food and links

If I could go back and change one thing from my pregnancy, it would be to cook and freeze a bunch of stuff for easy lunches and dinners for after the baby was born. Every book and magazine I read suggested freezing some lasagnas, casseroles, etc, and stocking up on basic necessities. We stocked up on kleenex and toilet paper, canned soup and cans of beans and tomatos. We bought pork tenderloins and ground beef and chicken, but instead of preparing stuff with them, we froze them as is. I figured, foolishly, that one of us would be able to whip up dinner while the other took care of the baby.

HA!
The first couple of weeks crawled flew by in a haze of sleeplessness, pain (c-section), and new parent nerves. Most days I couldn’t comb my hair, much less whip up dinner. Thank goodness for my parents, who shopped and provided us with food that first little while.
Since we got a (slight) grasp on our new situation, I’ve tried hard to make tasty, healthy meals that mostly can provide leftovers for other meals. Here’s some stuff we’ve eaten that we enjoyed, and you might too:

This is Cincinnati Chili which is a combo of chili and spaghetti and is really quite wonderful. The sauce is slightly sweet and spicy from ingredients like cinnamon and chocolate, and there are beans! and cheese!

The recipe calls for 1 1/2 lbs of ground beef, but I used 1 lb of leftover Turducken from Christmas. I also mixed the beans right into the sauce, so I could freeze the leftovers, and used green onions to sprinkle on top instead of raw white onions. SO GOOD. I got enough sauce for 3 meals. We will make this on a regular basis.

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This one was so easy and also very good – chicken and waffles.
I have long wanted to try chicken and waffles, but believe me there are no restaurants around here that serve food like that. I don’t really love frying at home, but this recipe shallow fries chicken tenders (I just sliced up a chicken breast). It also uses frozen waffles, which I always have in the house. We used the last of the excellent Turducken gravy for this, and that made it that much easier.

Whoever thought up this food combination is A GENIUS. This one doesn’t really count as healthy though.
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I love sweet and sour meatballs, so I had to try these Mini Skillet Meatloaves for their sweet and sour glaze. They were very easy – I mixed up and formed the loaves in the morning and made the sauce, so we only had to cook them and heat up our side dishes at dinnertime. Paxton decided to have a screaming fit when dinner was ready, so there are no photos. But please, enjoy this one:

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Scott’s favorite dish out of this group is this one, the Smokin’ Chicken Burger. Ground chicken and mushroom patties topped with carmelized onions and a red wine sauce. We also added cheese because we could. Pow!

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I am still so enjoying reading Cookin’ with Coolio and the next recipe I tried was for Karate Meat. Sliced steak cooked with onions, garlic, chile powder and 5 spice powder. I added a bell pepper cause I had one.

This book seriously is fantastic, and I was so happy to hear from 2 people who bought it after reading about it here. I hope they are enjoying it as much as I am. You should get it too!