What's for dinner tonight

I am a big believer in making menus and sticking to them. I'm not always 100% successful, but boy, do I try. I used to make menus and not make a single thing on them, but in my first year of stay-at-home mommyhood, I've been trying real hard to find some stick-to-it-tiveness, especially in the area of cooking. If I buy the stuff to cook a recipe, I'm going to do it, even if I'm afraid I won't like it or that it will be too hard (since I don't think too highly of my cooking skills).

I am in search of a recipe for sesame chicken. We don't eat out really anymore, both because of Baby and his antics in restaurants but also because of the exhorbitant cost. Husband and I are big fans of chinese and japanese food, and I haven't been too successful in re-creating those flavors with frozen meals. Last week, I found an amazing recipe for Beef Teriyaki that I've already made a second time because we liked it so much (and typing about it now is making me want to cook it for dinner tonight!). It used ingrediens I've never used, but it wasn't very hard, and it was a very quick dinner to put on the table. Now, I'm hunting for a recipe for Sesame Chicken. I don't care how hard it might be to make - it's Husband's favorite Chinese dish. I've done my Google homework and found probably umpteen different recipes, but thanks to opinionated people, I've narrowed my attempts down to about three different ones to try. They couldn't be any more different - one calls for chicken thighs, another calls for boneless chicken breasts. One calls for sake, one calls for mirin, and the third calls for both. It's going to be very interesting, so stay tuned for both the recipes and the pics to show you how they turned out over the next few weeks. And the next time I make Beef Teriyaki, I will absolutely take a picture of how pretty it turns out and post it, along with the yummy, yummy recipe.

So what's for dinner tonight? Meatloaf. My mother's recipe - which has evolved over the years, and I've changed it just slightly. It's still a very cheap meal to put on the table - maybe not a $5 dinner, but close. And probably also not the healthiest, but that's why I don't make it every week. I'll be pairing it with some broccoli and onion potatoes (the Lipton onion recipe packet kind - yum!).