Giraffic Park, Part II

Hey Dad, can I have a Stegosaurus pancake? 

Errr.... Sure?

And I want a giraffe. No wait, TWO giraffes.

Of course you do...

Old Reliable

Kept it simple this week with our "go-to" popcorn chicken and some frozen veggie bags. Saturday morning the kids had soccer and then we went to a play at the Seattle Children's Theatre in the afternoon, so the boys were burnt out by dinner time. As a result it ended up just being me in the kitchen for this one. The only thing I did differently this time is cooking the chicken in a pot instead of a pan since we were having issues with grease/olive oil spatter all over the cooktop. The pot definitely allowed for less of a mess so that may be the way to go moving forward.

Luggabeast of a Quiche!

Well, we branched out again this week when we took a page out of the BB-ATE Star Wars Cookbook to make the Luggabeast of a Quiche on Friday night. Now unlike the amazing quiche my wife makes, this recipe didn't call for a traditional pie crust. Instead, it just had us butter a pie plate, and coat it in a couple tablespoons of bread crumbs. After that, it was basically what you'd expect in a quiche: sausage, onions (guess who got to rock the onion goggles for a second week in a row), mushrooms, cheese, eggs, and then a sprinkle of garlic powder.

The recipe called for a 30 minute bake time, but we ended up needing almost 10 extra minutes for it to set up. I was a little skeptical when it first came out of the oven, but once it cooled off, it sliced real nicely and we were able to get some nice triangle-shaped slices out of it and everything. I thought it was really good. It definitely had more of a breakfast-y feel to it, but it was tasty, and I was pleasantly surprised how the bread crumb crust held up. I'd be willing to bet that you could give it more of a dinner feel if you changed up the veggies a bit, and maybe used a ham instead of a sausage.

Anyhow, we made our faux-Waldorf salad again since my wife and I both like that, and this time we went with apples and grapes just to mix it up. Plus, we had grapes that needed to be eaten. Oh, and in case you were wondering what a luggabeast is...

Photo Courtesy of StarWars.com

It's this big dude from The Force Awakens. We got a lego version in our Advent Calendar in 2017:

Photo Courtesy of jaysbrickblog.com

Fun with Pancakes

On Sunday we made pancakes, but whereas I usually only need to produce circles or "Mickey Mouses," this time I was asked to make a T-Rex and a Giraffe. Challenge accepted. Welcome to Giraffic Park.

We're Like Butter, Because We're on a Serious Casserole!

Last night marked our first attempt to cook a dinner that didn't come out of a kid's cookbook. As one of the conditions of settling on pizza last week, we made the boys agree to do something new, and so we pulled out the family cookbook and whipped up a Hamburger Noodle Bake.

The highlight of this attempt was easily cutting up our onion. Why, you ask? Because I got to rock our super awesome pink onion goggles. I'd bought my wife the goggles for Christmas a few years ago, but they didn't fit her. As a result, they don't get nearly as much action as they should in this house. Behold, the awesomeness:

This dish also gave us an opportunity to redeem ourselves for our browning fail last week. Now that we were actually prepared, we produced something much closer to what we were looking for.

Now the recipe in the book made enough for two whole casseroles, so we cut everything in half since we weren't sure how it would turn out. Last thing we needed was to bake a whole second casserole that no one would eat. And it's a good thing too, because neither of the boys ended up liking the dish very much. My wife and I think there's probably two areas where we could improve the likelihood of them eating it if we did this again. First, cut down on the breadcrumbs. The layer on top was pretty thick and it makes the dish kind of a mess to eat. Second, instead of using tomato soup, my wife suggested trying tomato sauce. The boys will eat tomato sauce on pizza and in spaghetti (sometimes), but in general they don't really do tomatoes. And it's possible that the tanginess of the soup turned them off. But they tried it at least, and that's progress for us.

To go along with our casserole, we made our go-to faux-Waldorf salad. This time we used a Granny Smith apple with our walnuts and feta cheese. So overall it was a successful endeavor and now we have lots of leftovers.