Dear Joey,

It’s late, and I’m tired. We stay up late far too often, and it’s catching up with us. Last night, we tried to go to bed early, but we both laid awake for a lot longer than we had thought possible, given just how tired we were.

We’ve been doing this thing where stay up late every night under the guise of “hanging out,” but what really happens when the evening comes and we finally get a moment to look at each other, we sit on the couch eating popcorn or hummus and Veggie chips or big bowls of ice cream or random pieces of candy that one of us somehow manages to rustle up. It’s embarrassing to admit, and the truth is, we know better. We know better than to let a whole evening go by without really talking to each other, seeing each other, being with each other. We know better than to silently sit up late watching TV, bleary eyed and yawning, eating whatever snack happens to be within arm’s reach. We know better than to slip into bed and let the the latest Candy Crush level be our lullaby.

We know that to be better, we must do better. But we’ve been so tired, that we don’t want to do better. We’ve chosen to just, well, be lazy, I guess.

We hate this about ourselves, and it’s a constant battle between what we want in that moment (to sit on the couch and zone out with a bowl of ice cream for a little while) versus what deep down we know we need: Sleep. Nourishment. Exercise. Real rest.

The thing that gets me is this: every night, without fail, you ask me this: What’s for dessert?
You really are one of the healthiest eaters I know, Joey – but darn it if you don’t have a sweet tooth.

And I’m stuck, because on the nights when I don’t plan for some sort of dessert, I end up apologizing that the only thing that resembles dessert in the house is a bowl of cereal or that Hazelnut chocolate bar that’s been in the cupboard for over a year. But when I do plan ahead and make dessert, I’m met with initial excitement followed by frustration that you’re eating dessert, again, late at night.

So many of the low fat, low sugar, low calorie desserts out there are really just “edible food-like substances,” to borrow Michael Pollan’s keen description of the bulk of the American diet. Like your beloved sugar free, fat free instant pudding mixes. And I just can’t get on board with that. Experimentation isn’t always kind to me (I will never again serve you chocolate mousse made out of tofu), but once in awhile, I hit on a recipe worth keeping.

Tonight was one of those nights, and pumpkin pudding was the recipe.

So even though we didn’t go for an evening stroll tonight, and even though we ate our dinner after the girls were tucked in for the night (while sitting on the couch watching a movie), and even though after that movie was over we both spent far more time than perhaps we should have gazing into the bright light of our respective computer screens (as opposed to focusing on each other for a few minutes), at least we had a decent dessert that didn’t make us feel so bad about enjoying something sweet after dinner.

Maybe tomorrow we can resume our evening walks? I really miss those. We could talk as we walk, and hey – that’s two birds with one stone!

Love,
Scratch

Pumpkin Pudding
Joey loves pumpkin pie. Loves it. I adapted this recipe from the one printed in the latest issue of Food Network Magazine. It is reminicent of pumpkin pie filling, especially when topped with whipped cream (which I know sort of compromises the virtue of this low fat dessert, but it sure makes it tasty). I used arrowroot powder as a thickener, but you could easily use cornstarch instead. Also, I used organic ingredients where indicated because I prefer to use organic whenever possible. But you may certainly use conventional ingredients if that’s what you have on hand, and it would still be healthier than any of the readily available pumpkin pies in the frozen section of the grocery store. 
 

Ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin
2 cups light coconut milk
3/4 cups organic sugar
3 organic egg yolks
3 Tablespoons arrowroot (or cornstarch)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Method:
In a medium saucepan, add all ingredients together and mix well. Over medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil and cook, whisking fairly constantly, until thickened (about 10 minutes). Pour into serving dishes or a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap (lay it directly on top of the pudding to prevent skin from forming), and chill for about 3 hours before eating.
 

Dear Sweet Baby Nora,

I often imagine you in a field thick with forget-me-nots; you’re at peace, safe and secure and whole, almost glowing as you bask in the glory of heaven in a secret garden all your own, a garden watered by the tears of all those who loved you here on earth, a garden where you run with Jesus while you wait for the day when your family will join you there.

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Your name means honor, light. And so it seemed fitting to light a candle in your honor as I prepared to bake a batch of cookies that I would have rather not have made at all. Perched on a delicate china dish adorned with those little blue flowers that were both a question and a promise, the flame seemed to whisper “Forget me not?” as I measured, stirred, shaped, baked.

