That Was Then, This Is Now

As usual I start each week with decent intentions to follow a meal plan, and it goes awry. Sometimes the week gets crazy and things fall apart and sometimes when it gets around to cooking time, nothing I thought would taste good  when I planned the meals actually sounds good at all.

This is what I thought our meals would look like:
 Spaghetti and meat sauce, tossed salad, asparagus, garlic bread
2. Seared scallops, mashed potatoes, asparagus, mixed green salad
3. Chicken Korma basmati rice, green beans
4: Soup and sandwich (unknown what kind yet) coleslaw
5. Cooked beef patties with brown gravy, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts
6. Turkey tetrazzini, coleslaw, broccoli
7. We have to go to a charity function and will eat there  (I am betting it will either be some form of rubbery chicken or tough steak. As with every single charity thing I have even been to,  you don't go for the food.)

And in real life this what happened:

Monday:  This was a lovely day. We had some  sunshine and very temperate weather, which made me want to be at the beach instead of being in Birmingham. As a small tribute to that beachy feeling (It was not a true tribute to the weather, I had scallops in the freezer and this was a planned meal anyway.) we had a little beachfest.
Pan seared scallops, asparagus, mashed potatoes, mixed green salad

Tuesday: This was book club night. We have been together nearly 20 years and used to host it at our homes on a rotating basis. Through moves and such we are now down to 5 members and are older and wiser. We choose to go out to eat instead. Sometimes we even talk about the book! This particular night we were eating at Tacos and Tequila, a small locally owned restaurant. I picked it because their fajitas are not only keto friendly (as long as I tell them to leave off the beans, rice and tortillas) but they have live music and a fun atmosphere. We were unprepared for any drama, but it happened. The table next to us got up and walked out without paying for their drinks (They had already been comp'd the meal after complaining continuously about everything) and the bartender followed them out telling them they still owed for the drinks. I am assuming they might have had one too many because they followed the bartender back inside yelling, screaming, cursing, ( using every word I have ever heard as every part of speech.) flailing, threatening, and finally stomping out wearing furrowed brows, beet red angry faces and righteous indignation. The entire restaurant broke into applause and laughter when they left. I blame it on the over use of peroxide. It must have penetrated their scalps and caused brain cell damage.
Out to eat with the gals

Wednesday: This was a glorious day. I began the day with my weekly class, then decided to run all the errands I had been putting off for a while. No one wants to take a trunk load of donations to be dropped off when it is pouring down, not to mention the countless other small errands I needed to do. Most importantly though was going to the grand opening of Ollie's Good Stuff Cheap. I must have liked it because I came out of there 89 bucks lighter, but had 5 Christmas presents in addition to a lot of other good cheap things. I think like any discount store you have to know your prices. Some things were great deals and some things I can buy at Publix when they have them BOGO for less. After  buying out the store perusing Ollie's I did the grocery shopping rounds, ran by Mom's and finally made it home at about 5:30. I fully intended to make turkey tetrazzini but forgot 3 rather critical ingredients, so I opted to go another route to use the leftover turkey.
Turkey chowder, rolls

Thursday: It rained and was dreary. I was beyond thrilled I had done all that running around the previous day. I looked over my weekly plans for February and realized I did not want the chicken korma, since we had turkey the night before and TheHub gets a little antsy when I have fowl two days in a row. I found 2 peppers , one red and one green, that were a little wrinkly so I knew I needed to use them. Though Hungarian Goulash is not what anyone thing of as ethnic anymore than pizza is considered ethnic now, I am calling it my ethnic meal for the week. And I did actually get the recipe from The Dracula Cookbook Authentic Recipes from the Homeland of Dracula. (I bought it years ago for a dollar and though I rarely even look at it, it sits front and center in the kitchen every year during the Halloween season. Going by Marie Kondo rules, it brings me joy.
Hungarian Goulash over rice, slaw

Friday: We had another bleak day and I got to spend a rather nice portion of it cleaning up a rather large mess I created the evening before. I was freezing some more chicken stock and had put it in the fridge to cool before bagging it in freezer bags. For frozen broth I use standard freezer bags that have a double seal so the broth will not leak. I had already bagged 3 quarts of broth and put them in this handy dandy freezer cube . (I really do like using this to freeze bags. They freeze relatively flat and can be stacked easily once frozen. Also, I have no affiliation with Amazon or anyone else. If I ever link to a product it is just because I use it and like it.) I noticed a large air bubble in one bag so I took it out to remove the bubble before the broth froze.

Mistake number 1. I did not take the bag into the kitchen so I could put it in the sink and contain any possible spillage. Mistake number 2. The freezer is in the laundry room and I decided putting the bag on the ironing board would be a great thing. Since it was a flat surface I thought I could just "burp"the bag then slide it back in the freezer cube. Mistake number 3. A mattress pad I had just washed and dried was on the end of the ironing board. Mistake number 4. All my recyclable shopping bags hung on a hook affixed to the end of a cabinet next to the ironing board. Mistake number 5. My shred pile was in a bag beneath the ironing board. Mistake number 6. I only THOUGHT I had resealed the bag properly. Mistake number 7. I grabbed the bag to put it back in the freezer.
After I watch the broth spew everywhere, I mopped the floor and wiped down all the broth covered surfaces immediately, and washed the ironing board pad and cover with the mattress pad. Then I walked out of the room just like Scarlett O'Hara knowing I would deal with it another day.

When the next day arrived this lovely super dense stock remnants required multi scrubbings, washings and moppings to finally clean it all.  And that created a snowball laundry room cleaning which should not normally take an entire day, but my laundry room is a very large (messy)  room. It functions for laundry, sewing, and has some creative space. It is still not completely clean, but I did make some major headway.
After dealing with the crap I created, I did not really want to cook
Leftovers: TheHub at meatloaf I had frozen, cauliflower mash and steamed spinach. I had leftover turkey chowder and steamed spinach. Friday nights are usually date nights here, so this was pretty underwhelming.

Saturday: I had planned nothing for Saturday's meals since I knew we would be going to the Heart Ball. As usual for every single charitable event I have ever been to I could have predicted the entree.
Zucchini salad, chicken with sautéed vegetables, grit cake, assorted small bite desserts

Sunday: We had matinee tickets for Beautiful. It was too early for us to eat lunch and by the time it was over we were pretty hungry. We stopped on the way home and picked up some bbq. Since we ate so late it functioned as breakfast, lunch and dinner.
BBQ sandwich (TheHub) smoked wings (me) collards

Now this leaves me with another week of plans, which most likely will not happen. Such is life.

Meals ideas in no particular order

1. Spaghetti and meat sauce, tossed salad, garlic bread
2. Chicken korma, rice, green beans
3. Some yet undecided Fat Tuesday meal
4. Chili, spinach salad, cornbread
5. Steak, tossed salad, broccoli, baked potato
6. Grilled hamburger patty, mashed potatoes, carrots, green beans, cauliflower salad
7. Chicken divan,  tossed salad

I am taking bets on how close I will actually come to following this plan!