What’s for supper? Vol. 460: It was the shroopiest of times, it was the doopiest of times

Happy Friday! The other day I thought of a really clever pun for this week’s food post title, and decided not to write it down because I would definitely remember it later. Now it is later, and, well.

It’s just as well. These things are always disappointing. One of my kids once had a dream about a fiendishly clever new advance in technology that would revolutionize the way we fight wars, and she woke and and DID write it down so she’s remember it. In the morning, she looked at her notes, and it said “bag of bees.” 

Anyway, I’m sorry it’s the first Friday in Lent and this post is gonna be full of the yummy things we ate for Valentine’s Day and for Mardi Gras and also because I’m a cooker of yummy things. Some years I come up with a putatively clever gimmick to shield the viewer from graphic (=meat) content, but we are solidly in bag of bees territory here, mentally. All buzz, no honey. I don’t know. Well, here is what we ate:

SATURDAY
Leftovers and french bread pizza

Saturday was shopping day, and I had the pleasure of paying for it almost entirely in cash earned from selling cheesecakes. That felt pretty good. 

Saturday was, of course, Valentine’s Day, so along with frozen pizza, I also got corn dogs as a romantic gesture, because only Damien and I like them. We didn’t eat a single corn dog like in Lady and the Tramp or anything. Don’t get the wrong idea. 

We all gave each other chocolate and candy, and for dessert, I decided to try my hand at one of those fancy decorated swiss rolls. I followed the directions from The Squeaky Mixer, which were nice and clear. (I see she also has a post for a master guide on decorated swiss rolls!) It was very pleasant using a small bowl and whisk for a change. I love my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, but it was nice to move more slowly. 

This recipe requires a very tender cake, so you can’t over mix anything. I did use the standing mixer to make stiff egg whites, which get folded into the batter. 

After you do that, you set aside a little bit and color it, and put that into piping bags (well, sandwich bags). The trick of putting the bags in cups and folding back the tops over the rim before filling them is SO helpful, especially if you just have a small amount in each bag

Then you grease and line a cookie sheet and pipe your design onto it. It opted for the old classic Valentine message: Shroopy doo.

Origin story: 

I wish I had spent a little more time coming up with an actual design, but I did manage to get the letters all backward! Then you freeze the design for a bit, to help it stay intact. 

Then I used a large bag to pipe the rest of the batter over the design. I took a pic just before I covered up the decorated part with plain batter.  

Here is where I made my first mistake. The pan is a rectangle, and you only decorate one half of it, because the other half is going to get rolled up and no one will see it. But I decorated the long half, rather than the short half. So at this point, I was locked into rolling a long, thin roll, rather than a short, stout swiss roll. Not necessarily a mistake, I guess, but not what I intended.

So you bake it for a short time (it’s a very thin cake), take it out of the oven, turn it out of the pan, and carefully peel the parchment paper off the bottom, revealing the baked-in design. I took a video of this part, and you can hear me breathing heavily. 

 

Here is where I made my second mistake, and this one was a doozy. I sprinkled the cake lightly with sugar and covered it with a damp towel and carefully rolled it up. 

The wrong way.

I rolled it so the design was on the inside. And I didn’t notice until it had cooled for about twenty minutes. So I unrolled and re-rolled it the other way, but of course it cracked, which is the one thing you’re trying to avoid with a swiss roll! 

I was annoyed at myself, but not devastated, because if something is going to go wrong, it’s best when the mistake is super obvious and super avoidable in the future. One has simply not to be a bonehead, and it will work out better next time!

So while it was cooling, I whipped the heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla, carefully unrolled the cake, spread it with the cream, and rolled it back up again, and let it finish cooling. 

It was, indeed, the shroopy doo-est of cakes. 

You can see that I festooned it with leftover molded chocolate from another project, and that really shrooped things up, I think. 

I actually used double the amount of cream filling, because, I don’t know, I like cream filling. When I sliced the roll open, it had a decent spiral, considering it was a long, skinny cake. (I know from watching Great British Baking Show that the spiral is very important.)

It was so bland, though. Next time I make one of these, I will do a layer of something with a stronger flavor on the inside along with the cream, and will  probably dress up the outside, as well. But honestly, I considered this project a success, because everything turned out well except for two things that are easy to correct next time. We live to roll another day. 

In the afternoon, we watched Yojimbo, and in the evening, we watched Moonstruck. Each perfect Valentine’s Day movies, in their own way. 

SUNDAY
Hamburgers, chips, king cake

Sunday our old friend Elijah was over, and it was another weekend where I felt powerless to resist making a bunch of big hamburgers (I had bought a bunch of ground beef while it was still on super bowl prices). I also got a sudden urge to make a king cake before Lent descended. I found a King Arthur Baking recipe and thought, oh yeah, I’ve used this recipe a few times before. Started putting it together and I was like . . . mmmmmm I don’t think I have used this recipe before. It calls for dry milk, which I didn’t have any of. It also calls for lemon oil or zest, which I also didn’t have, so I used orange zest. Then I tried to figure out what I could possibly use as a substitute for dry milk. You’d think wet milk is the answer, but that only works if you decrease the other liquid, which it was too late to do. I don’t even remember how I resolved it, but the dough I ended up with was less “soft and silky” and more “disgusting” and “something I don’t want to touch.” 

It requires two rises, and, by adding plenty of flour, I managed to coerce it into a reasonable shape. I added the cream cheese filling and then discovered there was a jar of homemade strawberry topping left over from cheesecake, so I spread that on, too.

Things are looking up! Many of us have untidy back stories, but we turn out well anyway! So why. not this king cake! All I had to do was fold over the margins and pinch them together, and carefully place the whole thing into a bundt pan. 

Well , . ., ,,,

I got the fuckin thing in the pan. Possibly the ugliest transfer possible. If there were king cake police, I’d be in jail for life for what I did to that dough. 

ANYWAY, I baked it, and it actually came out of the pan more or less intact, and I shoved a baby-sized rubber alien up in there, and drizzled it with three colors of icing, and threw some edible gold flakes on top because why not. 

It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. I did overbake it, so it was a little dry, but it wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t filled so much as infiltrated with cream cheese and strawberry.

I was cutting it up and passing out pieces, and Damien’s piece was last, with the rubber baby clearly visible. He was in the other room, so the kids and I declared that whoever gets the baby has to buy everyone ice cream, and then we gave Damien his piece. In other words, we shrooped his doo. Shrooped it good. 

MONDAY
Pork vindaloo, basmati rice, naan, mango

Monday I salvaged my good name in the kitchen. This meal turned out absolutely delightful, and I was very pleased with myself. 

In the morning, I assembled my spices for this pork vindaloo recipe from Bon Apetit. 

Then you just pulverize them all together and marinate chunks of pork in the resulting paste. The recipe calls for pork shoulder and pork belly, but I just used a rather fatty loin, and it was fine. I only used half the number of guajillo chiles it called for, and it was still quite fiery. I would do it that way on purpose. Hot enough to really light up your head, but not enough to make it hard to taste anything else. 

So I set the meat to marinate

cut up the mangoes, set up the rice, and made the dough for naan. I used the King Arthur Baking naan recipe, and this time I really had made it before. I decided I would get fancy and weigh the flour, rather than measuring it by volume like I usually do. Well, I had to add so much extra flour to get the texture right, I don’t know what the point was! 

But they turned out so, so good. I made a double recipe, which should yield 16 flatbreads, but I divided the dough into only eight pieces, so they were a nice, generous size. I cooked them in a very hot iron frying pan, wiped it out with a damp cloth in between fries, and brushed the pieces of naan with melted butter on both sides when they came out of the pan. PERFECT. 

They were SO soft and nice, I was just delighted. Probably the best naan I’ve ever made. 

The whole meal was delightful. 

I got a little ramekin of yogurt to sooth my mouth when the meat got too hot. I want to make this again right away, but it doesn’t feel very Lenten!

TUESDAY
Mardi Gras

I have such mixed feelings about Chili’s having somehow become our traditional final place of debauchery before Lent. The restaurant was practically empty, but they seated us next to the bathroom anyway. It was fine. I ordered some kind of chipotle chicken bowl and it was perfectly fine. Then we followed up with our other, equally dubious tradition and headed over to Price Chopper to pick out individual tubs of ice cream.. I got a Ben and Jerry’s thing with a caramel core and pieces of blonde brownie. Damien was sick and Elijah was working, so we brought them to-go boxes. And that was our festal meal! Shroopy doo.

WEDNESDAY
Spaghetti and salad

On Wednesday I was the one who was sick, so Damien brought the kids to Mass. I spent the afternoon ruthlessly decluttering the dining room (four bags of trash, yay!), and for supper we had spaghetti and salad, and, just to round out the church basement dinner vibes, white bread with butter.

THURSDAY
Roast drumsticks, mashed potatoes, roast butternut squash

Thursday I was busy all day, and for the life of me, I can’t remember what with. So I threw together supper at the last minute. I just sprayed the chicken drumsticks with cooking spray and seasoned them heavily with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and chili powder. I roasted them and then put them in a covered baking dish in a low rack in the oven to stay warm, so I could use the broiler to make the butternut squash. I peeled and sliced up two squashes and laid the disks in a pan on parchment paper. I may or may not have sprayed them with cooking spray, but I definitely put a little heap of brown sugar on each one, and then sprinkled them pretty heavy with a lovely biryani masala by Spicewalla. 

I had a five-pound bag of potatoes, and the original plan was to bake them, but you really cannot make baked potatoes for seven people when two of them look like this:

Five potatoes total in the bag! I used to buy potatoes like this on purpose, and slice them into these ludicrously long french fries; but it was definitely not a deep frying kind of night. I just boiled them and mashed them, and I did a pretty poor job, too. Very lumpy. The squash was great, though!

I just adore Indian spices on squash. Really tasty and interesting. 

It turned out to be a pretty good meal despite the potatoes. 

And that’s-a my story. 

FRIDAY
Grilled cheese and tomato soup

I’m actually really looking forward to this meal. I may even throw some leftover rice into the tomato soup. The kids got an early release from school because there is a big storm coming. I saw the highway department pre-salting the roads before the snow even started, so I guess it’s gonna be a doozy. 

I guess we are gonna try our Fisher Family Mandatory Lent Film Party again this year. Damien and I are both exhausted and couldn’t come up with anything creative, so we’re going to watch Spartacus, which I haven’t seen in many years. I remember it being very sweaty. The kids have been lots of fun to talk about movies with lately, though, so I have medium-high hopes. 

In conclusion, you will have a lizard in your pocket. Be you. Shroopy doo. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 459: Superb chow

Happy Friday! We are having a bit of a “choose your own adventure” day today, except that it’s my car’s . . . throttle sheath pin housing, or something . . . that chooses our adventure. The rather implausible plot involves an ice skating field trip, the court house, adoration, and of course cheesecake deliveries, and it can either be slightly complicated but doable, or . . . not. Come on, throttle sheath pin housing! Or whatever! Don’t actually be the fuel pump that’s broken!

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Leftovers + ravioli 

Just a regular day of chores, plus Corrie had a birthday party to attend. Did you know that many small movie theaters will let you rent out their entire place for a couple of hours and show a DVD of your choice, and it’s not as expensive as you might think? Is this only a small-town New England phenomenon? Anyway, it’s a neat option, especially when it’s super cold out, which it was much of the week. 

It was Benny’s shopping turn, and she chose ravioli for her frozen food/dinner supplement/treat, which I think is pretty cute. She’s not wrong; ravioli is delicious! I was actually still migrainey (I’m having a bad head month because we have new, terrible insurance and they’re still mulling over the likelihood that perhaps I want to inject myself once a month just for sport, and how can they possibly know if I really need this medication or not?), so I just shopped to get us through the weekend and then came home. Photophobia when everything is covered with snow is no joke, phew. 

