Trying something new

As many of you know, cooking the same-old, same-old over and over gets quite boring, both for the cook and the diners. For a good three weeks (when Maggie had ballet workshop in the afternoon/evenings) it was a series of doctored-up rice-mix dishes -- variations on beans and rice, yellow rice, spanish rice, etc., all with some sort of meat and vegetable. While those are quite simple to prepare early in the day for re-heating, even with variations they become BORING!!!! Now that ballet workshop is over, it's been time to "try something new". Last week, I experimented with Shepherd's Pie. I'm not one to follow recipes as written, so I printed out one, looked at about 3 others on-line, and made up my own as I went, consulting the "recipe" for basic measurements and cooking instructions. Mine was ground beef, sauteed onion, green beans, in a tomato/beef sauce, topped with mashed potatoes. Maggie was around as I was making the potatoes and requested parsley and garlic added to them, so I obliged. I was CERTAIN that Abby would NOT like it at all -- she's my picky child, doesn't like meat, and isn't really fond of mashed potatoes. HOWEVER, this experiment was quite a hit! I'm the only one not particularly fond of it (not a big casserole person -- I prefer my meat and vegetables to be separated!). Tom even ate the leftovers the next night. AND they all requested it again, though perhaps not EVERY week.

This week's experiment was chicken and dumplings. This one smelled really good cooking. And poaching the chicken has left me with about 2 cups of broth for the freezer. Instead of the peas and carrots (NOT big hits here at any time), I substituted green beans. The chicken, soup, and beans were all good -- the dumplings a bit heavy. Abby hated it but was "so hungry" she ate the whole thing. She'd prefer it with noodles. So perhaps next time it will evolve into a chicken-noodle casserole.

No exciting other news to report since yesterday -- back to normal here. Gym and grocery in the morning, thunderstorm early afternoon, picking up girls, and relaxing for the afternoon. Tomorrow Abby has her triathlon at camp -- she's doing the swimming and trike heats, someone else will run (when Maggie was in that group she ran).

Oh, one more interesting tidbit. I noticed that Maggie is very long in the body and short in the legs. Abby, like me, is all legs. Yesterday as we were waiting for Tom by the car in Austin I had them measure where their hip-bones are. Despite the fact that Maggie is over a head taller than Abby, her hip-bone is only about 3 inches higher than her younger sister. I'm not allowed to comment on it any more to Maggie - 12 and hormonal, enough said!