Quick, Late Pork

Cost: $8

Prep: 20 minutes

I told Matt that I had yoga at 6:10 PM, but he still wanted to go to Walmart before dinner. So, 5:55 I am getting dinner on the table, and 6:10 I was out the door.

I ate the salad and a bit of the Stove Top.

After yoga, I was so hungry, I indulged in Tim Bits and tea. Oh well! Dessert is important sometimes!

Leftover Chicken

Cost: nothing (+$2 for dessert) as it was calculated the day before.

The perspective here is strange. His plate is about 2/3 the size of mine.

Prep: a couple minutes

In all honesty, it is Sunday, and I really let my blog slide this week along with my family's nutrition. Matt's school hosted a big rugby tournament, and he was not around home much. Now, I am going back and trying to remember what we had.

This post is about Thursday. Wednesday I was ill and didn't eat the dinner, so on Thursday there was more than enough leftovers--actually, there is still quite a bit of chicken in the fridge that probably should be tossed now.

I simply heated it up on plates in the oven: chicken, stuffing, and broccoli. Charlie and I--no Matt that night--sat down to eat and it was just awful. Bland, dry, tasteless. It really needed gravy, but someone had decided that gravy was gross the night before and tossed it.

So, you know what saved the dinner for us?  Ketchup (for Chuck) and chipotle aioli (for Mom). Charlie pretty much just ate handfuls of ketchup, but he ate a bit of broccoli too, so how picky can I be?

The meal was fairly meager. I still wasn't too pleased with it even with the saucy additions. We decided we saved enough calories to break into the Easter candy for dessert. This has been an added bonus to having a small child: people buy him candy. He cannot self-regulate his candy, so Mom and Dad eat a bunch of it.

Charlie had a chocolate covered marshmallow, and I had the Oh Henry version--boy are these smaller than what I remember! Regardless, we cut them up and savored them. Charlie was really mad at me though when there was none left, so he finished his meal with some crackers and cream cheese. I guess he really wasn't feeling his dinner either.

Pre-stuffed Blackened Chicken

Cost: $11

Prep: ???

Tonight I am not feeling well. I have had a migraine coming on all day. It started with the dryer making an awful sound and progressed all day.

I managed to get the chicken, a pre-stuffed $9 bird, in the oven at 3:30, but when I checked on it at 4:30, it turned out I hadn't turned on the oven. I turned it on a bit higher then, but by 4:45 when Matt got home, I needed to shut my eyes with the lights off.

I checked with him and made for the bed. I let him know the chicken was on, and that he probably wouldn't see me until he came to bed.

So, imagine my surprise when I came to check on the boys near 6PM, and they are sitting on the couch watching cartoons. Matt, it seems, expected me to finish making them dinner. This wasn't likely.

I took the chicken out of the oven, and it was VERY crispy with blackened stuffing on the outside. Matt steamed up some broccoli. I whipped up some gravy, which I have been told was gross.

There are lots of leftovers of all components.

The boys ate. Matt said the chicken was good, and Charlie ate a lot, but I lay on the couch.

Now, at 9PM, I made myself a meal: cup of soup, an orange, and some crackers with margarine. Note: this is also a good hangover meal--salt, sugar, fat, carb. I am having this with a side of ginger ale.

Easter Dinner

My grandma did Easter dinner this year. Let me rephrase. My grandma did Easter dinner for 18 people this year.

Youch!

Again, I forgot to take pictures in the big group setting, but it had all the fixings. We usually do these big holiday meals as a potluck style--my thing to bring is the candied yams and sometimes pickle trays. This year, Gram wanted to do it all herself though.

My favorite part was the stuffing. The crumbled sausage and bacon really takes it up a notch! I avoided the brussel sprouts, but my grandma cooked them in chicken stock, and everyone said they were good. Other dishes included mashed potatoes, carrots, green beans, turnip, dinner rolls, cannied yams, pickle and olive plates, tons of gravy, and the meats: turkey and ham. I don't think there are enough opportunities to eat turkey. I wish there was more.

So, job well done, Grandma. Thank you for the fabulous Easter dinner!

Stuffed Chicken Breast

Cost: $12

Prep time: 15 minutes

The grandparents took Charlie to McDonalds for lunch, so I am glad I had a reasonably healthy dinner for tonight.

We had bone-in stuffed chicken breasts that were clearanced for around $3. It was stuffed with roasted red pepper stuffing. Very nice. We did eat the skin, which we usually don't do, but it was seasoned very nicely.

I steamed some broccoli and roasted some tiny little tri-colour new potatoes. Those were GREAT. So yummy after being rolled in olive oil, salted, peppered, and baked on a tray at high heat. I am excited that there are leftovers to make hashbrowns with tomorrow morning.

For dessert, we had a bowl of strawberries.