“Summer vacation” may just be the death of my schedule–and it’s just gotten started!
Here’s what I’ve been writing this past week:
Eat, Drink and Evangelize: A Review of the Catholic Drinkie’s New Book
Sunday Brunch Specials for June 21
Spent-Grain Bread: a companion recipe for the Catholic Drinkie’s book
At CatholicMom.com:My Meatless Friday recipe for Garden Marinara Sauce is up this week.
Don’t miss this fun feature that I curate each Sunday: Sunday Brunch Specials: Great Reads from This Week.
Chicken with Lemon, Mushroom and Herb Sauce
At Cook and Count:
It wasn’t too hot to bake, so I made some Double Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cookies!
And a simple errand–buying a new measuring cup–turned into an opportunity to inform a company about what it takes to cook for diabetics. Here’s my Open Letter to Pyrex.
I curate the Sunday Brunch feature. Check out some of last week’s best articles from our contributors!
There’s been a whole lot of cooking (and writing about cooking) going on this week! I have a bunch of new recipes up.
Spicy Orange Chicken is a healthier take on a takeout favorite. Since it’s not fried, it’s also much less messy to cook.
Don’t miss this shrimp dish: Garlic Shrimp with Peppers and Onions.
On the Grill: Luau Chicken Thighs: These are delicious with a side of grilled pineapple slices.
Shrimp Tacos: A speedy-to-cook seafood dinner.
On the side, try some Sesame Green Beans.
My Tech Talk discusses the reason I’ll be abandoning Team Android at upgrade time.
I linked up with CatholicMom.com’s Small Success Thursday
Got writing dreams? Learn how much you can accomplish in Ten Minutes a Day.
It’s been all recipes, all the time this week! Here’s what’s cooking:
At CatholicMom.com:My Meatless Friday feature this month was Magnificent Marinara Sauce. We like it with cheese ravioli or tortellini.
At Catholic Bloggers Network:I served up a Meatless Friday recipe at CBN as well: Spicy Corn Chowder.
At Real Housekeeping:A straight-from-my-Irish-grandmother recipe: Granma’s Irish Biscuits. Authentically Irish, perfect with tea! Don’t wait until St. Patrick’s Day to make these! Granma made them every Sunday.
At Cook and Count:Monday’s dinner was a Dutch-Oven Rump Roast. This is our new favorite way to make pot roast.
Fish fillets with a twist of lime are a nice, light way to serve Friday’s fish.
For decadent taste without the price tag to match, try this budget-friendly Mac & Cheese with Crab!
At CatholicFiction.net, I reviewed Birds of a Feather by Kaye Park Hinckley. This collection of top-notch short stories is a must-read for Flannery O’Connor fans. Hinckley’s fiction is pure poetry.
What’s CatholicFiction.net? It’s an editorially-independent project of Tuscany Press staffed by volunteer reviewers who are eager to share new and classic Catholic fiction. If you’re looking for a good book to read, CatholicFiction.net posts reviews every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
At Cook and Count, new recipes include a whole bunch of meatless meals (Lent’s coming up) and a special dinner:
Father Brice’s Peasant Pasta, a simple and healthy meatless dish.
Pico de Gallo, a go-with-everything-Mexican favorite.
Grilled Fajita Vegetables and Veggie Burritos
Pan-Seared Cod with Mandarin Sauce
Veal Milanese. (It only tastes fancy!)
Maple-Mustard Chicken Thighs, because when the weather’s REALLY cold, you want to have the oven on for 45 minutes!
Thursdays at CatholicMom.com begin with a look at the past week’s Small Successes!
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I’ve been inspired by my friend Lisa Lawmaster Hess and working on getting things a LITTLE more organized around here. It’s a slow process. I did figure out that the set of small rocking chairs behind my desk, while cute, were too much of a temptation for me. They’re toddler rockers–one for each of my kids–and 2 are so small that no one but a small child can sit in them. So…they became tables for my Desk Overflow.
I took All The Stuff out of those chairs (and out from behind those chairs) and it pretty much covered the whole sofa.
So I moved an upholstered chair into the space where the rockers had been, because I know I won’t pile stuff onto that chair. Then I put away All The Stuff.
And my living room looks a lot nicer now.
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It’s time to get ready for Lent, and I’ve been working hard over at Cook and Count to load up all the meatless recipes I can find. You can find all of them right here: Meatless Recipes at Cook and Count.
There are more to come, and as I post them, you can access them through this same link.
(AND I learned how to add a copyright line to my photos!)
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If you’re reading this through a link at CatholicMom.com, that’s because I successfully installed the link tool in the CatholicMom post. I’m in training right now to be the Substitute Blogmother during Sarah Reinhard’s upcoming maternity leave. (And she is super patient while she gets me up to speed on All The Things.) This was my very first linky-thing, and it worked! It worked!
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In other CatholicMom.com related news (AKA more shameless self-promotion), I have two posts about Lent that you might want to visit. Click on over!
