Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

People tend to spend a lot of time preoccupied with food. I first began to realize this some years ago when I was an office assistant.

Around 11:30 every morning, some case manager would roam from office to office and ask, "Where are you going for lunch?" Except no one ever asked me where I was going for lunch because I rarely ever went out to eat. After roaming around enough offices, the case manager would finally decide she liked where a particular case manager was going and send out his pick up order with her.

Weaks Grocery grew to be rather popular when he put in a hot pick up deli or something along those lines. Of course, it was a bit of a shuffle - picking up lunch. Weaks is located in a poverty area of town so the case manager who went would have to be one who didn't have a lot of clients in the area. Also, Weaks was a well-known area for drug dealers to situate themselves. So while everyone was secretly hoping to get the drug dealers out, everyone secretly wanted Weaks to keep his nose clean so they'd have a convenient lunch pick up.

These conversations took place everyday for over five and a half years. I bet if I were to hang around in the hallways tomorrow morning, it would be the same thing. It's okay though. I've come to think it's normal.

I hang out on a bitchy mommy board and someone is always talking about food. WFD? or What's for Dinner are commong everyday threads. I've stopped reading them a long time ago because someone is always talking about their fresh baked French bread with the crispy crust, the wild rice hand picked  from the paddies that morning, and the succulent foi gras basting in a roux of white wine and EVOO. Or something.

I don't know. I can't cook. Well, technically, I can. I just don't do it very well. Basically, I can crank out some sort of one dish meal that the kids may or may not eat. They hated the African peanut stew but loved the spinach lasagna. One week, they adore chicken noodle soup, the next week it's like I'm trying to feed them shit on a stick.

If it's made in one dish, one pot, or one pan, then I am a generally semi-successful cook. Add a couple of side dishes, and life goes straight to hell. Something will burn. Heathens One through Three have never accepted Cajun Blackened  Mac and Cheese as a real dish.  So we're one dish meal kind of people with some raw vegetables thrown to the side.

That's the theory, anyway. Some days are just shit and we end up eating shit food like hot dogs or lunchables. Finals week, for the record, were known as "Someone Better Heat up the Pizza because Mommy has Lost her Damned Marbles trying to Pound out Three Papers and is Reduced to Wearing a Hat because Someone Lost the Hairbrush" Week. It's nice to not have to worry about papers and finals these days. I'm trying to get back into the groove of being an actual parent and not a parent/student.

Rain's schedule caught me completely off guard this year and I didn't realize that she'd actually need food and stuff on Friday nights. I suppose I thought for the cash I'm putting out all over the place for band, a nice dinner somewhere would magically present itself for her. Oh well.

I spent a lot of last minute afternoons trying to pick things that would travel well and still be filling. They weren't very cost effective, but I didn't have the actual cash to sign her up for the pre-game pizzas. I finally sort of have it worked out with cashews, rice cakes (which are not filling, but she wants them), water, and a lunchable.

We have a lot of stand-bys we've developed for days we don't get home in time to cook. They include:
Barbeque chicken and fresh vegetables
Spaghetti and Garlic Bread
Chili
Breakfast
Tacos
Chicken Noodle Soup

(If we never quite make it home, I'm not above buying lunchables and a fruit bowl. I feel like an ass handing out lunchables for dinner, but what in the hell else do you eat on the go if you're too strung out to remember to pack some sandwiches? Usually what happens is I have no idea we were ever actually going to be gone past 7:30 and then I'm all screwed. I'm catching the hang of it, though.)

The aforementioned meals (not the lunchables) are things everyone is sick of eating, so I've been trying to shake it up with new recipes. If they're worth a shit, I'll let you know. Of course, it could also be that my menu plan is full of absolutely wonderful dishes, but either I can't prepare them or my children won't like them. It's a garuantee that at least one of the three will voice displeasure over the evening meal. I keep telling them this is not Burger King; you can't have it your way.

It seems not to matter so I always have a lot of standbys for the heathen that won't eat. Peanut butter sandwiches, apples, lettuce, cereal. They can take their pick, but it must be something they can prepare themselves because my name is not Mel and they can pretty well kiss my grits.

I'm writing this blog about food and I have no idea where in the hell I'm going with it. What do you people want to know?

I went shopping yesterday evening. Between Walmart and Kroger and two grabbing, begging boys, I walked out with $250 worth of food. That will last us approximately two or three weeks, depending.

I try to make it a nice mix of healthy shit and some plain shit shit. Like Ramen noodles. I consider Ramen noodles shit food. Ramen is the shit you eat when you can't afford to buy anything else. But they damned love them so I buy a 12 pack box each month. I figure if I let them have some shit food, then they won't freak out when they get older and discover there is a such a thing as Ramen. Here, have a grocery list:

Fruits/Vegetables

• 2 heads of Romaine lettuce
• 7 pounds of pears - They were on sale at Kroger and Tuba Girl really loves them.
• 8 pounds of Granny Smith apples. - On sale at Kroger and I have some plans for them. I might pick up another bunch of Honey Crisp apples before they go out of season, but they aren't something I can buy every time I go shopping.
  
