Monday

I left dinner on the stove for my family on Monday - Slow-cooked lentils with chicken sausage.  Always a favorite, especially with some goat cheese and lemon, served in some lettuce leaves for crunch.

Dessert was Trader Joe's ice cream with caramel sauce and blueberries.

And me?  I went to a meatball party!  That's right, my sister organized a giant meatball party - 5 girls, two bottles of white, and 8-9 cookie sheets full of meat balls.  Anna and I did a pork/beef combo, but there was an all-pork version and a turkey version too.  While they cooked, we ate rhubarb pie and drank wine in the last of the daylight in the back yard.  So much fun.  The jokes were at times unprintable.

Tuesday

Dinner was Chilaquile from the Moosewood low fat cookbook.  I had some cooked chard that needed to be used up, along with the end of a bag of tortilla chips.  I love this dish - it's vegetarian and very satisfying, plus I can make it with stuff I almost always have around. 

Monday Night

Dinner was a French-style barley vegetable soup, simmered for hours with a dense garlicy sausage from Olympic provisions, like an Andouillettes.  You take the sausage out and serve it separately, with mustard and crusty bread.  I also served grilled corn on the cob, adult-style with cayenne pepper.  It was very filling, but MyFittnessPal says only ~400 calories?

I love this recipe because the soup is good, but even better the second day when I drain off the broth, add some parsley, cucumbers, tomatoes and yogurt and have a filling, delicious salad for lunch.   

Sunday

Lunch was the main event yesterday, with bacon corn hash as a giant brunch.  Look at us, we're so Portland now.  I also added some tops from kohlrabi, sauteed in the bacon-flavored olive oil left over in the pan, with garlic and salt.  Two out of three of us really liked it (I'll let you guess who the dissenting opinion was).

Dinner was Chicken Piccata for Robert - his favorite.  For a more intense sauce flavor, I skip the chicken broth and do all wine and lemon juice, and really let it reduce before I add the butter and serve.  Side dish was sauteed bok choy   with toasted cashews.  It was good.  I had popcorn an apple, and wine - my normal Sunday night dinner.

Saturday

Salad:  Kohlrabi, which I hadn't had before so the guy at the farmer's market gave me some for free to try!   We prepared it just as he suggested, sliced thing with salt, red wine vinegar and good olive oil drizzled on top.  It was fantastic.  Parker said it was too sour, but maybe she'll like it more the next time.  They say it takes 7 exposures for a kid to like something.

Entree:  Jim Lahey's cookie sheet pizza from My Bread.  Parker had pepperoni/mozzarella, I had bell peppers, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and mozzarella, and Robert had caramelized onions and anchovies.
Three Notes:

1. Should switch baking pans half way through so each gets crispy on the bottom
2. The onion and anchovy pizza shouldn't have tomato sauce as a base - just olive oil
3. This is a simple recipe and would be great for a party, but for three people I think I'll use the skillet recipe - much better crust with zero oil.
4. Never let a 5 year old oil the pan unless you like your smoke detector going off.  Those pizzas were swimming in it.

Cheese/Dessert:  Cherry Compote over Goat Cheese, with like half the goat cheese called for in the recipe.  I used goat cheese because I usually don't keep ice cream in the house.  This would be great for a dinner party, because you can put the goat cheese in the serving bowls and make the compote ahead of time and keep it warm on the stove.  Very yum.  Even Parker, who doesn't normally like cherries at all, said "oh, you used the good cherries this time"

Last Night's Dinner

Salad:  Duck a l'Orange salad from French Women Don't Get Fat, by Mirelle Guiliano.  Made with leftover roast chicken from the farmer's market.  Basically salad with vinegar soaked onions, lettuce, blanched green beans, orange slices and cold poultry tossed with olive oil.  It didn't come together well and was pretty bland, but I did like the orange slices with the poultry.  Have to try again with a stronger dressing, maybe?

 Entree: Roasted tomato garlic bruschetta toasts with anchovies as ganish.  Very, very yum

Cheese: Stilton.  Fantastic - Robert didn't believe it was a) from Trader Joe's and b) really a Stilton rather than his beloved French Blue

Dessert:  Cherries and dark chocolate for us, oatmeal muffin for Parker