SUNDAY
Hot wings, vegetable platter, hot pretzels, chips, potato salad; brownie sundaes

Sunday was, of course, the day of the Superb Owl. On the way home from Mass, I delivered a cheesecake with wild blueberry topping, which was very well received. I forgot how much tastier wild blueberries are! I used this recipe which calls for lemon zest, lemon juice, ginger, and thyme. I skipped the thyme and it was still yummo, a nice tart complement to the sweet, creamy cheesecake. 

I made a batch of potato salad following the recipe from Sip and Feast, which has you brining the potatoes for several hours before mixing in the mayo. I have made this before, and apparently forgot that I was the only one who likes this style of potato salad, oh well. 

The big kids went out to play D&D with Elijah, Benny made some brownies for dessert, and Corrie and I made some big hot pretzels. We used the King Arthur recipe, which has turned out great before, but the pretzels are a bit small. So I doubled the recipe but made a single recipe’s worth of pretzels. 

I did let the dough rise a little too long and it got a little crusty, so the dough was a little lumpier than it should be, but we forged ahead.

The dough needs to be rolled out surprisingly long! We got it to about three feet.

You bathe them in baking soda water for a few minutes before baking, and then you brush them with melted butter as soon as they come out of the oven. Heavenly. 

We ended up having these as afternoon snacks, rather than part of dinner, because I really wanted to eat them hot. Then we surrendered the kitchen and Damien made a huge bunch of hot wings using the Deadspin recipe except I just got a bottle of blue cheese dressing, rather than making it. 

Then we deliberately poisoned our minds and perverted our hearts with the halftime show, and had a lovely meal with the chicken, raw vegetables, chips, and potato salad. The chicken wings were scrumptious, as always. Damien also made a batch of plain fried wings without hot sauce, for those who are babies. 

For dessert, we had brownie sundaes. And that was that!

MONDAY
Strawberry chicken salad

Monday I did the rest of the grocery shopping. I figured we would have plenty of leftover chicken, and I was right, so I made a light dinner, and if people wanted more food, it could be wing time again. and roasted up some chicken breasts, and served that on salad with strawberries, almonds, and feta cheese. 

The strawberries are HUGE this year. 

TUESDAY
Pork spiedies, chips, hot spinach dip

When I made the list, I discovered that I was a little sad thinking about all the yummy Super Bowl food I hadn’t made this year. Then I realized I’m the chief of police, I can do whatever I want. So I cut up a bunch of bell peppers, red onions, and mushrooms, and started some pork marinating for spiedies

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and put together a little casserole dish of spinach dip. I didn’t really follow a recipe. I just cooked spinach in the microwave and squeezed out the water, then combined it with a bunch of cream cheese, sour cream, parmesan cheese, and I think provolone, and I guess garlic powder, salt, and pepper, and when it got close to supper, I baked it. 

I like spinach in many forms, but I gotta admit, smothering it in several forms of cheese is ELITE. 

The spiedies turned out great. I tried to convince myself to toast the rolls, but I was too hungry. Just slapped on a bit of mayo, and they were fab.

None of the kids would even try the spinach dip! Crazies. They liked the spiedies, though. 

WEDNESDAY
Spaghetti and meatballs

Wednesday, I started getting serious about all the baking orders for Valentine’s Day. I ended up selling six mini cheesecakes

and these are topped with a heart-shaped strawberry before they go out, very cute. I just cut the strawberries in half and use a little cookie cutter to make the shape.

I also made another full-sized cheesecake with blueberry topping, and then I cut up some leftover cakes into wedges, dipped them in melted chocolate with a little shortening stirred in (this makes the chocolate smoother, and it sets more firmly), and topped them with strawberry hearts. 

Aren’t they cute?

I had some leftover chocolate, so I made a bunch of heart and skull molds, and I used them for one rather gothic medium-sized cheesecake, which just sold, hooray!

For supper, I made some very pedestrian meatballs. Here’s my recipe:

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Then I tossed them in the crock pot with some jarred sauce, and supper was easy. 

Good old spaghetti and meatballs. Wednesday is a complicated day because we get home at 4 but then Benny has writer’s group right around supper time, and it’s only an hour, so it doesn’t make sense to come home in between. I passed the time by trying to remember the shortcut in between two roads, and I got lost for long enough that I just had time to check out Market Basket, which I HATE, and discovered to my sorrow that their cream cheese is, indeed, the cheapest in town. I also grabbed some ground pork because someone inquired about a Québécois tourtière, which I have never made before, but which I had a very slow and detailed dream about making. Now I can make my dreams come true, I guess. 

Wednesday I was supposed to have an interview for a writing gig, but it got cancelled. It’s their loss! Let’s see how easy it is to find someone else who can tell a rambling, pointless story about tourtière!

THURSDAY
Roast beef sandwiches, french fries

Thursday I finally pulled out the giant eye of round roast I got a while back, when it was on such a lovely sale I could not resist. I returned again to Sip and Feast for this deli-style roast beef recipe, which always turns out excellent. It’s super easy. You just season the meat very heavily,

roast it at 500 for half an hour, turn the oven down to 300, and continue cooking it until it’s as well done as you like. Then you wrap it up 

and let it chill for a long time, sharpen yo knife, and slice it thinly. 

I wish I had taken it out of the oven a little sooner, because I like it really rare; but it was still truly delicious, super juicy with tons of flavor from the crust. 

I cooked up a bunch of fries and set out horseradish and mayonnaise and sliced tomatoes, and then I made one final batch of sauce for cheesecakes, this time strawberry

and I figured I would eat when I got back. Another busy evening! Damien covered a meeting about the middle school’s upcoming trip to DC, and Benny and I went to an informational night about a newish charter high school in town.  Silly little kid thinks she is old enough to go to high school next year, so we’re humoring her by checking out all our options. Oh me oh my. 

To my sorrow, I had eaten so much roast beef while I was slicing it up that I wasn’t hungry when we got back, so I didn’t eat an actual sandwich. HAPPILY, I made a tremendous amount of roast beef, so we should have plenty leftover for Saturday when it’s leftover day. 

FRIDAY
Bagel, egg, cheese sandwiches

I can hear Damien wrestling with the car. He also just texted me with a list of places I need to be for the rest of the day, because I was sitting there with a marker and a paper plate trying to work it out myself, and it was obvious someone with a functioning brain needed to step in. The guy who just came to pick up a cheesecake with strawberry sauce informed me that my mailbox is missing a number. What I didn’t tell him is that I know that, and I already went out to buy a replacement number, but I got the wrong one. What I did tell him is, “Oh, it’s hard when there’s snow everywhere. Everything is white, not like when there’s grass.” I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean, but anyway we delivered the cheesecake.

I am going to try my hand at making one of those Swiss rolls with a pattern baked into the cake, for Valentine’s Day tomorrow. This plan includes at least three different things I’m really bad at, so I have high hopes! What is wrong with me! Nobody knows! 

P.S. It is the fuel pump.

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pork spiedies (can use marinade for shish kebob)

Ingredients

  • 1 cup veg or olive oil
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup red or white wine vinegar
  • 4 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 2 Tbsp sugar
  • 1 cup fresh mint, chopped
  • 8-10 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 4-5 lbs boneless pork, cubed
  • peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, cut into chunks

Instructions

  1. Mix together all marinade ingredients. 

    Mix up with cubed pork, cover, and marinate for several hours or overnight. 

    Best cooked over hot coals on the grill on skewers with vegetables. Can also spread in a shallow pan with veg and broil under a hot broiler.

    Serve in sandwiches or with rice. 

 

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Meatballs

Make about 100 golf ball-sized meatballs. 

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs ground meat (I like to use mostly beef with some ground chicken or turkey or pork)
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups panko bread crumbs
  • 4 oz grated parmesan cheese (about 1 cup)
  • 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400.

  2. Mix all ingredients together with your hands until it's fully blended.

  3. Form meatballs and put them in a single layer on a pan with drainage. Cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes or more until they're cooked all the way through.

  4. Add meatballs to sauce and keep warm until you're ready to serve. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 458: Eine Kleine Purse Broccoli

Happy Friday! It took me most of the morning to persuade my computer to turn on. But I DID persuade it, so I’ve got that going for me. Also, I slept extremely late, so I’ve got that going for me, too. But I slept late because it’s day 3 of a migraine, so I’ve got that going against me. Corrie is home sick, and we are watching Pingu. I truly can’t discern if that’s for me or against me. I like Pingu a lot, but it is LOUD. We’ll call it neither a win nor a lose, but a noot-noot, and get on with things. 

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Leftovers

Regular shopping and chore day, nothing to report. My leftover buffet turned out pleasingly tidy.

I can feel my past self casting destitute eyes on all that parchment paper and just gazing with longing at such wanton luxury. Parchment paper is one of those things that, once I started using it, I can never go back. Parchment paper, Magic Eraser, ziplock bags, Swiffer, Scrub Daddy. I’ve been bashing myself a lot lately for how dirty I’d always kept my house in the past, and it just now occurred to me that it’s only recently we’ve had the budget for cleaning supplies like this. So I’ve been very hard on myself for not having kept things spic and span with the aid of a rag and some water. With twelve people in a then-650-square-foot house. Ah well. Sorry, past self.

(My house is still dirty, however. It’s just a mystery.) 

SUNDAY
Roast lamb with yogurt sauce, Jerusalem salad, pita

Sunday I went a little crackerdog in a productive way for once, and did a large amount of cooking and baking. The first thing I made was a double batch of rugelach dough. It’s not really in season (more of a Chanukah thing), but on the other hand, it’s always a good time for rugelach. This was a “thank you” package for a Patreon donor. 

AND HERE, I must pause and beg your pardon if you are a donor and I owe you a perk. I’m really sorry it’s gotten away from me so badly. Please, please, if I owe you something as a thank-you for your patronage, message or email me, remind me what it is, and give me your address! And I truly am sorry. I am a worm. 

Anyway. Argh. So, here is the rugelach recipe. While that was chilling, I made six little Valentine’s mini cheesecakes, all of which sold, so that was nice. 

Then I got some dough rising for pita for supper. I went to the Kitchn recipe, which I swear I’ve used before, but it felt unfamiliar, not sure why. Set that to rise and made a batch of yogurt sauce

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and discovered, to my sorrow, I had bought regular yogurt instead of Greek. At least it wasn’t vanilla, which I’ve also done, but the texture is just unsettling with the savory taste. Then I made a quick Jerusalem salad, which has different variations. This time I just did chopped tomato and cucumber, fresh lemon juice, parsley, a little olive oil, and salt and pepper. 

And then I got the lamb in the oven! Well, first I googled whether it’s safe to eat lamb that has been in the freezer for . . . uhhhhh really quite a long time. Google said yeah whatever probably, kill all humans lol. So I went ahead and scored the meat and prepped it according to Tom Nichols’ grandmother’s incredibly easy and inexplicably delicious recipe. 

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Got that in the oven. The kids were going to a movie, and Damien had to go to a retirement party, so we ate really early, which is something I always want to do anyway. My ideal meal schedule would be coffee around 9:30, lunch at 1:00, snack at 3:30, and dinner at 4:45. Alas, life is not like that. But Sunday it was pretty close!

Then I spent the afternoon rolling and baking rugelach. They turned out pretty cute!

By the time it was almost dinner, I was kind of tired of being in the kitchen, so while the lamb was resting, I opted to bake the pita all at once in the oven, rather than making them on the stovetop. To my delight, most of them actually puffed up and separated into two layers! Actual pita pockets!

They didn’t look like much (oven pita is paler than pan pita), but they were soft and pleasant, and you can’t beat fresh hot bread for dinner. 

The lamb turned out excellent. 

Juicy, tender, and full of flavor (and did not kill any humans). This is such a minimum effort, maximum results recipe. I served some crumbled feta, and it was a super yummy meal all around. 

