Week 16: False! Black Beans

Recipes to Go: 507 351

Weeks to Go: 52 36

Recipes Made This Week

Balsamic-Glazed Tuna Steaks

Flavorful Rice Salad

Bacon 'n' Cheese Stuffed Potatoes

Chili for a Crowd

Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle

Mother Lode Pretzels

Yeast Corn Bread Loaf

Fruit Smoothies

Caribbean Quesadillas

Spooky Spider Cake

Pumpkin and Spice and Everything Nice Muffins

Monster Cutout Cookies

Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers

Since The Husband was out of town for most of this week, it was a bit challenging to get caught up on recipes. I spent Sunday and Monday trying to eat through leftovers. But the missionaries were coming to eat on Tuesday, so it gave me a perfect opportunity to make some food that I wouldn't have large quantities of. So I made 3 tuna steaks and 4 baked potatoes. After I put the potatoes in the oven, I thought things through and since I had to cut them in half to stuff them, I probably only should have made 2, but it was okay since we only ended up with one when dinner was over. And the missionaries took the leftover rice salad, which was so good I made it again on Thursday. They also helped me finish up the berry cheesecake pie.

Everything was delicious except that the fish was frozen when I started broiling it, so it need a few more minutes. It was still fine, just more pink than most people would like. Luckily, one of the sisters loved sushi, so she didn't mind. The other was very polite, so she didn't say anything, and still managed to eat it all. What a trooper. As for the potatoes, well who doesn't love twice baked potatoes? Who doesn't love bacon? How could that be a bad combination? I was lucky to be very successful when scooping them out. And mashing them with butter first made things much more smooth. Seriously, why have I never done that before? And the Beans and Rice Salad featured black beans, which ended up being the ingredient of the week.

Wednesday night was our church Halloween party. It was a soup and salad potluck, perfect opportunity to make a potluck recipe and the Chili for a Crowd sounded good. It also had black beans in it, though not as many. Confession, I didn't try this till after I got back home, but it was supposed to have 24 servings and there were maybe 3 left when I got back. I tried some when I was putting it away. It was definitely the best chili I've ever made. Nice and spicy, not too watery. I want to make it again.

There was a dessert competition at the party too. Apple or pumpkin desserts. Luckily for me, there are plenty of pumpkin desserts in the book. Luckily for me, I've made one of them before. So I made it again--Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle.

When I made it the first time, my friend was visiting me. We looked everywhere for canned pumpkin, but all we could find was yams. But even with lumpy sweet potato pudding it was delicious, and it was even better with smooth pumpkin pudding. So good was it, that I actually one in the pumpkin category. Amazing since I haven't won anything in ages.

Thursday I was planning on making the Yeast Corn Bread Loaf to go with all the leftover chili I imagined we would have. We didn't have much chili. In fact, we had surprisingly little food at all, which is why I made the salad again. The Husband got home late. I had dinner waiting, but while I was waiting for him, I decided to get started on the Mother Load Pretzels. I almost had the caramels melted when he got home. I didn't finish the pretzels that night. But I did make the Fruit Smoothies. They were delicious.

Friday didn't go so well for me. Car troubles, phone problems, then in the process of finishing the pretzels, I ruined one of my measuring cups and left a big mess in the microwave. But they turned out great.

Worth a few burned fingertips. They are highly addictive. Good thing I made so many. It's hard to pass by them without eating 1, or 3.

Better than that was the Caribbean Quesidillas.

The Husband thought there was meat in them, but they are vegetarian quesidillas. They tasted a little like fish, which we determined must have been due to the cloves. Anyway, they were delicious. They came together pretty easily as well. I always forget about quesidillas when I need to make a quick dinner, but I'll try to do better at remembering in the future because they are more fun than burritos. And did I mention, the main ingredient was black beans? These have sweet potatoes in them. I don't have enough recipes for sweet potatoes. And they are so tasty. Don't worry, there are plenty more in the book to come.

Game night treat this week was the Spooky Spider Cake. It was supposed to be a spider on a regular cake, but I just made the spider part.

It was just a cake mix, so I didn't enjoy the cake part very much. But the frosting was delicious. It got rave reviews from everyone else as well. It was fun to make legs out of licorice. Luckily for me, everyone ate most of the cake, so I didn't have to finish it myself.

