Yearly Archives: 2010

menu plan Monday

Groceries gone wild

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menubuttonLast week’s planned chaos at the grocery store worked out pretty well. This week’s unplanned, entirely without-a-list fiasco just stressed me out. (I know that’s a bit lame, but it did.) Lesson learned. I will take at least a rudimentary list along from now on.

This is not to say that I didn’t actually bring food home from the grocery store. That, I did manage. Here’s what I’m going to do with it:

Chicken salad sandwiches.
I’ve been using a Paula Dean recipe to make chicken salad for my lunches for the last several weeks. It isn’t a plate of carrots and broccoli by any means, but it definitely tastes good. And it’s less expensive than buying a bunch of frozen meals, which is what I’d been doing. Anyway, this week it’s making a dinnertime appearance.

Garlic beef stirfry
The sweet and sour pork we had last week was so good that I decided to make stirfry a regular menu item. Regular, that is, until that week when I forget to make it and then we don’t have it again for a year.

Turkey burgers with roasted sweet potatoes
Poppy chose all of our produce this week. It didn’t end as badly as I’d expected. She picked some sweet potatoes, an apple and a tiny butternut squash. That might make its way into the roasted sweet potato dish.

Chicken … something

Au gratin potatoes
I bought a big bag of potatoes last week, and it needs to become Something. I think i’ll be au gratin. We shall see.

Reading

Someday I will go to the Roethke House

I’ve loved this poem since the first time I read it. I don’t remember when that was, exactly, but it was before I knew that Roethke grew up in the same town as my dad. He still lives there (my dad; not Roethke), and because it’s between Dad’s house and Meijer’s, we drive past Roethke Park every time we’re there. But I’ve never been to the park or to the Roethke House.

Anyway, this poem moved me even before I knew of that geographical connection. Its rhythm and that “palm caked hard by dirt” and the “countenance” that “could not unfrown itself” just get me every time.

My Papa’s Waltz
by Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

Family matters

I can’t wait for ‘Rock Band: Karaoke Duets’

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Rockford was out of town all last week, and our weekend was almost entirely planned already. As such, I was kind of expecting that date night wouldn’t actually happen this week. But after we got home from dinner at the in-laws’ house and put Pete to bed, we decided to have a very low-key, “Rock Band”-themed date night.

The ingredients:

2/52
Project 52: Date Nights logo

  • One child at Grandma’s; one child in bed.
  • “Rock Band: Beatles.”
  • Two Wii guitars.
  • Two Wii microphones.

    • It was a lot of fun. (Especially the part where I owned Rockford in the guitar duels. Or where he let me win. Whichever.) I really do hope an all-duets karaoke game is in the works, because the singing is my favorite part of “Rock Band.” And it’s even better when you’re trying (in vain) to sing the Beatles’ harmonies with someone you love.

    5 Songs I’d Like to See on “Rock Band: Karaoke Duets”

    1. “Islands in the Stream”
    2. “Tonight I Celebrate My Love”
    3. “Leather and Lace”
    4. “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart”
    5. “Jackson”

    Seriously. It would be the Greatest Fun Ever Had. What’s your favorite duet?