Poor Damien actually had to leave before dinner, but I think he ate when he got back in the evening. Benny and Corrie and I just hung out and played cards and watched TV. And that was Sunday. 

MONDAY
Chicken caprese sandwiches chips

Monday I had signed up to give blood, and two neat things happened. One was that I passed the iron test, which I failed the last three times I tried to give blood. Two was that they tested my iron without me even noticing. I’m used to a finger stick test, but this time they did it with LASERS. It clips onto your thumb and I guess if you have enough red blood cells, it interrupts the laser? Or something? Anyway it was cool. And I was really happy about my iron levels. I have been eating fortified Cream of Wheat for lunch most days for months now, and I think that’s what did it. One of these days, I’m gonna get one of those iron fish to cook with, too. 

When we got home, I cooked a bag of breaded chicken cutlets that has been haunting the freezer for some time. Served on baguettes with basil, tomatoes, mozzarella, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt and pepper. 

And chips. Good stuff. The chicken is from Walmart, and I’ve found that their frozen chicken products that are breaded but uncooked are actually quite tasty, and they don’t take much longer than pre-cooked and frozen chicken. 

TUESDAY
Beef and broccoli stir fry, rice, wontons

Tuesday was chock-a-block full of meetings and appointments and by the end of the day, I was feeling like something you find in the drain at the end of the day. I had bought a small hunk of beef a few weeks ago, so I made a rather lackluster stir fry. I had my doubts about the amount of beef, so I rummaged further in the freezer and found some wontons, I think from New Year’s Eve. I just cooked them in chicken broth. Went to cook some rice in the Instant Pot and remembered that the pot was frozen into a bank of snow because I’ve been using it as a duck waterer. So I had to cook it on the stove like a peasant. 

So it was, yanno, food that was hot. It was fine. Kind of validating that, when I do go to the trouble to make my own sauce and broth, it really is a lot better. 

WEDNESDAY
Omelettes, sausage, biscuits

Wednesday I finally yelled at myself to go to the doctor because, well, for the last five months, the left side of my face tingles and goes numb randomly throughout the day, but reliably between 6:30 and 7:30 P.M. There are a number of things that could be causing this, and I’m leaning toward perimenopause because why the hell not? But I am getting a brain MRI to rule out MS, which I really don’t think it is, but once someone suggests MS, you kinda have to either run away from home and live the rest of your life in a cave in Tenneseee, or go get a brain MRI. Then I had regular errands and we got home not terribly late, so I started the sausages cooking and then quickly made a batch (a SINGLE recipe. I had to halve my own recipe!) of biscuits. Here’s that recipe, which makes 20 biscuits.

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I’m gonna have to go through and downsize all my recipes, le sigh. Anyway, this is a nice, reliable recipe and the biscuits are light and fluffy inside, with a fragile, buttery crust on top. 

It includes egg and cream of tartar, which sounds unnecessarily complicated, but it’s still very quick, and comes out rich and light.

While the biscuits were baking, I chopped up some ham and onions, shredded some cheese

and quickly turned out seven sloppy omelettes. I just cannot cook a tidy omelette to save my life. 

Tasty, though.

I wish the ducks would start laying again! Last year, they had started laying at this point again already. Oh well. Like the old Polish saying goes, you can’t rush a duck. 

THURSDAY
Hot dogs, spicy fries

And here is a picture of that!

A slightly more interesting picture is the one I took earlier in the day, headed out for afternoon driving, bound and determined to get healthier

It’s not stupid if it works. 

FRIDAY
Pizza

Damien is covering adoration, and Corrie and I are now watching Milo and Otis. This movie really holds up! Delightful. 

I guess the Super Bowl is this weekend. I was at a thrift store and decided not to buy a potato spiralizer, and I have no regrets about that. I can say this because I did make potato tornados for the Super Bowl one year, using various techniques, and let me tell you, the issue with that whole project was not my lack of a potato spiralizer. Leave them potatoes alone, is what I say. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that, on the same day as I made the potato tornados, I made some sausage rolls, and those look quite tasty. We shall see. I also saw a recipe for fried mac and cheese balls which is basically the ultimate Lucy Chow, so I may make that. Gotta make a few cheesecakes to sell this weekend. 

But first, maybe a little purse broccoli. Just to balance things out. 

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Yogurt sauce

Ingredients

  • 32 oz full fat Greek yogurt
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • fresh parsley or dill, chopped (optional)

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together. Use for spreading on grilled meats, dipping pita or vegetables, etc. 

 

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Tom Nichols' Grandmother's Leg of Lamb

Ingredients

  • boneless leg of lamb
  • olive oil
  • garlic powder
  • garlic salt
  • oregano

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 325.

  2. Slash the meat several times, about an inch deep.

  3. Fill the cuts with plenty of garlic powder.

  4. Slather olive oil all over the meat.

  5. Crust it with garlic salt. Sprinkle with all the oregano you own.

  6. Cover meat loosely with tinfoil and cook three hours. Uncover and cook for another 30 minutes.

 

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moron biscuits

Because I've been trying all my life to make nice biscuits and I was too much of a moron, until I discovered this recipe. It has egg and cream of tartar, which is weird, but they come out great every time. Flaky little crust, lovely, lofty insides, rich, buttery taste.

Ingredients

  • 6 cups flour
  • 6 Tbsp sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, chilled
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups milk

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 450.

  2. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and cream of tartar.

  3. Grate the chilled butter with a box grater into the dry ingredients.

  4. Stir in the milk and egg and mix until just combined. Don't overwork it. It's fine to see little bits of butter.

  5. On a floured surface, knead the dough 10-15 times. If it's very sticky, add a little flour.

  6. With your hands, press the dough out until it's about an inch thick. Cut biscuits. Depending on the size, you can probably get 20 medium-sized biscuits with this recipe.

  7. Grease a pan and bake for 10-15 minutes or until tops are golden brown.

What’s for supper? Vol. 457: The Great Cornballio

Happy Friday! I am not, nor have I ever been, a Beavis and Butt-Head fan. Nevertheless, I am a Gen Xer and certain things are in my head for good. Uh-heh-heh-heh-heh. 

Well, here’s what we ate this week: 

SATURDAY
Leftovers with buffalo chicken

The kid whose shopping turn is an absolute buffalo chicken fiend. Whatever else we had this week, just assume she was slathering it with buffalo sauce. 

She is also a thrift store fiend, and we ended up going to three of them, along with the regular shopping stops. I got a nice haul of neat stuff which I can’t remember right now. Not this:

or this:

but I do recall I got one of those clear bird feeders with suction cups, and also an intriguing pan. 

Got home and realized it was for cake pops. I don’t really approve of cake pops. I’ve never actually eaten one, but I don’t even really like regular cake, and they seem like the gross version of cake. Although I do remember being asked, several years ago, to make a Dragon Ball cake, and this pan would have been an improvement over ye olde cabbage methode. 

This was just while the balls were drying. There was an actual cake, not just a cabbage!

The balls were made of rice krispie treats and candy melts. Like Disney says (or I guess used to say), it was wrong then and it’s wrong now. Oh well. 

Anyway, my obvious task now is to encourage someone in the house to get into Dragon Ball, so I can use my new pan. Either that, or . . . what else has balls? Not the democratic party, heyyyo. 

I also wonder if I can use this pan as a Jell-o mold. I’m not sure if the two halves fit together tightly enough. I’m also not sure why I would need Jell-o balls, but you never know. 

SUNDAY
Chili verde, corn balls

Sunday as we got out of Mass, the Big Snow began to fall. I had already planned to spend the day cleaning the landing (after cut up and expelled the bunk bed a few weeks ago), and I had lots of argy-bargy energy to work off, so that worked out well. I emptied a closet, sorted everything in it and bagged it all, cleaned the closet, filled it back up with one kid’s art supplies and another kid’s please-come-get-your-stuff stuff; bagged and stuffed another kid’s stuff into the newly accessible attic, threw out seven bags of trash, listed a couple of desks on a buy nothing group, put a shelf back together, told Corrie she can have my father’s old glockenspiel, and organized the hell out of what was left. Much of which was EXTREMELY misc. in nature.

So the area doesn’t look beautiful, but you can now walk through it, and you can open the attic door again, which meant I could finally put away the Christmas stuff, which had been taking up half the dining room table since Epiphany. Of course now we have a haunted glockenspiel downstairs, but you can’t have everything. 

Before I tackled that, I got supper started. The rest of the family was managing the shoveling (once the snow started, it just kept coming, and we eventually got about two feet), so I thought spaghetti and meatballs would be a good, hearty meal; buuuuut I forgot to defrost the meat. No matter! Chili verde is also nice and warming.

Here’s my recipe for that:

Jump to Recipe

I seasoned and browned the chunks of pork, and roasted up the assorted peppers, the onions, and the garlic and tomatillos

made a nice green salsa in the food processor with the vegetables plus some cilantro, and then put the meat and the salsa in a pot to simmer the rest of the day. 

When it got close to supper time, I made a big pot of rice and realized, to my delight, that I could use my new pan to make CORN BALLS. Here’s my corn bread/muffin recipe:

The pan is in two pieces, and it’s supposed to have silicone clips or clamps to hold it together during baking, but those were missing; so I used those metal clips on rings that are designed to hold cafe curtains. Worked fine. I very slightly overfilled the cups, filling each one a little more than halfway (a single recipe made more than enough for 18 balls), but this just resulted in each ball having a cute little baked cap on top, which was easy to pop off and eat. 

I opened the pan and used a spoon to carefully pry the corn balls out, and was able to get most of them out intact. 

If I had baked them a few minutes less, probably they would have been the same color top and bottom. But aren’t they so cute? I loved them. I like the top crust of corn muffins, and these were encased in top crust, with piping hot, tender corn bread inside. 

So we had rice and chili verde, with sour cream and fresh limes, with corn balls. 

I had somehow lost the extra cilantro I set aside to top it, but that’s okay. The chili was delicious, very spicy and savory. Damien and I and the dog were the chief corn ball appreciators. I feel like, when I was a kid, I would have KILLED for corn balls, but kids these days are built different, I guess. 

MONDAY
Onion soup with croutons; ham, egg, and cheese sandwiches

School was cancelled as it continued to snow and snow and snow. The ducks did not care at all. They just wallowed around yammering, same as they do the rest of the year. 

The snow eventually got too deep for them to get to the stream, though, so I had to give them hot water in a pot, which they also yammered about. If you ever want some top-notch yammering, I do recommend ducks. 

In the morning, I started cooking a big pot of onion soup. Here’s my recipe, which is very basic, and you can adjust the proportions as you like. 

Jump to Recipe

By the way, if you’re cutting onions, all you need to do is breathe through your mouth and not your nose, and your eyes won’t water. I don’t know why it took me my whole life to learn this, but it’s true. 

I made a bunch of croutons with stale deli rolls, lots of melted butter, and salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and toasted them slowly in a 300-degree oven. 

Li’l hot crouton action shot for you, uh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.

For the main dish, I had found a new recipe I was kind of excited about: No Washing-Up Ham, Egg, and Cheese Bowls from Recipe Tin Eats. You cut the top off a roll, hollow it out, line it with ham, crack an egg inside, top it with cheese, put the top back on, wrap it in tinfoil, and bake it until the egg is as cooked as you like.

I had bought some nice rolls, but they were stuck together enough that I figured I could get away with baking them in twos, so I made eight big ones, uh-heh-heh-heh. I cut them like subway sandwiches, and cracked two eggs into each sandwich. There was a tiny learning curve when I realized I need to angle the cut in such a way as to keep the egg inside, but it was easy to correct the ones I did wrong (I just cut off a little wedge of bread and stuck that under the ham). Forgot to take a pic where you can see the eggs, but they are under the cheese:

It took CONSIDERABLY longer for the egg to cook than the recipe said; but she does say that the cooking time will depend on how thick you cut your bread. Also I think my oven runs a little cold. So I kept peeking and peeking inside the tinfoil, and finally after probably 40 minutes, the whites of the egg were cooked, and the yolks were set. 

