in with the egg whites. The pie didn't gel right and we had to eat it with spoons.

Right now I plan to have Cooking Day be twice a month.

Fun with Ricotta Cheese

It's The Day Before We Go Grocery Shopping, so things are a little lean around here.

I found I had a Pillsbury pizza dough which was about to expire. There was no pizza sauce, but we did have ricotta and mozzerella cheese.

Ah ...

I googled and found Rachael Ray's recipe for White Pizza. I thought it was great. (It probably would be better if I used a better dough.) Kids #1 and #3 liked it, but unfortunately Kid #2 did not.

I had enough ricotta cheese to also whip together a batch of Ricotta Cheese Cookies, which I had never made before. (I didn't make the frosting, but I don't think we even needed it.)




Everybody liked these. The best way to describe it is a "creamy snickerdoodle."

Smoothie Summer

We've been living on smoothies this summer -- we make them about 3-4 times a week!

This is how we make them:

- 8-10 ice cubes
- 1 banana
- 10 frozen strawberries
- 1 cup milk (or slightly more)
- 1/4 cup sugar

All mixed together in a blender.

I varied it by using a mixture of frozen blueberries/strawberries/raspberries, but everyone agreed the original recipe was better.

I tried being daring and found a recipe on-line for a "Cherry Coke Smoothie." YUM, did that sound good!

It was not.

We will continue to stick with the tried and true.

Today was Cooking Day!

As you've probably noticed, I am in a constant quest for better organizing my time, home, meals, children, and life in general.

I recently re-read (well, re-skimmed) a popular book called Side-Tracked Home Executives: From Pigpen to Paradise.

Mostly, it irritated me.

It irritated me for several reasons, but the main one was this:

The core of their plan is to have a weekly schedule. For example, one day should be Errand Day, when you run all the errands for the week (including any your husband needs done). Another day is Heavy Cleaning Day, where you clean for 4-6 hours.

Why does this bug me? Because they do not spend a single sentence discussing what to do with, or how to manage, your children when you are doing these six hours of cleaning (or several hours of errand-running.) At least one of the authors had three children under the age of six when she discovered and began implementing this plan ... and yet, she says nothing (that I can see) about how she went about pulling it off.

Well gee, Pam and Peggy, I know I need to clean. If I knew how to clean for hours and hours in spite of my kids, I wouldn't be reading your stupid book!

What does all this complaining have to do with Cooking Day, you ask?

Well, one thing they said was to have one day a week be Baking Day, and to only agree to make cookies for the PTA -- or whatever -- if it fits into your Baking Day schedule.

I liked that idea. And then I had a sudden, brief flash of genius of how to do it: Why, use the principles from Managers of Their Homes, of course!

So, this morning I set the timer for 35 minutes while I cooked with Rachael, while Benjamin and Becca played together in another room. Then, 35 minutes cooking with Becca while Rachael and Benjamin played together, then 35 minutes cooking with Ben while Rachael and Rebecca played together.

It was very cool. I felt very smart. Nobody was fighting over who got to measure the sugar or who got to stir. Nobody was getting in each other's way. Nobody got bored with baking before we were done. Everybody (believe it or not) enjoyed their limited time with one sibling.

Here's what we made:
- Two pans of lasagna
- A double batch of Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins, from The Sneaky Chef.
- A double batch of Cocoa Chocolate Chip pancakes, also from The Sneaky Chef.




I actually was hoping to make more, but I'm still pretty pleased. Keep in mind that this was all accomplished before lunch. I do still have to make dinner for tonight though. I'll quickly do that by myself when I'm done typing this.

I hadn't planned this, but we had the muffins for lunch. They were pretty cool; there's a blob of jam "hidden" inside the muffin. Since they have also have peanut butter, sweet potatoes, carrots, wheat germ, and wheat flour, it was probably the healthiest lunch we've had for a while.

What makes someone a good cook?

I had the pleasure, this past weekend, of hearing both my mother-in-law and my mother say that I was a good cook.

I really liked hearing that.

