What's For Dinner? And What Am I Listening To?

On Sunday, because of my lack of planning, I had to cobble dinner together out of whatever I could find in refrigerator and cupboard. I ended up concocting a dish of fried sausages, apples, and onions with a marsala chutney glaze, and cheesy grits -- I mean polenta -- on the side. It was a little too exotic for half the family; mostly the half that hasn't reached adulthood. Otherwise, it was a big hit.

Yesterday I bought some pizza shells from Papa Murphy's and made pizzas. I hate making the dough, so it's worth it to me to spend $2 a crust to save myself the time.

Now I have yet another meal to plan. I have quite a few cans of butter beans in the cupboard. What can I make that is delicious and filling? I am so sick of coming up with meal plans these days.

Any ideas?

In other "ME!" news, I loved listening to my music when I was a teenager. I had lots of tapes, mostly given to me by people who thought I would like something they liked, which I generally did. Somehow, I need a recommendation to buy an album -- or what are the kids calling it these days? Is it still an album or CD if you buy it on iTunes?

Then, after my mission, where I was severely restricted in what types of music I could listen to, all my tapes sat and gathered dust. I just wasn't all that interested anymore. I didn't even have the desire to turn off all the lights on a Sunday night and have a sensory deprivation moment (except for hearing, of course) with NPR's Pipe Dreams and Music From the Hearts of Space, which was a forum for playing with synthesizers, since they were so new at the time. Gosh, I'm old.

Of course, I was married pretty quickly after I got home from my mission, and then I was puking my guts out with Sian (thank goodness she turned out so well!) so sitting in the dark watching random images from my brain on the back of my eyelids was often interupted by the need to slap my hand over my mouth and run for the bathroom.

There followed a long, long hiatus on the music-listening scene, punctuated only by my love for playing the piano and my wonderful, wonderful cello. I would occasionally find something I liked and listen to it a bit, but only half-heartedly. I would barely notice when Husband stole all the best CDs and took them to work.

Now I think I'm becoming obsessed again. I have found enough new stuff that I like to listen to it over and over. I'm walking around with earphones in my ears and have to pull them out to allow the children to say something to me. There are those of you far more versed in the music scene than I am (I'm thinking of MKShelley and David S., for instance, and Allyson always has a song stuck in her head) but I'm finding some good stuff with the help of pandora.com, iTunes, and, of course, friend recommendations.

As long as you're giving me dinner ideas, why not throw in some music recommendations? It doesn't matter if you don't know what I like. I only really dislike heavy metal and hard-core rap. Everything else, including opera, is fair game. C'mon. Tell me what you love.