Meltaways, they were called. The cookies we made for your memorial. Cookies which – as it turns out – are much like you: small, delicate, pink and sweet – and gone far too quickly. As we made them, Addie stood with me, wanting to help but not really knowing how to help, and watched as the candle burned and the cookies took shape. The process of scooping, rolling, and flattening the dough seemed too much for her little hands to handle, and I was sure that it would be easier if I did it by myself. I thought she would get bored, tire of watching and waiting for me to finish.

I thought about how much your mommy and daddy will need people to do the same sort of thing for them in the coming days, weeks, months. Years, even. They will need people to stand with them and just be. To give them the space and quiet they need to do the difficult work of grieving. To talk about you. To keep you alive in their hearts and minds until the day they get to hold you again. I pray we can be that for them.

You are in our hearts, too. We talk about you every day, it seems. Addie and Mia play with the baby doll Addie named after you, snuggling it and remembering the way you let Addie snuggle you when you were brand new to this world. Without knowing it, you gave a gift to her – to me – when you let her hold you when you were just days old. You will always be the first baby Addie held on her own. (Even her own little sister can’t claim that.)

We still can’t believe you’re gone. But we take comfort in the truth that Jesus walks with those who grieve for you, and that you are with him, complete. Radiant. Full of light.

So until we meet again, we promise we will always “Forget You Not”. 

Love,
Miss Rachel

Psalm 23

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¹ The Lord is my shepherd;
    I have all that I need.
² He lets me rest in green meadows;
    he leads me beside peaceful streams.
³     He renews my strength.
He guides me along right paths,
    bringing honor to his name.
⁴ Even when I walk
    through the darkest valley,<sup class="footnote" value="[a]”>[a]
I will not be afraid,
    for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff
    protect and comfort me.
⁵ You prepare a feast for me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You honor me by anointing my head with oil.
    My cup overflows with blessings.
⁶ Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
    all the days of my life,
and I will live in the house of the Lord
    forever.

Dear Joey,

August was the month of limiting hope and trying to let go.

September is the month of living with hope and actually letting go.
 
With August came opportunities that ended in disappointment, lots of tentative plans, and far too many decisions that had to be made quickly for my particular taste. It felt too risky to hope for something more, and so I kept hope at bay and held tight to my own agenda.

With September came having to live out some of the things August had decided for us. Keep looking for houses. Make do with frustrating circumstances. Find ways to make things work when they just feel hard and wrong. Live out the faith that is so hard to hold on to when things look dismal and different than what we think it should look like. Let hope live and let go of my expectations and fears, my anxieties and my control.

As a result, emotions have been running high around here.

One of the decisions I had to live out as soon as September rolled around was taking Addie to her first day of Preschool. It shouldn’t be a surprise that I cried when I dropped her off; in some ways, it’s a pretty monumental day, right? It’s the day that marks the end of her baby-ness and beginning of her big girl-ness? And yet, the degree of my emotional reaction to her first day surprised me.

She was nervous – I knew it because she told me so, both with a quiet nod of her head when I asked, and with her body language. She didn’t cry, but she looked like she wanted to. When I said goodbye, it took everything in me to flash her a strong, cheerful smile and assure her I would be back soon (without crying in the process), and I kissed her little cheek and left the classroom without looking back. And as soon as the front gate closed behind me, the tears came.

I wondered if she felt abandoned or confused or scared or alone. I wondered if other kids would be nice to her and if she would be nice to them, too. I wondered if she would break out of the uncharacteristic bashful demeanor she carried with her into the classroom, and I wondered if the teachers would see just how wonderfully smart and creative and compassionate and good she is, or if they would see something not-so-great about her that I don’t see. I wondered if she would be ok if we moved her to another preschool in the next few months, if she’d be able to bounce and make new friends and adjust to life in a new house, a new town, a new preschool all at the same time. I wondered if we were making a mistake, if we had jumped the gun and done something that really wasn’t best for her.

And then I wondered if I was being overly critical of us and our choices, not really hoping for the best but instead bracing for the worst.

And then I cried harder because I realized what I was experiencing: the process of letting go. In order to move forward into this new season of her life and mine, I had to let go of the mom thing that wants to see hear know everything she does, to give in to the instinct to try to control every moment of every day.

Letting go is hard. Coming to terms with the fact that I’m not in control anyway is tough – I’m her mom, after all, and giving her over to the Lord again and again and again is so much harder to actually do than it is to say I’ll do. I’m the one who has nourished and sustained her and provided nearly all of her care for nearly three years. I’ve gotten used to  being it, so to speak. How can I suddenly not have be know give everything she needs? I try to do my best, of course, but it never feels like enough – probably because it never will be. Because that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

It’s all a little overwhelming to me.

