ahhhh, it was a that kind of weekend if you know what i mean.

ahhhh, it was a that kind of weekend if you know what i mean. i love me some titos, cranberry and a shot of seltzer on a good day, but throw me into the middle of a graduation month and we are talking adoration at the highest level.

i know at this point in my blogging career you know me well enough to know how very much alcohol means to me. but this week especially, it came in some kinda handy in bringing my zen right into focus. there is a lot of sh*t i can do in terms of planning some major mother f*cker events but this week, well, this week TOOK THE CAKE. alongside almost a dozen confirmed events for the weekend we managed to take on a last minute graduation party for nearly a hundred that had my brain reeling by 7pm every night. if not for my very very good friend tito, i'm not sure any amount of headspacing meditation would have been able to get my grey matter to wind down at night. tito, oh tito, how i love you so in june. 

but june is nearing an end and with it, on june 30th, my dear manager maureen will be returning to the east coast (or so she promised). and i, for one, am greatly looking forward to her return. after all my organizing, staffing & ordering, i spent the weekend from 5:30am on saturday morning through 6pm sunday at two of my girl's lacrosse tournaments with my entire family and i couldn't have enjoyed a weekend more if i was sitting in bora bora on a chaise lounge. no phones. no computers. no invoices to check over. just sitting on a blanket on the sidelines cheering on my girls in new egypt, new jersey with the rest of my crew made smile with joy. my balance is returning and with it, a sense of peace i have been missing since maureen left in april. this weekend reminded me of why i could never be all work and no play. didn't work for jack and (my husband will attest), it hasn't worked well for me. ah sweet jesus june 30th you can't come soon enough.

in the meantime we have got another week of RIDICULOUS food. last week you ordered more from our website than any week. um, EVER. monday night broke our hot dinner record by a landslide. ba bam tequila lime chicken i thank you. 

you blow my mind. seriously. mind: blown

omg i can't believe you people. TWO RECORD BREAKING DAYS  OF SALES IN ONE WEEK. you blow my mind. seriously. mind: blown.

in just five days (yup, wasn't in really a full week), you managed to crush a record that stood for eleven months, set up a new one, and crush that mother f*cker again. what has gotten into you people??? damn.

i'm telling you this piping hot dinner schtick has caught on like WILDFIRE. i should have known it. no one likes reheating food even when it's fresh and tasty. what took me so long you ask?? i will tell you.

 as you may have gleaned from the past half decade of blogs, i fancy myself a laid back (uptight), loosey-goosey (uber-wound), chill (control freak)-type of perfectionist. i'm so relaxed sometimes people can't believe it (they can, i'm lying). i don't like to start something unless i know i'm going to win the equivalent of the national championship of it. what can i say, i'm a competitive motha. 

 so when we opened the doors at catchy, we didn't want to take on a new cafe, a bustling catering business, manage our corporate element and then start hot dinners only to fall flat on our faces. okay, i didn't want to fall flat on my face. i'm not sure why i said we there:(. i have an ego and i prefer it intact. but the more you asked (and ask you hard working, exhausted, super hungry folks did), the more we started to see that this could be something big. and you have made it so.

so check out the menu we have for you this week. these meals are, i can't even. i must share that the citrus spring chicken (i named it, she invented it) was eaten by yours truly about eight years ago at kevin's thyme when catchy. was merely a pipe dream far off my radar. it was one of my favorite, FAVORITE meals EVER. when my chef laura and i were brainstorming piping hot dinners on saturday she mentioned it and i nearly wept with glee. 

"you remember it??" yes.

"you created it??" yes.

"i love you!" you're creepy. stop.

so we are offering it with chicken or shrimp, along with our ridiculously delicious mediterranean roasted shrimp over lemony orzo. the options just don't stop knocking your socks off.

birth control people. birth control.

i don't know how my mother did it. or my grandmother. i only have four kids and i can barely manage their schedules on the first real spring weekend and between the two of them, they had 15. seriously. birth control people. birth control.

