Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

By which hole, of course, I refer to the backlog of books I need to review (not to mention the new recipes I’ve tried). I may still be beat today (there’s no may about it, actually), and I may be looking at two weeks of PTA-ing in the mornings (because membership drive), but I really have to start accomplishing SOMETHING blog-wise. And so…

First, a recipe, because it’s still in a tab taking up memory on my computer, and I made it recently enough that the leftovers are still in my fridge. Last Tuesday I woke up at 3:30-ish in the morning and didn’t manage to do anything but doze between 6 and 7 for the rest of the “night”; while in bed not sleeping, I went looking for a dinner recipe and found this BBQ Chicken Pasta. I ended up being WAY too tired to make it that night–or the next night, as I recall–but we did have it for dinner on Thursday, and more than one child was a fan. (I think the lowest vote of the four was thumbs middle, which is solid.) I doubled the recipe and used coarsely grated carrot instead of bell pepper, since that’s my family’s preference, and it wasn’t really weird with the chilies as I was afraid it would be. (Probably because it does go nicely with BBQ sauce.) I don’t cook with Rotel as my youngest doesn’t appreciate the heat; I instead used a 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes, a 4 oz can of mild diced green chilies, and a little extra BBQ sauce to compensate for the slight reduction in liquid. (Technically, a little water as well, but that was to get the last of the BBQ sauce out of the bottle.) Doubling it made quite a lot, actually, but we’ve been eating the leftovers, so that works. I’d definitely make it again!

On the book front, I finished reading Patricia MacLachlan’s Painting the Game aloud to my youngest while we were in Idaho, and it was just the sort of gentle, wholesomely sweet read that made MacLachlan amazing. The description on Amazon implies more conflict than is really there; what you have with Painting the Game is a family making itself work despite both parents’ non-traditional jobs, as well as the daughter of the family overcoming uncertainty with a combination of determined practice and support from both her family and some excellent friends. Sure, it’s a baseball book, but it’s the characters that matter (and anyway, as much as watching baseball tends not to excite me, I can read about it just fine.) Bottom line? It’s a lovely short read, and my girlie and I both enjoyed it.

And now I’m two steps out of the hole and signing off for the day. Wish me luck for next time!