Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Well, I warned them.  (That was the seven-year-old, by the way.)  On Saturday, since I wanted the girlies to be in bed by 6:45 in preparation for the time change (the middle to sleep, the oldest to read for her usual 40 minutes or so), I was waffling about what to have for dinner.  My poor hubby has been sick all weekend into today, so he wasn’t going to be eating with us, and I just wanted easy.  EASY.  (It’s hard enough to get kids in bed that early without lots of dinner prep and cleanup besides.)  So I was browsing one of my Pinterest boards, thinking breakfast for dinner sounded promising, and I saw this Cinnamon and Spice Sweet Potato Bread.  HEY! thought I.  I’ve got roasted mashed sweet potato in the freezer from forever ago, and while it was going to be sweet potato gnocchi when I roasted it, that hasn’t exactly happened yet, has it?  And so dinner was born.  I used 3/4 cup of whole wheat flour and white for the rest, and I browned up some deli ham for protein, and the girlies had red pepper strips while the boy and I finished off the grape tomatoes.  (I got maybe two, which is why I went for a grapefruit later.)  Not exactly a Chopped worthy meal, but we hit the major food groups, right?  And it was easy.

(That is, if you don’t count listening to your four-year-old, by force of habit, call it banana bread.  Every time.  Which wouldn’t have bothered me except that her seven-year-old sister then felt the need to correct her.  EVERY TIME.)

The real question, of course, is whether or not it was both easy and good enough to make again, and the answer is–probably.

This isn’t an indictment of the recipe, you understand.  It’s just that I used the spice amounts the recipe called for, and I really should have known better.  They’re probably right for a vast majority of the world’s population, but I, my friends, I am MAD FOR NUTMEG.  Seriously.  I love the stuff.  I wished I’d upped that and lowered the amount of allspice (and really, a touch of cloves would not have gone amiss).   I love my fall spices, but I’m kind of particular about how much of each I can taste.

By the way, I also got my jury duty info in Saturday’s mail.  I get to call this Friday night, and if I have to go in, my fabulous mother-in-law gets to come spend the day with my kiddos.

Hmm.  I better write down the directions for preschool carpool…