And yes, that is the spin that happened after I said goodbye to her for just three short hours.

But as I thought about all this, I came back to the magic noodles I made earlier this week, and somehow, miraculously, they helped me sort this out.

Lately cooking has felt like a chore that sucks the life out of me and leaves me bereft of anything worth giving. I try and I fail. I plan, and the plan falls through. I offer, and my offer is rejected. I can’t read minds around here, and I can’t please everyone, and that is exhausting. Sometimes, I simply don’t know what to do, or what the answer will be to the question of what’s for dinner. It feels as though the magic of the kitchen has disappeared a little, and sometimes I just don’t even want to bother (what’s the point of trying, anyway?). But last Sunday, when I started making dinner like I always do, I went through the motions without high hopes for a good outcome (meaning, food eaten without complaint, resulting in clean plates and full tummies).

But as I boiled noodles and melted butter and slowly whisked together flour, chicken broth, and milk – the magic came back. I didn’t have a hard and fast set of rules dictating what I was doing, really, and the end result was a little bit like what I had envisioned, but much much better. I risked failure because I had a hunch that it would work, and I figured the worst that could happen is I’d pull out cheese and crackers and fruit (again) if my effort resulted in failure.

I’d never seen our girls eat so many noodles in my life. And that’s saying something, because these girls love mac & cheese. As they ate, I thought about how my hope for those noodles was far lower than the outcome, meaning I had hoped they would eat a few bites, and they actually ate half the pan. And the more I think about that, the more I realize that my expectations in this season of our lives are low, I guess. It’s hard to hope for more because things often don’t turn out the way think they should. I’ve gotten so distracted by disappointment that I’ve lost sight of all the things that are turning out better than I could have imagined on my own.

And so, I’m learning what it means to hope again, and to set my hopes higher than I have allowed myself set them and receive the miracles along with the heartaches. It’s almost as if one can’t happen without the other.

Love, Scratch

Magic Noodles 
I call these Magic Noodles because, simply put, they disappear. Incredibly creamy, but also quite light, they taste very much like boxed Pasta Roni (do they still make that?), but they are made with real ingredients, so I feel good giving them to my girls. Plus, they are incredibly quick to make. They’re good on their own, or tossed with grilled chicken and broccoli or green peas and ham; you could even use these as a base for tuna noodle casserole, or any number of other magical combinations you can come up with.

Ingredients:
1/2 pound dry noodles of your choice (such as egg noodles, or comparable)
2 T unsalted butter
2 T flour
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup whole milk, warmed
1 tsp dried parsley (or a little more if you like)
Salt & pepper to taste

Method:
Boil the noodles according to package instructions.

Meanwhile, melt butter over medium heat, being careful not to let it brown. Once melted, add 2 T all purpose flour. Whisk until combined, and let cook for a minute or two. Again, don’t let it scorch. Add 1 cup chicken broth, whisk until combined. Cook for another minute, or until the sauce begins to thicken. Slowly add 1/2 cup warmed milk to the sauce, whisking as you go; add parsley, and adjust seasoning as you see fit. Let simmer until thickened.

When noodles are cooked to your liking, drain them and add them directly to the finished sauce. Add any mix ins that you choose at this point.

Dear Luisa,

It’s the middle of summer, and it seems that most families I know are on vacation, just coming home from vacation, or getting ready to go on vacation in the next few days. I admit I’ve been jealous – filling up the kiddie pool and smearing on sunscreen and eating frozen yogurt sticks in the backyard isn’t as much a summer vacation as it is extra work. Two young girls far from being self-sufficient still require constant supervision.

The walls around this house are feeling more and more restrictive as the summer slowly crawls by, and being somewhere (anywhere) else for a little while, breathing air that I’ve never breathed before and eating meals I’ve never eaten before, all in a setting far, far way from the suburban landscape I see every day sounds like paradise.

For the past few days I have felt a little bit sad in the afternoon; when the incessant chatter of two small children is put on pause for a few short hours, I’m usually eager for the quiet reprieve. Not this week. This week the quiet feels like isolation I can’t escape – suffocating, when really all I want to do is break out of the tedium that comes with staying in the same place all the time. I just want to leave, you know?

Wait – let me explain. I don’t want to leave, leave. Please don’t misunderstand. What I mean is that I am filled with that complicated feeling my husband describes so often, the one that makes him long to jump on a plane and get lost as he explores a faraway place, to be able to get up and go and do and be in a world without structure and schedules and responsibility – all while not for a moment wanting to trade in the life he has for the freedom he gave up when he chose this.

