Sunday Dinner

So our church time just switched to 1-4. We've always hated afternoon church, but have to admit it's not so bad now that the kids are a little older. At any rate, we're trying to come up with a good plan for Sunday dinners. Ideally they aren't much work, and really they can't be since we're pretty much all starving by 5-ish. But we want GOOD food since there are several weeknights (between dance and basketball - MOST weeknights) that we aren't home right before dinner so we have to have easy meals then.

Yesterday our Sunday dinner was awesome. Aaron pulled some ribs out of the freezer (he'd bought them on sale a while back) poured half a bottle of Famous Dave's BBQ sauce on it (usually we make our own, but you know... time) and put it in the crockpot in the morning. I got out some Rhodes rolls before we left for church. When we came home we baked the rolls, broiled the ribs with a little more sauce, and thawed/warmed some leftover mash potatoes from the freezer. Oh, and washed some lettuce for a salad.
YUM.
So crock pot might be the way to go... and the Rhodes rolls worked really well time-wise.

And we got yummy leftovers for lunch today. No more mashed potatoes, though, and the roll is replaced by our crusty bread (but it was hot - yum).


Anyone have any awesome Sunday Dinner After Late Church suggestions?

Now who should I get this for for Christmas...

A small part of the blurb on amazon:

" ...the self-proclaimed "King of the Kitchen Pimps" teaches readers how to become a "ghetto gourmet" with basics like scallops "rap'd" in bacon, shrimp cocktail (Cold Shrimpin'), spaghetti (Bro-Ghetti)..."

Awesome.

eating well

Last night we decided to try out the Corvette Diner which was rumored to have housemade vegetarian bean burgers and delicious fries. Both rumors were true, but that place was crazy. It is a 50s themed ginormous restaurant complete with a live DJ (spinning oldies, taking requests), poodle skirt wearing hostesses, dancing servers, a disco ball, an arcade, an ice cream counter, and more. The dancing servers made Kris and I feel so uncomfortable, especially when we remembered Eva's stories of her worst job ever. The kids loved that part. The lights refracted off the disco ball were also super exciting for the kids. Lucy kept pointing to things, wide-eyed, saying, "Uh-bu-duh. Bah-bee." I don't know what that means but she was having a ball. Sam's favorite part was the ice cream sundae and the arcade. Anyway...

Kris bought me the cuisinart ice cream maker for mother's day (I think Mom and Dad Jorgie have it?). Love it. Last week I made chocolate coconut milk ice cream that included melted dark chocolate and cocoa powder (plus a pinch of granulated coffee to bring out the chocolate flavor, a little chocolate cake baking trick I learned). Pow! That's seriously how it tasted in my mouth. It was excellent. I have no idea what the proportions were but hopefully I can recreate it someday.

Awesome pizza

On Kauai we ate at Brick Oven pizza (no connection with Brick Oven in Provo) based on a recommendation. It was awesome. This was cheese with fresh basil:

Still the best pizza

We were thrilled to find that Boston's North End Pizza on Oahu is still around. The pizza is as good as we remembered.

The pizzas are still too big for the boxes:

Yum:

quick meals

Usually when I make posts on this blog I post things that were exciting for me to make, and usually, but not always, that means it took a lot of time and/or effort. Lately I just don't have time so I am on a search for yummy meals with kid appeal that don't take a lot of effort (but aren't meals in a box).

This savory bread pudding is a favorite quick one I made recently--loved it (we got 3 of the 4 in our family to eat it, Sam wouldn't even get near it). I used rosemary instead of dill and a leek instead of a shallot b/c that's what I had. I went the mushroom route, not olive. I also used soy milk instead of regular. Other quick meals we love: Yaki soba is a big hit around here with my kids, I always throw in bok choy; burritos or tostadas with a little grated zucchini; rice cooked in coconut milk w/ nuts and veggies; paninis with roasted veggies; and pasta w/ bechamel sauce.

What are some quick meals you like?

bean burgers

Just needing to share that Aaron made us delicious bean burgers for dinner. They were super tasty. We've tried them several times, with different recipes/spice combos but this time they were the best. And stayed together really well.
The recipe is from this book ("Veggie Burgers"):

And we loaded them up with avacodo, onion, tomato, greens, cheese, etc.

The big news is that this time the kids liked them! All of them ate it. Hooray!