thursday dinner - monte cristo sliders and monster cookies

 There is truly no joy in cooking for kids.  They hate everything and I swear they have been taking drama classes, the way they act after I've worked all day and then cook for them.  The Boy can sometimes be slightly polite while telling me he doesn't like whatever I've made that isn't ramen or potato chips, but The Girl  seems to be in  a no filter stage and often doesn't even make it into the kitchen before starting her tirade on how she is not going to eat what I made.

What is the benefit here???

This one went over pretty well, I mean it is sandwiches for goodness sake, and usually everyone in the family likes those.  Monte Cristo sandwiches always make me think of Disneyland, and this version is nice and easy with no batter or frying.

I left the jam out of the sandwiches and served it on the side, just in case that was what would push my kids over the edge and make them refuse to eat ham sandwiches, but us adults added it at the table and it was so delicious.  An easy dinner.

Monte Cristo pull apart sliders 

For dessert I made flourless monster cookie bars but I think I under baked them as they were super soft and hard to eat.  But they tasted good - can't go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate.  Add some oats and it's practically a healthy breakfast.  Right???

book club 11 - ebook - Forverr, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid

 2022-11

 

spotted - chalk drawings on our walk

 

cookbook cleanup 30 - The Best of the Best from Food and Wine

 This is a dollar store find.  This is also a crappy review, because apparently I've already gotten rid of the book so I can't even be sure of what we all tried, but I think it was only 2 recipes.

I found this picture online and I'm pretty sure this is the right edition of the series.   Like I said, got it at the dollar store, and I like these books, and this one had a good variety of recipes.

 

 There are a number of recipes that I'd like to try.  However, I have one kid who is a vegetarian, and one kid that hates all food with a burning passion and I'm too tired to make any more multiple meals just so I can try some stuff from this book.

I made the Salted Apple Bread which was only ok, and the Cheesy Bastille Day Beer Bread was pretty good, and that was it and it was time for this book to hit the road and find a better home.  

Back on the bookshelf - 15  Donated -15

carrot hot dogs

 We continue the (mostly) vegetarian journey for The Boy over here.  We've had some meh meals, we've had some bad meals, we've found some real winners.  

One winner was these carrot hot dogs!  Very unexpected but very easy and good.  Basically you boil carrots, marinate them, and grill them.

 I was a bit skeptical about these but The Boy really liked them - he ate 2 for dinner that night, and asked me to make sure I saved the recipe so we could have them again.

I cooked them in the air fryer instead of on the bbq, but next time I will try the bbq.

Smoky vegan carrot dogs

book club 10 - The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

 2022-10

 

Gambles Pond at Albert McGowan Park

 

book club 9 - Less by Andrew Sean Greer

 2022-9

 

recent foods

 

 salted butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies 

this is not the very delicious sheet pan chicken meatballs, this is the batter for The Girl's birthday cupcakes.

this is a box of tim biebs timbits, not the best potato-latkes I've ever made.

this is our version of Ina Garten's kielbasa with mustard dip

i used sour cream instead of mayo for the dip by mistake but we loved it that way

 

this is delicious pea soup.
 

this is not the very delicious one pot beef stifado that I made and we enjoyed so much and then our fridge stopped working and we lost a bunch of food including the leftover stifado which I think would have made very delicious leftovers, this is a rainy April walk.

This is from homemade pizza night, it's not a super delicious Creamy Tuscan Orzo that almost everyone in the family liked.  Almost.

These are deer at MacArthur Island, not Weeknight Root Vegetable Dal that only the Mister and I liked.