Minimal Cooking

Half my kids are sick and stayed home from school. The upside of that, one was old enough and well enough to hold down the fort while I ran out to get a couple things from the pharmacy.

So, my hands are too full to start another week of Real Simple menus. We had one of those frozen skillet dinners, pasta, chicken, and tomato sauce, that cook in the pan in 10 minutes.

Pork with Pan-fried Noodles

Tonight I made a pork stir fry over noodles. It's not exactly on the Real Simple menu. I made it with leftovers.

This would have been quick, sensible, resourceful, and delicious.
It wasn't quick.

I wanted to eat: pork, eggs, mushrooms, bok choy, green beans, pineapple, and scallions over Pad Thai noodles.

Husband: no noodles.
Vegetarian: no pork
Princess: no food. Well, she'll eat the mushrooms.
Boy: doesn't want vegetables, so please serve on side. And no onions.
Girl: same as boy.

Prep: Soak Noodles (>20 minutes), cut up cooked pork, bok choy, green beans, scallions. Mushrooms were pre-sliced.

Directions: while interrupted with math homework questions by hungry young children--how frustrating is that--

Fry noodles in wok (with Fish Sauce, White Vinegar, and Sugar)
Fry cooked pork (with garlic, soy sauce, and red wine vinegar) in frying pan
Add Eggs to wok
Put pork in low oven in metal bowl.
Wash frying pan.
Cook mushrooms in frying pan, now clean for vegetarians.
Put Noodles in wok in oven to stay warm.
Take out ANOTHER pan. Cook Bok Choy and Green Beans.
Put mushrooms in oven-safe bowl, and add to oven.
Saute onions in first frying pan.

Call everyone to the table. Take all the dishes and pots out of oven and off stove, serve make-your-own style.

Result--Delicious, but the cook was so frustrated and short-tempered she warned everyone darkly that they'd better eat their food.

The table was so crowded that Teen One dumped Teen Two's milk while setting down mushrooms.

Also, All the eggs were in the noodles, therefore husband didn't get any eggs, which he would have enjoyed. 

AND YET, *My* food was delicious. I'm the only one who ate everything together.

AND, though we were all arguing and short with each other at the table, it somehow fell into a playful rhythm, and we felt like a family, eye-rolling and teasing and irritation and all. And everyone else seemed to enjoy their food. In all, I would say it was as delicious as a Real Simple meal.

It just should have taken 12 minutes if I could have cooked it all in one pan.

not Beef and Bok Choy Stir Fry.

The vegetables this week on the Real Simple Dinner for a Month are:
Tuesday: Bok Choy with Flank Steak, stir fried
Wednesday: Green Beans with Drumsticks
Thursday: Brussel Sprouts with Pork

The grocery store didn't have Brussel sprouts, so I bought Broccoli.
The green beans weren't so exciting, but the Asparagus was on sale.
Flank Steak wasn't available, so I went upmarket with New York Strip.

So my plan goes:
Tonight: Asparagus and New York Strip, grilled
Tomorrow: Broccoli with Drumsticks
Weekend: Bok Choy with Pork

I bought the grill Labor Day weekend, and I'm pretty inexperienced. I wasn't able to get the temperature up to 500 degrees F, so I gave up and started at 450. Four minutes on each side, and the internal temperature was only 106 degrees. It took me forever to get the steak cooked. I thought it came out fine, but my husband said it was overcooked to medium, and tasted more like roast than steak. So that was disappointing.

I grilled the asparagus during the meat's five minute rest. That was fantastic.

We had butternut squash soup with it. And the rice leftover from Sunday. I have some leftover slices slices of steak for sandwiches.

Magazine Meal Planning starting with Tilapia

So great to be cooking again after my month+ of recuperation.

But, my brain's not up to speed with it. Making dinner every night has a rhythm--once I've got the groove down it goes fine. But after a vacation, or any break from cooking, it all feels slow and awkward again. I can't string together two meals in a row.

So, I snatched up the October issue of Real Simple when the cover saidA Month of Easy Dinners

I bought groceries for the first week of dinners last night. Tonight we had Tilapia with Peppers and Olives. You know what was great about this? Eating real food. Under the push of the little kids' moans, I end up dumbing my menus down to varieties of pasta, cheeseburgers, and egg dishes. It was good to get out from under that.

I broiled the Tilapia instead of pan frying it. I was afraid I'd bought too much when I laid the filets out on the pan, but there were no leftovers, and we could have eaten one more. I only used half an onion, since I knew the younger kids wouldn't want the onion/pepper mix. The flat-leaf parsley came from my garden.

And the reviews were good too.

--Younger elementary school ate her fish, without the vegetable topping, and loved it and had seconds. I didn't expect that.
--Older elementary school had a little fish, but his braces were hurting too much for him to have an appetite.
--Middle school snacked in the afternoon again, and then declared she was not hungry, and could think of things more fun than sitting with us. Too bad. She ate her required two bites, and then half a jar of spanish green olives.
--High School loved it. Later she asked, what, you're going to blog about it? I kidded her back, "wouldn't that make a great movie?"
--Husband really loved it. For him I had put the olives on the side; he doesn't like them.
--And I loved it. It was so great to be eating real food.

Definitely I'd cook it again.

Tomorrow: Beef and Bok Choy Stir Fry. Just in time to use up the leftover rice from Sunday.