Saturday morning I made the Pumpkin Muffins. I used wheat germ instead of wheat bran because I couldn't find it anywhere. I know, there are the opposite parts of the wheat, but it made the muffins hearty. And the chocolate chips made them sweet.

Then we went out all day and things got crazy. I made The Husband make the Monster Cutout Cookies for me with the intension of decorating them and distributing them to our neighbors. Well, they got made, but not decorated.

In fact, they didn't get out before Halloween. But at least they were delicious, so I'm sure that will be looked over. My decorating skills are sub-par at best, so let me just say that they are supposed to be moons, pumpkins, ghosts, and mummies.

For dinner on Saturday, I did the smart thing and put together a slow cooker recipe so we could trick or treat and have hot dinner waiting for us when we got back. I managed to put together the stuffed peppers before we left. The peppers I picked out were so big that I only had room for 5 in my slow cooker, but that was okay because they were big enough that all the stuffing fit in just 5 peppers. Oh, they were so tasty. Full of black beans and rice. So delicious I didn't get a picture.

Week 15: Butter

Recipes to Go: 507 364

Weeks to Go: 52 37

Recipes Made This Week

Carrot Oatmeal Cookies

Zucchini Patties with Dill Dip

Sirloin with Blue Cheese Butter

Creamed Peas and Carrots

Scalloped Potatoes 'n' Ham

Buttery Hot Wings

Southwestern Nachos

Berry Cheesecake Pie

Gnocchi with Thyme Butter

Goblin's Oragne Popcorn

Chees-enstein

Toasty Pumpkin Waffles

Chicken Cordon Blue

This was our butter week, not just because I love it and consider it another taste vitamin, but because we ended up using ridiculous amounts in all the recipes, or the recipes called for specially made butter.

Because we didn't have any desserts last week, I made cookies on Sunday. Unfortunately, I forgot to add the chocolate chips. I'm ashamed to admit this because I am the queen of adding chocolate chips. Be that as it may, they were still delicious and they made 7 dozen plus a few more.

The Captain loves them, they made great breakfast, and there was carrots in them, so if you ignore a cup of butter, a cup of shortening, and 3 cups of sugar, you could say they were healthy.

To go with the cookies and the wonderful weather we had on Sunday, we made the zucchini patties.

They also had carrots in them, which I will shred next time instead of chopping because the chopped carrots did not stay together in the patties. Fortunately, they were still delicious. The green tomatoes we fried, however, were not.

They were very sour.

On Tuesday, we made steak and potatoes, and veggies. And thus began our week of butter. I guess the cup of butter in the cookies counts, so nevermind, Sunday began the week of butter. But in this case, the butter was homemade. Not shaken from cream, but mixed with the cheese and spices. The blue cheese butter was delicious, but the steak was pretty bad. That's because it had been in the freezer for too long. Unfortunately, the recipe made lots of butter, so now I have a log of butter in the fridge with nothing to do.

The scalloped potatoes were everything they promised to be. Like funeral potatoes without the sadness. I was pretty proud of my chopping skills putting these together. Maybe there's hope for my knife skills after all.

The creamed peas and carrots were delicious. I know, you would think we were getting sick of carrots by this point, but surprisingly, no. They were still good. The Husband didn't fully appreciate them, of course, because they were peas, and neither did The Captain, but I loved em.

On Thursday, we had a manly-themed dinner with Buttery Hot Wings and Southwestern Nachos. Too bad The Husband doesn't have poker nights. These would have been perfect. The nachos were excellent due to the fact that the beef was slow cooked all day. And I'm normally not a fan of Velveeta.

The name makes it sound so wonderful like velvet, like it will make all my food smooth and creamy, but it tastes rather gross. I feel like I should be a fan, kind of like the Beatles and U2, which fall in the same category.

But in this instance, Velveeta was actually a good choice because these were nachos and nothing says nachos quite as well as processed cheese food. The stuff that real cheese eats for dinner.

The hot wings were good, I thought.

I'm not a huge fan of meat on the bone, and they were closer to undercooked than over so they were more difficult to rip off. (Or it could just be that my canines have been filed down . . . ) But I liked the spiciness that still had flavor. I didn't like having to melt 1 1/2 cups of butter into the sauce. The Husband agreed and said that they were too buttery and declared himself to be a hot wing purest. Luckily for him, I think this concludes our hot wing recipes for the year.

