Another day in the kitchen

This week is Teacher Appreciation week and my friend Melissa (who is a teacher) gave me some advice on what was her favorite thing parents did for her class when she was teaching. She told me about a time that they all made dinner for her for a week and delivered it to her home. She said it was so nice to not have to worry about cooking and it was fun to see them outside of school. I thought this was a great idea! I'm always cooking a meal for someone who needs it because they just had a baby or are sick (or have family members who are sick), but never for someone just a sign of appreciation. I sent an email out to the parents in Morgan's classroom and we've arranged for Morgan's teacher to receive breakfast at school every morning and to have dinner delivered each night.

I signed up for the first night, and it was a tricky one because Morgan's teacher's daughters both had softball games in the evening. So, I planned to do pulled pork, oven fries and tomato-cucumber salad to bring to them at the ball park. Lance had even baked cranberry walnut chocolate chip cookies for them! I thought it would be fun to see the girls play, to give Trish an opportunity to show off how much she's adored, and it would be nice for them to eat dinner before they were starved after the games were over. I loaded up the food, some plates, napkins, utensils and condiments into my bags and Morgan and I took off to deliver the meal. Trish loved it and I couldn't have been happier to see the big grin on her face as she sat there eating pulled pork while we all watched her girls play softball!

Besides getting that stuff prepped today, I also took advantage of some of the chicken meat I had from the roasted chicken I made for dinner last night to come up with a new lunch time creation. Mango Chicken Salad Lettuce Wraps. Basically, it was the roasted chicken, some celery, mango, salt, poppy seeds, and mayonnaise. I mixed up the salad and served them on romaine lettuce leaves. They were good, but needed a little sweetness added (finally added some Splenda) and maybe a little kick next time.