i get it. things were simpler then. we spent eight hours each day on weekends riding our bikes, making ramps, building forts in the woods behind our house, but still, that's a lot of kids. i can barely remember who eats pb&j and who refuses to touch a sandwich with a speck of yellow mustard on it after a weekend like the one i've had. and my husband is hands on. i'm pretty sure my father and grandfather spent the better part of their saturdays & sundays swinging a long, thin club at a tiny white ball and chasing it with a clear drink adorned with a lemon. seriously. i do not lie. our mom's were like army wives...but with golf. 

i am beginning to adore sunday nights. the week ahead. kids in school for EIGHT hours which means my ass is firmly NOT planted in a large SUV car of some sort,  a bleacher or worse, standing on a field with a lacrosse stick in hand and an angry look on my face a la early this morning at highlands among 38 six & seven year olds for 75 lonnnnnggg minutes. kids belong in school and i belong at my shop cooking you up some ridiculously stupidly tasty food. 

last week you broke records at catchy. friday was our biggest grossing day in eleven months...ELEVEN. do you believe it? i couldn't. i just kept obsessively checking my register app. deliveries of our PIPING HOT DINNERS (umm, 20 in one day),  our crisp, massively over-sized salads (err, 45, 45 people!!), you name it, and we sold more of it friday than we have in almost a year. we love to know that catchy. is growing because people like you are happy with the services we provide.

so take a gander below at the ridiculously tasty selections we have for you this week. and remember, order directly from our website www.thecatchycaterer.com three times in one week and you get an order of panko crusted chicken fingers & fries on us. yum.

call 201.445.6400 to order your salad or sandwich, piping hot dinner or corporate lunch for the office and enjoy our 7.5% rewards program on orders over $200. so much we offer, just give us a call to find out more.

is it pride? get over it. i have.

whyyyyyy do we wait people??? why??

t minus eight days and counting and we are closing in on easter. why, oh why do we wait to call and ask for help??

 you do NOT need to make those herb scalloped potatoes, those pigs in a blanket for 20 or that huge salad you told your sister you would bring. you don't have to, so why tax yourself? you not thinking this through. do you really feel like a trip to fairway when half of bergen county will be shopping for their passover or easter meals?? is it pride? get over it. i have. my kitchen is making my cheddar corn pudding and crudite because i just canNOTTTT be bothered with that one. making the rest of the meal: the filet, the pepperoni poppers, the bunny cake with the marshmallow butt (kids, pinterest - whhhhyy). do i need that major cheddar delicious corn pudding project? no. no i do not.

that's what catchy. is here for. you need a tray of macaroni and cheese for the kids table? we got you covered. you need a dark chocolate pudding cake - gluten FREEEE to bring to your dad's? yes, we do that to. anything you need we got. 

so call us up. now. and check that one off the list sister.

917.721.9217. boom. mic drop.

EASTER MENU

         Mouth Watering Appetizers:

              Shrimp Cocktail with Spring Pea Coulis

          Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus

  Crab Stuffed Mushrooms

Dinner Must Haves:

Cucumber Soup

Shaved Brussel Sprout Salad with Creamy Citrus Dressing

Blood Orange & Roasted Fennel Salad

Apple Cider Braised Brussel Sprouts

Asparagus Hollandaise

Sagaponack Corn Pudding

Herb Scalloped Potatoes with Goat Cheese

Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

Panko Crusted Creamy Macaroni & Cheese

Herb Crusted Braised Salmon

Spinach & Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breast with Cumberland Sauce

Beef Tenderloin with Cabernet or Shallot Cream Sauce

Spiral Sliced Ham with Maple Orange Glaze

Sticky Pork Tenderloin 

Desserts:

Chocolate Babka 

Vanilla Amaretto Pudding Cake

Assorted European Cookies

Gooey Butter Bars

this snow is making me feel like i'm in an insane asylum...

this snow is making me feel like i'm in an insane asylum. is that politically correct? i'm not sure. but then again, i can't imagine 98% of what trump's been saying is politically correct so i'm going to go with it. 

instead of the all white, padded walls, i'm hurdling snow banks of piled up, slippery gray ice when i walk my dog and its making me more than just a bit crazy and claustrophobic. or maybe it's this sling and the news i got on friday that my shoulder is going to take six full months to get back to normal vs. the three i was convincing myself of. oh my god, spring, summer and freedom: you can't come soon enough. 