I started on the Berry Cheesecake Pie on Thursday, but didn't get to finish and enjoy it until Saturday. But because it was the fourth recipe on Thursday, disaster fell in its wake. The recipe called to put foil around the edges to avoid over-browning. This sounded like an excellent idea, but was easier read than done. After fiddling with the foil for ten minutes and worrying The Captain with my angry tone, I decided it would be easier to fix it if the pie was in the oven. I'm not sure why I decided that, because it's obviously stupid, and I hate hot things, but it was frustrating me. So, in the process of not getting burned, my hot pad (not the silicone kind) came in contact with the heating coil and started a small fire. Nothing was permanently damaged, and we ended up figuring out the pie/foil situation, but I have just come to expect disasters when three or more recipes is involved in one meal. But the pie was worth the wait to Saturday to eat.

The Husband, who I didn't think was a cheesecake fan, had two slices in succession and would have had a third if his stomach had permitted.

Thursday was about the time that I discovered I was so far behind in my recipes, so despite the over-abundance of leftovers, I was forced to make more food. Friday we made Gnocchi with Thyme Butter. But I didn't exactly want more butter floating around, my fridge was already full of the butter concoctions from earlier and empty of more pure stuff to use, I had already mooched a stick from my neighbor, so instead of messing around with that, we just used the blue cheese butter from earlier in the week.

It made things much more flavorful, which is good because gnocchi take entirely too much time to make. 70 minutes of prep was inaccurate because I had two other recipes to put together, so after starting at 5 pm, it was almost 7 when we got to eat. It was ridiculous all the steps that had to go into something that ends up looking like a mushy mess. Like I said, it was a good thing it ended up tasting yummy.

So, originally I was not going to worry about making the Goblin Popcorn for Halloween, but instead was going to change the color and use it some other time, but since I needed some extra recipes, I popped it in. (Pun intended.) I couldn't get a hold of a popcorn popper, and I have no intention of buying one, so we used microwave popcorn and crossed our fingers. It helped that I accidentally made kettle corn for the first batch. It did not help that I pushed the potato button instead of the popcorn button for the second batch. Smoke was the least of our worries, though there was plenty of that. I still smell horrid burnt popcorn every time I use the microwave. In my defense, the manufacturers put the popcorn butter right on top of the potato button. Really? They look incredibly similar. So I'm pleading the 5th--which is blindness, right?

The chees-enstein turned out pretty awesome. Cuter than I was going for, since I was going for scary.

But cute is good, and so was the cheese ball. I should know because we were alone for Game Night and we ate half the chees-enstein and half the popcorn. Both were addictive.

Saturday morning I made Pumpkin Waffles and guess what the recipe called for . . . homemade cranberry butter. I was not prepared for that again, so we made cranberry syrup instead.

The waffles were good, though not as crispy as I normally like my waffles. That's because of the pumpkin, I know. And cranberries, I will be freezing many, many of you while I can find you fresh this season because you are delicious and I have about 10 more recipes to make that involve cranberries.

I had to make dinner on Saturday, too to catch up as much as I could. So we went with something simple, chicken cordon bleu.

Not sure what is blue about the chicken, or what the heck "cordon" means. I'm sure it's some remote place in France that decided a chicken and a pig should mate and merge in some twisted way. Anyway, I only made two and they were delicious. They would have been better with some sauce and if I had used cornflakes instead of breadcrumbs, but I don't like cornflakes and I don't want to buy them to use them in two recipes a year, so we made due.

Hmm, Velveeta and cornflakes, not likes. But maybe I should. Maybe I should whistle "Yellow Submarine" too, but I don't see that happening in the near future. With or without you.

Week 14: No Desserts

Recipes to Go: 507 377

Weeks to Go: 52 38

Recipes Made This Week
Vegetable & Cheese Focaccia
Steak Potpie
Sage Meat Loaf
Seasoned Mashed Potatoes
Pork Chops in Orange Sauce
Sicilian Salad
Brussel Sprouts with Water Chestnuts
Traditional Scones
Mushroom Asparagus Quiche
Jack-o'-Lantern Cream Puffs
Ham 'n' Swiss Rolls
Strawberry Breakfast Shakes

The focaccia was supposed to be made on Saturday, but as per usual, things got away from me. So I made it Sunday. It was surprisingly unmemorable.I probably should make this again since I forgot to put olive oil in the dough and it didn't rise very well. I guess I need to start putting dough in the oven to rise.