It does sort of amuse me, though, to be called a "good cook," because in a way, I still feel like I can't cook at all.

Yeah, I "make food." But I feel like I don't cook.

I can't trussel a chicken and have never even stuffed one. I've never wrapped filet mignons in bacon. I don't know what it means to "braise" something. I've never made a yeast bread, except in the machine with a boxed mix. I mean, come on.

For example, here's the recipe for what my mother-in-law was enjoying this weekend:

Mix together cream-of-something soup, a half cup of chicken broth, some minced garlic, and a packet of Italian salad dressing mix. Pour it in a crockpot Throw in a hunk of frozen chicken. Turn switch to low.
Six hours later, show up again, shred the chicken with two forks, stir in a block of cream cheese, and set to high. Boil some noodles, and bring it all to the table. Meanwhile, tear open a bag of salad with your teeth and stick a bottle of salad dressing on the table next to it.

I mean, seriously, does that even count as cooking??

I didn't invent this recipe; I just read it somewhere and did it. What exactly am I "good" at here? Opening the can of soup? Tearing open the salad dressing packet?

So I'm wondering:

What, exactly, makes someone a "good cook"? Is it just the fact that I do cook at all that earns me that title (assuming you can even consider what I do to be cooking)? I'm wondering if there are adults out there who do less "cooking" than I even do, which is kind of scary if it's true.

I'm thinking that if I am, in fact, a good cook, then all it takes is owning a good cookbook or two. And actually opening them up occassionally, I suppose.

Any thoughts?

Oh how I love Trader Joe's ...

I remember saying, months ago, that every time I went to a social gathering (which is not too terrible often!) people always end up talking about their favorite thing at Trader Joe's.

I just went there this morning with Rebecca and Benjamin (Rachael was at a friend's house). Each kid had their own kiddie shopping cart, which was, uh, interesting. But, actually, Rebecca is quite helpful and even put several groceries away without my asking her to.

Here are just a few things I got that are Good:

1) Pumpkin Bread Mix and Pumpkin Butter (sold separately) -- I made this for company a couple weeks ago and it was completely scarfed up.

2) Chocolate Decadence cereal -- yes, that's right, a healthy chocolate cereal. It is yum!

3) Any of their frozen pizzas are good, and reasonably priced. We get the plain cheese ones just because that's the only kind the other people in my family will eat.

4) Dried Strawberries -- The only problem with these is that my kids will all gobble up about $7 worth of them in less than 10 hours.

5) Frozen Mandarin Orange Chicken -- which I've already mentioned before, if you are a faithful reader

I didn't buy them today, but their chocolate croissants are really good, too.

Mmm, in fact I'm getting hungry just typing this ....

Successful Meal #5

Wow, this was a really good one! And it was actually a real dinner, and not a breakfast meal. :)

My MIL gave me a terrific cookbook several years ago called
America's Best-Loved Community Recipes.

For those of you who have been reading about my "successful meals," that's where I got the macaroni and cheese recipe. It's also where I got the recipe for my "famous noodle kugel," which I always bring to potlucks.

One thing that makes the cookbook fantastic is that it has a full-page photo for every recipe.

Anyway, tonight I made Dixie Baked Chicken and Yams. Basically, here's the recipe:

1) Peel and slice sweet potatoes and put in bottom of baking dish. Pour melted butter over them.

2) Dip pieces of bone-in chicken in an egg and water mixture, then in a plate of breadcrumbs. Lay chicken pieces over sweet potatoes slices, then pour more melted butter over it. Bake at 350 for an hour.

Yum.

Yum yum yum.

And what's better, everybody seemed to like it, even my somewhat anti-chicken husband (who doesn't usually eat with us during the week, but did tonight).

Successful Meal #4

On the weekends, the five of us usually do eat together, thankfully. And this is one of the few meals that all five of us truly like.

It's Trader Joe's frozen Mandarin Orange Chicken. And rice, cooked separately. And broccoli, if we have it in the house, which we did not this weekend.

