Wednesday, September 19, 2012

The great steak caper

We grilled steak again.  Made extra.  Sliced thin and froze it.  It's destined to be lunches next week or the week after. 

My lunch and dinner plans are evolving.  Don't get me wrong.  I love my job.  I love to cook.  I love my family.  All three together are challenging.  I need 1.5 hours to get out the door in the morning, what with waking, nursing the baby, pumping, showering, eating breakfast, feeding the kiddo....  And in the evenings, there's a fussy baby, a fussy kiddo, a tired mommy, and too many people/things needing my attention.

The reason why I chose to return to work half time and early was to get into the swing of things.  I am learning what works and what doesn't.  Making all our lunches on the weekend so far is working.  We made 7 bean, veggie, cheese burritos on Saturday and froze them.  We are eating them for lunch during the week with leftover sides. (and supplementing with Trader Joe's).  Next week we will either do steak and rice - half Mexican style and half Asian style, or sandwiches.  The week after will be the other.  Then it will be pasta week.

Dinners I am still figuring out.  I get home around 2 pm, nurse the baby, do household chores then pick up the older kid at school at around 4:30.  When my hours go up, I will lose those 2.5 hours, so I'm experimenting with how to get dinner on the table because I'll have a hungry baby and a cranky 6 year old on my hands.  Today, it's the crockpot.  I think that might be my savior for the next year.

So weekend: make a big casserole, roast, or pot of something.  Enough for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Tuesday: microwaved vegetables and baked chicken.

Wednesday: crockpot meal, enough for Weds, Thurs, Friday.

We'll see how this works out.  I have three weeks to perfect it.  Last night I spent so much time cleaning up after dinner and prepping for tonight's dinner and packing lunches and dealing with a cranky baby and a crankier 6 year old.  It was awful.  I need to change things up so that my time after work is spent on homework with the kiddo, baby feeding, and minimal chores.

Anyway, on to the steak!

We grilled steak:

pink!

Oh and I also made hummus:

...and baba ganoush, salsa, and potato salad.  But who's counting?

1 comment:

Biz said...

Love the pink steak! We had neighbors over one time and I made the most beautiful medium rare steaks - delicious!

Our neighbor took one look at it and for a second I thought "is this guy vegetarian?" He asked me to nuke it "so its all grey." He declared it delicious!

Happy Friday!