I thought these sandwiches were SO GOOD. The bread was hot and crisp around the edges and top and soft inside but not soggy, the egg was cooked perfectly, and the cheese has oozed and baked onto everything. Heartier than a typical breakfast sandwich, but not greasy like grilled cheese. LOOK at that jammy yolk. 

And, as the name says, there is no clean-up, because each sandwich is wrapped in tinfoil. You can also prep these sandwiches ahead of time, because the ham prevents the egg from touching the bread, so this would be perfect for, say, a sleepover breakfast, or brunch for a crowd. 

To my great sorrow, the rest of the family thought they were okay at best. One reviewer pronounced them “nice and hot.” Oh well! You’ll never know if you don’t try. The onion soup was pleasant, and it was a filling and warming meal, if not a group favorite. 

Damien forbade me from shoveling, presumably because I’m just too pretty. He had the kids shovel in teams, 20 minutes at a time, and he got hot chocolate and cookies for everybody, and everyone was actually really cheerful and upbeat all day. Including the dog. Especially the dog. 

TUESDAY
Roast chicken with optional buffalo sauce; big salad; cheesecake

Tuesday there was a two-hour delay for school. People were still digging out from the snow, and it was just so dang cold. I don’t remember what I did all day. It’s possible I did some writing, which is a thing I’ve been hoping to break into, but it’s very hard. 

I roasted up a bunch of chicken drumsticks with olive oil, salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder

One of the kids mentioned it would be nice to have a big, beautiful salad, so I was happy to oblige. We don’t have tossed salad very often — I’m a big believer in setting out individual bowls of this and that, so people can build their own plates —  but this was pretty popular, so maybe I’ll do this more often. 

Revolutionary, I know. “I served a tossed salad to my family, and they ate it!” food blogger marvels. But seriously, it’s so easy to get stuck in routines, and it didn’t even occur to me that people might like a regular old salad. 

So, not a groundbreaking meal, but tasty and nice. We had plenty of leftover croutons from the onion soup, too. 

I had my salad without dressing because, even though I am currently Quite Fat, I think there’s a possibility that someday in the future, I might take a crack at being Somewhat Less Fat Again, and I don’t want to ruin plain salad for myself. I like plain salad perfectly fine, and don’t feel like it needs dressing, and that may come in handy. Look, if you didn’t want crazy talk, you should have skipped this entire post. 

I think I forgot to mention that we also had a heart-shaped cheesecake with chocolate-dipped strawberries at some point. I was trying different decorations and things, to see what might sell for Valentine’s Day, and this one came out looking kind of dumb, so we ate it. 

Out of curiosity, I weighed it first, and

I think I need to start charging more. That’s a lot of cheesecake! Uh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh

WEDNESDAY
Spaghetti and meatballs

Wednesday, Benny took a tour of the Catholic high school to see if she likes it for next year. Facebook memories showed me that, on this day seventeen years ago, we also took a tour of the Catholic school. Back then, we were still homeschooling, and just starting to consider other possibilities. In the last seventeen years, the Catholic school has changed leadership several times, and our family is . . . honestly, me from seventeen years ago would find us unrecognizable. I don’t even know. Some of the changes are good, some are not. Whatcha gonna do. Anyway, she took a tour and found it “fine” and “nice and hot.” Just kidding, she just said it was fine. Gonna check out a newish charter school next, and we shall see. Maybe it will just keep snowing, and we will all just stay home forever. 

I finally got around to updating my meatball recipe, although it’s still pretty basic and, like so many things, adjustable according to tastes and needs. 

Jump to Recipe

I skipped the parmesan cheese (I saved it for topping) and had a pretty heavy hand with the Worcestershire sauce, and they were tasty. 

And that’s-a my meatball story. 

THURSDAY
Chicken wraps, baked potatoes, brief thought of salad

Thursday I got up and it was 47 degrees in the house, which is not ideal. We knew we were a little low on oil, but all this week we were overtaken by events, and boop, we ran out of oil. I stayed warm by going into a bit of a cleaning frenzy. There are several things (besides the general insanity in the news) that are making things pretty arghy inside my head right now, and honestly, that is the only way cabinets get cleaned out and wiped down, or grout gets scrubbed. 

I also baked six mini cheesecakes with pretty pink and red borders, and thennnnn dropped them. 

Happily, I had already planned a nice, easy dinner, which was just frozen chicken tender wraps with shredded pepper jack cheese, shredded lettuce, and ranch dressing. I baked a bunch of potatoes and served them with some fake bacon bits I had bought on a whim. 

I haven’t had fake bacon bits in decades, and oof, they were not good. One of the kids said they taste like dog treats, and I was gonna say, “How do you know?” but then I realized I was thinking they taste like Play Doh, and, well. Anyway, the kids did like them, so I guess that’s a win. I liked my wrap. 

I did get another cheesecake order, just a plain one with blueberry topping, and I managed to bake that without accidentally throwing it out the window or dropping an anvil on it anything.  

FRIDAY
Mac and cheese

Just regular old mac and cheese. I will probably squirt some hot sauce in there Uh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh

5 from 1 vote
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Spicy Chili Verde

You can decrease the heat by seeding the peppers, using fewer habañeros, or substituting some milder pepper. It does get less spicy as it cooks, so don't be alarmed if you make the salsa and it's overwhelming!

Ingredients

  • 5 lbs pork shoulder
  • salt and pepper
  • oil for cooking
  • 2 cups chicken broth or beer (optional)

For the salsa verde:

  • 4 Anaheim peppers
  • 2 habañero peppers
  • 4 jalapeño peppers
  • 4 medium onions, quartered
  • 12 tomatillos
  • 1 head garlic, cloves peeled or unpeeled
  • 1 bunch cilantro

For serving:

  • lime wedges
  • sour cream
  • additional cilantro for topping

Instructions

  1. Preheat the broiler.

  2. Pull the husks and stems off the tomatillos and rinse them. Cut the ends off all the peppers. Grease a large pan and put the tomatillos, peppers, and onions on it. Broil five minutes, turn, and broil five minutes more, until they are slightly charred.

  3. When they are cool enough to handle, you can at this point remove the seeds from the peppers to decrease the spiciness, if you want. If you roasted the garlic in its peel, just squeeze the insides out and discard the peels.

  4. Put the tomatillos, peppers, garlic and onions in a food processor or blender with the garlic and cilantro. Purée.

  5. In a heavy pot, heat some oil. Salt and pepper the pork chunks and brown them in the oil. You will need to do it in batches so the pork has enough room and browns, rather than simmering.

  6. When all the meat is browned, return it all to the pot and add the puréed ingredients.

  7. Simmer at a low heat for at least three hours until the meat is tender. If you want thinner chili verde, stir in the chicken broth or beer. If you don't want the pork in large chunks, press the meat with the back of a spoon to make it collapse into shreds.

  8. Spoon the chili verde into bowls, squeeze some lime juice over the top, and top with sour cream and fresh cilantro.

5 from 1 vote
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Simple French onion soup

Serve with a piece of toasted baguette at the bottom of each bowl. Finish with cheese on top.

Ingredients

  • 4 Tbsp butter
  • 4 cups onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 Tbsp flour
  • 1 tsp white sugar
  • 4-6 cups beef broth (can also use chicken broth or a combination of water and white wine)
  • pepper
  • parmesan or mozzarella cheese

Instructions

  1. In a heavy pot, melt the butter and then add the onions. Cook very slowly over a low heat for about an hour, stirring occasionally, until the onions are very soft and somewhat darkened.

  2. Stir in the sugar until dissolved. Stir in the flour and mix to coat.

  3. Add the broth (or water and wine). Add pepper to taste and simmer for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer.

  4. Serve with a hunk of toasted bread in the bottom of each bowl. Sprinkle cheese on top, and if you have oven-safe dishes, brown under the broiler to form a skin on top of the soup.

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Meatballs

Make about 100 golf ball-sized meatballs. 

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs ground meat (I like to use mostly beef with some ground chicken or turkey or pork)
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups panko bread crumbs
  • 4 oz grated parmesan cheese (about 1 cup)
  • 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400.

  2. Mix all ingredients together with your hands until it's fully blended.

  3. Form meatballs and put them in a single layer on a pan with drainage. Cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes or more until they're cooked all the way through.

  4. Add meatballs to sauce and keep warm until you're ready to serve. 

Helpless

The other day, I had some time in between dropping off a kid and picking up a used refrigerator. I bought some lunch and ate it, and I still had time. So, with great reluctance, I slogged into the chapel.  

I appreciate chapel time, but I don’t enjoy it. It doesn’t feel spiritually magnificent when I’m actually there, but I believe it keeps me going through the rest of the week.  It’s a discipline, not a delight, and I’m okay with that. But it’s pretty rare that I go unless I “have” to – unless it’s my assigned hour. 

I did go, and I made a prayer that may be familiar to you. Something like: “Hello. I know you know what’s going on. I don’t know what to do. I’m sure you do. So, I’m asking. Please do something, I don’t know what. To refresh your memory: Here is the thing, which SUCKS. Here you go. I am helpless. Amen.” 

The specifics don’t matter. It’s a prayer that so many of us can and should pray as often as we need to.  

Technically, it’s called “offering it up,” and it’s what Catholics do when. . .well, when  anything. When they’re suffering, when they’re in pain, when they’re stuck. We should also offer things up when we’re rejoicing, or when we’re grateful.  

We’re supposed to invite God into our lives at every moment we realise we’re alive, starting with the moment we wake up. It doesn’t have to be a fancy, memorised prayer. 

Sometimes I will be outside and see something nice, like a graceful tree or an especially good cloud, and I will just mentally raise my glass to God. Cheers! Nice one! Just acknowledging I’m not alone; I’m with him. He’s with me. 

Or, of course, we offer up the opposite of “cheers.” I went to the chapel with a heavy load that I indisputably did not want, did not need, did not know what to do with.  

He promised he would help us carry our burdens. So I went in to hand this one over to him, because I could not carry it, but I knew he could.   

I went in, kneeled down, bowed my head, said my piece, and then looked up.  

Guess what? He was helpless, too. 

Maybe you’ve seen a crucifix. That’s kind of a central feature: The hands don’t work. They are stuck. They are nailed into place. He is helpless.  

A fine how-do-you-do, isn’t it? I, a professional Catholic, will be the first to admit to you that this is a system I do not understand. …

Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.

Image: Crucifixion, School of Rembrandt, 1657, public domain via Picryl

What’s for supper? Vol. 456: Please hold

Happy Friday! Let’s talk about food, all the food, and nothing but the food. Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Leftovers and french bread pizzas

Just a regular day of shopping and errands. I forgot to buy frozen food to accompany the Saturday leftovers, so instead we ate the frozen food I had bought for the kids’ lunches. And that’s how you get to be a professional cooking blogger! 

SUNDAY
Burgers and chips

Elijah usually comes over on Sundays, and even though in reality he’s an adult and taller than me, in my head he’s still the little guy who once woke up from a nap trembling, and didn’t stop trembling until we gave him a hamburger. So I try to make sure he gets lots of hamburgers. 

Ground beef was on what passes for sale these days – $3.49 a pound – so I stocked up a bit. Maybe we’ll have burgers next week, too!

I like my burgers absolutely slobberingly smothered with ketchup and mustard, and piled up with pickles. 

