Ugh; what's for dinner??

[Mary Ann]

I get really tired of this one. Day after day, month after month, and year after year. After 27 years of marriage, I've faced this almost ten thousand times. If I ask hubby, he just says we should go out. That gets old, and expensive too.

Okay, enough ranting. What are you guys doing? Somebody here mentioned some good soups made by Little Bear. I got a few of them, and really loved the one we tried, a chicken noodle one. Yum! So I'm thinking of a chipotle one for tonight. But I don't know what I want to put with it. I was thinking of making some whole wheat biscuits from scratch.

I'm up for any ideas!

[DorothyB]

Soup with hot, fresh homemade wheat bread (not biscuits) with butter sounds great!!

My dinners this week won't inspire you much:

Supper last night was a banana, string cheese and pumpernickel rye toast since I was at work and that was what was available.

The night before I worked late, it was rainy & yucky out and I couldn't decide what I wanted. Got home - no canned stew, soup or chili in pantry and I didn't really want fast food, so I had: string cheese & a small can of 4 crescent rolls (they don't need butter when fresh from the oven).

[KarenN]

It's out for us tonight - to celebrate Phillip's 11th B-Day with family - his actual B-day is tomorrow, same as Elvis! He's getting an Elvis Gospel CD and Love Me Tender on DVD - he's quite the Elvis fan.

Anyway - Wed night was roast chicken. I have a GREAT roaster that you just slide the chicken on, butter and herbs on the outside, 20 mins/lb and voila perfect chicken. Had mashed potatoes, corn and salad with that. Then last night I used the leftover chicken in a wonderful and easy tortilla soup - just take 2 cans chicken broth, a can diced tomatoes, a can of ranch beans - heat with a bit of cumin and chili powder to taste, then add the chopped cooked chicken, about 1/2 cup sour cream, some chopped green onions and four or five corn tortillas cut in stips. Wonderfully satisfying on a cold winter's night.

Sunday will be a church dinner for which I'm making a slow cooked pork loin ala Wildfire with his delicious apricot barbecue glaze. I did this for a party last weekend, too - everyone LOVES it.

Haven't a clue what we'll do Saturday, as I'm taking the kids (seven all together ) to the Incredible Pizza Company - I'll probably be too full of salad and pasta to care! LOL

[linda]

Karen, are you aware that there is an Elvis radio station? I have been listening to it the last couple of days and it is great. It is broadcast from the mall across the street from Graceland. They play all (imagine that) songs. I thought it would be nothing but repeats, but this is great. Lots of trivia, alternate takes, and other fun stuff. It is carried on SIRIUS radio--station 13. If you have DISH TV, you should be able to find it in the music portion. If not, maybe this is something your son would be interested in (hey, Christmas is coming....) The receiver is about $100. Easy to install yourself. You can have either the car kit or the boombox. Subscription rate is about $13 a month--about one CD. You get another 120 commercial-free stations, in addition to the Elvis one.

Mary Ann--Bear Creek makes great dehydrated soups. If you have a can of their soup on the shelf, you will never go hungry. Their potato soup is to die for. It has won lots of awards--posted all over the outside of the can. And, I agree--it gets old trying to think of what to fix 3 times a day.
Linda

[KarenN]

Thanks for the info, Linda! Unfortunately we don't have any of those "modern conveniences" We barely get 4 or 5 local channels on our antenna, and then it depends on the atmosphere! LOL I may check into sirius radio someday, but no time right now and all the spare $$ goes into horses or kids

[Mary Ann]

Geez Karen, that sounds like a great meal! I'll thaw a chicken tonight, roast it tomorrow, and make tortilla soup a la KarenN for dinner with the leftovers. Shoot, those don't even sound like leftovers! When you say ranch beans, you mean those with the spicy seasoning, right? Do you think that for the diced tomatoes that the RoTel ones with chilis would be good? We do like spicy food. Thanks for the great ideas!

Dorothy, your meals sound like mine when hubby's away! Sometimes it's just not worth making a production out of dinner. I love string cheese too, and often eat if for breakfast. It was breakfast this morning, along with an apple. I often look forward to when hubby goes out of town because then dinners are stupid meals of whatever I feel like at the time, like popcorn or tea and toast.

Linda, I'll look for the Bear Creek potato soup. I meant Bear Creek; I've clearly got children's books on my mind! I always used to make my own potato soup from scratch with sour cream, but that's time I don't usually have anymore. Most commercial ones come up short, but the one Bear Creek soup I tried was excellent. I also make one from scratch that was a split pea and potato soup with parmesan cheese that's yummy and reasonably fast. Haven't made that one for awhile.

Thanks for the great ideas, my hubby will appreciate it!

And keep 'em coming; we'll have to eat again next week.

[KarenN]

Yes, the spicy beans. RoTel would be great if you like spicy - I tone a lot of dishes down because of the kids - they don't do spicy. Oh, and grated cheese is great as a topper on the soup.

And I'll third the string cheese - I just had one with a little tangerine and a cup of green tea for lunch!

[Mary Ann]

Oh Lordy that sounds good! Makes me want to skip the roasted chicken and go directly to soup!

Thanks, Karen! Oh, and no doubt hubby thanks you, too!

[wildfire]

We are having pinto bean and ham with cornbread!
They are hard to beat on a cold windy night, while snug and warm!

GLHR!

[Mary Ann]

Mmmm! We had some bean soup made from the hambone and some leftover ham from Christmas last weekend. And you have to have cornbread with that!

How do you do your pintos, Wildfire?

[Chrisnstar]

I haven't been hungry at all lately. I think I've been too upset to eat.. which is a first for me. Usually emotional upsets make me eat more!

Tonight is pizza from the grocery store... not very creative!

Usually I cook a nice dinner, but just don't have it in me tonight.

I can vouch for KarenN being a good cook!

chris

[DorothyB]

Chris,

Is there a particular brand / type pizza from the grocery store you like? I eat frozen foods at time, but haven't found a pizza I loved. Instead I really like Papa John's crust and Mr Gattie's pizza flavor - if they could be combined, I would have to eat delivery pizza every week.

[wildfire]

First I wash and sort the beans, and then I soak the beans overnight in TWICE the volume of clean water as beans.
The next morning, I drain and RINSE the beans twice, and then I put the beans in clean water twice the volume as the beans and BOIL them for 10 minutes, then turn them off and let them stand an hour. Then rinse and drain them TWICE. (The rinsing helps to reduce the “gas”.)

At this time, I put the beans in the crock pot and cover with an inch of water, add 1 large chopped yellow onion (as flat as possible. The flatter, the sweeter the onion) add 1 ½ teaspoon of salt, 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper per quart of water and beans. Then add the amount of ham that suits you.

I then cook them until about 18:00 that evening and they are good to go!

[Tina aka rhapsody]

The boys and I had Chick-fil-A. I had a headache and didn't feel like cooking so I took the easy way out. The boys got to play on the indoor playground and I got to (sort of) relax.

So I guess I cheated tonight . . .

But it does get old, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year . . . work all day and come home and try to figure out what to cook for supper.

[Hasha]

What's wrong Chris, did I miss some thing?