After a couple days of decadent, slothful relaxation at the American Club Resort in Kohler, Wisconsin (a birthday/anniversary present to ourselves), we are back to reality. If you can swing it, a few days away from every responsibility is a miraculous thing. We are immensely lucky to have willing grandparents to move in with the kids for a few days while we try to read as many novels as possible in 48 hours without dropping the Kindle into the hot tub.

I’m not sure that the massaging and pampering has done much to increase my patience, but at least that nagging ache in my hip is much improved. Today I’m going to whirl through the dishes and the laundry and the piles of wet swim gear on the floor to the dulcet tones of clarinet scales, and then bribe a couple kids through their piano practice. If I’m still feeling energetic, I’ll bake some banana poppy seed bars for an afternoon snack. Alas, there’s no staff setting out afternoon tea in the Greenhouse, but maybe I’ll switch on the kettle.

This week

Monday: Roast pork, polenta, salad

Tuesday: Red Lentil Dal, rice, fruit salad

Wednesday: Grilled Kofta Kebabs (though I’m using a similar recipe from Cooks’ Illustrated), pita, grilled eggplant salad

Thursday: Cubanos

Friday: hmmm…a quickie pasta, probably, with whatever produce needs to be used up

Last week

Monday: Salmon and Roasted Vegetable Salad (to swap)

This was so good. No, the kids didn’t touch it–they ate leftover hamburgers. I roasted farmer’s market turnips, kohlrabi, fingerling potatoes, carrots and beets, then tossed them in a salad with butter lettuce, scallions and canned salmon. Fresh salmon would put this over the top.

Tuesday: Black Bean Burgers, sweet potato fries, guacamole, pico de gallo (from Jen)

We flipped over these black bean burgers. Plenty of flavor, super moist. All the kids like these, so expect them to go into heavy rotation. In fact, this would be a good meal for the kids to prepare themselves.

Wednesday: Lemon Pepper grilled chicken; barley salad, grilled zucchini and asparagus

I marinated the chicken overnight, and Papa did the grilling while I stirred together the barley salad (barley cooked in plenty of salted water, chopped tomatoes, scallions, red wine vinegar, olive oil, pepper). I heard the extra chicken went into fajitas.

Thursday: Turkey Chili

I made this pot of chili ahead of time so the kids and grandparents would have a couple meals already made. Chauffeuring these kids around can take a lot out of you if you’re not used to it!

Friday: Chicken Adobo, rice, broccoli

My dad saw this Filipino recipe on America’s Test Kitchen and decided to try it. He added extra coconut milk to increase the sauce, and a few teaspoons of sugar to balance the acidity. Many thumbs up!