Book review of 40 Days, 40 Ways
Tech Talk: Lenten Inspiration from CRS Rice Bowl
Share your Small Successes at CatholicMom.com by joining the linkup in the bottom of today’s post. No blog? List yours in the comments box!
© 2015 Barb Szyszkiewicz
Linking up with Mary Ellen Barrett’s weekly feature!
A few changeups of note from last week:
On Monday I took the night off and got Chick-Fil-A for myself and the Kid. Hubs called just before I started cooking to say he’d be so late that he and his team at work had ordered pizza.
Friday, Big Brother was supposed to come home for dinner and we were supposed to have fish. But his car (Hubs’ old 2002 Hyundai, with over 170,000 miles on it) broke down JUST before he got onto a terrifyingly busy Philadelphia highway during the afternoon rush (thank you, Guardian Angel!) I had to feed the Kid at a reasonable hour, so while Hubs rescued Big Brother, I revamped that fish plan. I needed some comfort food, plain and simple, and something that I could keep warm until the guys were home. So I cut up half a pound of swai fillets and mixed it into Barbara Mahany’s mac n cheese recipe and served that with a salad. Big Brother suggests that next time I season it with Old Bay. It was GOOD STUFF.
Saturday, BOTH the Big Kids were home for dinner, and I was a happy mom, even though the Notre Dame football game didn’t go the way I wanted it. We had steak fajitas based on Father Leo Patalinghug’s recipe. I guess I’ve changed it up enough that I can write up how I do them. I highly recommend this cookbook!
I’m not assigning days to this week’s meals. Here’s what we’re having. I have all the ingredients for all of these meals, and I’m going to pick and choose as the mood strikes.
Here’s what’s in the plan:
Miss Jill Chicken, French fries, vegetable. The Kid would eat this 5 times a week if I’d let him!
Asian turkey wraps, fried rice
Sarah Reinhard’s beef & noodles, carrots. This one needs a write-up too!
Chicken tacos, fiesta potatoes, salad
Spaghetti and meatballs, salad
Not-So-Spicy Peanut Pork, rice. I’m subbing in strips of boneless pork chops for the chicken in this recipe.
Friday is a night off: the Kid has a dinner for the youth theater company he belongs to. I have a rehearsal. Hubs will be on his own.
It’s time for Menu Monday, hosted at Mary Ellen Barrett‘s corner of the Internet.
I’m still substitute-teaching, and with the “fall back” to Standard Time (can’t we just pick one and stick with it?) I’m setting up an easy plan for the next few days.
SUNDAY: Chicken and Pepper Paprika over noodles. I’ll be writing this one up. Here’s a teaser photo.
MONDAY: Chicken with Lemon and Garlic, rice, roasted asparagus.
TUESDAY: Pork Carnitas Tacos and salad.
WEDNESDAY: Chicken Caesar Sandwiches in the slow cooker. Our over-the-stove microwave is being replaced, since its mysterious demise when Little Brother was using it as a timer 2 weeks ago. I can put the slow cooker someplace else in the kitchen, to give the late-afternoon installation guy room to get the job done.
THURSDAY: Spaghetti and meatballs.
FRIDAY: Seafood Surprise. Translation: I have 1 or 2 servings each of various fish fillets like tilapia, swai, cod and whiting. 3 of us need to eat. The surprise is what type of fish each person will get. I have a Meatless Friday fish recipe coming up at CatholicMom.com this week, so I might use that one for whatever fish I wind up cooking. That recipe will go live Friday morning at 8 or 9 AM (I’m not sure. The time change is messing up my sense of the schedule, especially since the site is based on Pacific time to start with.)
SATURDAY: Leftovers, now that I’ll have a working microwave to warm them.
A new week, a new menu plan and a new schedule around here! I’m linking up with Mary Ellen’s Menu Mondays feature.
On Friday I was asked to take a long-term substitute assignment for one of the second-grade teachers at Little Brother’s school. I’ll probably be working full time through Thanksgiving. This is the first time I’ve worked full time since I’ve had kids, and it is going to mess with the household schedule for sure!
SUNDAY: I made a big batch of spaghetti sauce with meatballs for the freezer, and served Chicken Parmesan made from some of the sauce.
MONDAY: Leftover pot roast, noodles, mixed vegetables.
TUESDAY: Chicken piccata bites, asparagus, mashed potatoes.
WEDNESDAY: Spaghetti and meatballs, salad.
THURSDAY: Chicken enchiladas, rice (doubled so we’ll have enough to make Friday’s dinner) and salad. Here’s the recipe I use for enchilada sauce. Little Brother will probably just have chicken tacos. That’s the beauty of dishes like this–it’s easy to adjust for people who don’t like delicious things like enchilada sauce.
FRIDAY: Last-Minute Shrimp Fried Rice with steamed snow peas.
SATURDAY: the folk group is assigned the 5:00 Mass this weekend instead of our usual noon on Sunday. I invited everyone back here after Mass (I live closest to the church) for a potluck dinner. I’ll be serving Vodka Pasta.