Successful Meal #3

Hmm, this meal is suspiciously similar to Successful Meal #1.

But it is different.

I had read on a homeschool forum about how Coco Wheats was a really good hot breakfast that their kids loved. I couldn't find it at the store, so I took a chance and ordered a case off the website!

Everyone seems to like it. Rachael, our Oatmeal Girl, seems to like it the best, but she said she would like me to put less sugar in it.

So anyway, here's our meal. We probably don't need every single component every time:

1) Bowl of Coco Wheats
2) Morning Star "fake bacon"
3) Bagels and cream cheese (mostly to satisfy Rebecca)
4) Cheddar cheese omelets

Hm, I just noticed there are no fruits and vegetables in this one. Eh, we can have it with orange juice.

Successful Meal #2

This one won't win any awards in the Healthy Department, but it worked.

I remember reading years ago that the secret to not stressing out over planning a meal is to remember that, really, you just need two things. For example, spaghetti and a salad.

(Unfortunately, none of my kids like spaghetti or salad.)

Anyway, in that spirit, we had:

1) Aunt Ella's macaroni and cheese.

No, it's not a frozen meal; it's the name of the recipe. It is goood. I think what makes it extra good and a little unique is that it has onions, nutmeg, an egg, and dry mustard in it. I think next time I will put in some extra noodles, to stretch it out and make it a little less rich.

2) Canned peas.

I'm not crazy about peas myself, but usually two out of three kids will enjoy them. I think I'm going to start getting frozen peas instead, though. Is frozen supposed to be better than canned? Anyone? Anyone?

[Note: The next day I served the leftover macaroni and cheese and found a can of chickpeas in the pantry. I heated them up and served them on the side. Rachael and Benjamin loved them, and Rebecca ate a few as well, so I definitely have to remember to keep some of them on hand.

Of course, knowing my kids, I'll buy several cans, and then everybody will decide they don't like them anymore.]

Successful Meal #1

Okay, tonight's dinner was pretty good. Easy, healthy, and fairly well-appreciated, although Rachael, that crazy kid, refuses to eat the chocolate-chip pancakes.

Here it is:

1) Cocoa Chocolate-Chip Pancakes from The Sneaky Chef.

This is much healthier than it sounds. It's sweetened with honey instead of sugar or (God forbid!) corn syrup, and has wheat germ, whole wheat flour, and baby food jars of apple/blueberry combo. It's real good, too! (unless your name is Rachael) The two younger kids will eat it cold like a brownie for a snack too.

2) Morningside Farms "fake bacon."

I think it's soy bacon or something. I actually like it more than real bacon because it's not so greasy. Benjamin calls it "ca-cogs" (hot dogs).

3) Raspberries.

All the kids devour raspberries. Of course their favorite fruit has to be the one that costs a fortune.

Getting a handle on this meal thing

Okay, I'm determined to do better with handling meals around here. I don't know about you -- maybe there's just something wrong with me -- but between trying to find something that's fairly healthy, fairly quick and easy, and that at least some of the five of us will like, feeding everybody always seems like quite a challenge.

Breakfast is easy. Rachael eats oatmeal with wheat germ, every day, forever and ever, amen. Rebecca has a waffle, or possibly pancakes or a bagel and cream cheese. Benjamin has one or more of the things the girls are having.

But it seems like every day at lunchtime and dinnertime I stand around saying, "Hmm, now what are we going to eat ...?"

And then I think, "Um, haven't we eaten before? What do we normally do at mealtime?"

And the answer, of course, is: Stand around saying, "Hmm, now what are we going to eat ...?"

I should point out that my husband doesn't eat dinner with us, so that makes it more tricky, somehow. Of course, maybe if he did eat with us, it would be even harder, because I'd have one more person and their opinion to worry about.

So ...

Whenever we eat a meal that seems like a success, in some sense of the word, I'm going to post it here, for a few reasons:

1) So that I can remember it;
2) Because someone else may want to try it;
3) To prove that I'm not a totally horrible mother and we do have a decent meal around here every once and a while