October 26, 2026 by suzanne day by day

Dinners This Week and Last

How many of last week’s planned meals did I make? Stay tuned for the thrilling answer!

But first, I wanted to give you an equally thrilling update on the fruit fly situation, which is that we still have them. Per Swistle and Steph, I tried a combo of boiling water and bleach in the kitchen sink drain. I really really thought this had done the trick, as the fruit flies seemed non-existent the following day. But then they slowly returned, although not to the intensity of before. The Zevo, which some of you LOVE, and SWEAR BY, continued to do nothing. Out of desperation, I bought a package of 100 sticky gnat traps to stick in my plants; they seem to operate by a similar principle as the Zevo, only without requiring a blue light. The traps only just arrived, so I don’t know whether they are doing anything yet, but I have high hopes.

Now back to dinner talk. Last week, I planned three meals. Of those three meals, I made ONE, the Sheet Pan Cuban Chicken and Black Bean Rice Bowls. We ate this meal as a rice bowl one night and as tacos another night.

I did not make Beef and Broccoli because, despite your assurances, I was concerned it would prove to be too much broccoli with the other meal I had planned. So I made Fire Fry instead. WHAT A GREAT IDEA. We ate leftovers a second night, and then I ate vegetarian fire fry for two – no, three lunches and loved every bite. It’s been a hot minute since we’ve eaten Fire Fry, and I do not know why we waited so long. It has everything I love: sauce over rice, spices, and bell peppers. YUM. I have found that the key to really good Fire Fry is whole milk yogurt, though, and I haven’t found a whole milk Greek yogurt that works quite as well as boring old Dannon… and Dannon’s downfall is that it’s got a much lower protein content than Greek yogurt. Oh well. You win some, etc.

The other meal I planned to make was Oven Baked Pork Chops with Something Green, and that Something Green was intended to be broccoli. Well, it’s on the meal plan again for tonight, but the broccoli I bought last week had developed a five-o’clock mold shadow, so into the garbage it went. That’s what you get for shirking your meal plan, I guess: moldy broccoli. I’ll sauté some peas and shallots for tonight’s Something Green.

Yesterday, I made some chili, which I find pairs perfectly with fall weather and football. We have plenty of chili leftover, so I’m anticipating a repeat of that this week. But what else?

DINNERS FOR THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 26

Oven Baked Pork Chops with Something Green: Let’s just put this back on the meal plan, for the sake of completeness.
Fried Rice with Some Sort of Protein:I would like to eat fried rice with shrimp, but I suspect my husband would prefer chicken. I may end up mish-mashing some recipes together (doesn’t fried rice usually have ginger in it???), but I chose this one because it does not require oyster sauce. I don’t have oyster sauce on hand, and it’s one of those things I wouldn’t use very often if I bought it.
Guiness Beef Stew: I’m in a stew sort of mood. This seems like a good option for a Halloween-y weekend.

Carla has a big test this week, and for her post-test treat she has requested Taco Bell and apple crisp. I plan to make the apple crisp because I’m not aware that Taco Bell has it on the menu, and… even if they did have it on the menu, I might choose to make it anyway. Do you have a favorite recipe for apple crisp? If it helps, I like mine to have lots of crisp oaty goodness in among all the apples.

What’s on your meal plan this week? Any carryovers from last week?

October 21, 2026 by suzanne day by day

Grumbles and Grievances

I made cinnamon apple muffins yesterday, despite learning during the flour measuring portion of the baking that a) my flour was BREAD flour and b) I had already filled my Tupperware flour container with said flour, except that it hadn’t been empty, so the new bread flour is now mixed with an unknown amount of old all-purpose flour.

Blogger continues to be super weird. Some Blogger blogs allow me to make comments as per usual. Other Blogger blogs only work if I open an “incognito” window and comment there. A small number of Blogger blogs don’t let me comment at ALL. Why. What the hell.

A person I deal with regularly assured me more than a year ago that they didn’t have a specific type of equipment we needed to work together. Not only that, but they were unable, for various unsolvable reasons, to procure the equipment. We have – Tim Gunn voice – made it work, but our workaround, which always had limitations, is growing increasingly cumbersome. Last week, in a fit of irritation, I reached out to this person’s superior to ask for a resolution. Turns out, the equipment was available ALL ALONG. I am… so annoyed.

