January 9, 2021

WEEKLY MENU 01.10.21

We’re just hanging during the Weekly Menu 01.10.21 – and are happy to do it!

We’re just hanging (that’s the title of the Post Pic, which is by TL Strot on Unsplash) during the Weekly Menu 01.10.21. De-decking the halls around here and righting the house back to it’s pre-Halloween state. It’s bizarre how sick I get of the decorations and how FAST that happens. I adore the Halloween decorations that morph into Thanksgiving decorations. I seriously dig putting up the Christmas decorations that make the house so festive. But when I am done, I am done. I am SO done.

Christmas Decorations be gone!

I didn’t used to like January. It’s cold, gray and kind of never ending, around Erieland, at least. But it’s grown on me – first Bert and I got married in early January, then, years later, we were blessed with Baby Boy. Many (many) moons ago, my parents were blessed with a darling Baby Girl during January. She was, and still is, one of my most favorite people in the world. And so January became a month of celebration.

Cooking is kind of my jam.

I adore it, and making good food for people I love makes me very, very happy. It’s been that way for a while. When we invited Baby Girl up for dinner to celebrate her birthday, and asked her what she’d like to eat, she said Chicken Crepes. I was speaking to another seester a few weeks ago, and she brought it up too. What are chicken crepes?

Perfection in a pot.

Back in the day, I created this “simple” dinner for our Sunday meal. I’d make a cheddary cheesy sauce, and sauté batches of cubed boneless chicken breast with a handful of chopped white onions tossed in. When the chicken was cooked, I’d scoop it into the cheese sauce. And cooked more chicken. And then some more. I was making dinner for 10, and we needed a fair amount of food. After all that, I’d prep the crepes in a special pan my mother had gotten me.

Dating myself here:

When I started making this meal, boneless skinless chicken breasts were something I needed to butcher myself. I removed oodles of chicken from the bones and discarded the skin. It made Chicken Crepes a serious labor of love, to put it mildly. Luckily I can get trays of boneless, skinless breasts now-a-days.

And the crepes? They’re also a thing of the past – it turns out that the fancy thin pancakes weren’t actually that popular with any of my people. So the crepes went out the door (figuratively) as well. That means Chicken Crepes aren’t really, you know, Chicken Crepes any more. But that’s how we all remember it.

We’re going old school for the appetizer as well – Rumaki is soy soaked water chestnuts rolled in brown sugar then wrapped in bacon before being broiled. They are the perfect, fast little bite to start out the meal. The boysies aren’t that fond of water chestnuts, so I have to be careful they don’t eat the bacon and suck the juice out of the water chestnut. But that means more appetizers for the rest of us!

Baby Boy is the Guest Chef this week.

Chicken Tacos here we come! We’re doctoring up basic Potato Soup with chives, bacon, shredded cheese and maybe a bit of sour cream and calling it “Baked Potato Soup” on Friday. Check out the full, Just Hanging (and celebrating) menu below.