• Broccoli sprouts - to go on the salad and on my mary jane bread
• Chives - for baked potatoes. I actually managed to grow some chives once. Very briefly.
  
• Green onions
• Sugar snap peas - for the salad
• 3 bags of baby carrots - 10 for $10 at Kroger. The kids like carrots and I plan to add it to some shit since they were on sale.
  
• 4 cukes
• 3 lbs of bananas - potassium is good for you and shit. And did you know you can open a banana from the bottom? I had no idea.
• baby spinach
  

Grains

• 2 loaves of Arnold Healthy Multi-Grain Bread. - BOGO at Kroger. One for now, one goes in the freezer. It has three grams of fiber and two grams of protien so that's not bad. Plus, it doesn't have any high fructose corn syrup in it. I try to keep the HFCS to a minimum.
• Hemp bread - that one is mine for lunch. 
• Hodgson Mill whole what spirals - BOGO at Kroger. I have a dinner planned for the bitches if Tuba Girl will stop cooking them when I'm not looking. 
• 12 pack of Ramen noodles - shit food. 
• Brown rice
• 1 huge ass bag of Malt-o-Meal fake cheerios
  

Dairy

• 2 packs of Trix yogurt - HFCS. No like. Kids love.
  
• 4 pack of Greek yogurt, honey flavored - I try to expand my horizons a bit. I bought some vanilla Greek yogurt last month that tasted like shit. I was promptly told I was eating it wrong so I thought I'd try it one more time. 
• Daisy sour cream - You can't have gringo chili without sour cream. And baked potatoes. I've tried the store brand sour creams and they all seem to suck ass.
• 2- 8 ounces of Great Value pepperjack cheese. - Damn, I love pepperjack cheese.
  
• 1 lb of Great Value butter - I try to use the real shit because it's better for you. 
• 3 packs of Blue Bonnet margarine sticks - more shit for my Christmas baking. 
• 2 lbs of Great Value sharp cheddar block cheese - We are cheese hounds. I adore cheese. Extra sharp cheddar, pepper jack, goat, feta, bri, mozarella. Cheese frigging rocks.
• 1 gallon of Great Value skim milk.

Meat

• cheap ass sausage patties 
• Wal-mart brand ham
  
• Five pounds of ground beef
• 1 pack of frozen chicken breasts

Canned/Other

• 4 cans of Bush's chili beans (on sale, usually I buy the cheap shit) - HA! The weather is finally cold enough for my special gringo chili. 
• 3 jars of extra crunchy Great Value peanut butter - We don't actually eat that much peanut butter in three weeks. I'm stocking up for my Christmas gift giving. My balls are very popular. 
• 2 boxes of chocolate jello pudding
• dried thyme
• cumin
• black pepper
• sea salt
• Great Value olive oil
• 1 Great Value can of diced tomatoes. 
• 2 packs of Buitoni tortellini - I recently discovered two out of three heathens will inhale tortellini. Maybe it's something I'll learn to make (hahahahaha) but for right now, it makes a quick easy meal for hardcore days. 
• Great Value brand cashews
• 1 pack of Halloween candy - for Tedrick, the Library Halloween Pumpkin
• 1 pack of almond bark - stocking up for Christmas balls. 
• Baking Soda
• Taco shells

Looking at my list, I realize there are certain things I do tend to buy name brand over store brand, such as sour cream, yogurt, bread, and tortellini. Most of the name brand stuff I bought outside of the previous listed were on sale and comparable to store brand stuff, but the other things are things I won't budge on either because it really does taste better or because of the ingredients. I'm not a master ingredients person, but I am constantly trying to cut the HFCS back as much as possible and you'd be surprised how many different types of yogurt and bread have it. Why? Why in the hell do I need processed corn in my dairy?

And a request:

• Goldfish crackers, 2 packs of fruit roll ups, 1 pack of rice krispie treats - shit food. My mom picks up my boys for me every afternoon. This is the only thing I really miss about my former life. I was usually very successful in rearranging my life around their schedule so I could pick them up from school and take them home. They'd usually snack on whatever was available. My mom, in addition to picking up my children for me, does a lot of running for other people so they rarely ever go back to her house after she picks them up. She requested portable snacks that wouldn't be very messy. So far, this is what I've come up. I try to vary it up and have done breakfast bars, peanut butter crackers and other things, but the smaller heathens were with me this afternoon and this is what I caved to. This should last a couple of weeks.
  

So this is my request. Does anyone have any ideas about snacks that are portable, not very messy, healthier, and cheaper? Apples, bananas, and most fruits are prone to being squished and leave behind cores, peels, etc that she really doesn't want in her car. (Which is not really anything I want in my car, either.) Sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, trail mix are things prone to be thrown all over the car so that's kind of meh. I'm not opposed to making something, but it can't be complicated and needs to be shelf stable. KTHXBY.