MONDAY
Waffles and home fries

Monday was, of course, MLK Jr. day. It’s only in the last few years that NH made this a holiday. We used to mark MLK day by stopping for fries or something on the way home, because I would feel bad about forgetting that the schools were open but the library was closed, so the kids would spend 40 minutes after school shivering on the library steps before I got them, ever MLK day. Thanks a lot, Martin. But this time we didn’t have school! So nobody got fries. Damien went to Moe’s house to work on his car, and the rest of us had waffles and home fries. 

The waffle recipe:

For the home fries, I peeled potatoes, cut them into wedges, drizzled them with oil and seasoned them with salt, pepper, chili powder, and garlic powder, and roasted them in a hot oven until they were browned. I didn’t turn them, because I like having a roasty, crackly part on the bottom and a golden toasty part on the top. 

Also I forgot. But they did turn out nice. 

Waffles were okay, not the greatest, not sure why. 

It’s possible that waffles are only really good if you have a third thing with them, like meat or even just fruit, or eggs. Anyway, it was a filling meal.

On Sunday, I tried making some chocolate strawberry hearts I saw online (and I truly looked for the reel to link back, but I can’t find it. It’s by Foodbites). You cut the strawberries into heart shapes with a cookie cutter, then make a base with melted chocolate, stick the strawberry on it, and embellish it with more chocolate. Like this:

Pretty and simple!

Well . . . 

AN ATTEMPT WAS MADE.

The good news is, we live in a very pretty place. I truly would rather live where there’s ice and there’s snow and the whalefishes blow, but it’s not dull! We get these dazzling, exhilerating skies.

I mean also, I hardly ever shovel anymore, so that definitely helps my attitude toward winter. 

TUESDAY
Chicken quesadillas, fake Doritos

Tuesday I spent most of the day driving here and there and there and here, including out to Nelson with my apple pie money to buy a used mini refrigerator from FB Marketplace. Actually, it’s a beverage refrigerator, which makes it the perfect size for, say, four cheesecakes.

[Here, there should be a photo, but my heart quailed at the prospect of letting even such a friendly crowd see how gross my floors are right now. It’s just been super icy, so we have to put down a lot of dirt and salt outside, and guess where that ends up? Boo! Oh well. Imagine a nice little fridge with perfect shelves inside.]

All my adult life, I have wanted a little spot just to store my baked goods where no one will disturb them, and now I have it! I also had a wonderful chat with the seller, a kindred spirit who loves being in the kitchen and hates being at Market Basket. She had a lot of kitchen supplies for sale because the person who is not allowed in this post withdrew funding, and her culinary school got shut down. We chatted for a while in her spectacularly organized basement, she gave me a couple of springform pans for free, and I left feeling motivated to organize my life. (This did not happen, but I enjoyed the feeling while it lasted.)

For supper we had chicken quesadillas using the chicken left over from last week’s subpar enchiladas. I goosed them with some, I don’t know, chili powder, salt, and cumin, or something like that, and they were fine. I threw some jalapeños in mine, too. 

Everything is fine. 

WEDNESDAY
BLTs, party mix

Wednesday we had BLTs purely because my menu thus far was so thrifty, and I felt like a-splurgin’. I made a second attempt (the first one was about three years ago, and ended in tragedy) to toast the bread all at once in the oven, using that technique where you put the two oven racks close together and use the top one to hold the pieces of bread upright.

This time it worked! The secret, as any halfwitted housecat could have explained, is not to move the racks after the bread is in place. My mistake in the past was pulling the racks out so I could reach them easily, and then carefully putting the bread in there, and then trying to slide it all into the oven, and of course all the bread slithered down into the pan, defeating the entire purpose. Instead, you have to leave the racks where they are and carefully stick your hand into the oven to put the bread in. Then it works. 

This is yet another one of those things that I finally got the hang of only once it became less urgent. When we had twelve people in the house and I was trying to toast 24 pieces of bread at once, this would have been a handy hack indeed! Too soon old, too late schmart. Anyway, we delivered the bomb. I mean we had yummy sandwiches.

I spent a little bit of time trying to figure out why I like party mix so much.  I got the store brand, so none of the individual elements were that good. The pretzels and corn and tortilla chips were stale, and the cheetos, while pleasingly caveman club-shaped, were undeniably greasy. I guess it’s because of the variety that it seems like a treat. Also, it’s called “party mix.” I guess if they called it “Stale But Miscellaneous,” I would be less avid a fan. 

This is why I haven’t been writing a lot lately. My brain just stands there, ruminating slowly over little bits of straw, like an elderly cow who has forgotten how to leave the barn. I’m . . . it’s January. We’re fine. 

THURSDAY
Gochujang bulgoki, rice,  seaweed, sesame chicken

It’s been a while since I”ve made this excellent meal! Pretty often, I will just marinate pork ribs in the marinade, and then grill or broil them. But this time, I decided to go Full Bulgoki. Here’s the marinade:

Jump to Recipe

You can make this with beef, but I prefer it with pork. 

So in the morning, I sliced up a couple of onions and shredded a bunch of carrots in the food processor, and sliced a bunch of boneless pork ribs as thinly as I could, and set that to marinate together. Then I set up the Instant Pot with rice and water, cut up the broccoli, and even located the sesame oil and sesame seeds, which sometimes wander off to parts unknown right when I need them. 

I don’t even know what I did the rest of the day, but I was — oh wait, I do! Starting back in mid-December, I have trying to finish this complicated application for a thing, but they sent it back and said their new policy is that they need copies of everyone’s social security cards. Lucy’s has, of course, gone missing. So we went to get a replacement, and it turns out you need a government-issued ID for that. Which we don’t have, because I haven’t gotten around to finishing teaching her to drive yet. So we decided to go for a non-driver ID, and to get THAT, you need. . . .your social security card. Tra la la! Your call is very important to us! Have you signed in at the kiosk? The kiosk is only for individuals with an appointment! Appointments cannot be made online, but must be made by phone. Please have your social security card ready before calling. 

Well eventually we rustled up some backups, and I vouched for her, and she got the thing, and I got the thing, and I sent off the application, and all manner of things shall be whatever. 

This is a long way of saying that, when I got back home, I was extremely glad that all I had to do was press the rice button, pan fry the meat mixture, and throw the broccoli in a hot oven with sesame oil, soy sauce, and sesame seeds, and in about 25 minutes, we had a meal that was completely yummo. 

The bulgoki is often eaten wrapped in lettuce, which is also delicious, but I like using seaweed. You tear off a bit and use it as a scoop to grab up a little rice and meat

It’s just so good. I think bundles is the superior form of food. 

FRIDAY
Tuna noodle

The kids asked for this, and I wrote it down on the menu, but I will probably kidnap Damien into a pizza place. I was going to be kind and make the tuna noodle for the kids, but they are all in the kitchen right now, being SO loud, and also they were hogging both bathrooms this morning, so I feel like I need to do something. Vive le resistance. They can make their own casserole. 

Like much of the country, we are expecting anywhere from one to two feet of snow, and — again, speaking as the lady of the house who has been promoted to “you stay inside; we’ll handle the shoveling” — I’m all for it. We were in a drought for most of last summer, and my pumpkins really felt it, so I hope all this snow will replenish the water table. I hope a lot of things. Please hold. Your hope is very important to us. 

5 from 1 vote
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Gochujang bulgoki (spicy Korean pork)


Ingredients

  • 1.5 pound boneless pork, sliced thin
  • 4 carrots in matchsticks or shreds
  • 1 onion sliced thin

sauce:

  • 5 generous Tbsp gochujang (fermented pepper paste)
  • 2 Tbsp honey
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 2 Tbsp soy sauce
  • 5 cloves minced garlic

Serve with white rice and nori (seaweed sheets) or lettuce leaves to wrap

Instructions

  1. Combine pork, onions, and carrots.

    Mix together all sauce ingredients and stir into pork and vegetables. 

    Cover and let marinate for several hours or overnight.

    Heat a pan with a little oil and sauté the pork mixture until pork is cooked through.

    Serve with rice and lettuce or nori. Eat by taking pieces of lettuce or nori, putting a scoop of meat and rice in, and making little bundles to eat. 

Free will and wobble

There’s a minor memory from my early days as a mother that I always recall with shame. It was just a little thing. My toddler ran out ahead of me and went through a set of automatic doors, but stumbled, and ended up standing in the way of the doors as they closed.  

In disproportionate terror (because all of my emotions were outsized at the time), I thrust my hand into the doorway to make the doors open. Then I snatched it away. Then I stuck my hand out again, and then I snatched it away.  

I did this, rapid-fire, several times while the door opened and closed and opened and closed and my child cried in bewilderment. Finally, some saner person stepped in, body-blocked the door, and we all emerged on the other side.  

Nobody was hurt but I was ashamed and disgusted with myself. I contrasted myself, savagely, with people who run into burning buildings to rescue children, or who dive into frigid water to save a drowning stranger. 

“I didn’t even think about it,” they tell the reporter covering the scene. “I’m no hero; I just did what I had to do.”  

Whereas I, a mother who allegedly loved her children, couldn’t even get myself to stick my hand in a door to save my baby from being crushed. SOME MOTHER. That’s what the reporter would say about me. SOME MOTHER SHE TURNED OUT TO BE. 

But over the next 25 years or so, I have learned something about heroism, and choices, and free will.  

We tend think of free will as the less emotional, more muscularly logical part of us that objectively assesses our choices and consciously selects good or evil.  

Free will is, we imagine, when we find ourselves suspended in a sort of temporal vacuum, evaluating facts, desires, and fears, and make a calculated choice to do whatever it is we want to do.  

And that’s probably why people who’ve done clearly heroic things feel uncomfortable with praise. They didn’t evaluate the risk, recall that God told us to love our fellow man, and deliberately choose to charge into the inferno. They just acted, and it didn’t feel like a choice at all.  

But free will is both more complicated and more basic than that. 

Sometimes I do use my free will with calculation and deliberation. I realise I’m being tempted to do wrong or prompted to do good, and maybe I struggle, and then I make a choice. But sometimes I do just act. I do just do the right thing, or the wrong thing, without thinking. 

This, too, is a variety of the exercise of free will, because it comes from the kind of person I have previously decided, over and over again, to become throughout my life.  

That’s probably what we see when someone acts heroically without thinking. He has primed himself, through a lifetime of little choices, to be the kind of person who will do the right thing without deliberation. He is acting out of the centre of who he has chosen to become.  

So the person who leaps without thinking is, indeed, a hero, and he did, indeed, use his free will.  

So, then, what about the weird “should I or should I not save my kid” thing I did all those years ago? 

Did I hesitate because, deep down, I only sort of cared about her?  

I’ve learned to look more gently on my past self. Of course I loved my child. Of course I wasn’t really torn about whether or not to let her be squashed before my eyes.  

I hesitated, and chopped my arm in lieu of anything useful, because I was incredibly sleep-deprived, and mentally, physically, and emotionally overwhelmed all the time, and perpetually hollowed out with self-doubt, and that’s what lead to my irrational behavior.  

I wanted with all my heart to do the right thing, but I literally didn’t know what was the right thing to do. I never knew what was the right thing to do. So I chopped my arms up and down like a weirdo, and didn’t achieve anything. But we came out OK.  

Just as a thousand acts of generosity and unselfishness train you to do the right thing without hesitation, a thousand little cuts that weaken your psychological and physical sense of self can impede you from it.  

We’re trainable, but we’re not machines that can be programmed with precision. It’s complicated.  

Anyway, I remembered this moment as I gazed, the other week, at the giant, slightly kitschy mural over the altar at our church. … Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 455: There’s a crack in everything. That’s how you get more cheesecake.

In haste! In haste! For I am very behind schedule, and in the middle of a bunch of things, and also not getting anything done. Surely, at least, I can write about food. Here is what we had this week: 

SATURDAY
Leftover supreme, pizza pockets

Boy, Saturday seems like ages ago. 