Monday I made Steak Potpie because we ran out of leftovers to eat. Man, this was good. And thanks to Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, the crust was fast.

Baked just like it should and made us all very happy. It didn't leave us with much leftover, either, for that reason. So I had to make dinner on Tuesday, too, but it was just pasta and not in the book, so I don't have to write about it.

Wednesday we had meat loaf. The Husband doesn't like meat loaf, but he said this is a meat loaf he could stand behind. It was so tasty and I have no idea why. Next time I will double the sauce on top, just because it was tasty.

The mashed potatoes were a little disappointing. I think I've been spoiled with Alton Brown's recipe for garlic mashed potatoes. These were basically flavorless, so I won't be using them for Thanksgiving this year.

Thursday was a three-recipe meal. This was a problem because I also had to make a treat for Seminary, since I was told we wouldn't have a treat there on Friday. So I made the salad early to avoid the chaos of trying to make three recipes at once.

It was tasty and easy and something I could throw together in a hurry. That's always important.

The pork chops came together quickly. I'm still on the fence about pork chops. This recipe was descent, but I'm still sitting. There are more pork chop recipes, so maybe I'll make up my mind later in the year.

I had brussel sprouts when I was little and didn't like them. That's because I didn't have this recipe. If they weren't so expensive right now, I'd make this all the time. Clearly lots of love and butter went into this. And the water chestnuts just go so perfectly. There is a hint of sweetness to this recipe that helps to combat the bitterness of the brussel sprouts and the crunchy water chestnuts balance the sogginess of the soaked sprouts.

I remembered after The Captian was in bed that I needed to make a treat, so I looked through the book for something I had all the ingredients for and something that wouldn't take too long to make. I settled on the scones.

They were simple. I got to use my new dough cutter, which is awesome, by the way (bought it on my anniversary. Totally worth $4.) After they were done, I realized we didn't have any jam in the house. So I didn't get to really enjoy them until later in the week.

Because after all, we did have treats in Seminary, and no scones could compete with chocolate chip muffins. At least where teenagers are concerned. So I got yummy leftovers.

Friday I made the Mushroom Asparagus Quiche. It called to spread the bottom with musard and bake it. I've never baked mustard before, but it was delicious.

I like asparagus . . . maybe.

The cream puffs for Game Night were easier to make than I thought, but they did take some time. I got started in the afternoon with the shells. The filling was so delicious. Pumpkin-y and good and creamy. Then I attempted to decorate them using only a ziplock bag and some scissors. It worked out okay sometimes. These three were the best.

Then the frosting would gum up and explode out in big bursts. Luckily taste and decorative skill are not directly related.

Saturday morning I made the Ham 'n' Swiss Rolls. They were so easy thanks to the refrigerated crescent rolls. I think this was the fastest breakfast I've made. Okay, maybe the shake was faster, but I still had to pit strawberries for that one. And I made a shake with this.

It was sour mostly because I didn't have milk and had to improvise. It wasn't bad, just wasn't amazing like it might have been.

But at the end of the week, I realized I hadn't made any desserts. Cream puffs, yes, but only 12

and they were gone that night. So first on my list for next week was a cheesecake pie . . .

1/4 Way There

Week 13 marks the quarter way point of this goal. To be on track I need to have made 127 recipes by now. I have made 118, so I have 9 to catch up with before the half way mark.

In order to celebrate the occasion, I thought I'd make a list about what I've learned, and what I now know I don't know. Also, the first Top Ten List.

• I am not good at crumb coating.
• Always take time to scrape down the sides and beaters at least once when creaming cream cheese.
• There is only so much you can do with a hole in a ziplock bag when it comes to decorating. I guess I need to invest in some bags and tips.
• My oven works in the middle of cooking times, so if the recipe says 20-25 mins, I can count on 23.
• I'm starting to get the hang of when I can substitute and when I can't.
• I don't like coriander
• Attempting to cook 3 or more recipes at once inevitably leads to disaster.
• I eat 5 lbs of sugar and flour just about every two weeks.
• Gingersnaps do not make crumbs easily.
• Cookies usually yield less than stated, and muffins more.
• Some people can take 5 ingredients and create magic. Luckily for me, they write it down so I can follow. Good thing I'm good at reading recipes.

