HJ Waxing Moon

When you're used to having low appetite, tight schedules, and blood sugar imbalances, quick & easy meals become old favorites and comfort foods. Especially when you can make them using a minimum of dishes. Somewhere along the way I learned to make "nachos" using only one spoon and a bowl. Underneath, put a layer of beans and/or seasoned ground beef (or refried beans with cheese & salsa, warmed up). Then a layer of sour cream, salsa, and salsa con queso, all sitting next to each other so you can get one or two at a time. Top with diced avocado, olives if you like them, onions, maybe some shredded cheese. Dip in some corn chips, trying to get a few flavors at once, switching it up every few bites. It's a meal that can be made in 5 minutes or less, has built-in variety, and doesn't make too many dishes. The trick is to rinse the spoon between each thing as you dish it out, and to do the queso last (because it doesn't rinse off easily). Make sure yo...

That's what we call those mini elbow noodles with yellow powder cheese in a box. Easy, cheap comfort food, delicious poison. When the Mister gets called into work early and stays late, when you forgot to thaw the meat for meatballs or make the fresh mozzarella cheese, well, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Corned beef, cooked not-long-enough in the crockpot. Colcannon, AKA mashed potatoes & sauteed cabbage (or the cabbage can be cooked in with the corned beef). Carrots, cooked with the corned beef until dinner time when they weren't done yet so I used the leftover potato water to finish them off faster. Pops requested that next time we cooked off the cabbage & potatoes in chunks in with the meat, and Mum prefers it that way as well. I decided I definitely prefer the cabbage that way, myself. But I prefer mashed potatoes with it, and colcannon's the only way to get Mr. Moon to eat cabbage. It's not exactly difficult to scoop out the potatoes for two plates and make the rest into mashers, scoop mine out then mix the cabbage into Mr. Moon's. And I love having simple solutions that make everyone happy!

Thursday was a wild day. We picked up some dirt from freecycle to help fill in some of these lackluster garden beds that are full of rocks, and Mr. Moon ended up working wayyyy longer than expected trying to get the TV schedule done for the bar. Wouldn't have taken so long if we'd been doing it the way I thought to begin with, but his boss had an idea that SOUNDED good in theory until we found it didn't work in practice and had already committed over an hour to doing it that way. Ah, well. Life goes on, and I got a burger and beer for lunch for helping out. It was a BIG burger and we weren't interested in even having date night, let alone making Mr. Moon's special chicken dish, so we postponed. I was peckish at bedtime so Mr. Moon made me a quesadilla! I ate half and shared with him, I was getting so sleepy I couldn't even eat. And that's how I ended up not posting about it last night. But it was exactly what I needed when I needed it, fast and tasty,...

Gosh, this challenge is really challenging me! I've never been much of a shutter-bug, so remembering to take pictures before I do things has been really difficult. Like dinner today, for instance.  Mum & Pops had leftover soup. It was scheduled to be split pea from the freezer, but apparently we did in fact eat the last one and I don't remember it (also it could be stashed at the back of the shelf right where I think it is and we just can't see it). Mr. Moon pulled out a leftover frozen tortilla soup, but Mum didn't know how to reheat it from half-frozen and I wasn't feeling well enough to even do that much at that point. So they had leftover seafood chowder from... well probably a week ago now. Anyway it smelled fine and could reasonably be served in a restaurant so she decided to risk it.  Mr. Moon and I shared a pork country style rib, and each had a full mini-loaf-pan of broccoli mac & cheese. Now, I only ended up with a 5 oz portion of meat an...

You know how last week I mentioned that we managed to keep up on the laundry while we did it? This week... not so much. I think the football game got away from us, and then we suddenly scored free firewood from Freecycle that ended up being a debacle and the next thing I knew... well, Mr. Moon needed to vacuum and I needed to get things off the floor for that to happen and to get to the washer & dryer so I could wash a load of towels and that's how at 11pm last night I ended up with this pile on my bed waiting to be folded. Of course what better time to be re-arranging closet shelves, right? Because clearly I needed space to put away the sweaters I was about to fold. And that's how I ended up folding clothes until midnight and then sitting down out of boredom, frustration and tiredness, watching Mr. Moon fold laundry while I blogged about dinner. I really WANT to figure out what it is about laundry that gets to me. I know a LOT of it has to do with the pain I get i...

The menu says salmon & broccoli, but Mum had oral surgery and Pops had a class that neither one bothered to contribute to the schedule before the menu was planned. So Pineapple salmon has been bumped to next week (benefits of cooking from frozen), we'll make some lunch salad with the broccoli, and Mr. Moon and I had to come up with something else for dinner. I hate baked nachos, and I hate restaurant nachos, so I don't know why I thought this was a good idea. I guess I wanted to give it a shot, and perhaps end up with food that was still hot when I get to eating it, unlike when I usually do nachos. BAD PLAN. Layer of chips, lots of cheese, black beans, diced onion. Layer of chips, smoked pulled pork, salsa, Tapatio, cheese. Bake on 350 for about 15-20 minutes. Cut in half and serve, topped with sour cream and scallions, eat with a fork. Mr. Moon loved it. I stopped halfway through because I was frustrated, bored, and annoyed, much to his excitement since it mean...