In times like this, I do what any normal person would do (right?): I open up a book, purposing to get lost in stories, in the landscapes and people and flavors and smells and beauty they hold within those magical pages. This week, My Berlin Kitchen has been my guidebook, and you have been my travel companion, the sort that has all at once been both interpreter and friend.

I was so moved by the first few pages of your book a few nights ago that late in the evening, when I ought to have been been brushing my teeth, I practically flew off the couch to whip together eggs and milk for what I must describe as the fanciest late night snack I had ever made. And for those few minutes, sharing a bit of it with my husband, I was transported out of my everyday and into a world I hadn’t known existed. (Eggs and jam? Really?)

Your beautiful, complicated memories of that warm Berlin kitchen and the people you loved there fill me with hope that the things I do in this cramped, less than perfect kitchen that so often fills me with frustration will still somehow help establish a deep sense of home in my own tender little girls. I hope that someday, when they think of home, they think of the warmth of our kitchen and of me, of my hands offering them something familiar and comforting and my heart offering them more love than they could imagine is possible to give.

Thank you, Luisa, for inviting me into your memories of your childhood Berlin, for sharing your secret for the perfect Omelette Confiture, and for helping to ease the ache for elsewhere and reminding me that home is a place so many long for, and I am very lucky indeed to be there. Gaining a little perspective yields so much peace of mind.

Love,
Rachel

Omelette Confiture (slightly adapted from My Berlin Kitchen)
If you are reading this and are feeling a little bit blue – especially if it’s late at night – go, now, to the kitchen. Get out an egg, some milk and butter, and your favorite jam. Take your time, be methodical, and enjoy the fruit of your effort. It will make you feel a little bit better about life.

Ingredients:
1 large egg
1 T milk
pinch of salt
1 T unsalted butter
a scoop or two of jam (I used Marionberry, but any good, fairly tart jam would be delicious)
a bit of powdered sugar, sifted

Method:
1. Separate egg white from the egg yolk. Mix the milk completely into the yolk. In a clean bowl, add a pinch of salt to the egg white and whip it in a clean bowl until soft peaks form. Fold the beaten egg white into the egg yolk.
2. Melt the butter in a small, nonstick pan over medium heat. Add the egg mixture and cook, undisturbed, for 3 minutes. Don’t let the bottom of the egg brown. Flip the omelette and cook the other side for an additional 3 minutes.
3. When the omelette is cooked through, slide it onto a plate, dot the jam down the center. Roll it up and sift the powdered sugar on top.

Dear Joey,

I made a big batch of Porcupine Meatballs a few weeks ago, half for our family and half for some friends, and when they were done, they looked perfect. But as it turned out, the rice hadn’t cooked properly, yielding a somewhat crunchy meatball.

I found this out after I dropped them to our friends, which made me feel that much worse. I was embarrassed. I should have known better. And if I had given any thought to my actions when making this particular batch, I would have known that to substitute dry onions for fresh onions would mean less moisture in the pot, which would yield undercooked rice.

I hate making mistakes. I loathe admitting that I have made a mess out of something because it validates that I am not, in fact, a perfect person (despite my erroneous feeling that I should be).

I realize that attaining true perfection is impossible, and on most days, I don’t operate out of a perfectionist mindset.  But then there are those days when I make a mess of something and I can’t seem to escape the barrage of negative self-talk that follows. I know better, but often, I don’t do better, and the mess made in the process is hard for me to deal with.

There are many instances in my life when I’ve made a mess out of things. People I have hurt, words I can’t take back, things I would do differently if I had the chance to do so. Sometimes I don’t know I’ve made a mistake until it’s too late; sometimes the mistake isn’t really a big deal; sometimes a mistake can be made right by salvaging the good and discarding the not-so-good; and sometimes you have to start all over, plunk the whole of whatever is ruined into the trash and begin again, fresh, with a new resolve to get it right the next time.

Convincing myself that a minor mishap isn’t worth berating myself – that’s the tricky part. In this case, I admit that your double portion of those ruined meatballs helped ease my troubled mind. And your assessment of them as “marvelous” didn’t hurt, either.

Thank you for telling me the truth about things, no matter how hard the truth is for me to hear.

