Slow-Cooker Swedish Meatballs

     As you can see, I really didn't have enough sauce. I had even opted for rotini instead of egg noodles with the thoughts that the rotini would trap the sauce nicely. Very tasty, just needs more sauce and fairly sure that I'd had this problem last time but forgot all about it. Made a note in the recipe to double the sauce ingredients but don't want to officially change the recipe until I have successfully tried the new version. Surprisingly, the grandwarrior wasn't overly thrilled with the meatballs.

Microwave Chicken Enchiladas

 

    I kind of dropped the ball on this one. D wasn't up yet so I'd decided I would start dinner at 6pm whether she was up or not. About 5 to six, she got up and decided to order from Arby's. That sounded like a really good plan, I haven't had Arby's in forever. I figured since this recipe was microwaved I would assemble it Sunday night and nuke it for lunch with the grandwarrior. I had mistakenly bought the wrong size enchilada sauce. SIL works nights and he often picks up ingredients that we need and brings it home with him. 

    The grandwarrior had already left by the time he came home and I was kind of waiting to blog until after she tried it. It is nice to have an archive of the foods she liked since my memory isn't what it used to be. Ended up not babysitting today and I'm throwing tonight's Swedish meatball ingredients in the crock pot as soon as they get here so I guess no Enchiladas for the grandwarrior. I don't think they would freeze very well. A shame really, spicy chips are eaten almost as quickly as breakfast sausage and yet actual Mexican recipes are hit and miss.

    The enchiladas turned out excellent. I substituted the deli chicken with the leftovers from the whole chicken we had earlier this month. We often freeze the extras for when we have a recipe that calls for shredded chicken or has you simply boil chicken breasts to shred for a recipe. 

Classic Cheesy Baked Ziti

    Not sure what time D made dinner, I was already in bed. I had it for lunch the next day with the grandwarrior. It was definitely toddler approved. A bit surprising actually. The child is a serious carnivore, often picking out the meat and ignoring the rest. The sauce was literally licked out of the bowl and more was eaten than worn with none thrown! 

This was this week's miscellaneous recipe. Meat is expensive so we try to go meatless once a week - or throw in some pork for variety. I'm no expert on vegetarian vs. vegan and whatnot so I just classify it as meatless. This was a new recipe for us, only 4 ingredients and very simple to make. 

Hamburger Gravy Night!

    This is what my daughter proclaimed yesterday lol. It's hamburger gravy night! Hamburger gravy has been a family favorite since I was a kid. It's considered comfort food in my family. I don't know why we don't have it more, it's so simple and easy to make. I mostly added it to Recipe Keeper so that it would pop up in the menu planner. Mom was what she called a dash and splash cook. Dash of this and a splash of that. Makes writing down family recipes a bit hard, especially when the directions are pretty much "add a can of gravy. If it's not the right consistency add another can". I did make a note of how much gravy I used last night and updated the recipe this morning. It prolly still leaves a lot to be desired, but it really is as simple as it sounds. You can add onions or mushrooms, of course. My brother doesn't eat either and I usually invite him for dinner when I make it so refrain from adding them.

 

The Best Whole Chicken in a Crock Pot

 

    Remember my annoyance with sites that bury a recipe in ads and text? Before I start with my life story, let me reiterate that you can easily find the recipe by clicking on the picture. Also, as a side note, Recipe Keeper tracks when a recipe was last made, probably so you can search for recipes that you haven't made in a while and avoid always having the same old same old. I last made this on 8/25/22. This is really only of interest because after making the chicken, I also made the broth that the author of the recipe suggests (it's in the original recipe if you follow the source link provided in my recipe). I then used the broth to make chicken noodle soup. After 2 days of stuff simmering in the crockpot, I realized that I couldn't smell it. Sure enough, I had Covid without ever knowing it other than the not being able to smell symptom. Home Covid test without raping my nose, win-win.

    Yesterday had a shaky start and only went from bad to worse. I woke up at 2am and couldn't go back to sleep. After being awake for 12 hours I was finally starting to feel a bit sleepy but eyeballing the clock and thinking that the chicken would need to cook for 4-5 hours. I decided to wait and see if D got up and put dinner on while I was napping. I woke up around 5pm, she was up but the crockpot I'd hauled out for her was still empty. I poked her to put her into action by saying, "Chicken needs to cook for 4-5 hours". Well how original do you expect me to be before coffee? So she got up to make dinner.

    Now, I realize that I may seem overly critical of my daughter. I have said that she is disabled, but she has the kitchen set up so that she can use an office chair to wheel around to cook and do dishes. Which also means that the work surfaces are too low for me to use while standing, and I really can't get the hang of cooking while sitting. Also, she needs to stay active, not only for her physical health but mental as well so that she doesn't become depressed that she's only 30ish and there is so much that she already can't do. There is a lot of stuff that she can still do but seems to like having people at her beck and call to do the things she doesn't want to do. So she needs a bit of a push at times.

