HJ Waxing Moon

I made a fantastic top-of-my-head Harvest Fruit Salad for thanksgiving, and everyone LOVED it. In a meal full of rich, dense, salty flavors, this salad felt like a palate-cleanser between courses. Very bright and refreshing, tart like cranberry sauce and serving a very similar purpose. Keep in mind, this recipe is a bit of a work in progress. Besides being a dump cook, I also made a recipe twice this big for 15 people and it turned out to be way too much, though no one was upset being sent home with leftovers! Scale up at about half an apple (or pear) per person, and you should be good, even with some leftovers. Salad: 2 Honey crisp apples 2 Granny Smith apples 2 Some other kind of apples (I tried to get the ones that are pink inside but no luck; make it flavorful and visually appealing) 1 Pear 3/4 cup dried cranberries 1/2 cup sliced almonds 1 cup candied walnuts, for garnish 4-6 lemons, probably Dressing: Zest of 1 lemon 1/3 to 1/2 cup canola oil (avocado or a light...

You know how I said we'd already planned half our menu for this week? Yeah. Guess what we forgot? Incidentally, this week was not difficult for menu planning at all, so I'm just going to save those ideas for next week. And it's an easy one too, I guess we just weren't feeling too complicated today. What's on the menu? Breakfasts:  Steak & eggs, Breakfast hash, english muffins, oatmeal. Lunches:  Mini pizzas, leftover soup (tortellini and Tuesday's chicken), burritos, sandwiches. Snacks:  Applesauce, fruit (oranges, grapefruit, apples & nut butter). Dinners: Monday:  Mr. Moon's hosting again so we're taking advantage of his meal being free! I'm kind of hoping they have a nice wine-free special because I'm getting a little worn out on ravioli.  [Out] Tuesday:  Thai Chicken Soup  [chicken; soup; Thai; rice cooker] Wednesday:  Spaghetti, with fresh mozzarella and homemade sauce  [vegetarian; pasta; Italian] Thursday: ...

Why was menu planning so hard this week? We were struggling to come up with something suitable for Saturday night, but kept coming up with things that were not too difficult but a higher difficulty than we wanted for a late night dinner. Which now that I say that, I'm thinking of making some sort of difficulty level for menu items. Fridays & Saturdays have the potential to be a late night, so we like to have dinner in the crockpot or at least fully prepped so all we have to do is heat it or even just walk in the door and eat. Monday & Tuesday nights we have to work around whatever Mr. Moon's evening schedule is, plus knowing there's an early morning ahead so we don't want to risk dinner being too late. On-Call shifts we basically treat as if he's working, as far as dinner prep goes. So besides just working with a "Weeknight vs. Weekend" kind of difficulty level, it's "I don't want this to take more than ten minutes" and "...