Dinner for a busy day

I'd better post this while it is still today.

Yesterday was filled with packing and general "preparing to leave your house knowing when you return your landlady may be showing it" activities. My father-in-law called first thing and made my day by offering to come spend some time with the kids. He took them to the park, and I think they were gone just over an hour, but it was one hour of MAJOR productivity. I always knew if I could ever be alone in my house for just a little while, I could accomplish so much. As Coop was getting ready to go to the park he suggested I may get a little lonely. I assured him I'd be fine, but would manage.

We had to do some stuff at the bank right around dinnertime, so one of my sisters-in-law watched the kids and I made the following recipes for a quasi date-night/packing evening. (How expectations change: a candlelit dinner, with only a few interruptions from movie-watching children, followed by packing and mortgage paper-signing constitutes a decent date!) So, for a full day I offer you the following recipes for today's Friday Whole Food Recipe Review.

Lemon and Herb Crockpot Roasted Chicken

(Original source: A Year of Slow Cooking blog)

This recipe was great, although I didn't use enough salt. I was hesitant to cut all the fat off the chicken, and then follow her directions to add no liquid, but it turned out so moist! Her instructions to reduce cooking time if you don't want falling apart chicken should be heeded. Tasted great, even in pieces.

Deborah Madison's Roasted Potatoes

(Original source: Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)

I don't have the cookbook in front of me, but I cut my potatoes (russet, I think) in thin wedges and tossed with olive oil, sea salt, pepper, and thyme. (She offers other herb suggestions, but I needed it to be fast and simple!) I let them cook at a 450 degrees for about 20 minutes, then turned the oven down to 350 degrees until tender, about 15 minutes for mine. They were great...kind of crispy on the edges, but not burnt to a crisp.

We had salad and bread and called it a date.

Today's projects: Pack for trip to Florida. Find Bitty Baby's shoes so she can be properly dressed for said trip. Return library books. Stop in at used library book sale. Clean bathrooms and vacuum so we can come back to a semi-clean house. Try to be faithful with children all the while. All of grace!

A project every other day in May

Tomorrow I might change it to "Every four days" in May. Who knows.

Yesterday's project: Make brownies with the girl. So far she's used $4 of her birthday money to buy 1) a bubble sword, which she gave to Coop after she emptied because, "I love him." 2) a two-pack of scotch tape, which we never seem to have enough of when the kids want to do a project, and 3) stuff to make brownies to share with her friends.


Oh, and I also spent the bulk of the morning writing in those thank you notes and Mother's Day cards. Thirteen in all. I try to use Mother's Day to write some of the women who have been influential in my life, as well as those who haven't been able to have children. The project took a little longer than I planned (as most things go), but I'm happy to say it's all in the mail.

Today's project: mending so we can take some un-holey clothes with us to Florida tomorrow.

Who's Behind?

Mine.

Great line. I'm behind, although I'm catching up slowly but surely. We've got just a few things going on here, all good things, but keeping us busy and in a constant state of faith.

First off, we're trying to buy a house. We were plowing ahead, I was pouring over decorating books and sketching out my kitchen renovation plans until we hit a roadblock with the inspection. We are still waiting to hear back from the owner to see if they are interested in fixing some major problems (which, I should mention, must be fixed no matter who buys it) or plan to back out of the contract. We are resting in the Lord's provision for us; He has protected us SO many times by allowing something to fall through, so we are happy to wait and see what happens. Our current rental is great and we are fine staying here. However, the 3 acres that come with the new house could host all kinds of useful farm animals!

Second, my friend Lea, is hosting her annual "Every Day in May" post-a-thon, and obviously, I've already fallen off the bandwagon. I really only ever got on the wagon in my mind, so why don't I just delete this whole paragraph??? The goal of the project is to get back into the blogging groove, and choose a theme about which to post each day in May. In the early days there was a prize for whoever stuck it out and really posted every day. If there's still a prize, I'm out. But I would like to try to post every day (or the rest of the days...I mean, weekdays, if I'm able and not overwhelmed with other things) in May. My theme will be "A Project a Day in May." Don't hold your breath- some days my project may be to get dinner on the table. But it will help me get back into blogging. Hopefully.

So, today's projects: Make and mail Mother's Day cards and Sweet A's thank you notes. Make bread. Clean up from projects before WH comes home. Don't laugh- this took up our entire morning. :) But I'm sort of reveling in the fact that we still have time to linger over such things. Once the school years come it will be a different story.

Lastly, here are the recipes from last week's Whole Food Recipe Review. All are originally from Epicurious.com.

Coconut Chicken Soup

Thai Spiced Pork Loin w/Orange Curry Sauce

I used a large pork loin (not tenderloin) and adjusted the cooking time. I think this would be great with chicken, too! The only substitution needed was to change out the molasses for honey and the soy sauce for Bragg's Liquid Aminos. It's just the marinade, though, so it gets thrown out and another sauce is made to serve with the meat.

Thai Cucumber Salad with Roasted Peanuts

Coconut Rice with Thai Vegetables

This rice is great, although I admit I haven't tried it with brown rice. I think it would still be really good and look forward to trying it again soon. I used this dressing recipe drizzled over roasted Thai veggies and even some roasted asparagus later in the week.