So. Food.

As any of you who I've spoken to in the last two years know, the food situation in Price is dismal. I talk about it incessantly ("There's Greek Streak, run by a Mexican family, where everything is served with a side of spaghetti or Farleno's where salt is the only spice used, and used heavily, or ..." you know, you've heard me). Every few months P, in his eternal optimist way and I, in my easily swayed by him way, will try again. Like it might have changed...? It hasn't.

At some point I realized I would be cooking every night of the week, week in and week out. Cooking hasn't come easily to me (in a pre-marriage conversation I described it as "drudgery"). I have to meal plan, which means at the end of the week I have the plan, jotted on a piece of paper. That piece of paper symbolizes quite a bit of effort and I struggle to throw it away. And so I have stuck in the back of my recipe binder weeks and weeks worth of meal notes.

Here's the week before last:

1/13, Fri - Crepes, savory: spinach, grilled chicken in roux or omelet like scrambled eggs (for the kids) dessert: fresh blackberries and strawberries in cream with homemade caramel sauce

Sat - In Provo (hallelujah, yes, Provo has become a food destination for me

Sun - chicken tikka over rice with naan cooked on the grill

Mon - Black bean soup with cornbread

Tues - Chicken enchiladas with leftover black bean soup

Wed - Tomato soup (made from garden tomatoes that my sister in law helped me bottle) and homemade whole wheat bread

Thurs - Leftover enchiladas

And this past week's:

1/20, Fri - Boxed Mac 'n' cheese (I made the mistake of asking N what he wanted) and grilled chicken green salad. Chicken not used in enchiladas.

Sat - Grilled black pepper tuna steaks, cous cous, butternut squash (the last one from the garden)

Sun - at family gathering

Mon - Lentil loaf (new recipe), with baked potato and carrots

Tues - Sweet potato, carrot, & apple soup with homemade artisan bread

Wed - pasta with chicken, vegetables and alfredo sauce

Thurs - leftovers

So you might be seeing more menu list, as I strive to immortalize the effects of the small town life we've chosen to live and maybe I'll be able to throw away those slips of paper.