    I heard the grandwarrior outside playing so I went out to watch all of the adorable splendor. I reached down to tickle the toddler-sized tornado as it passed and tweaked my back. Ugh. So I went back inside to sit and rest, take it easy, etc. On my way back to my room I bent to pick something up, not even thinking, and my back fully went out. OY. I was still in considerable pain when dinner was ready and D made up my plate and brought it to me. I admit, I wasn't concerned with taking a picture of the chicken before it was served. It's usually very pretty. D had snapped a picture of her plate of food and I had her send it to me for this post. 

    After having leftovers today, we'll shred the remains of the chicken cadaver and freeze it for use in future recipes that call for shredded chicken - like the chicken enchiladas scheduled for the 11th. We decided not to make the accompanying broth this time around since we still have broth in the freezer from the last time D had cooked a chicken to make dog food for her spoiled Chihuahua. The spices used in this recipe aren't dog-friendly so she'd just cooked a chicken plain. But this chicken with the broth really go hand in hand, then we have shredded chicken AND broth for use in future recipes. Really great when you have a limited grocery budget.

    Hopefully my back is back to normal before I have to walk to the doctor's on Wednesday. If it ain't one thing, it's another. Good thing my youngest is on vacation this week. I don't know how I'd manage to keep up with the grandwarrior if I'd had to babysit today.

Week 1 Combined

    So Sunday is chicken night, my daughter was scheduled to start us off. We scheduled a new recipe titled OMG chicken. We had a shaky start, my daughter announced she was going to order pizza and asked if I wanted anything. I reminded her that I had pulled chicken out of the freezer. So she made the OMG Chicken. It really was pretty OMG. Four simple ingredients that we already had on hand - which is why we started with it. Unfortunately, the grandwarrior didn't get any leftovers for lunch the next day, it was a big hit.

    Tuesday is beef day. I started making sloppy joes in the crockpot at the butt crack of dawn hoping it would be ready for lunch that day. The grandwarrior was picked up early of course and had some for lunch the following day. For once she wasn't thrilled to just steal bites from my plate and there was no way we're crazy enough to hand the child a sloppy joe to throw if/when it is decided that it isn't wanted.

    Thursday is recipe surprise. It was supposed to be baked Ziti. My daughter's turn and she forgot to ensure that we had the ingredients. Somehow we didn't have a meal planned for the 8th and had decided to schedule Tuna Helper that my daughter had thought looked interesting and bought on her last shopping trip. So we had that tonight and will have the baked ziti on the 8th instead. She was napping, so I made the Tuna Helper at 7pm. Wonder if I'm still on the hook for chicken Sunday. Probably. The Tuna Helper was just as disgusting as I expected. Not a fan of tuna.

A New Leaf, Lettuce Begin

    This was an old inactive blog dating back to 2008. I unpublished the 16 old posts and repurposed it. I've never been much of a cook, nor am I exactly a foodie. My tastes are simple and fairly plain and not very adventurous. Now that I'm older I have time to cook. I'm tired of eating the same old, same old. Having the energy to cook is a different story as I'm finding that I've become a bit too old to chase after a toddler day in day out. But basically the only thing on my calendar is watching my 2 year old grandwarrior and making dinner a few nights a week. Yup, I really said grandwarrior. I am Warly after all and I guess it's time I hung up the persona of warlybabe that I acquired in my 20's and embrace what the family now calls me - Grandwar.

    We have a bit of a strange living arrangement. My oldest daughter is disabled. My son-in-law (SIL) has been her caregiver since she got to the point of needing help with chores and day to day stuff. Several years ago, my SIL was diagnosed with cancer. Coincidentally, their upstairs neighbor was moving. So I moved into the upper flat with my youngest daughter. When my youngest started her own family I moved downstairs with my oldest and SIL. They don't really need my help so much anymore, prolly a good thing because somewhere along the way I got old and slow. So I live with my oldest and SIL, with my youngest, upper SIL, and my grandwarrior right upstairs. The grandwarrior comes and "visits" when mom leaves for work until dad picks her up.

    As grocery prices skyrocket, my daughter and I decided to try making up a menu again. It is so much cheaper to share meals than always eat separately. Plus it's nice to have planned meals for the grandwarrior, though she generally has our dinner leftovers for lunch the following day. Except daughter and I don't really have the same tastes. She prefers chicken while I prefer beef. She likes vegetables, I like grease. What can I say, we were raised in different eras. Turning over a new leaf and attempting a menu plan again was my daughter's idea. I suspect she has forgotten why we quit planning menus before. Or maybe she hasn't and hopes this attempt will turn out the same way - with me cooking all of the meals.

    I'm not entirely sure what has prompted me to blog about this endeavor. I guess that I kind of miss blogging. I've done it a lot on assorted blogs over the years, under different pseudonyms. Many times involving recipes for some reason. Anyhow, the premise was simple. We picked out 3 meals a week, one beef, one chicken, and the third day is comprised of a variety of pork, meatless pasta, breakfast for dinner recipes etc. We started on last Sunday. Unfortunately I have no pictures from previous meals. The beginner meals that I've missed will be heard about again, I'm sure. I probably could take one of tonight's dinner but it's hardly worth writing home about. More about that in my next post.

    I have this really awesome recipe app. I'm thinking that it might get it's own page instead of me rambling about it here in the first post. I swear, they don't pay me to advertise it, it is just so incredibly handy.