Top Ten Recipes Thus Far:

Spicy Wanton Stars

Onion Sausage Quesidillas

Sweet 'n' Tender Cabbage Rolls

Chicken Fingers with Lemon Sauce

Holstein Crinkles

Chow Mein Chicken Salad

Black Forest Cake

Crumb-Coated Spaetzle

Ham 'n' Swiss Rolls

Hearty Sausage Sandwich

Week 13: Oktoberfest

Recipes to Go: 507 389
Weeks to Go: 52 39

Recipes Made this Week
Nut-Topped Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins
Asparagus Crepes
Cinnamon-Pecan Coffee Cakes
Sweet Milk Dinner Rolls
Hearty Sausage Sandwich
Sauerbraten
Red Cabbage with Apple
Crumb-Coated Spaetzle
Black Forest Cake

Since I missed two recipes last week, I spent most of Sunday morning and afternoon baking. It ended up being a bread-filled day. I cooked the rolls since the dough was ready from the night before. They were very sweet, which is surprising because there no sugar in them. Just the milk, which I guess should tell me how sweet milk really is.They were pretty amazing, and I just found two tucked away the other day, two weeks after making them and no mold. They were rock hard, of course, but still good. So apparently they are hardy, too.

I made the yummy breakfast I had planned for Saturday on Sunday instead which consisted of Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins. I must say, I'm liking rhubarb more and more. It's such a unique flavor; I like the way the aftertaste feels in my mouth. I think it will become a freezer staple for me.I only put nuts on half of these so The Captain could enjoy them, too. We ended up eating all the nut-topped one quite fast,but I still managed to be able to enjoy them all week for breakfast.

With the muffins, we had asparagus crepes. They were delicious, but had very complex flavors, thus The Captain did not fully appreciate them like The Husband and I did. I haven't had something this delightfully complicated in a long time.Simple, but wonderful. So I guess you don't have to be complicated to be complex. At least in the culinary world.

The last thing I made was this beautiful coffee cake. I've never braided dough before, but it's something I've wanted to do for a long time. This was even more complicated than that since I had to "jelly roll" each of the strands of the braid before braiding them. And I don't jelly roll that much either. It would have been easier to see the cool design this made if I had used the nuts, but I didn't for The Captain's sake. They did end up quite yummy. Needless to say, we had good breakfasts this week.

Monday night, I made this Stromboli Sandwich. It was another night that I ate way too much and had a stomach ache, but it was a Thanksgiving-esque stomach ache where I could not complain about the pain since it was caused by joy.This was a hearty sandwich. We didn't need anything else with it for dinner and didn't even finish the whole loaf in one sitting. It tasted a little like stroganoff, with three kinds of cheese. The Captain enjoyed it as well, and the leftovers for lunch.

Tuesday was my anniversary. We spent the day together, shipping The Captain off to our friends' house. As payment for their sacrifice, we sent The Captain with the other loaf of coffee cake. It was the least we could do. But before we left, I taught my morning class and came home to freshly made waffles and yummy syrup. We ate lunch out and got dinner on the way home, so I didn't cook anything that day.

Wednesday, I used the leftover bread from the Stromboli Sandwich to make Ham and Broccoli Bake, which I had made before, but this time I used broccoli instead of peas. It was still delicious. The Husband liked it more, I liked it less, but that's because I love peas and The Husband doesn't.

Thursday was Oktoberfest. We used to have Foreign Food Fridays in my college apartment. They were awesome. I remember them all. And after our great time at an Oktoberfest event last year, I decided celebrate Oktoberfest this year by doing something I haven't since I started this goal--make a meal as it was designed in the cookbook. There are several groups of recipes in the back of the book that are set up as meals, and there happens to be a meal with a German theme. . . . voila, Oktoberfest.I didn't have time to marinate the sauerbraten for two days, but I did start early in the day, so it got a lot of time. Plus, instead of marinating in a bag, I marinated it in a bowl so it was completely submerged, speeding up the process slightly. I also made the cake in the early afternoon, so it would have time to set up in the fridge. The sauerbraten baked for 4 hours, so come actual dinner time, I only had to make two recipes.It actually worked out quite nicely.