Love,
Scratch

Porcupine Meatballs
This recipe is always a hit with my family. Even Mia, our girl who really just doesn’t enjoy meat, happily eats these. It is quick and easy to put together, the ingredient list is short, which makes it a great candidate for dinner when the pantry is nearly empty. I usually double the recipe because Joey can eat most of a single batch on his own. I imagine you could use regular white rice instead of brown, but reduce covered baking time by at least 30 minutes, as white rice cooks faster than brown rice. The cooking time isn’t exactly quick, but I’ve found it makes the meatballs just the way we like them. 

Dear Joey,

During my high school days, if it was Friday night – more often than not – I was baking cookies. Sometimes by myself. Sometimes with friends. Always the same recipe: Chocolate Chip Cookies.

In those days, there was only one recipe for chocolate chip cookies, as far as I was concerned. The first time I tasted these cookies was on a dreary, rainy day when I was in fourth or fifth grade. My mom had taken me shopping for school clothes, which I remember being sort of a big deal in those days. During our day out, we stopped back home for a moment, my mom rushing in to grab whatever it was she had forgotten, and my dad brought out a little paper plate with chocolate chip cookies he had just pulled out of the oven. I can still see the way their warmth steamed up the windshield. With the cold rain pounding on the roof, I took my first bite of what became like a friend to me, a constant, something that I carried with me ever since.

Over time, that recipe became my go-to recipe, the one that I made whenever I made cookies. It was my signature recipe, you might say. And over the years I baked them for everything: for sleepovers and for birthday parties and for teachers and for boyfriends; to soothe friends’ heartaches and to take on camping trips and to satisfy chocolate cravings and to earn a little money on the side. I made them so often that our school newspaper did a story on them my senior year of high school.

Since those days, I have made them too many times to count. But not recently. Although chocolate chip cookies are still a favorite of mine, I simply don’t indulge my cravings for them very often. In fact, when I made them again recently I was afraid that it had been too long, and I began to fear that my memory was flawed and I would be disappointed to discover they weren’t as good as I remembered.

I was wrong. They were just as good as I remembered.

And for a moment, I was in high school again, and I felt a wave of nostalgia wash over me as I thought about Molly and Autumn and Cari and Erika B. and Christina and Erica M. and how we used to bake and daydream and do makeovers and tell secrets on otherwise ordinary Friday nights, munching on chocolate chip cookies (and to be fair, other junk food too) as we imagined what it would be like to meet and fall in love with the boys who would eventually become our husbands. As I thought about those days and the dreams we used to dream, my thoughts turned to you, and our own little girls, and how I couldn’t imagine a better dream come true than you.

So to those girls – and any I have missed – thank you for carrying me through those years, for listening to my heart and trusting me with yours. I treasure those days of friendship with you, and whenever I make these cookies, I will always think of you.

Love,
Scratch

These cookies are soft and gooey right out of the oven, which is the best time to eat them in my opinion. They are nice and soft at that point, but of course they firm up as they cool down. They are not exactly soft and chewy once cooled, but they aren’t crispy either. Dense, rich, and addictive.  Best shared with a few girlfriends and a tall glass of milk. 

,
Ingredients:
2 sticks (salted) butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 (generous) teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 package really good chocolate chips (I like Trader Joe’s or Ghirardelli)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together butter and sugars, then add the egg and vanilla. Once combined, stir in by hand the flour, baking soda and salt and thoroughly mix. (I find that using an electric mixer for this part makes the cookie dough flatter and yields a crispier finished product. Mixing by hand keeps the cookies fluffy.) Add the chocolate chips and stir to combine.

Scoop the dough onto a cookie sheet; I use an ice cream scoop that is about 1 1/2″ diameter. After I scoop the dough, I roll it a bit between my palms to create smooth little balls of dough. This creates a beautifully smooth cookie.

Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven immediately; let set on the cookie sheet for a minute or two and then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Dear Joey,

As you know, I love to cook. But are you aware of how much I dislike planning to cook? I like the idea of it. Pouring over cookbooks and getting lost in words like braise and saute and julienne is my idea of a good time. I have a stack of cookbooks perched precariously on many a surface of our house most weeks, old favorites alongside newly discovered gems waiting to become my new go-to cookbook.

And yet.

Settling on a selection of recipes to make in any given week is not exactly fun because, well, it just doesn’t lend itself very well to my creative cooking style (read: figuring-tghings-out-at-the-last-minute-style cooking). In years past, I thrived on the challenge of putting together a killer menu at last minute. With a well-stocked kitchen, doing things last minute worked for me, for us.

And then there were children.

These days, last minute dinners include Amy’s Macaroni & Cheese, PB&J, grilled cheese, quesadillas, or leftovers. It’s not that I couldn’t throw together something more classy than these things; it’s just that it’s not so easy to get creative with two small children clamoring for my attention, staring me down with hunger in their eyes.

