I am exhaused. It is about 6pm and I have spent the better part of my day in my teeny, tiny orange kitchen. The boys and I wandered up to the corner store this morning for dish soap and I picked up the June 2010 Martha Stewart Living magazine - Uh Oh! Every single flipping recipe in that magazine looked good to me. So in my infinte wisdom and using my exemplary time-planning skills, I decided to make not ONE, not TWO, but
THREE of those beautiful, gorgeous, inspiring, labor-intensive Martha-worthy recipes for dinner tonight! (um, hello insanity, Melinda would like to visit today) So without further ado, here are the time-stealing, yet tasty recipes that tempted me so:
1. Carmelized Onion dip with vegetables ("Active time 45 min, total time 2 hrs, 15 min" yeeaah, I didn't notice the little time estimates until AFTER I had started) {sorry, no linky, apparently this recipe is only available in the actual magazine}
2.
Herbed flatbread (
Active time: 30 min, total time 2 hrs - strike that first bit, active time was at LEAST an hour, unless you have your own personal sous chef rolling out the dough to near paper thinness FOR you!)
3.
Penne Frittata with basil and ricotta (Active time: 15 min, total time: 30 min, yeah right Martha, I'm sure prep time in the Martha Stewart kitchen was only 15 minutes, but that was probably after one of your minions gathered the necessary ingredients and equipment FOR you !) I must confess, that I only sort of followed the recipe, as in I made a frittata with potatoes instead of penne pasta and onions instead of basil and cheddar cheese instead of ricotta...
I'm not saying that dinner wasn't delicious, and fabulous and deserving of some quality time in a glossy magazine, because it was. I'm just saying that my five year old hated the frittata ("it tastes like stale waffles to me, mom", and it soo DID NOT, it was yummo X 2, if I do say so myself!), my two year old
only wanted to eat the flatbread ("I don't HAVE to" and "I don't LIKE it" were repeated throughout the entire meal) and my husband is satisfied when I make any food of any kind at any temperature, the man just likes to eat. period. He would have been just as pleased with a slab of meat and boiled potatoes. So, although
I loved the meal, pay-off wise, the prep was just too time consuming and labor intensive for this stay-at-home mama with two energetice little boys. To top it off, Brendan has decided that THIS is the week that he will be giving up naps, so I had BOTH boys demanding (and deserving) attention while I tried to piece this meal together. It is day three of no-nap-dom and it's a serious bummer. (My Declan also gave up naps at age two, but I had hope, nay prayed, that B would keep napping for at least one more year.) *sighs*
Ok, off to wash the mountain of dishes in the kitchen, yay me. (Just kidding, Brian offered to wash them, but I think he deserves a little one-on-one time with his boyz)