The Husband told me to remind him occasionally how much he loves cabbage. This was delicious. The apples gave just the right touch.And I was lucky to have The Husband there because I almost forgot to put in the bacon. It would have still be good, of course, but missing a big taste vitamin. Bacon is one of the three basic taste vitamins along with cheese and chocolate.

The Spaetzle was just as delicious as I remembered from when my roommate used to make it. I could eat spaetzle with every meal. It's not very photogenic, but don't hold it against it.It's easy enough to make, too, just takes a little work to mash it through the colander into the pot to bake. Worth it.

The Black Forest Cake is my new favorite. It could be the best thing I've ever made. (I think I say that every week, but this time I'm serious.) You know by now I don't really like cake, but I think I might have to amend that to say I don't like cake-mix cakes that taste like cake-mix. (There are some people that have a talent for deliciously disguising cake-mix. I am not one of those people.) But that doesn't matter because this was more like brownies, plus pie, plus cheesecake. Could there be a more yummy combination?It was divine. I normally am not extremely tempted by desserts, but this one was like a siren. Seriously. It was like the cake was a women in a slinky black dress with red underwears and I was a man. I didn't stand a chance. I might have to use my own seductive powers more carefully after this. That's powerful stuff.

Didn't make anything over the weekend because we went to D.C. Which was fabulous. We will definitely be going back, and hopefully soon.

Week 12: Prematurity

Recipes to Go: 507 398

Weeks to Go: 52 40

Recipes Made This Week

Spicy Shrimp

Garden-Fresh Fettuccine

Creamy Lime Sherbet

Creamy Chicken Enchiladas

Hazelnut Pear Tart

Raspberry Coconut Bars

Pacific Rim Salmon

Mixed Bean Salad

Before this week started, The Husband had a conversation with me which reminded me that I have let this experiment overwhelm me too much in the last few weeks. I did sign up for this, I knew what I was getting into, for the most part. And despite having specific goals I wanted to achieve, it was primarily, a bit of fun. So with that in mind, I rethought some of the philosophies and practicalities I have been employing thus far. I decided to start earlier to prepare dinner and have it waiting in the fridge, so that when things go crazy at 4:30, as they always do, I could be almost done, or already have dinner in the oven. Who doesn't want to just be able to stick something from fridge to oven?
So afternoon snack time has become dinner-prep time. Result? = a little too much gusto on my part. I ended up slightly over preparing this week.

Monday was the beginning of a cold front that lasted all week. We had zero prepared foods in the house, which meant there was literally nothing for The Husband to take to work for lunch except three hard-boiled eggs. In this sad state of affairs (brought on mostly because I hadn't be able to go shopping on Saturday), I did the shopping and made beet curry for dinner. Not in the book, sadly, because it was good and lasted all week, but it used up a delicious beet I bought from the farmer's market and warmed us all up.

So Tuesday was really my first day to cook. Luckily so because we were having the missionaries over for dinner and one of them had really set the bar high for me by talking up my cooking to her companion. So the preparation began. We were having Creamy Chicken Enchiladas and a corn salad I made for a funeral and didn't get to taste. A repeat, but I meant it as a surprise since the missionaries loved the leftovers the first time. I also wanted to make Lime Sherbet for to celebrate The Captain's 1/2 birthday. I personally love 1/2 birthdays, but this one is special because it means he gets to go into the nursery class at church instead of wrecking small havoc hanging around with me. I'm sure lots of people will be sad he isn't around, but he will definitely be happier, consequently, I will, too.

Well, that was the plan. Starting a little after 2, I got the ice cream going, made the corn salad and got started on the chicken. It was about 4 o'clock when the missionaries called. Everything was in the fridge ready to go into the oven. But as it turns out, we weren't feeding the missionaries on Tuesday, we were feeding them on Thursday and they were calling to ask if we could have dinner at a specific time and with one more person. (Both of which I said yes to, of course, since dinner was pretty much already done.) Story: I usually feed the missionaries once a month, and always on a Tuesday. When I got the schedule for September, it was full with only one day left, the 30th. So I took it and made a mental note to put it in my calendar when I got home. Only I forgot, so I planned on Tuesday and prematurely made dinner.