But menu planning hasn’t been exactly easy for me. Plus, there hasn’t seemed to be a need for true menu planning because there is always something to cook with around here, be it a fresh stash of veggies or a nice cut of meat. Thinking about meals perhaps a day in advance worked fine for me in some ways- I had plenty of time to defrost, marinate, or last minute grocery shop.

I admit, however, that this isn’t exactly the most cost-effective strategy for cooking. Maintaining a well-stocked pantry isn’t exactly cheap, mainly because we tend to make a trip to the grocery store the moment a staple ingredient runs out around here simply because we might need it before payday rolls around again. Like a block of cheese or a bottle of oil or frozen chicken breasts or another pint of sour cream. The truth is, we can easily make it through to payday without these things, but we’ve become accustomed to the convenience of having foods fit for last minute cooking around all the time.

My mom and I did the math a few days ago to figure out about what we’ve been spending on food lately, and after that discussion, I knew I couldn’t just play around with menu planning anymore. It has to become a way of life for us, otherwise we’ll waste a lot of resources around here (money, food, time, etc.). But admittedly, the joy of thumbing through cookbooks disappears the moment the pressure is on to choose something that meets all of our family’s requirements. It must appeal to low-carb dieters and those who eat mostly meatless, as well as toddlers and adults. It must be quick and easy enough to cook with children underfoot, and yet make use of a wide variety of whole, real foods. It’s got to reheat well, as the dinner hour stretches from 5:30 all the way up to midnight around here. It’s got to include Mexican food as much as possible (as it is a clear favorite around here), appeal to your love for classic homestyle foods while also being highly health conscious and low calorie, and, it’s got to give me room to experiment and play. Oh – and, it’s got to take into account allergies (sensitivities?) to coconut, peanuts, lentils and possibly dairy.

Sheesh. Do you see why I get a little overwhelmed?

When I sat down to do a menu planning template two weeks ago, I landed on an approach that helped me to feel a little less overwhelmed by this daunting task. First, instead of thinking of it as a “Meal Plan,” I think of it as a list of things I’m cooking (and so, I’ve dubbed my list “What I’m Cooking”) Second, instead of thinking about two weeks’ worth of dinners all at once without any direction whatsoever, I’m doing it week by week, using a template with parameters. Meaning, I assigned different types of meals to each day of the week to take most of the burden off of me; the day of the week decides what type of food I cook. (Example: on Mondays, we have Mexican food.) With this template in place, any requests I get for the week (“Let’s have enchiladas! or “I’m hungry for barbecued chicken.”) will slip into their pre-appointed day.

Take a look – see what I mean?

Sunday: Hearty Meat Dishes
Monday: Mexican Food
Tuesdays: Homestyle Favorites (crock pot soups/stews, easy casseroles and other comfort foods)
Wednesday: Creative in the Kitchen (with an option for leftovers or sandwiches instead)
Thursday: International Flair (especially carb-heavy dishes with pasta or rice)
Friday: “Fun” Food (like homemade pizza, hotdogs/hamburgers, breakfast for dinner, etc.)
Saturday: Something Grilled

To be more specific, here’s what I’m cooking this week:

Sunday: Beef Stroganoff with Roasted Brussel Sprouts
Monday: Taco Salad
Tuesday: Crock Pot Broccoli Cheese Soup with Green Salad
Wednesday: Leftovers
Thursday: Vegetable Curry with Chickpeas (with or without chicken) over rice
Friday: Grilled Bratwurst with Baked Beans and Corn on the Cobb*
Saturday: Fish Sticks with Mac & Cheese*

*I know, I know. I switched themes on Friday and Saturday, but hey – it’s my plan and I have the prerogative to switch it up as I see fit, right? 

I know it doesn’t take a genius to figure out meal planning, and I know that there are many other better meal planners out there (forms, templates and people), but for me, for now, this is hugely helpful. Life changing, really. It gives me freedom to be creative and yet keeps me organized enough to stay sane.

And you know what? I think you agree. You have, after all, complimented my cooking every night for the past week. Without any sort of prodding from me.

That’s my favorite part.

Love,
Scratch

Dear Joey,

Few things make you happier than coming home to a meat-heavy dinner. You can’t hide the way your eyes twinkle with desire when you come home to a big, juicy roast finishing up in the crock pot, a really good steak on it’s last hour marinating in the fridge, or even a big pan of meatballs simmering away in the dutch oven makes me think you are happier to see dinner than you are to see me.