but i'm told god doesn't give us what we can't handle so i guess he thinks being cooped up all weekend inside with my cagey kids is good for my state of mind. because looking at the forecast it doesn't look like these snow banks will be melting any time in the near future to get us out onto those lacrosse fields and baseball diamonds. #majorsuck.

kids are meant to run , to be free, to get out of their parent's freakin' hair and play outside on march weekends. and with temps in the low 20's, that just isn't making that whole expectation a reality for me. i keep sending them out, and they somehow manage to sneak back in a different door, gather up 38 pounds of sh*t from around my house and make forts in all the nooks and crannies that i never seem to get ahead of cleaning up. lord just send me so spring-like temps and get a lacrosse stick into their hands!! 

so i'm just going to act as if over here at catchy. and cook up some delicious good like none of this slushy snow is upon us, like these slippery sidewalks i just took my dog for a walk on are going to be a thing of the past soon. lincoln told us that all we could choose is our attitude (lincoln? or was that roosevelt? i don't know, who freakin' cares). so i'm choosing happy. i'm betting that once you see are slammin' PIPING HOT DINNERS & fresh salads & soups like the cape cod wheatberry & our blackened chicken with a cup of butternut squash,  you will choose a smile too.

call the shop. order up some tasty treats for your family this week and let us deliver them to your doorstep. 

201.445.6400 #makeyourweekdivine

i think the caged bird schtick is wearing on me.

you ever have one those nights where you think: if i spend one more second with my kids either me or my husband could potentially be brought up on charges for something?? yeah. i get that. that was our sunday night.

i think the caged bird schtick is wearing on me. this friggin' sling that has me velcroed six ways to sunday, the dull, throbbing pain in my shoulder that makes me about as fun to be around as a protocologist, good god i used to think i was fun and entertaining to be around. no longer. spending an hour in physical therapy, two hours locked into an ice cuff and the rest of the day tiptoeing around my usual routine has made me GRADE A BORING. my poor husband. it's been 9 days and he's climbing the walls. thank god for march madness. 

by tonight, the kids were just bouncing off us. and we off them. trying to get them ready for the 6pm mass was akin to trying to peel the backing off a bandaid without the use of one hand: frustrating, mind numbing and just plain sad. "it's freakin' lent for god's sake, get in the god damn car for church before i throw you in!!" must have been hollered no less than a dozen times. and then jt and i decided on another tact. f*ck 'em, we decided, how about we leave them home and go have a peaceful hour to ourselves. heaven. 

it was a like a joke. the moment we told them we had had enough of trying to convince them to go to church and were leaving them home we had two in tears and one with a raging case of 14-itis. you're kidding right? we couldn't pay you to get your act together and now this. hilariously as jt and i would recount in the car, my son billy just sat there with a cheshire cat grin on his face, happy as a clam that he wasn't going. classic.

so needless to say, can't wait for the new week to begin. to make it even better we have brought back last week's mac & cheese because when you sell 42 of them, that tells me we need to bring them back and fast. we have decided to offer them as they were as well as with a generous serving of bacon added in. why not, right? throw in the meatloaf as well as our ridic chicken pot pies as a third option and we plan to be breaking records all over the frickin' place. call tomorrow to make your monday night as heavenly as our sunday was:)...nothing like a little time to yourselves. 

201.445.6400 #makeyourweekdivine

everything's just so much better with a little rum & sunshine...

vacation is such a beautiful thing. sunshine. blue waters. sun kissed kids (who then whine a little sooo...). mount gays & pineapple juice (to lessen the pain inflicted by the whining). little late afternoon golf. repeat.

i have said no less than a dozen times this week to anyone who would listen, why are we not living in florida and doing this every day? i understand the logistics. just built our dream house in hohokus & would have to sell? negative. have four kids enrolled in hohokus school? kind of a downside. flip flops and shorts every single day of the week and an ocean temp of 78 degrees?? totally worth the moving costs. 

everything's just so much better with a little rum and sunshine (except when you clip your toe on a chaise lounge like georgia here on the left...but frankie's reaction and my rum-induced buzz made it all photo-worthy. nothing like a mom who laughs are her kids pain & snaps a picture of it, sorry g). 

