So we don't starve

Friday evening: Very late dinner with good friends coming in from out of town. Trying a new manicotti

(although I have just learned I shouldn't be calling it manicotti, even though everyone else does - i should be calling it cannelloni. Manicotti is actually made with crepes. I am not making this with crepes. I promise.)

recipe given to me by my friend Amanda. Hers may have been tinkered with (I haven't compared notes), but she is working from this - A manicotti recipe that is fairly traditional, but doesn't use those blasted manicotti noodles that make me want to burn down my kitchen.

Saturday evening: We have a friend's little boy's birthday party late in the afternoon, so I imagine there will be food there. We also have a (different) friend coming in from out of town (two groomsmen visiting in one weekend - what are the chances?!), and if we're still hungry later, we'll snack on leftovers with him. His favorite food is Tabasco, so anything I give him, he'll just add a disturbing amount of the stuff to it. So as long as I have at least 2 ounces of Tabasco in the house, I can feed him anything.

Sunday lunch - Spicy spinach and cheese lasagna - one I've adapted from a recipe of my dear friend Mel. One of my favorite recipes. If i get a chance, I'll take pictures.

Sunday supper - Redfish with taters and asparagus. And favorite friends. (Yes, maybe we're actually pulling a Hannibal Lector...)

Monday - I'm taking supper (and five extra eaters) to my mom's house - Roasted chickens and cheddar risotto. Both are Nigella Lawson originals. She has stolen my heart with her grammatically correct, perfectly efficient, always beautiful sentences about food. Her very British cuisine and my very southern tastes don't always go well together, but when they do - Yes sir ree bob, it's great.

Tuesday - Chicken Pot Pie using leftover Roasted Chicken. Mastering the artful and economic use of leftovers is one of my lifetime food goals. I can say I am not yet there, but I'm a lot further than I was a year ago.

Wednesday - Subway night at church. I think. Well, I know it's church and I'm not cooking.

Thursday - The family is eating leftovers, and I have some good girlfriends coming here for a visit. Each of the four of us is bringing a finger food to share. I'm doing capresi salad - and maybe some shrimp dip as well.

And Friday we'll start all over again!

Posting what we're eating is really holding me accountable. I didn't do it this past week, and we got off schedule.
There is always room to move this stuff around. If something happens on Tuesday, we'll have leftovers then and Chicken Pot Pie on Thursday - etc.

And no soup this week. Paul will be so sad. (not really.... he is not the soup cheerleader around here....)

Oh! I almost forgot!
A few friends of mine laughed hysterically at me and my food ignorance the other night. I was saying how I love to roast chickens, and love chicken salads (both 'chickensalad' and green salads with chicken in them), chicken enchiladas, dips, pot pies, sandwiches, soup, etc. made with left over roasted chicken rather than boiling chicken and dicing it up (or whatever way one might do it.)

I said, "i love it - it just takes FOREVER to pull apart chicken - I don't like it chopped in the food processor - it gets too mushy - but hand pulling it apart takes me a lifetime."

(I'm prone to hyperbole. I try, in my old age, to only use ridiculous exaggerations - like "a lifetime" - so that everyone knows I'm exaggerating.)

So, anyway, my friends, to whom I'm lamenting about pulling chicken woes say, "Just throw it in your kitchen aid."

I, also prone to know-it-all-ness, say "No - i don't like it in there - it's too mushy."

Friends, patient with my know-it-all-ness, say, "Not your food processor, dear, your kitchen aid."

Who knew???? Everyone but me?!?!? One can throw chicken in a stand mixer, turn it on, and it pulls it apart for you - in nice big shreds, rather than in small, gross, texture-of-canned-chicken-mush? Seriously - who knew?

No one told me!

Now I know. And I'll be trying it monday night! I'll report back!

Learn something new everyday.