Food Friday

Would you look at that? This makes the SIXTH edition of Food Friday...IN A ROW. I didn't even take "the pill" as regularly as I've blogged Food Friday, hence.......Ryder. Ahem. ;)


Moving on...

First, I'm going to show you a little something that helps me, working mother of 3/cupcake baker/zookeeper/chauffeur/etc stay organized when it comes to dinner every night. I plan my meals for the week while I'm making my grocery list and then I write those meals on this cute little board.

Yeah, I'm a Type A planning nerd and I know it, so what?!  But this way when Wednesday rolls around I'm not staring at my cupboards/fridge/freezer wondering what on earth I was planning to do with this stuff I bought at the grocery store a whole 5 days ago. Short term memory...not one of my strengths. I keep the list in my purse too and on that list I also write where the recipe for that particular meal is found ie: Tasty Kitchen, a blog, a cookbook, my imagination, etc. The family loves being able to see what's on tap for the week and sometimes I even go all "good mom" on the kids and let them pick from the list what we have for supper on a given night. And then they draw colorful and weird cartoon characters on my otherwise pristine board, awesome. I don't go so far as to assign a particular night to a meal because let's be honest sometimes no matter what the board says you just don't feel like cooking or you are suddenly very iron deficient and need BEEF instead of the chicken or pork that may have been scheduled for that eve. Sidenote: My family's biggest and really only complaint about my cooking is "WHY DO WE EAT SO MUCH CHICKEN?!" Anyone else get that? Darn me for being cholesterol and fatty meat conscious. In my defense, it's not like I'm serving them the SAME chicken every night so who cares?!? I pick out and plan for 5-7 meals when I go to the store, planning on some carryover into the next week and also the very real possibility that one of the nights planned for I may just say to heck with it and order Casey's Pizza anyway.  An added bonus of the board is that it makes your kitchen look like an official diner.  So much in fact that when my 8 year old namesake was naming her favorite restaurants to eat at she said, "IHop and Koons Kafe."   YES!  :)

Speaking of being a working mom, have you read the book "I Don't Know How She Does It?" It was also made into a movie recently starring Sarah Jessica Parker. I read the book, and I gotta tell you I was so disappointed. I thought since it was supposed to be a funny book about the struggles and juggles of a working mom that I would enjoy it because I could relate and get a good laugh out of it. But no, it just made me sad because it made it seem like to be a working mom you were basically robbed of your soul and were just in robot mode to get thru life. It was depressing and I just wanted to reach into the book and slap the main character and tell her to GET A GRIP and QUIT BEING NICER TO YOUR JERKY COWORKERS THAN YOU ARE YOUR OWN FAMILY. I'm considering writing a book called "I KNOW How She Does I It AND Happily" because it can be done and I do it (not perfectly by any means but I do it) every day and I LOVE my life. Anyone seen the movie? Please tell me it's better than the book. Uggh, I just had to get that off my chest, it really bugged me. Moral of the story, don't read the book. Thank you.

My apologies for the random book review, now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

One of the recipes that was on the Koons Kafe Menu Board this week was a recipe I had seen all over online. The one I used was from http://www.plainchicken.com/>. It involved a crockpot, a roast, and 3 seasoning packets. You had me at crockpot followed by roast. Nothing beats coming home to the smell of a roast in the crockpot amiright? Yankee Candle should totally make a Beef Roast scented candle, I'd buy it. Anyway, this recipe was SO good. We shredded the meat, put it on hoagie buns, topped it with some sliced mozzarella, put it under the broiler to melt the cheese and then either dipped it in the leftover gravy or added extra gravy to the sandwich, except we didn't call it gravy we called it debris like they do at Mother's  one of our favorite restaurants in New Orleans.. But you could serve it with mashed potatoes or rice or egg noodles too. All I know is it was so good and took me exactly 3 minutes in the morning to prep. 3 MINUTES. When I walked in the house that evening, my mouth started watering instantly. I even kinda felt sorry for the dogs that they had to smell that deliciousness all day long but proud of them for exercising self control and not trying to get the crockpot down from the counter to devour it. Not that they have ever done such a thing.

Here's the recipe:

3 Packet Roast


1 3-4 lb. beef roast
1 c. water
1 c. salsa (don't be afraid of the salsa, I was a little nervous about it because it seemed like a weird addition but it totally worked)
1 envelope onion soup mix
1 envelope Italian dressing mix
1 envelope Au Jus mix


Whisk together water, salsa and seasoning packets. Or be like me and just dump them all in the crockpot over the roast and then stir to mix them up as best you can while coating the roast because after all it is super early in the morning and who can be bothered with whisking?!? Cook on low 8-10 hours. Enjoy!


Happy GOOD Friday!