Our choices of online retailers continue to drive me bonkers. I placed an order for Halloween stuff, chose the arrival date that supposedly means fewer boxes, and then watched as everything arrived separately. Wait – that’s not entirely true; the tube of black lipstick was stuck in with one of the items. But what’s annoying me more than that is that the delivery people seem to delight in leaving the boxes in the worst possible place. A few weeks ago, “the worst possible place” was on the edge of the stoop furthest away from the house, when it was actively raining and they would have had to move it six inches at most for it to be under the overhang. But yesterday, they left a box on our driveway, smack in the center of the closed garage door, in the perfect spot for my husband to run over it on his way to work. Thank goodness I checked my email and saw the notification that said “Delivered 1 Item: Pet Supplies” because it’s not like anyone ever rings the bell anymore. I was able to swoop out and scoop it up before my husband unknowingly destroyed it.

We have a fruit fly infestation. In the past, an aging banana or a pot of cat grass that had been around too long might attract a handful of fruit flies. But it seems like there are dozens of them, flitting around my house. I have eliminated all fruit, garbage, and plants with the potential to harbor them. I have scrubbed. I have sprayed. I have vacuumed. They persist!

Related: My husband stopped on the way home to buy a Zevo, which is apparently something he and my daughter know about and I do not. We set it up and were gratified to see that two fruit flies immolated themselves upon the sticky tape almost immediately. The remaining fruit flies must be smarter than they look because the rest of them avoided the Zevo. I now have a dish of apple cider vinegar and soap sitting out next to the Zevo. So far, the fruit flies seem happy to congregate around the rim of the dish without taking a dip.

We are currently having work done on the exterior of our house (yay!) and it makes me feel trapped in the house (boo).

The book I am currently listening to is REALLY GOOD and engrossing and creepy… but it’s also really upsetting because it’s about bullying and murder and being a teenage girl. But it’s SO GOOD I can’t stop listening.

Carla asked me to take her to the dollar store yesterday after school to get nail glue and Pokemon cards and they are alllllllllll decked out for Christmas. It is still October. I CANNOT DEAL.

You know who else who has some serious grievances? Lenny.
He is, shall we say, not loving the bat costume (aka Pet Supplies) that Carla ordered for him.

What’s grumping you out this week?

October 19, 2026 by suzanne day by day

Dinners This Week and Last, SPAGHETTI

I did a fair amount of cooking this past week, mainly because SPORTS ARE OVER! Woot! What did we eat? Pizza, pasta with meat sauce, red curry, leftover honey chipotle chicken tacos and leftovers.

This reminds me, when I was growing up I called “pasta with meat sauce” SPAGHETTI. That was the type of noodle we used in my house, and the meat sauce was ground beef with Ragu and some spices. That is exactly how I make it these days, but the noodle shape is usually penne instead of spaghetti. Nonetheless, I refer to it as SPAGHETTI.

When the sauce was on the stove, Carla asked what I was making. “Spaghetti,” I told her. “That’s not spaghetti,” she noted, eyeing my plate. “That’s noodles with red stuff on it.” Fair point, observant child.

And yet… I don’t think I can stop referring to this meal as SPAGHETTI. My husband and I both know what I mean; it’s not like Carla deigns to eat this meal. (She has some plain noodles, meatballs, cherry tomatoes, and green beans, which feels similar to me and she will eat all those things.)

When my husband was growing up, his mom made something the whole family called Saturday Chicken. I believe it was a lemony breaded chicken dish, but who would know that from the name? When I was growing up, my mom made something we called Mommy Pizza. It was just… pizza, but that was the way we referred to it. Maybe to differentiate it from the Pizza Hut pizza my dad sometimes brought home on Fridays? Oh! She also made something we called Seashells, which was a pasta dish with Velveeta, corn, red peppers, and ground beef. Do you have any meals like this from your family-of-origin, or family-of-now? Meals that have family-based names that might be completely mysterious to others?

Well, I am getting us well and truly distracted from the main point of this post, which is to figure out dinners for the week ahead. Let’s see. What sounds good?

DINNERS FOR THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 19

Leftovers: We still have leftover spaghetti and pizza, and I am for sure going to force my husband to eat those things until they are gone rather than make something new.

Beef and Broccoli: My husband and I used to eat this ALL the time; I wonder when and why it fell out of favor?

Oven Baked Pork Chops with Something Green: Hmm. Usually I make this with steamed broccoli. Is two nights of broccoli too much broccoli? Maybe I could do green beans instead.

Sheet Pan Cuban Chicken and Black Bean Rice Bowl: I always think fondly of Ernie (hi, Ernie!) when I make this, because she recommended it to me years ago. I’ve kind of been off chicken lately, but this meal is always so good.

That seems like a pretty good lineup. What are you eating for dinner this week?

DINNERS FOR THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 26

You know who else who has some serious grievances? Lenny. He is, shall we say, not loving the bat costume (aka Pet Supplies) that Carla ordered for him.

DINNERS FOR THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 19

You know who else who has some serious grievances? Lenny.
He is, shall we say, not loving the bat costume (aka Pet Supplies) that Carla ordered for him.