Cooking Comfort

Forgive me. I know this isn't a food blog, but today I spent most of my day in the kitchen. I'm not sure why, but as I wrote up my grocery list this morning for my weekly Sunday trip to Publix, I got in the mood to meal plan for the week. I've done this before; I go in an out of phases depending on how busy I am at work and what's going on with the boys. I had been eyeing several recipes from various sources lately, and I guess I was up for an afternoon in the kitchen. Cooking is a labor of love for me, and sometimes when things are weighing heavy on my mind, or I feel beat down, cooking is a way to feel productive yet mindless. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying cooking doesn't take knowledge and expertise, it's just when you're in the kitchen, it's all about food and nothing else. It's an easy escape from thinking about other things, and the end result is quite rewarding... just say yum.

Here is a collection of some of the things I made today. My feet hurt and I'm a bit tired, but as you can see from the final photo below, my fridge is stocked, and this week's meals- lunches and dinners- will be a breeze because of all the work I did today. So. Worth. It.

This here is homemade chicken noodle soup. No written recipe, just what I remember from a day in the kitchen years ago with my Bubbie. (You can read about it here). Usually I make matzoh ball soup, which is really the same thing, minus the noodles (lokshen) and plus the matzoh balls. But my son recently started working at a deli, and he mentioned he ate chicken noodle soup after work yesterday. Quickly he followed with, "You haven't made chicken soup in a long time." Of course, at his request this was the first thing I made this afternoon. The stock cooked all afternoon, and then I pulled the chicken from the bone so as not to overcook it. I'm just now cooking the noodles to be added by serving as it's eaten. Reserving the chicken and noodles to be added as you eat the soup is the best way to keep both from getting soft and mushy like in canned soup. We will be enjoying this soup throughout the week. My son will probably be eating it as a snack after school. Hopefully he'll leave some for us!

There's nothing more enjoyable about putting a salad together than having all the veggies and ingredients prepped in advance. I've been on a Greek salad kick lately. For awhile I was making Caesar salads multiple times a week. I couldn't get enough of it. I think the switch to Greek happened at the All About Girls Summit when they served a delicious deconstructed Greek salad with fresh crispy romaine lettuce and all the ingredients you see below. My husband has been hooked on Ken's Greek Salad Dressing for well over a year now, and it will dress up these ingredients with grilled chicken (the one type of chicken I forgot to prep today) over romaine tomorrow evening before my husband and I run off to Deep Relaxation Yoga. Dinner will be a breeze and yoga will be truly relaxing, knowing we'll have plenty of time to enjoy this light meal before yoga instead of after.

Tuesday nights are always a challenge. My husband and my son go to Boy Scout meetings, and I have various commitments depending on which week of the month it is. A quarterly work meeting, my writing group, whatever it is we have resigned ourselves to rarely eating together on Tuesday nights. Occasionally however, like this week, I don't have anywhere I need to be after work. If I make a crockpot meal or prepare something ahead so it can cook quickly when I get home, we do have the chance to eat together as a family, even if it's quick. I came across a yummy looking recipe on FB recently- it was one of those video  recipes recorded in fast-time so you can watch it in about a minute. It's a chicken potato bake- all the ingredients were things my family likes so I'm giving it a shot. Cubed chicken, cubed potatoes, a mix of olive oil and seasonings, crumbled bacon, chopped scallions, and you can top with cheese and sour cream at the end, if you choose. I put the chicken, potatoes, and seasoning mix altogether in the Gladware on the right, cooked up the bacon and diced the scallions, and put each in a small container in the fridge. All I have to do to make it, is dump it all in a lasagna pan and bake! The bacon and scallions get sprinkled on top, and voila... dinner is served!

Of course in the midst of all my food prep for the week, I had to make dinner for tonight as well. We eat fairly healthy at home, and rarely eat any meat. We cut down a couple of years ago (though I was never a big meat eater anyway), and since then we really don't have much of a taste for it all that often. However, our son really enjoys steak and burgers, so every couple of weeks I try to mix something in, like meatballs, beef tacos, or  going out for a burger. Today I decided to make a quick stop at Winn Dixie on my way home from Publix. They are the Beef People, you know. They sell shaved steak by the pound, and it's perfect for making Philly cheesesteaks, a favorite in our house. I only make them a couple of times a year, and I decided why not tonight? Thinly sliced onions and mushrooms make the perfect steak, and I surprised my son with homemade curly fries on the side- another indulgence we rarely partake in at home. I love my spiral veggie slicer, a gift from my mother-in-law. I also made cucumber spirals for another Greek salad for my lunch box (not pictured).

I have one of those kids who even at 17-years-old, prefers to bring lunch to school than eat cafeteria food.  He will no longer carry a lunchbox (not cool for high school juniors I guess), but he will bring a Ziploc with lunch made by his mom. DO NOT judge me. I no longer do his laundry, clean up his room, or drive him to school.  This is the one mommy pleasure I have left, and a boy's gotta eat. After years and years of deli sandwiches and trying to mix it up, he finally got sick of Boar's Head. We've been experimenting with cold Asian noodle salads (he LOVES Asian food), and the last two weeks we did salads with chicken in them. After tasting a grilled chicken wrap from Chick-fil-a this weekend, he asked if we could try chicken wraps this week. I grilled up several chicken breasts marinaded in Teriyaki sauce and sliced them up, cut up cucumbers and red onions, and bough bag salad buy one get one and Publix today. I drizzled it with a little Asian citrus-ginger dressing and bam! I'll find out tomorrow whether it met his seal of approval, but if not, we can certainly experiment some more tomorrow with different combinations. I have a feeling he'll like it just fine.

I was very busy in the kitchen. I spent about 4 hours in total, maybe a little more. I stopped only to enjoy dinner with the boys, as they oohed and ahhed over the fresh curly fries and yummy cheesesteaks. I must admit, hearing them tell me how delicious my cooking is soothes my soul.

All prepped up and ready to go for the week.