Meal plan for May 30th – June 5th

Ok, so know how I usually keep this place free from excitable topics like religion, politics, and those kinds of things?  Today I’m blowing up that policy, because I want to talk about choice.

A conversation with my friend that we stayed with in Los Angeles really got me thinking, and even though I steer clear of upsetting discussions on the blog, I really do need to bring this up.  We need to talk about it.  And we need to have a conversation about beliefs – yours and mine. Ok?  Can we agree to keep a civil tongue and act like grown ups?  Cause we need to talk about something in particular…

Where do you store your butter?

The first morning we were there, Troy made everyone French Toast.  He was looking all over the counters for a butter dish, and finally asked Elaina where their butter was.  She pulled a stick out of the fridge, and I saw Troy’s face fall because hard butter on warm melty French Toast is kind of a let down.

The next morning, Elaina informed me that she had left the butter out of the fridge overnight and had to throw it away.  My eyes opened wide as I exclaimed “it’s still good; people store butter at room temperature all the time”.  What ensued was a deep dialog of “really? Gross” with a response of “yah huh”.  No one had to raise $10 million for that debate, but it ended in a stalemate of each side thinking the other had some weird butter habits.

You may think butter storage is regional.  Perhaps.  But I know when we lived in Los Angeles, we still kept a butter dish in the cupboard so that we had delightful, spreadable butter at our finger tips.  When we moved back to Washington, Troy was saddened that our apartment was so cold, every winter and fall our butter was almost as hard as if we had kept it in the fridge.  He rejoiced in warmer weather and the return of “summer butter”, and we even would hum a little ditty to the tune of “Summer Lovin'” from Grease (summer butter, happened so fast.  Summer butter, spreadable at last.  Met some toast…”).  Now that our current house is a bit more climate controlled, we store our butter in a cute little butter crock to keep it fresh and spreadable throughout the year.  We’ve never had butter go rancid on us, and always appreciate the fact that we don’t tear holes in our rolls (dibs on Holes in Our Rolls as a band name).  Edited to add: we buy a ton of butter at once, and store it in the freezer.  We keep a pound at a time in the fridge, and one stick at room temp on the counter.

So folks, what say you?  Where does your lovely butter spend its time awaiting your needs?

The weather forecast for Seattle is showing sun and gorgeous weather (except for one day of rain) for the next ten days.  I’m so glad, as it allows me to use my Mother’s Day present; the new retractable clothesline. There is nothing better than sun-dried clothes, towels, and sheets. I always put line dried laundry in the dryer for 10 minutes to “de-crunchify” them, but they still smell fresh, clean, and like sun.  Our diaper inserts are the best things to dry outside, as no matter what we do, they always have a bit of staining.  A few hours of sun bleaching, and Bennett’s able to wear diapers as white as snow.  Because babies care about those things.  🙂

With both sets of grandparents, I remember certain things about my childhood at their houses.  At my mom’s parents, I remember their epic raspberry bushes, going shopping with my grandma, playing in the flour drawer in her kitchen, and the giant spiders in their basement.  My memories at my dad’s parents revolve around picking blackberries, eating pickled beets and canned crab apples, and running through the sheets Nanna always dried on the clothesline when the sun was out.  Here is hoping that Jack and Bennett have fond memories darting among line dried sheets.  And not the fact that their mom was a giant hippie.

Every night that Troy is on shift, Jack insists that we sleep in the bed in Bennett’s room.  His rationale is Bennett needs me to eat (truth), and Jack is the man of the house and needs to be close in case anything happens.  Bennett sleeps in his crib, while Jack and I share the super cozy 4Sleep double bed. The other night, during our sleepover, Bennett woke up crying (of course), and I noticed his hands were fairly cold.  It was time to feed him anyway, so I brought him in the bed for his meal and to warm him up.  After he ate, I put him on the bed to run and pee (isn’t sharing fun?), and came back 20 seconds later to this sight.

And no, Jack is not wearing a tank top; just a shirt that is too big for him so it rides up on the arms.  He has decided that getting dressed every morning is too cumbersome of a task, so he has started just wearing his clothes to bed.  Boys.

Thinking that ants were getting in our strawberries, I was researching an organic method to rid us of the six-legged pests.  And then one morning I was looking out the window and saw the wild neighborhood peacocks in the strawberry patch.  Oy.

The one head-deep in the berries is a juvenile, and his beautiful butt feathers have not yet grown in.  But both find the berries equally delicious. Overall the peacocks eat every slug, snail, and naughty insect that could attack my garden…and they never touch my tomatoes.  I can share a few strawberries with them.

Meal plan time!

Monday:: Organic hot dogs, organic tator tots (this is shaping up to be a fine gourmet meal, yes?), and salad

Tuesday:: Penne and grilled asparagus.  Asparagus season is quickly coming to a close, and I am eating as much as I can until next year.

Wednesday:: Grilled chicken on Asian crunch salad (it’s from Costco, have you had it?  Delicious.  We add the chicken), and garlic flatbread.

Thursday:: Kebabs (chicken, potato, sweet onions, and pineapple), asparagus, and garlic flatbread.

Friday:: Popcorn night

Saturday:: either burgers, or we will clean out the fridge depending on our needs.

Sunday:: Family dinner

What are you having this week?