Breana Hogan
Professor Miller
ENG 110 H4
4 October 2017
Monday Meals
Making a meal that everyone in my house will enjoy is nearly impossible. I come from a family of six where my parents got “lucky” and had four girls. I say lucky because we are all very set in our ways, for example I am a picky eater. Often when my dad says he has four girls they look at him like he must be out of his mind. In many ways my dad struggles with being the only man in the house, but I give him credit for how well he has done. My mom and dad make marriage look easy. They have been together for twenty-six years now and they still cook almost every dinner together. This is their time during the day to step away from their busy lives and to be with one another. One unique thing that my parents started doing when I was young was each Monday of the month a different child gets to pick what they would want to eat for dinner. They said they choose Mondays because that would start their week off right with a whole family dinner. My staple meal is chicken parm, with pasta and grilled green beans. These meals that were chosen for monday night dinner would bring the family together in a way unlike the other daily meals.
Making these meals means that if it was your week to choose the meal, the Sunday before the meal, you would have to go with mom to the grocery store. This included buying all of the groceries for the week especially the ingredients for that meal. I have always enjoyed this part of the process. I love the alone time with my mom even if it’s just shopping with her because it usually only happens once a month. Grocery shopping with my mom is a very long process, it includes looking for coupons, going up and down every aisle, unloading the packed trunk of the car, and finding a new spot to store the items. When the big red car pulls in the driveway after grocery shopping, everyone that is home has to stop what they are doing and help unpack. My mom said “there is nothing I hate more than when I get home from an hour trip to the grocery store and my children don’t help unpack the food, it is the least they can do. I don’t give them many chores but this is one that I can’t stand to do alone”. It is common for my family to eat dinner around 7:30pm. This is on the later end but we are all very busy and this is when we all can come together without having to leave anyone out. If you were the chosen child for the week it would be expected of you to be home by 6 o’clock to help cook with mom and dad.
My meal starts with the sound of Johnny Cash, an old country singer that my parents grew up listening to, being played faintly in the background so it doesn’t smother the sounds of our conversations. I poke at the buttons on the oven so it reads “bake 350 degrees”. My dad takes the chicken breasts out of the package. I personally can’t stand the slimy cold feeling of the raw meat on my hands. After he runs the slabs of meat under the running water, they are placed into a glass blue cooking dish that our family has had for years. I fill a pot up with water from the faucet about three quarters of the way and place it on the stovetop, and turn the temperature knob to high. My mom pries open the large can of garlic and herb chunky tomato sauce, the strong harsh smell burns the inside of my nose, she drowns the chicken breast as it is poured from above. Meanwhile I pinch and pull the package of cold shredded mozzarella cheese to place it on top of the dish trying to make it as even as possible adding a little pinch at a time, making it look like the cooking shows. The crispy breadcrumbs are shifted through my hands as I gently shake them back and forth above to finish off the dish. A timer is started for thirty minutes, while the oven lets out a warm wave of heat as the blue glass is placed inside. The water on the stove top has now come to a boil and the thin strands of angel hair pasta are slid into the pot so gently that the hot water does not splash back. My mom wipes down the table with lemon scented soap, I dry it off and place six sets of napkins, forks and knives out at ours chairs. One of us grabs clear drinking glasses out of the cabinet above the sink, and fill four of them with with one percent milk and add Hershey’s chocolate syrup to one glass for my little sister. The other two glasses my parents fill with red wine, occasionally my dad will have milk. About eight to ten minutes later the pasta pot is taken off of the stove and is replaced with a pot filled with green beans. My mom makes the green beans, she pours a dash of vegetable oil and a pinch of some seasoning, usually whatever we have in the house. These sizzle on the stove top for around 15 minutes, until the beans are no longer crunchy. When I asked my mother why making this meal with me was special to her she said, “I have been making this meal for as long as I can remember. Chicken parm was a common meal in my house when I was a child. It is a simple yet delicious set of ingredients making a filling meal for the whole family. This is also one of my favorite meals, I really enjoy making it once a month with Breana. I started this tradition with my girls as a way to bond with them, but also to teach them how to make meals so that when they go off on their own they know how to make at least a couple meals.” Then the sharp beeping noise covers the faint music and my dad shoves his hands into oven mitts. He opens the oven just a crack to see if the breadcrumbs are the perfect crispy brown, he slices open one piece of chicken to see if it is no longer pink on the inside. My mom always second guesses if the meat is fully cooked, my dad responds “well is it still moving? It’s fine sweetie, i’ll cook it more if you want me to but it is cooked enough.” It is such a delightful sight to see that the dish is finally complete. My mouth starts to water as I can smell the perfectly cooked chicken breast from across the kitchen. I scoop a spoonful of butter into the bowl of pasta and place oven holders on the counter for the hot dishes to be placed on.
“Girls, dinner!” my mom would yell up the staircase where my sisters would be in their bedrooms. One by one my sisters scramble down the stairs into the kitchen and grab hold of a glass plate out of the stack at the end of the counter. Each of them always looks so eager to get a taste of the meal, which makes me proud of the meal we made. The dishes are lined up along the counter top and each of us scoops out what we want onto our plate. The smell is overwhelming, all I want to do dig in already. We all take our seats around the large wooden table, we have same sat at these seats forever. It was as if we had assigned seats but we have no idea why we each close these exact seats and when we started to do this. “How was your day Allie?”, my dad starts every dinner off by going around the table where we each talk about our day. Someone always says at a random point during the meal how good the meal is and thanks my mom and dad for it, this is an ongoing joke between me and my sisters to see who will remember to say it first and then we all repeat. We truly do appreciate the meal but the way we say it makes it seem so scripted that it gives us a nice chuckle. This meal is a time where we can all catch up and be together as a family.
This tradition of monday meals has been adjusted according to what was going on in our lives at the time. I was the third child born in the family, meaning that my two older sisters are in their twenties now. Both of them have gone off to college, and the oldest one is married now. Having them leave was strange to me and my younger sister at first because that meant we got to each have two mondays a month now. The second oldest sister only left home for a year before she decided to transfer schools and commute from home. When she came back home the rotation started again with the three of us. A little over a month ago it was my turn to leave the house, the transition has been a lot easier than I though but I do miss these weekly meals with the family. I have a car on campus, and have been going home to see my family every other weekend. My parents have been letting me do this tradition on one of the nights I am home instead of the regular monday nights. Next year my younger sister will be going to college and my other sister will be getting her own apartment. This means my parents will be alone in the house for the first time in 24 years, sadly this tradition in my immediate family will come to an end. I hope to carry this tradition on for my children in the future and so do my sisters.
RECIPE
INGREDIENTS:
5 Boneless chicken breasts
1.5 cup Shredded Mozzarella
1 cup breadcrumbs
2 cups chunky tomato sause
1 box angel hair spaghetti
1 tbs of butter
1 bag of green beans
1 tbs of seasoning (no certain seasoning need)
1 tbs of vegetable oil
INSTRUCTIONS
CHICKEN DISH
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Wash chicken breast under water
Place chicken breast in an oven usable dish
Pour tomato sauce on top of chicken
Put cheese on top of tomato sauce
Put breadcrumbs on top of cheese
place in oven for about 30 minutes
take out and serve
SPAGHETTI
turn on stove top onto high heat
put water in pot on stove
when water is boiling pour in spaghetti
let cook for 8-12 minutes
remove from stove
drain water
add butter and mix
GREEN BEANS
Pour bag of green beans into frying pan
add oil and seasoning
put pan on stove top
let cook for 12-15 minutes
take off and serve