SUNDAY
Smoked pork ribs, mashed potato puffs, vegetables and dip, strawberry shortcake

Sunday was Damien’s fake birthday (his real birthday was during the week, and we were too busy to celebrate). He spent the day making some incredible smoked ribs

Jump to Recipe

and I plunged back into the misty past and dug up a recipe I haven’t used since the early days of our marriage. It is from The Joy of Cooking,

and holy cow, this book is a trip. More on that later. 

The ribs turned out magnificent, as usual. He made three racks of ribs.

Corrie’s longing gaze speaks for all of us. 

They were incredibly juicy and tender, with a wonderful smoky, spicy, sticking coating 

I thought the mashed potato puffs came out great, and I thought they would blow the kids’ minds, but they found them adequate at best. Maybe they were expecting them to be like tater tots, and were not expecting the insides to be soft and creamy. Oh well! I had fun making them. Here’s the recipe. I think I made quadruple this amount.

Jump to Recipe

They are like extremely moist biscuits inside, like potatoes that are thinking about bread. I used instant mashed potatoes that were flavored with garlic or something, and I thought they were yummo. Cute, too. 

Probably you could make them more uniform with a cookie dough scoop or something, but I thought it was amusing when they fried themselves into these little bulbous shapes. 

For dessert, we had strawberry shortcake. Well, it wasn’t shortcake; it was angel food cake with macerated strawberry topping and whipped cream. But if you say “strawberry angel food cake,” people think you mean the cake itself is flavored with strawberries, and last time I tried that, it was CLAGGY. I was still a little gunshy after that cake, so I just bought a mix for angel food cake, and it turned out fine. 

Fine with DINOSAUR CANDLES, which is the best kind of fine. I mashed up some fresh strawberries with sugar and a little vanilla, and we topped it with freshly whipped cream. 

Not super photogenic, but delicious. And now Damien and I are the same age again!

MONDAY
Leftover pork with ramen 

Monday, I decided to see what kind of Valentine’s designs I might do for cheesecakes, which are selling fairly briskly. I tried a sort of heart design, overbaked the cake, and then cracked it while taking it out of the pan. 

So, tragically, we were forced to eat this one. Happy Valentine’s Day to us. 

For supper, I was planning ramen with some sort of Asian pork, but there was so much delectable smoked pork ribs leftover, we just had that, plus ramen. I stuffed a bunch of raw spinach in my bowl, ladled hot ramen over that, topped it with crunchy noodles, and just chucked the pork on top. 

Let me tell you, that’s the best thing that ever could have happened to that ramen. 

I spent most of the day de-Christmasing the house, and it felt pretty good. I packed things up in such a way that I will not be furious at myself next Advent, too. 

TUESDAY
Ina Garten’s roast chicken with potatoes

Tuesday I took a hard look at all the neatly packed and labelled Christmas boxes, estimated their volume, and admitted to myself that if I wanted them out of my dining room, I was gonna have to clear the landing off, because the mess was blocking access to the attic door, and the other access point has a whole other set of issues that I don’t even want to think about now. So, yes, clean the landing. 

For most people, a job like this would mean sorting books and toys, throwing out trash, and organizing, and giving it a good sweep. For our family, this meant picking up 4,000 Barbie dolls dressed in toilet paper dresses, stacking up dozens and dozens of canvases, sweeping up a bunch of broken glass, and of course moving the bunk bed where people have been storing their boxes and boxes of MISC.

Of course I got it partway down before I admitted to myself that there was no way it was gonna fit around that corner. I had already discerned that I couldn’t really take it apart. This bunk bed is so venerable, it’s been slept on by various children for something like 21 years straight, and the wood and the hardware had kind of melded together.

So, I sawed it in half! Then it fit down the stairs. I dragged it outside, and in the spring, I’m going to put it back together and make a little greenhouse with the giant glass panes I picked up back when I thought I was gonna build a sunroom. 

Gotta make sure the front of the house looks weird one way or the other, I guess. I’ll move it when there isn’t ice everywhere, trying to kill you. 

Oh anyway, I got some chickens in the oven in the early afternoon, using Ina Garten’s low effort, huge payoff recipe, with the thyme, lemon halves, and entire heads of garlic inside. I cooked it with carrots and onions, skipped the fennel, and added a bunch of quartered potatoes, including a separate pan with just vegetables. By the time we got home, the house smelled SO GOOD

and I was feeling pretty smug about having taken a big step toward making the upstairs livable again, and also having a gorgeous dinner ready. 

Well, it’s gorgeous in the pan. On the plate, you need to do a little more food styling than I was willing to do, because I was HONGRY. 

You will have to take my word for it that this was a deeply flavorful meal with crisply roasted vegetables and succulent chicken. And then, as is our tradition, Corrie pulled out the lemons and ate them, and I claimed the garlic. 

Also not gorgeous! It looks like I’m eating someone’s paw. But really, it was so good. I love this meal so much. 

WEDNESDAY
Pizza

Nothing fancy, just pepperoni, olive, and plain cheese. The only notable thing was that I forgot to defrost the dough, so I thawed it in its bags in a bowl of warm water. Which worked, but I was putting too much faith in those bags, and the dough got all wet, bleh. It was fine, I just used tons of extra flour. Lesson learned. 

I also took a bunch of chicken leg quarters (always a tricky cut to know what to do with) and threw them in the pressure cooker with some chicken broth and a bunch of vaguely Mexican spices. When they were cooked, I drained the broth and put them in the fridge. 

THURSDAY
Chicken enchiladas, beans and rice, tortilla chips

Thursday I had a doctor appointment in the morning — we somehow scheduled FOUR doctor appointments this week — and was glad, when I got home, to have the chicken already cooked. I chopped up a bunch of onions and started them caramelizing, and shredded some cheese. 

When I am making enchiladas, I usually coat the chicken with spices and slowly pan fry it, and then shred the meat. This time, I shredded the cooked meat, mixed it with onions and cheese, and added a bunch of seasoning. Guess what? It wasn’t that good. The texture and the flavor were both inferior. Oh well. 

They weren’t bad. 

Just not that great. The beans and rice I mad was pretty blah, too. Oh well!

Not a terrible meal. I just know I can do better. 
Speaking of which, I also made a cheesecake for an order and somehow got, like, an entire eggshell in there. I have never done this before and I don’t know how it happened, but dang. I argued with myself for a while that maybe the customer wouldn’t notice or care, or maybe somehow the eggshell would have settled down to the bottom and would blend in with the bottom crust, but eventually I acknowledged that I really needed to remake it. 

I also made six mini cheesecakes, testing out some more ideas for Valentine’s day decorations. I was afraid they were browning too quickly, so I carefully covered them with tinfoil. Then I took it off, and dragged the tinfoil over the tops of every single last one, and ruined the designs. 

Soooo looks like the family has another cheesecake to eat. Actually a cheesecake and six mini cheesecakes. Very tragic. And then I made another cheesecake. 

FRIDAY
Ziti

Damien is taking a kid to the last doctor appointment of the week, and I’m, well, I’m making more cheesecake. I do make very good cheesecake, and people keep buying it. This is essentially how I am paying for my new terrible health insurance, and ain’t that America. 

Oh gosh, I forgot I was gonna say more about the Joy of Cooking! I think I will just do a photo dump of all the pages that caught my eye as I riffled through the pages. In no particular order, here is a little tour of a very different world. 

Remember this when someone waxes nostalgic about the past. The past was kind of gross, and a lot of work, and judgy, whew! I would probably eat Emergency Fish Cakes, though. I just pray I never find out if I have it in me to put on my boots and pull the skin off a squirrel. 

In conclusions let me say: Obviously, a classic salmi, fully accoutered, is only for the skilled cook whose husband is a Nimrod and has presented her with more than a single bird. If she is less well endowed, she will have to base her sauce on the backs, wings and necks of he bird that is being presented and eke out her Espagnole Sauce with veal stock. 

And don’t you forget it! 

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sugar smoked ribs

the proportions are flexible here. You can adjust the sugar rub to make it more or less spicy or sweet. Just pile tons of everything on and give it puh-lenty of time to smoke.

Ingredients

  • rack pork ribs
  • yellow mustard
  • Coke
  • extra brown sugar

For the sugar rub:

  • 1-1/2 cups brown sugar
  • 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 2 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 2 Tbsp salt
  • 1 Tbsp white pepper

Instructions

  1. Coat the ribs in yellow mustard and cover them with sugar rub mixture

  2. Smoke at 225 for 3 hours

  3. Take ribs out, make a sort of envelope of tin foil and pour Coke and brown sugar over them. close up the envelope.

  4. Return ribs to smoker and cook another 2 hours.

  5. Remove tinfoil and smoke another 45-min.

  6. Finish on grill to give it a char.

 

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Mashed potato puffs

Great way to use leftover mashed potatoes. Also worth mashing potatoes just to make these (or use instant!)

Ingredients

  • oil for frying
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 cup mashed potatoes at room temperature
  • 1 egg

Instructions

  1. Start heating several inches of oil in a heavy pot.

  2. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Add in the mashed potatoes and stir until smooth.

  4. Lightly beat the egg and stir that in until combined.

  5. When the oil has reached 385 °F (the surface should be shimmering but not yet smoking), carefully drop in blobs of the potato mixture, about a tablespoon's worth each. They should start to bubble and darken instantly; if not, your oil is not hot enough. Don't crowd the pot, because you want to be able to move the puffs around so they get cooked on all sides.

  6. Fry them in batches until they are a dark golden brown, frequently shuffling them around with a wooden spoon. As each batch is done, pull them out with a slotted spoon or deep fryer scoop, let them drain for a few seconds, and move them to a platter with paper towels to absorb the extra oil. They can be kept warm in the oven for a short time, but they are best when they are fresh.

What’s for supper? Vol. 454: This is the account of what we had for supper.

Happy Friday! Let’s talk about food. 

SATURDAY
Leftovers and fancy cheesecake

Just a regular day of shopping and chores. The leftovers were slightly more disparate than usual, because of the day’s proximity to NYE.

The day before, I had to cancel a cheesecake order because of the shattered oven door, but I still had all those ingredients at room temperature; so I made a cheesecake just for us. I used the opportunity to experiment with a baked-in design. I took a few spoonfuls of raw batter and mixed them with different food colors, then piped lines onto the raw cheesecake, and then dragged them in concentric circles with a wooden skewer. 

Then I baked it as normal and left it in the oven to cool very slowly overnight. In the morning, it looked like this:

A little darker than I like to let cheesecake get, and the yellow does not look great, but otherwise a success as far as the design! There are a million tutorials for clever wet-on-wet designs, and I could also do names or messages. I have some almost-certain news about my baking future that I want to share, but it’s not a done deal yet!

Anyway, it was a very yummy cheesecake, and it was the first one my family and I have had in a long time! I’ve made so many cheesecakes lately, but they all went out the door. 

Anyway, the kids helped me make my menu for the week, and we somehow arrived at the idea of A Week of Sandwiches. So here’s how that went. (Spoiler: It went in between two pieces of bread, mostly.)

SUNDAY
Meatball subs, veggies and dip

I usually take allll the shortcuts for meatballs,

Jump to Recipe

but this time I used fresh garlic and onion, rather than powders. But I did use the easy peasy cooking method of putting them on a rack on a pan and baking them. 

It still shakes me up that this is enough food for the family. I used to make almost three times this much! 

When the meatballs were cooked, I transferred them to the slow cooker with sauce, cut up a bunch of veggies

and lo, there was supper. The first sandwich. 

This picture reminds me that I also made banana muffins. I was cleaning the kitchen and found an ungodly number of nearly-dead bananas, so I made 24 muffins for snacks and lunches. Here’s my basic recipe:

Jump to Recipe

Not thrilling, but a very decent muffin. 

And that was the end of vacation!