But after all that prepping, I didn't really have any time or energy left to make an entirely new large meal, so we had leftover curry that night. We did, however, get to eat yummy sherbet.And yummy it was. Authentic lime flavor, none of that artificial stuff, which is to be expected when you use lime zest and fresh squeezed lime juice. The Captain liked it, despite what his face says.
Then came Wednesday. I started chopping vegetables for the spicy shrimp and garden fettuccine around 3, while the shrimp was defrosting. I had all the cans I was using for the week set out on the counter already, which sped things up as well. So while the timing of the fettuccine was a little tricky, it all came out nicely and at the same time.

The Spicy Shrimp was very spicy. I didn't skimp on the Louisiana hot sauce. Luckily The Husband loves that stuff.I love shrimp and it was very refreshing to have a different protein source for a change.

The fettuccine was surprisingly spicy as well. I put in just the tiniest amount of red pepper flakes as per the recipe instructions and it really made a difference. This made a huge amount of pasta. I'm always surprised because the pasta itself never seems like that much, but it goes a long way. I didn't even get to put in all the veggies it called for because I didn't have fresh tomatoes and my pan didn't have enough room.This is definitely a harvest overload type of recipe--throw in whatever's growing and it will be delicious.

So when Thursday came, you would think it would be easy-breezy, but I decided to make the pear tart. I also decided after reading the recipe before hand, something I don't do often enough, to make the bean salad for Friday's diner a day in advance so it could fully refrigerate. That was easy enough. And the tart was less complicated than I would have thought. It turned out all right.

And the enchiladas look like any enchiladas, this picture was the forth time we had it for leftovers, or something like that.The recipe made 20, so we ate them with pleasure all weekend.

Also on Thursday, I decided to make a treat for my early morning class instead of waiting for Game Night on Friday, since we weren't sure if we were having a Game Night or not. So I made the Raspberry Coconut Bars. But since I used strawberry preserves instead of raspberry, so I guess they were technically Strawberry Coconut Bars, but regardless of what you call them, they were wonderful.Remember how I said I didn't love bars, just chocolate. I might take that back. These were simple, easy and yummy. The teenagers agreed. Also, we discovered the secret to drizzling chocolate is momentum. Also, don't put vanilla chips in the microwave for too long, they burn very quickly.

So on Friday,I started out ahead of the game with half of dinner all ready in the fridge, but as it turned out, I didn't prepare the other half since we didn't eat dinner at home on Friday. We were out with the youth, cooking hot dogs and stuff. Okay, confession, we did eat leftovers before we left because, they're hot dogs. They're pretty gross. And even though every once in awhile the idea of a hot dog is appealing to be, usually halfway through I wonder why and vow to never eat one again. These ones weren't as bad as some I've had because they were properly burned before eating. That's the only way to get the idea of leftover meat parts out of my mouth when eating one. So all my preparation was in vain again, since the salad now had two days to marinate.

But unlike the corn salad which has avocado in it and thus suffered somewhat from excessive fridge exposure, the bean salad did not.It might have made it more yummy. Here's another salad like the Tim Salad we used to make. Delicious. And all that marinating got The Captain to eat celery and green peppers. It was like a Christmas miracle without all the snow and stuff.

So we didn't get to eat it on Friday, and Saturday morning was a little rushed getting shopping in before our two day conference, so breakfast was neglected. Don't worry, I made up for it on Sunday, but I did finally make the other half of what was planned to be Friday's dinner--salmon to go with the bean salad. Remember way back when I bought the salmon and I said it was too fishy, well it was a little fishy with this recipe, but in a good way, if that's possible. It must have just been the tomato sauce that first time because the last two times have been delicious.This one was supposed to be grilled, and we still haven't bought a proper grill yet, so I pan grilled it, with a lid on, so I half grilled, half steamed it. The marinade was lovely and the fishy flaky and light. A very light, summer meal. Too bad it was very cold outside.

Does it seam as though something is missing on this plate?Well, I was supposed to make dinner rolls to go with this meal, but it was so cold outside and consequently inside, that the dough wouldn't rise. I had to take it downstairs and put it on top of our receiver that controls our whole television set up. It gets very warm when on and it had been on all day thanks to the conference which we were able to view via the internet on our giant tv thanks to our laptop. I love technology. So that worked really well, actually, but it was time for bed by the time the dough had doubled. So there was something else that got postponed until Sunday.

So my original ten recipe plan dwindled down to 8, despite my uber preparedness. Prematurity strikes again, I suppose. But on the bright side, I squeezed the two recipes into next week, so I haven't really lost any ground.