I will never forget the excitement in your voice when I told you I was craving a big, juicy steak while I was pregnant with Mia. It probably stunned you to hear those words from me, as you knew my fickle feelings about meat. Your face lit up as you began to imagine all the delicious ways we could cook a steak that night, without forethought, preplanning, let alone the steak itself in the house. Soon we found ourselves at the store and as we perused the various cuts available, I deferred to you because really, I don’t know what I am doing when it comes to steak. I charged you with cooking of said steaks as well, and you looked so proud when you presented me with a beautifully crusted filet mignon drizzled with the yummiest homemade pan sauce I had ever tasted.

Those nights are rare around here because I have mixed feelings about meat. I admit that it is delicious, but it nevertheless grosses me out a little. When I do cook meat (which is becoming more and more rare around here) I generally go easy on the amount I eat (if any at all) because the truth of the matter is that no matter how yummy it is, it creeps me out a little when I think about what meat actually is (cows, chickens, pigs). 

I didn’t always have a love/hate relationship with meat. It was a gradual change, one that I can’t really pin to any one reason or moment. When I was growing up, I loved it. Some of my favorite dinners were beef stew, pot roast, hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes, and oven-fried chicken. I had some friends who were vegetarians and I remember wondering what in the world they ate.  

Perhaps I have some sort of genetic predisposition to this, as neither of my grandmothers are not big meat eaters, and their consumption of meat continues to dwindle with age, but I am fairly certain that the real reason I’ve lost my appetite for it because of the less than ideal way most meat makes its way to our collective national table. Lucky for me, you accept this about me and even agree with me on the major issues that get me so fired up. The one area we differ on this point is the fact that you still love meat, and you crave it more than I ever really do.

I’m really thankful that despite your deep love of a good piece of meat, you don’t mind having meatless dishes for dinner, and I am even more thankful that you humor me while I experiment with meatless dishes and find out what vegetarians actually eat. I promise that I will never try to pull a fast one on you or change your favorite dishes into meatless ones (can you imagine tofu stroganoff? Gross.) I’ll not let my little hang up in the kitchen keep me from cooking the kinds of meals you like best, as long as you don’t mind a few meatless dishes here and there to balance it out. Plus, you might find, as I have, that meatless does not mean tasteless. In fact, you may discover (as I did) that meatless can be awesome. Like last night’s dinner: it was a winner, right?

I believe your exact words were, “Apple Gouda Penne Pie, huh? (Taste.) Mmmm. Ya. I’ll eat that. (Double helping.)”

Yes, meatless can be awesome indeed.

Love, Scratch

Apple Gouda Penne Pie
This dish makes meatless meals look good. The  original recipe calls for apple cider instead of broth (which is what I used), but I didn’t have 1/2 a cup of apple cider on hand (who does?). You could even use white wine, if you wanted to. The result will still be decadently rich and satisfying, and would go very well with a crisp green salad dressed with a tangy vinaigrette. Think of it as fancy macaroni and cheese, perfect for grownups with a sophisticated palate, but kid-friendly all the same (my kids devoured it!).

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2/3 cup panko bread crumbs, divided
1 teaspoon dried thyme, divided
12 oz. dry penne pasta
2 medium Granny Smith apples, peeled , cored and chopped
1/2 large onion, chopped
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 cups 2% milk
1/2 cup vegetable broth
6 ounces cream cheese
6 ounces gouda cheese, grated

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a spring form pan and sprinkle sides of pan with 1/3 cup panko bread crumbs. Set aside.

Over medium heat, melt one tablespoon of butter; add remaining 1/3 cup panko and 1/2 tsp thyme. Combine, then remove from heat.

Cook pasta for two minutes fewer than package directions. Drain, and return the pasta to the pan.

In a large pan over medium high heat, melt 3 tablespoons butter and add apple and onions. Sauté until tender (about 8 minutes). Stir in flour, salt and pepper. Cook for two minutes. Add milk and broth; cook  until thick and bubbly, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to low and add the cream cheese, gouda and thyme. Stir until the cheese is melted and combined.

Pour sauce over pasta and gently mix thoroughly. Pour mixture into the prepared spring form pan and top with reserved panko mixture.

Bake for about an hour, or until edges are golden and cheese is bubbly. Let cool for about 20 minutes before slicing and serving.

Dear Joey,

We had enchiladas for dinner this past Friday night and they were awesome for three reasons: first, they were very easy to make (in fact, they could be called “throw them together while daddy gives the girls a bath enchiladas”); second, they were so good; and third, they taught me a very powerful lesson.