back to the rum: i think catchy. needs to find itself a liquor license and we can try and bring a little of this nirvana up north to the jerz. wouldn't that be something?? a baja chicken salad out on the patio with a pina colada & rum floater?? a turkey & brie sandy with a titos cosmo around noon - it's 5 o'clock somewhere, right? nothing would make 3 o'clock pick up better (well, except uber maybe so we wouldn't endanger our kids, but c'mon, go with me a little bit on this one, i'm on vacation). i'm just sayin' this vacation has been just the little mental break this crazy lady needed to slow her roll and gear up for a spring full of first communions, graduations & more. seeing my mom with my kids just filled up my bucket. 

so while it may be president's day, and i may be down in sunny palm beach, catchy. is OPEN. and my hard working gang are in the shop ready to deliver you anything you can think up to order. hot dinners. fresh salads. soul-warming soups & everything you need to feed your family this week if you didn't get to steal away to a far-flung island and want to enjoy a little stay-cation in the bergen county area. just call the shop 201.445.6400 and bring yourself a little food love. 

I could barf. literally, barf.

i could barf. literally, barf. 

i hate the patriots. hate them. and i have so enjoyed the last three plus hours of the atlanta falcons beating the ever-living crap out of them by a 25 point margin at one point. i even left this blog to the last minute because i wanted to gloat that the patriots got the spanking they so deserved...and then tom brady happened. and now we are sitting on the 1 yard line with a minute, 13 seconds and he's about to tie it up. nope. he just tied it up. FOR THE LOVE!!!

so i'm going to make tonight's blog short and sweet because i am working on curbing my poor language this week and watching the pats celebrate their late-in-the-game tie is making the drippy, cheesy burger i ate around 5:30pm start to rise in my throat and the expletives are starting to fly. i mean, WHAT THE FRIG!?!? 

so i'm just going to look forward to this week and pretend right now is not happening. i'm going to set my focus on cleaning up my diet with some mind-blowing fresh salads, some fresh, WHOLE foods for my family like our meaty, cheesy drop dead lasagna and our soul-warming soups (oh lord, chicken tortilla is back and you don't even know how much i yearn for steaming bowl of its goodness right about now to dull the pain - damn you tom!!). 

 so take a gander below to see our PIPING HOT DINNER menu for this tuesday thru friday (sidebar: by popular demand, you can now also pick up the hot dinners cold (i know, confusing right?) in the takeaway case all week long in case you can't wait until 3pm to pick up your hot dinner. we aim to please and welcome your requests and input to make your lives as easy and smooth as we can. peace out girl scout. call the shop at 201.445.6400 for your next meal. word. 

"YOU ASKED, WE ANSWERED"

TUESDAY FEB 7th - FRIDAY FEB 10th

* CHICKEN PICCATA OVER CITRUS SCENTED ORZO with BABY SPINACH

* DROP DEAD LASAGNA BOLOGNESE

* ROASTED VEGETABLE LASAGNA

(our other 4 dinners available every day, every week) 

* rigatoni bolognese 

(with crusty bread)   

$15.75

*cheesy, ricotta-filled raviolis in sunday gravy

(with crusty bread)  

$14.50

* spaghetti marinara with veal & ricotta meatballs

(with crusty bread)

 $15.95

* shrimp scampi over linguine

(with crusty bread)

$18.75

and what do we have to reduce the muffin-topage that we are all experiencing after the gluttony of last night's super bowl eating extravaganza??

SPECIAL SALADS for MONDAY & TUESDAY

monday:

roasted butternut squash & shredded kale quinoa bowl: quinoa. shredded kale. roasted butternut squash. dried cranberries. fuji apples. gorgonzola. pecans. maple orange vinaigrette. 

tuesday:

mediterranean greek chicken salad: romaine. grilled chicken. cucumbers. cherry tomatoes. kalamata olives. crumbled feta. red wine oregano vinaigrette. 

hot soups:

* chicken tortilla soup

* butternut squash puree

salads in the case:

* butternut squash kale quinoa bowl

* baja chicken salad

* catchy. burrito bowl

* skinny chicken caesar salad

* mediterranean greek chicken salad

dinners in the takeout case (cold, but freshly-made monday morning)

* grilled salmon over julienne vegetables

*  spicy thai chicken over vegetable fried rice with broccoli & haricot vert

* lasagna bolognese for two (ready to grab...not hot like above)