Menus and the Kitchen Sink

'Kitchen sink' salad

I got all excited about our green salad last night -- I was just quickly dressing up leftover ingredients that I needed to clear out of my fridge, but it was one of the yummiest combinations we've had. I won't specify which items were the nearly-castoffs, because that would make you second-guess its deliciousness; but fried green tomatoes, chicken, green beans, eggs, carrots, olives, palm hearts, fresh corn, deli turkey breast, and homemade croutons work crazy well with Asian dressing, as it turns out.

Homemade Snickers (delicious) fail

And, I spent a couple of days recently working on the different layers of what were supposed to be 'snickers' bars, but without a reliable candy thermometer (I'm on my third different kind, and its calibration didn't last any longer than the others') it was, well, a little hit or miss. The caramel was too soft and the nougat too hard, yet oddly enough when I put inch-square chunks of them on a rack to drizzle chocolate over, they completely oozed through the rack before the chocolate was dry, nougat and all. So we rolled them into weird balls, and they taste incredible anyway. We're trying to make them last, but it's been difficult -- though seeing the vast quantities of cream, sugar, butter, nuts, and corn syrup that went into them helps a little bit.

So, here are the week's menu plans:

Leftovers ≈≈ 'Kitchen sink' salad

Pancake-in-the-oven, fresh blueberries ≈≈ Baked potato bar

Strawberry oatmeal ≈≈ Lasagna

Corn muffins, eggs ≈≈ Tuna sandwiches with pineapple bits

Raisin-date-walnut oatmeal ≈≈ Baked beans, hot dogs, chips and salsa, guacamole, Waldorf salad, root beer, ice cream

Cereal ≈≈ Stir fry

Fast Sunday ≈≈ Cuban black beans