MONDAY
Vermonter sandwiches, fries, hot pretzels

First day back at school. It went about like you would expect. Sophia (who in in college and still on vacation) made some fancy cookies, so I ended up switching around my menu, and one of the kids discovered some frozen pretzels I forgot to make on Saturday, and we had a tasty but slightly incoherent supper. 

Vermonter sandwiches: Chicken breast, bacon, sharp cheddar cheese, tart green apple, and honey mustard sauce on sourdough or ciabatta. I ended up finishing cooking the chicken in the leftover bacon grease, and I have no regrets.

Tasty.  

And that was the second sandwich. 

TUESDAY
Chopped Italian subs, antipasto 

Tuesday the replacement glass for the oven door arrived! Damien has had 9,000 other repair projects, though, so it’s still in its box. The oven actually works fine. I’m just opening and closing the door very carefully! (It’s just the inner glass that’s broken, so I’m not cooking with a big hole in my oven, thanks for asking.) 

The only tricky thing about serving sandwiches all week is coming up with different side dishes. I don’t like serving chips or fries more than once each per week. So for Tuesday, I figured we’d lean into the Italian thing and have an antipasto dish, made up of all the little snicky snacks still leftover from NYE and Sophia’s birthday. We also had leftover challah, which gets dry really really fast, so I cut that into cracker-sized pieces and toasted them with olive oil and kosher salt. They turned out kind of weird! Less bruschetta, more, I don’t know, biscuit-y. Much better when hot out of the oven. 

So again, a little incoherent, but yummy. 

*ahem* 
sound like anyone you know? 

[here I have deleted a photo of me winking archly at the camera. You are welcome]

Anyway, so then we had the sandwiches, which really would be better if the kids would let me mix up all the ingredients together like you’re supposed to. But they like their separate bowls, so we had chopped ham and various kinds of salami in one bowl, then shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, chopped provolone and chopped other cheese, I forget what. And then I put out various dressings and vinegars, and a jar of that hotsy totsy pepper spread. And a big jar of pickles. 

The third sandwich.  

Also in this photo, you can see the absolute star of this year’s Christmas presents: A water bottle that looks like a can of Slurm. Corrie’s pride and joy. 

WEDNESDAY
Grilled ham and cheese

I think Wednesday was the day I slept 12 hours. I honestly don’t know if I’m getting sick, or if I’m catching up from Christmas, or maybe I just really like sleeping, but that is what happened. I was none too sharp the rest of the day. We had grilled ham and cheese, fake Doritos, and pickles for supper. 

And you know what, for once I didn’t burn any of the sandwiches. Still, some of them turned out better than others. 

The fourth sandwich. 

THURSDAY
Chicken wraps, baked potato

I think it was Thursday morning that Damien noticed my tire had kind of fallen off. You would think this is the kind of thing I would notice on my own, but I did not. I mean, presumably it happened while the car was parked and not while I was driving it around, but who knows. So that meant both our cars were out of commission, too ra loo. Luckily, we were able to borrow Sophia’s car. Score one for the terrible economy that prevents adult kids from moving out too fast, I guess! 

I had bought a bag of spicy chicken cutlets from Walmart — the kind where the chicken is raw under the breading, so it takes longer to cook, but it’s somewhat cheaper than pre-cooked, and they’re really quite good. We had chicken wraps with shredded lettuce and various cheeses left over from various meals. I put ranch dressing on mine. And we are calling this a sandwich, because what else is it? That’s a sandwich. 

I also baked some potatoes because the whole side dish thing had gotten out of sync, and that’s what was left. So kind of a weird combination, but nobody went hungry. Not when we had potatoes, and the fifth sandwich. 

FRIDAY
Pancakes? 

Okay, pancakes are not sandwiches. I can acknowledge that. However, Damien put a new tire on my car and 90% fixed his brakes, and that’s not sandwiches, either! What it is is actually pretty hot. I gotta run out and mail out a thing I sold on Marketplace (a five-foot-tall Batman lamp that I thought would be a huge hit on Christmas, and it absolutely was not), drop Damien off at Adoration, pick up the kids, and get Corrie’s ear hole that closed up re-pierced so her ears will be healed in time for her birthday, which is not really soon, but somehow the entire household is planning for it already. I slept so late I had time to dream a really long dream, and then dream further that I woke up and was telling people about the first dream. A dream within a dream. A dream sandwich, if you will. 

Aha! And so it was morning and it was evening, the sixth sandwich. And I saw all the sandwiches I had made, and they were not bad at all. 

In conclusion, I have one other photo on my camera roll that I didn’t manage to incorporate. Here it is.

Okay, now I can rest. 

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Meatballs

Make about 100 golf ball-sized meatballs. 

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs ground meat (I like to use mostly beef with some ground chicken or turkey or pork)
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups panko bread crumbs
  • 4 oz grated parmesan cheese (about 1 cup)
  • 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400.

  2. Mix all ingredients together with your hands until it's fully blended.

  3. Form meatballs and put them in a single layer on a pan with drainage. Cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes or more until they're cooked all the way through.

  4. Add meatballs to sauce and keep warm until you're ready to serve. 

 

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Banana bread or muffins

adapted from Quick Breads, Soups & Stews by Mary Gubser

Ingredients

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 3 ripe bananas, mashed well
  • 1/2 cup chopped nuts optional

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375.

  2. In one bowl, sift flour, baking soda, and salt together.

  3. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well in between. Add mashed bananas and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients and blend well. If you're adding nuts, fold them in.

  5. Grease 12 muffin tins or a loaf pan and pour the batter in.

  6. Bake 20 minutes or longer, until the top is slightly browned.

What’s for supper? Vol. 453: Eat Pray Ugh

Happy new year! I remember once reading a guide to confession that said if you aren’t sure if a sin is venial or mortal, just tell the priest, “I am unable to judge the severity of my actions.” So that’s where we are, except with food. Except that I am very able to judge it; I’m just too busy licking icing off my chin to decide what to call it. 

If you don’t mind, I’ll just do a highlights reel of the last few weeks, rather than the typical day-by-day account. My camera roll is a mess, I have put on 924 pounds, and I made so much cheesecake, I blew out the oven door. More on that later!

Okay, here’s some yummy food!  

We’ll start with a cozy little pot of applesauce I made during Chanukah. I put a bunch of cut-up apples (including peels and cores) in the Instant Pot with some water and cooked them, then ran the collapsed apples through the foley mill to get rid of the debris. Cooking them with the peels on makes the color lovely and pink. Then I added some cinnamon and a little butter, and continued cooking it down in a pot. Lovely color, didn’t need any sugar. 

This was, of course, to accompany POTATO LATKES, the sine qua non of Chanukah. I had shredded the potatoes in the food processor the night before, and stored them in a bowl of water in the fridge to keep them from turning brown. If you put the shreds in cold water immediately and let them sit for a bit, they remain mostly white even after you take them out of the water again! 

I more or less followed the NYT latke recipe, which calls for eggs, flour, salt, baking powder, and pepper. It results in a puffy latke that is absolutely delightful. 

We had these for dinner as a side dish, but I can’t remember what the main was. 

Later in Chanukah, I made sufganiyot: Little jelly donuts. I’ve tried different recipes, but this time I went for the Smitten Kitchen one, which has you rolling out the dough and cutting it into rounds, rather than dropping dollops of batter into the hot oil. If I remember, I made the dough the night before, then cut it out and fried it. The recipe includes an option for filling them with jelly and THEN frying them, but I opted to fry and then fill. 

Absurdly delicious, and beautifully plump. Definitely doing this recipe from now on. 

I also, for reasons I can’t clarify, decided to make blintzes this year. (Well, last year, I guess.) I have a very old memory of my grandmother (the mean one) making blintzes when she moved into our house. Nobody was allowed in the kitchen, and I could hear her violently whacking the frying pan on the table to get the wrapper out of the pan.

I did not find it necessary to do that! Making the wrappers was a pretty steep learning curve, though, and I absolutely had some misfires, and probably my wrappers were a little too thick. (They are essentially slightly undercooked crêpes — undercooked because you fill them and then fry them.) The classic recipe calls for farmer’s cheese/pot cheese, but I used ricotta, which is very close. 

I followed Smitten Kitchen’s recipe, and they turned out wonderful. 

And yes, when I took my first bite of that combination of flavors I haven’t had since I was about six, I wept a tiny bit. My poor mean grandmother, what a life she had. Poor her, poor them, poor everybody. At least we have blintzes. 

I made a simple cherry sauce from frozen cherries. Can’t find the recipe, but it was just, like, a cornstarch, lemon juice, sugar, water kind of thing. 

INCREDIBLE. 

I do believe next Chanukah I will make EITHER sufganitot OR blintzes, but woof, everything was so good, I don’t really have regrets.

And we played dreidel! I miraculously remembered to get chocolate coins to bet with, and Sophia surprised everyone with gift cards to a local bookshop.  

I think we managed to light the candles 6 out of 8 days, and we lit the Advent candles more than half the time,

which is not a bad record for this vicinity. 

On Christmas eve, I decided I wanted to try that cinnamon star pull-apart bread I see everyone making, rather than my normal cinnamon rolls. I followed the Sally’s Baking Addiction recipe, and I even watched the video. I formed the stars and then put it in the fridge overnight, and it looked promising!

In the evening, we decorated the tree. Usually I put up lights outside the house and set up the nativity scene in the beginning of Advent, then add lights inside on the third Sunday, and then we decorate the tree on Christmas Eve. 

We went to Midnight Mass That Is Actually At Midnight, Which In Theory I Love But Also Zzzzzzzzz, and Benny was serving, and it was lovely and beautiful, but also there was enough exhaustd and overstimulated weeping and lamenting from certain quarters that I decided not to even try taking pictures in the church. But many of the kids looked very nice. We did take a few pics at home. 

We staggered home with the addition of Elijah, who spent the night on the couch. We lugged all the presents and stockings out and sprinkled candy around according to tradition, and got into bed by 2:30. I left a note for the kids to please take out the cinnamon bread and let the dough warm up when they get up. (They are allowed to get up whenever they want and open their stockings, which have candy and a few small presents; but they can’t wake us up to open the rest of the presents until 8:00.)

So I got up and baked the bread, and it was not great! Just didn’t keep its shape, and I thought there was too little cinnamon and sugar for the amount of bread.

No one really complained, though. we had tons of bacon, oranges, grapes, and pomegranates, orange juice and eggnog, and candy and chocolate galore. The kids gave each other such excellent presents. 

Moe joined us via video (he’s currently working two jobs and couldn’t get here in person, alas), Clara came over in the morning, and Lena came by later in the day. So a lovely day all around, much laughing and goofing around. Later, we had our traditional takeout Chinese feast

and all was well.

I haven’t yet mentioned that, right before Christmas, I baked and sold a large number of cheesecakes. I think a total of 14? It’s possible this is a legal gray area, but they were delicious and nobody arrested me, so we have that going for us. I even sold the one that got caught on the oven rack and half the top got ripped off.

I gave the lady a discount and showed her a photo of how it was damaged, but check out how I fixed it:

I do like making pretty food! I also offered strawberry sauce and blueberry sauce. 

After Christmas day was a bit of a blur. Like lots of other people, we ate a lot of candy and hung around in our pajamas and watched movies. We watched Stranger Things (still have to see the final episode), which we enjoyed with some heckling, and Wake Up Dead Man, which we all LOVED. At some point I made a double batch of buckeyes.

This is a recipe that I used to have to assemble all my montessori powers so I would be cool with the kids rolling the dough into balls with their grubby hands and coming out with buckeyes of all uneven sizes, and then not freaking out when they splattered hot melted chocolate all over the place while dipping them. Oh how times have changed! This time, I made the dough and nobody felt like making buckeyes. So it stayed in the fridge for several days, until I finally got tired of looking at it. The dough was a little dry, so rather than rolling it, I scooped half-balls with a melon baller

and rather than dipping it in chocolate, I just drizzled melted chocolate over the top. 