I never thought enchiladas to be emotional, really, but this week they were for me. It all started when I decided to try a new recipe for Chicken Enchiladas, a recipe whose author calls it her go to dish to take to new moms. Since I was making dinner for a new mom this week and still hadn’t decided what I was going to make, I figured it was a good enough sign that her version of Chicken Enchiladas was a sure bet.

Why I hadn’t thought to bring Chicken Enchiladas to this new mom before this week escapes me. My Grandma’s Creamy Chicken Enchiladas are something of a legend on my mom’s side of the family, and she made them hundreds of times over the years, I’m sure, for just about any reason or occasion you could think of: for holidays, birthdays, and other family gatherings; for potlucks and funerals and people who needed a little extra help around the house; and she would even make them just because. Her enchiladas were her go to dish, and walking in to dinner at grandma’s house was always extra exciting when the smell of those enchiladas greeted us at the door.

To purposely make different recipe for Chicken Enchiladas felt wrong to me, as if I was breaking some sort of family code by admitting that there could be another creamy chicken enchilada recipe out there that was worth making. But I did it anyway this week, and this recipe became very special to me very fast.

It comes from Shauna Niequist’s Bread and Wine, from the chapter called “Love and Enchiladas” in which she talks about the people who made up the house church she and her husband were part of several years ago now. When I read about her group and how they met on Wednesday nights for dinner in someone’s home, and how week after week they developed a love for each other that became more like that shared among family than that shared among friends, I couldn’t help but think about our own sort-of house church we had before we got married: a group of people who that filled that kitchen with laughter and wine and guacamole and and dirty dishes during what we used to call Family Night.

Family Night is what got us through the week, it seemed. We would text back and forth early in the week, planning menus and deciding who was going to bring what. At 7:00, the door would start opening and we would buzz in and out of that warm yellow kitchen, circling around each other as we poured chips into bowls, popped things in and out of the oven, and crammed mismatching chairs around the kitchen table. As the night wore on, we would ask for seconds and refill glasses and play one more round of Hell’s Pile or marvel at the wonder of who God is – and we would do it all for as long as we could keep our eyes open.

It’s been a few years since we’ve done that, now. Things changed, as things tend to do. Some of us got married; others moved away; babies were born; and jobs were lost and found. Life carried all of us in different directions, and along the way the connections that sustained us during those years started to get lost as we lived our new realities – each of us, in our own way – very much like what happened to that little House Church that ate these particular enchiladas all those times so far away in Michigan.

Even though I was making this particular pan of enchiladas for a newer friend than the ones we shared Family Night with, all I could think about was how those nights would never come again, and feeling sad about that but still somehow happy that life took me where I am today. As I layered together tortillas and chicken and cheese, I thought about and prayed for Adam and Christy, and for Felicia and Kara and Jason and Jonathan and Stacy and Amy and Mike. All of them – I couldn’t seem to help it.

And then I started thinking about all the ways our lives have changed and all the new friends that have come into our lives since that time, some whom were going to receive that particular pan of enchiladas and some who were not. People who I enjoy and pray for and love in different ways than the friends who were part of Family Night. People who are new, but neither more nor less important, really. And I thought about the funny way that God answers prayer and the way that He never leaves us even when we lose the thing that we thought we could never live without, and how our needs are important to Him and He provides just what we need right when we need it. All this from a pan of enchiladas.

So you see, these enchiladas are more than just enchiladas. They showed me that things I’ve known and loved for years are still important to me, they still hold powerful memories, and they retain their power to make me feel comfortable and cared for. But they also taught me that there is a place for change and for new and for doing things a little bit differently.

Just because I love these enchiladas doesn’t mean that my love for Grandma’s version has diminished at all; it just means that I have discovered something new to love as well. And new isn’t bad. New is just new, and I believe there is a lesson in that for me when it comes to change and growth in my life, and that’s what makes these enchiladas so special.

That’s why I made them again Friday night. Because I wasn’t quite ready to move on from the nostalgia I was feeling about those days before we were married, when Wednesday nights were Family Night and we would get our fill of good food and people who carried us through some of the toughest times we had faced yet. And you know what? The truth is I don’t have to let go. Not really. I can hold on to the good from then and accept and enjoy the reality of what is now all at the same time. Those days are part of my history and your history and our history together, and if it weren’t for them, and the people who filled those days to the brim with life and love and laughter, we wouldn’t be who we are today, together.

Chicken Enchiladas