January 15 = Delicious Dinner Day

We are back to Zachary being gone on Wednesday and Thursday evenings and nights.  For Wednesday, I had planned a super easy dinner- one where you put some stuff in a baking dish and throw it in the oven.  I had a similar meal planned for Thursday night but when I looked in the pantry for one of the main ingredients, it wasn't there so I had to pick a different meal.  The only other meal for which we had everything we needed was a new recipe and a pretty time consuming, detailed one.  However I had to choose between making this meal or packing up both kids and dragging them out in the cold to go get either the missing ingredient for the planned meal or something not so healthy so I decided to go for it.  I am so glad I did!  The recipe was for beef lo mein and as I always do when the recipe calls for broccoli, I substituted zucchini.  Liam was signing, "I want" so I handed him a piece of zucchini, fully expecting him to spit it out but he surprised me and worked on it for a few minutes and only spit out the skin.  I cut the skin off of a couple more pieces and he ate those so he ended up eating about 5 slices of raw zucchini.

That kept him occupied and in my sight as I navigated the new recipe.
First, you just cook eight ounces of spaghetti and while that's going boil 1/4 cup of water.  Then you mix in one tablespoon of beef bouillon and two tablespoons of brown sugar.  You stir that until everything dissolves and then stir in three tablespoons of soy sauce (my favorite).  You set that aside and then start browning the meat.  The recipe calls for "a pound of beef" which is not very specific so we picked out some stew beef since it's already cut up!  You brown that and then add the sauce mixture and let that cook together.  Take out the meat, leaving behind the yummy juices which you will use to saute carrots, onions and zucchini.  Add some garlic after the vegetables are soft and then mix the meat, veggies and spaghetti all together and you're done!  I let mine sit for a while on low before serving and I think that made it even better.

I made Liam a bowl and was just planning on throwing the spaghetti noodles away because he never eats pasta but he liked the meal so much he ate the noodles too!

Zachary got home around 10 and heated some of the leftovers up and loved it too.  I had some leftovers the next day for lunch and concluded as good as it is for the lunch the next day, it's much better freshly cooked.  I've already decided it's going to be on the menu this coming week!