The Working Family – Meal Plan (week of March 24, 2013)
This week the little one wanted to do the meal plan drawing. Beaner is our stupid little dog. I’d like to think in this situation my kid has drawn here that someone has maybe eaten her. Perhaps it was my friend Mr. Chua? I’ve been told he eats the occasional dog…well he told me that. Don’t judge, he lives in China.
If you look closely Saturday consists of “Big Ass Ham” which wasn’t planned (well nothing was really since it was TBD so I guess that works out). The grocery store I usually shop at occasionally gives strange “gifts” if you spend an obscene amount of money with them. So this week I wound up spending an obscene amount of money and carting home a massive ham. For a family of 4 this is an over abundance of ham! What can one do with so much ham? It’s going to be my experiment for next week I think. Ham in everything!
Also to the left you can kind of see The Man’s experient with aquaponics. It’s a fishbowl full of snails with a netpot and some boston leaf lettuce in there. At first he had tried strawberries with a fighting fish, both died, it was a sad day. The lettuce is doing better but with us eating it it’s probably not going to last very long.
The Ape Shit (aka monkey doodoo)
SUGAAAAAAR!
Hello Friends, over the weekend the kids and I frankensteinered some cookies together from 2 other well loved recipes that regularly we make. We used the Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies and Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies recipes as a starting point and concocted…something. I really wanted to make the peanut butter banana cookies but they aren’t exactly school friendly these days and so came up with this as an alternative.
It’s always fun getting the kids to help out with baking, and lately they are actually making it all go so much faster which means my minions are almost fully bake trained! Muah hahahaha, Muah HaHaHaHa, MUAH HAHAHAHAaaaaa…look at her, all innocently adding those high octane calories.
Pooper scooper
The dough was super tasty and much of it got eaten before it ever made it to the oven. Look at that tasty shit. MMMMMMMM. As a warning, these cookies are one of the few I’ve ever made that taste better and have a better texture once cooled. They actually get better with age. Don’t keep them for more than 5 days though (pfft, as if they’d make it that long anyway).
I took this recipe to the fine people on G+ and asked them for some help in naming these morsels of doom. They came up with the most vulgar and awesome name imaginable for such a cookie…I present to you APE SHIT! Ya, you’ll go ape shit for these all right. Enjoy fuckers.
plop
The Working Family – Meal Plan (week of February 24, 2013)
This week I apparently came across an “old” viral video on Google+ that shows a zombie squid. A dead squid reanimated with simple soy sauce (see video below). The “dancing squid” in this particular video footage was filmed in Hakodate in Hokkaido, Japan where it’s apparently quite a popular dish. It’s both fascinating and horrifying to me and so it’s made it onto this weeks meal plan…sort of. I’m not bringing home squid for dinner but people eat this and so it’s this weeks doodle (I’ve run out of the usual animals we eat and have moved on to unconventional ones…horse I’m looking at you for next week!). I’m not sure if I’d try it. I mean one of my bucket list items is “to eat some of every animal” but I think I may have already tried squid in some way shape or form so maybe I’ll pass on this one.
In other news I’m meeting with the head of another department at my office today to give him all my ideas (well maybe not all) on one of the projects in his department. I’m hoping this meeting helps expand my role at my office and so it’s pretty important to me…so what do I do this morning? Leave my fucking folder at home with all my notes! Smooth move exlax *facepalm*. I’m a bit of a wizard though and know i’ll be able to pull my shit together by the time I meet with him at 11. Wish me luck!
Have you ever forgot something important and still pulled it off? Toot your horn in the comments!
The Working Family – Meal Plan (week of February 17, 2013)
The Man is back to work this week so the meal plan is back on as well. For this weeks doodle I was at a loss so I let Google decide for me by searching “delicious animals” (which I call dibs on for my imaginary indie rock band name if its not already taken). Of course the first thing that comes up is the dodo bird which was so mythically tasty that us humans ate them all. If it was really that good I’m surprised that nobody domesticated them like chickens. Maybe they were just convenient, the McDonald’s of wild birds if you will? It’s plumage probably cures cancer or some crap and we’ll never know. Let the dodo bird be a lesson to us all, never forget!
I’m glad The Man is back to work but I was admittedly enjoying not having to spend my mornings yelling at the kids and getting them to school. It’s the worst part of my day and I get to experience 4-5 times a week. Lucky me! I’ve been employing the timer technique in that they get 5 minutes to get dressed, 10 to eat, 5 to brush their teeth and another 5 to get their outside stuff on. The little one is a crier and tends to just sit there freaking out about how little time she has and doesn’t end up doing anything. If I could get away with bringing her to school in what she sleeps in (underpants only) I would, just in the hopes that it might finally snap her out of it. I feel like she’s trying to emotionally blackmail me into helping her with everything and I’m just so tired of it already. Anyone out there have tips for dealing with criers? I’m kind of at a loss with her these days!
All those other Cottage Pies are just imitating
The internet keeps trying to trick me into thinking cottage pie doesn’t come with a crust. I think it needs to be in a flaky pastry boat filled with tasty goodness, don’t you? Due to my frustration with the internet and it’s refusal to follow my rules for cottage pie I’ve decided to post how I make it…the ghetto way of course!! Which I suppose technically speaking is what cottage pie is all about really?
