Planning it Out

It's been a crazy 10 months! Cooking dinner has been one of those relaxing luxuries that has become quite the chore. So, after being a mommy for 3 months, I have come up with a plan. So far, so good. I made a menu and headed for the grocery store. Luckily, Winn Dixie was having a sale on meat that I wanted. Boneless chicken breasts were B1G1, Pork Tenderloin was B1G1 and NY Strip Steaks were $7.99/lb. My menu consisted of Steak, Cubed Potatoes and broccoli - Hamburgers - Chicken, corn on the cob, salad - Salad w/ Chicken - Baked potatoes with a choice of steak, pork or chicken on them.

It's a lot of prep work, but this is how it worked out: On Monday, I marinated the pork in a store bought marinade (it was not good but more to that later), chicken and steak. I cooked the hamburgers in the skillet because it was raining and that meant the grill was out of the question. While I was making the burgers, I put the pork in the oven to cook. As the burgers "fried," I chopped lettuce and tomato. I kept out 2 slices of tomato because I made 4 burgers (Robert doesn't eat tomatoes). The rest of the tomato went into the refrigerator for later use in a salad or two. We had the hamburgers (nothing fancy) Monday night for dinner.

Tuesday, we made loaded baked potatoes with pork. Most of the marinade scraped off so we added our own bbq sauce. That was YUMMY. Tonight we had steak, potatoes and broccoli. The steak sat in garlic salt and pepper (both sides, liberally) for 24 hours. Cubing 4 medium potatoes, I tossed the potatoes in oil and a mixture of garlic, salt, red pepper flakes and dill. In a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes, the potatoes cooked until they were tender. I go the easy route and use the Steamfresh broccoli so about 20 minutes into the potatoes cooking, I put the broccoli in and waited. When the potatoes came out and since it was STILL raining, I had to opt for the broiler to cook the steaks. With the broiler set on HIGH, the steaks went in for 2 minutes on each side. Both steaks came out a pretty medium rare. 3 minutes on each side would have gotten them to medium and 4 minutes would have taken it to medium-well. This was the best meal so far and I expect it to be my favorite of the week :-)

Tomorrow, if it isn't raining I hope to get the marinating chicken on the grill. It's marinating in a spice blend from our favorite BBQ restaurant in Memphis, Corky's. It's Paprika based. I have no doubt it will be tasty! If the grill is out of the question again I'll just settle for baking it. Won't be my favorite but it will be easy enough. 350 for about an hour will do the trick if need be. To make it even easier, I'll throw some corn on the cob in a pot to boil and pull out the lettuce and tomato that I chopped on Monday to make a salad.

Friday will be leftovers of whatever is in the refrigerator. Chicken, Pork, Salad, Potatoes, Broccoli. There were only 2 steaks so that won't be an option :-) and that's too bad! It's been quite the task trying to get back into the kitchen. While I was pregnant, I ate a lot of cereal and pop tarts for dinner because not much sounded desirable. That means I was out of the kitchen for a while so I got out of practice. It's been interesting trying to get back into some semblance of a routine. Maybe I'll get to post more about my adventures. If there's another 10 month break, assume the worst :-)

From My Kitchen to Yours, Good Eats!