I’d love to find some easy but yummy recipes for her to make. She used to make goulash and macaroni and cheese with tuna, and all kinds of things, but she’s lost a lot of confidence, since I’ve been doing all the cooking for the past year or so, and she hasn’t had much opportunity to cook.

Anyone have any teen-friendly recipes I can get her started with to rebuild confidence?

I’ve been very into baking so far this year. I bake something just about every day.

I’ve made these rolls twice now (try some of their recipes – they ALWAYS work), but shaped them as hoagie rolls instead of a baguette or dinner rolls. The first time was for meatball sandwiches, and the dog ate them as they were cooling. (Can you imagine? I made them one day, let them rise in the fridge, got them out, shaped them, let them rise, baked them, and when they were cooling, the dog ate them. I was not happy with the dog that day.) The dog did leave two rolls that the kids and I shared and they were tasty!

The other day, I made French dips, and made the same recipe again. The rolls were dense and chewy and had a fabulous flavor that really went well with the meat and au jus. The crust, though, was a little too crusty – they were hard to eat without really soaking them in the au jus (and my boys don’t like au jus). I will definitely follow that recipe again, but I will try to make a softer crust. I still want them crusty and chewy, but perhaps not quite so much. I will also shape the rolls longer and skinnier – the oven spring really made them fat! I’ll let you know how it goes!

Sylvia picked Krab-with-a-K, shrimp, smoked salmon, cheese and crackers. So that’s what we had. And I’m STUFFED. It’s time for cake in a few minutes, and I just have no room for it.

The kids and I were going to make cookies yesterday afternoon, but Alyson (my teen) called and needed a ride home, so there wasn’t enough time for cookies. I remembered that ice cream maker, and went to allrecipes.com and looked for a recipe that I didn’t have to go shopping to make. I found one that took only milk, sugar and vanilla, and as soon as we got home from picking Alyson up, we got it started (I had rock salt from some ice-cream-in-a-baggie experiments we did last fall). 20 minutes later, we had some yummy ice cream. Ice milk, I suppose. But it was yummy!

Next time I do major grocery shopping, I’m so going to buy some cream and stuff so we can make real ice cream.

I really need to sit down and schedule the menus for specific nights. That way, I won’t forget to take things out to thaw. And it just makes that whole “what to cook for dinner” thing so much less stressful.

And if someone doesn’t post a comment or something, I’ll cry.

Alyson is spending the night at my mom’s, and Ted worked late, so they bought him food. So it was just me and the little kids. I usually make 8 cups of rice, but I made only 4 tonight, with the normal amount of sausage. So it was very meaty. And yummy.

Ted and Alyson missed out. Okay, Alyson is having salmon at Mom’s, so she isn’t really missing out.

The other day at Sam’s Club, they were handing out samples of these fabulous low-fat ravioli, that they served with pesto (which totally undoes the whole fat thing, don’t you think?). I bought the ravioli, but not the pesto (not because of fat, but because it was $8 a jar). I cooked those up tonight and served them with some spaghetti sauce from a jar, and some garlic bread. Even Kenner, my pickiest eater, asked for thirds!

I’ve got beans soaking for bean soup tomorrow, to use up the bone from our Easter ham. Yum. I just love bean soup.

Tonight, the kids are having TV dinners, because Ted is taking me out on a date!