Shopping List:
- potatoes
- butter
- milk
- salt
- ground beef (approximately 1/4 lb per pie)
- onions (optional)
- packet gravy (or any gravy you might have really, also optional)
- pre-made pie shell(s) from the freezer section (they usually come 2 per box)
- frozen vegetables
I’m not going to list measurements for these things but I will say, the more you cook of the ground beef and potatoes the better, cause you can always use those things for other things if you don’t use it all (in fact I do this on purpose to prep stuff for other meals in advance like spaghetti or side dishes for roast). I also suggest prepping two pies at once as this get’s eaten up pretty fast in my house and will make for another quick meal later on in the week.
…and now for the hardest part, peeling potatoes.
here’s THE BEEF
I don’t like to cook on a good day but peeling potatoes has to be the absolute worst! I peel about 14 medium potatoes and cut them all up to boil for approximately 30 minutes (or until soft). Strain them, mash them, give them a huge dollop of butter (old school Paula Deen would be so proud of you!), a very liberal splash of milk and salt to taste. The more liquid you get in there the easier it’s going to be to spread it around. Taste test those bitches to make sure they are up to your standards.
While your potatoes are cooking also cook up your ground beef (you’ll need approximately 1/4 lb per pie) and cook it to the point of being crumbly, drain the fat at some point so you aren’t just boiling the crap out of it. You can also chop onion and add it to your mix to cook. In this example I got fancy and caramelized them separately and then added them in.I had leftover gravy from poutine that was made the day before and poured that into the ground beef I had separated out for the pies but if you’re feeling lazy just mix a portion of packet gravy into the beef mixture (see, I’m trying to make your life easier for you here). Place a layer of ground beef in each shell. Then a layer of frozen vegetables (whatever you like, I’m not THAT much a stickler for my made up rules). Lastly cover the vegetables with a layer of mashed potatoes.
mmmm delish!
I normally will wrap them in foil and put them in the fridge as these make for a fantastic make ahead meal. I write in sharpies the temp and cook time so any idiot can then heat up dinner if you’re not around. 400°F for 20 minutes. Enjoy!
This is what happens when you take a joke too far!
This is what happens when you take a joke too far!
Shatners lips look so supple!
Hello All, I know I have been pretty scarce lately. I don’t really have a good reason except that The Man got laid off so I haven’t had a reason to do meal plans, and I’ve been generally feeling uninspired. My foray into NaNoWriMo was a blazing failure this year (don’t ask, it’s still taunting me). But the past couple of weeks things are on the upswing!
I’ve had an artist friend approach me to do a children’s book with her which is actually coming along quite well surprisingly (I’ll update you guys along the way as it progresses). I’ve also had inspiration strike on a couple of blog posts so I promise more will be coming really soon! The thing I’m most proud of this week though is totally ridiculous and I just have to share it with you guys.
I have been a pretty active member on Google+ these days and have made quite a few new friends over there. One of them is John Ward, who is now the unfortunate target of my internet trolling. I troll in a very nice way though and have asked for his permission the entire way (which he surprisingly keeps agreeing to, I think he’s just a glutton for punishment or something?) He opened himself up to this, so he basically trolled himself in a way.
Look at the attached indigogo site I’ve affectionately named “Project Duck Face” that I’ve set up with the full details on what I consider a joke gone too far (although I haven’t even begun to take it as far as I plan to, muah hahahhahaha!).
Join in on the joke and kick in a dollar if you can (you’ll even get a drawing by your’s truly sent to your inbox), if the full amount isn’t raised you’ll get the money back anyway. If I can actually make this happen though I think it could be the funniest thing I’ve ever pulled off…and I know you want to help me pull of funny things right?!?!
If not, just click it to read and I hope you enjoy it.
How to NaNoWriMo, the working Mom way!
Do you know how to write words? Do you know what NaNoWriMo is? If you’ve answered yes to both of these and you haven’t yet signed up to write your 50,000 word masterpiece (or piece of shit depending on your particular goals) then what are you waiting for? There’s still time. Don’t give me this “I’m too busy” bull shit.
I’m going to let you in on my #1 secret for writing anywhere. Are you ready?
I’m in there, writing furiously
It’s my phone. Yes I’m writing on my phone. Before you start scoffing and thinking I’m crazy, think about it. What do you always have with you no matter what, that you can actually write words on? Stuck in the Dr’s waiting room with a kid with pink eye? You can write! Having your daily constitutional? That’s enough time to bang off a paragraph or two! Commuting on the train? That’s a good 1,000 to 2,000 words right there! Can’t sleep cause the person lying next to you is snoring? Put in your headphones and write my friend! You are bored but it’s not bedtime yet? Write!
A lot of people are going to tell you to avoid your phone for writing, not me, keep that sucker glued to your hand at all times!
The app I’ve been using to write with is Docs to Go, which unfortunately I can’t really recommend. If you don’t like auto correct telling your friend your significant other has an anus infection (yes that really happened to me) then you’re not going to like it fucking with your antagonist by merging words together. What the heck is a “Eellogofusciouhipoppokunurious” anyway? Another drawback is the cursor sensitivity. It takes forever to get it into the spot you want it, it shouldn’t be that hard. Keep in mind these issues only arise when you are backtracking on stuff you’ve already written, if you’re a full steam ahead type of writer you can use this app with no issues and just email your finished document to yourself and edit it in word. I totally feel like I pissed $30 away when I bought this app though. If anyone can recommend something better than Docs to Go that will work on the iPhone I’d really appreciate it!
So go, go now, sign up and add me as your writing buddy while you’re at it!