The kids called them “gentrified buckeyes.”  The only downside to this model is that, when you refrigerate them, it’s super easy to flick the chocolate off and eat the plain candy underneath, if for instance you can’t each chocolate but you certainly can eat 927 plain balls of peanut butter, butter, sugar, and vanilla. I’m just saying, if they’re completely robed in chocolate, you have to work harder to denude them, and you only eat maybe 600 of them. 

Eventually, we wobbled our way toward eating actual food again. I made beef barley soup and challah one night.

Here’s my soup recipe:

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and here’s my challah recipe:

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I did one loaf with sesame seeds, one with “what the hell happened to my bagel?” seasoning, or whatever the off-brand is called

Honestly they were a little dry and not as chewy as you want challah to be, but still nice. Can’t beat freshly-baked bread. 

Another night we had just plain old broiled pork ribs, seasoned with salt and pepper and shoved up under a hot broiler, turned once. This remains one of my favorite ways to serve pork ribs. 

Looks like we had mashed potatoes, too. Aren’t you glad I’m here to narrate this perplexing imagery? 

The other night, we had oven-fried chicken and some bare-bones pasta salad. 
 

Here’s my recipe for oven-fried chicken:

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As you can see in the background, I had started my next goofy project, which was Sophia’s birthday cake. She once again requested to be surprised, which is honestly the one thing I can guarantee, with my cakes. She did ask for a strawberry cake with lemon cheesecake frosting, and I was feeling ambitious for some misbegotten reason, so I decided to make a fresh strawberry cake without artificial strawberry flavoring. I once again turned to Sally’s Baking Addiction, and followed this recipe, which has you puree strawberries and then simmer them until the volume is reduced by half. The idea is that you impart strawberry flavor into the batter without making it too runny. 

Well, I will cut the suspense and tell you the cake did not turn out great. It did taste like strawberry, but it was really dense and a little gummy. I don’t know if this is my fault — cakes are not my forte — but that is how it turned out. I did bake it in a bundt pan, because I wanted that shape, but I don’t think that was the problem. However, since I did have a cake with a hole in the middle, I did what any red-blooded American would do: I filled it with Skittles. 

But first I made a lemon cream cheese frosting, using this recipe from Sugar Spun Run, and it was absolutely delicious. Fluffy and creamy and perfectly sweet-tart.  

Anyway, back to the surprise part! Sophia loves Conan Gray, so I decided to model the cake after his newest album cover.

 

So I ended up with a vaguely hat-shaped cake (I used a second pan to make the top part) with a slightly blurry little fondant sailor perched on the brim. 

You can’t really tell, but one of his wee hands is curled up so he can clutch one of the candles. Here he is before I added the water or sky or whatever

Did I mention the frosting was delicious? I don’t know, little kids are much easier to please! Anyway, Moe had come over to stay for a few days, and Clara and Elijah came by, and we all had lovely calzones

Here’s my basic calzone recipe. (I just use premade pizza dough.)

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And then, after presents and cake, the youngest and the oldest in the family shuffled off to bed and left the birthday girl and pals to watch Zoolander and eat this charcuterie board I made:

That’s pretty, right? I was pleased with it. I made the chocolate leaves when I was drizzling the buckeyes, and had leftover chocolate. I just piped them onto parchment paper and stuck them in the freezer until it was time to use them. And I realized I now know how to make pie crust roses, strawberry roses, AND salami roses. 

This birthday was actually Jan. 1, which means I didn’t mention our New Year’s Eve! Which is, you’ll be surprised to hear, food-centric. We had sushi and pork dumplings. I usually make the pork dumplings from scratch, but couldn’t find dumpling wrappers anywhere in town, so I just bought some frozen ones. 

For the sushi, I got some good rice and made a pot of seasoned rice.

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I got tons of nori sheets, and . . . let’s see. Smoked salmon, raw ahi tuna, steamed shrimp, avocado, mango, red caviar, cucumber, carrot matchsticks, fried SPAM, and an assortment of sauces, hot mustard, and so on. Sesame seeds and furikake. I forget what else. 

and everyone made sushi and we had fun! Oh, and Benny made taiyaki filled with nutella and jelly. I was honestly just crushingly tired by this point, so I don’t have much in the way of photos. I do have a short video I took by accident, and I watched it six times before I figured out what the hell I was doing. Then I realized I was cleaning off my phone’s camera lens with a napkin, frowning at it, LICKING it, and cleaning it off with a napkin again. If you send me $900 I will share the video. 

That night, we watched It’s A Wonderful Life, which we saved for when Moe was here, and then we counted down to midnight, shot off the cheapy little confetti guns I got at Walmart, had some sparkling cider in plastic cups

and staggered off to bed. 

The very last thing Damien did in the year 2025 was to go down in the basement and thaw out the bathtub pipe, which had frozen even though we left it running a trickle; and then on the very first day of 2026, the oven door broke. I was actually just peeking at the calzones to see if they were done, and the glass inside the oven just kind of fell apart and slid off the door. It didn’t look to me like it had exploded at all, so I uhh went ahead and fed those calzones to my family, and they enjoyed them, and nobody died. 

Then today, Jan. 2, our new dryer arrived (Damien has been going to the laundromat for the family for over a week now), and he is taking out the old one and putting in the new. Because of my past cleverness, this involves unscrewing about forty screws with which I attached plexiglass to the laundry room door last summer to keep the rain from getting in, and also dismantling the makeshift greenhouse I set up on the back steps to keep my pomegranate trees from freezing. SO YOU SEE, marriage isn’t 50/50, if you want it to work. It’s 100/100. He puts in 100% of the work actually keeping the household functional, and I mess around with fondant and pomegranates, 100%. And that’s our secret!  Anyway, don’t forget about the video. $900 firm. I know what I got. 

   

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Beef barley soup (Instant Pot or stovetop)

Makes about a gallon of lovely soup

Ingredients

  • olive oil
  • 1 medium onion or red onion, diced
  • 1 Tbsp minced garlic
  • 3-4 medium carrots, peeled and diced
  • 2-3 lbs beef, cubed
  • 16 oz mushrooms, trimmed and sliced
  • 6 cups beef bouillon
  • 1 cup merlot or other red wine
  • 29 oz canned diced tomatoes (fire roasted is nice) with juice
  • 1 cup uncooked barley
  • salt and pepper

Instructions

  1. Heat the oil in a heavy pot. If using Instant Pot, choose "saute." Add the minced garlic, diced onion, and diced carrot. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions and carrots are softened. 


  2. Add the cubes of beef and cook until slightly browned.

  3. Add the canned tomatoes with their juice, the beef broth, and the merlot, plus 3 cups of water. Stir and add the mushrooms and barley. 

  4. If cooking on stovetop, cover loosely and let simmer for several hours. If using Instant Pot, close top, close valve, and set to high pressure for 30 minutes. 

  5. Before serving, add pepper to taste. Salt if necessary. 

 

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Challah (braided bread)

Ingredients

  • 1.5 cups warm water
  • 1/2 cup oil (preferably olive oil)
  • 2 eggs
  • 6-8 cups flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1.5 tsp yeast
  • 2 egg yolks for egg wash
  • poppy seeds or "everything bagel" topping (optional)
  • corn meal (or flour) for pan, to keep loaf from sticking

Instructions

  1. In a small bowl, dissolve a bit of the sugar into the water, and sprinkle the yeast over it. Stir gently, and let sit for five minutes or more, until it foams.

  2. In the bowl of standing mixer, put the flour (starting with six cups), salt, remaining sugar, oil, and eggs, mix slightly, then add the yeast liquid. Mix with dough hook until the dough doesn't stick to the sides of the bowl, adding flour as needed. It's good if it has a slightly scaly appearance on the outside.

  3. (If you're kneading by hand, knead until it feels soft and giving. It will take quite a lot of kneading!)

  4. Put the dough in a greased bowl and lightly cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap. Let it rise in a warm place for at least an hour, until it's double in size.

  5. Grease a large baking sheet and sprinkle it with flour or corn meal. Divide the dough into four equal pieces. Roll three into "snakes" and make a large braid, pinching the ends to keep them together. Divide the fourth piece into three and make a smaller braid, and lay this over the larger braid. Lay the braided loaf on the pan.

  6. Cover again and let rise again for at least an hour. Preheat the oven to 350.

  7. Before baking, make an egg wash out of egg yolks and a little water. Brush the egg wash all over the loaf, and sprinkle with poppy seeds or "everything" topping.

  8. Bake 25 minutes or more until the loaf is a deep golden color.

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Oven-fried chicken

so much easier than pan frying, and you still get that crisp skin and juicy meat

Ingredients

  • chicken parts (wings, drumsticks, thighs)
  • milk (enough to cover the chicken at least halfway up)
  • eggs (two eggs per cup of milk)
  • flour
  • your choice of seasonings (I usually use salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and chili powder)
  • oil and butter for cooking

Instructions

  1. At least three hours before you start to cook, make an egg and milk mixture and salt it heavily, using two eggs per cup of milk, so there's enough to soak the chicken at least halfway up. Beat the eggs, add the milk, stir in salt, and let the chicken soak in this. This helps to make the chicken moist and tender.

  2. About 40 minutes before dinner, turn the oven to 425, and put a pan with sides into the oven. I use a 15"x21" sheet pan and I put about a cup of oil and one or two sticks of butter. Let the pan and the butter and oil heat up.

  3. While it is heating up, put a lot of flour in a bowl and add all your seasonings. Use more than you think is reasonable! Take the chicken parts out of the milk mixture and roll them around in the flour until they are coated on all sides.

  4. Lay the floured chicken in the hot pan, skin side down. Let it cook for 25 minutes.

  5. Flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes.

  6. Check for doneness and serve immediately. It's also great cold.

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Calzones

This is the basic recipe for cheese calzones. You can add whatever you'd like, just like with pizza. Warm up some marinara sauce and serve it on the side for dipping. 

Servings 12 calzones

Ingredients

  • 3 balls pizza dough
  • 32 oz ricotta
  • 3-4 cups shredded mozzarella
  • 1 cup parmesan
  • 1 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp oregano
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1-2 egg yolks for brushing on top
  • any extra fillings you like: pepperoni, olives, sausage, basil, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400. 

  2. Mix together filling ingredients. 

  3. Cut each ball of dough into fourths. Roll each piece into a circle about the size of a dinner plate. 

  4. Put a 1/2 cup or so of filling into the middle of each circle of dough circle. (You can add other things in at this point - pepperoni, olives, etc. - if you haven't already added them to the filling) Fold the dough circle in half and pinch the edges together tightly to make a wedge-shaped calzone. 

  5. Press lightly on the calzone to squeeze the cheese down to the ends. 

  6. Mix the egg yolks up with a little water and brush the egg wash over the top of the calzones. 

  7. Grease and flour a large pan (or use corn meal or bread crumbs instead of flour). Lay the calzones on the pan, leaving some room for them to expand a bit. 

  8. Bake about 18 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. Serve with hot marinara sauce for dipping.  

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Sushi rice

I use my Instant Pot to get well-cooked rice, and I enlist a second person to help me with the second part. If you have a small child with a fan, that's ideal.

Ingredients

  • 6 cups raw sushi rice
  • 1 cup rice vinegar
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 Tbsp salt

Instructions

  1. Rinse the rice thoroughly and cook it.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the rice vinegar, sugar, and salt, and cook, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved.

  3. Put the rice in a large bowl. Slowly pour the vinegar mixture over it while using a wooden spoon or paddle to fold or divide up the cooked rice to distribute the vinegar mixture throughout. You don't want the rice to get gummy or too sticky, so keep it moving, but be careful not to mash it. I enlist a child to stand there fanning it to dry it out as I incorporate the vinegar. Cover the rice until you're ready to use it.