Month: September 2020

What’s for supper? Vol. 222: Back to Zuul

Sorry, there will be no follow-up Ghostbusters reference in this What’s For Supper. I just ran out of title ideas. We did go back to school, though. 

If you look closely, you’ll notice that all the food photos this week were taken either outside, or in my bedroom. This is because I’m spending half my time pining for the kids because they’re at school, and the other half hiding from them because they’re home.

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Pork ribs, mashed potatoes, corn

Damien made his lovely sugar rub for the pork ribs, and cooked them on the grill. Scrumptious as always. Great little char, great caramelization, a little sweet, a little hot, nice and juicy inside.

You could make a big batch of this sugar rub and have it on hand in a baggie for just about any kind of meat, and it really makes it special. 

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I made seven pounds of mashed potatoes, and it wasn’t enough. Next time, a full ten. I also remembered too late about garlic parmesan mashed potatoes, where you boil the garlic cloves right along with the potatoes and then mash them in, then embarrass yourself with how much cheese you add.

 

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Next time! 

SUNDAY
Spaghetti carbonara

Always popular.

Damien made dinner while I languished or something. Oh, wait, I was doing school supply shopping! Really down to the wire this year. I remember the first year I did school shopping, when we were SO broke and having SO much culture shock after years of home schooling. I remember being so heartbroken and outraged that I was expected to buy a thumb drive for my innocent sixth grader. It seemed like they were trying to turn her into a faceless drone, enslaved to technology and commercialism. So, this year, Corrie got a P.J. Masks backpack and Frozen II water bottle and a shiny gold Wonder Woman dress and Lion King socks and whatever the hell else she wanted. And all Crayola, no Rose Art at all. You can judge for yourself if that’s progress or not. Anyway, Damien made dinner.

 

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MONDAY
Aldi pizza

For the first day of school, a nice, easy meal was in order, especially since I had somehow made myself believe school was still a full week away, so we had zero acclimatization to the new bed times. 

School is . . . okay. The kids are okay with masks. The school has set up tents for outdoor classes and lunch, and the kids sit on yoga mats, and no one spends more than 45 minutes in a room with other people, and they have fans going all the time. They do temperature checks every morning. They ask my five-year-old if she’s been out of the country (and I always listen closely for her answer, because you never know). It is okay. I have no idea if they’re learning anything. Corrie has learned a dinosaur song and a fishie song and has a friend named Greta. She has a classmate named Oliver who is silly. We have no idea how long this all will last, but for now, it’s okay. 

Mirabile dictu, no one in the school has life-threatening allergies this year, so we can pack whatever we want for lunch, so there’s that. In a few weeks, we’ll add in hybrid public high school and Catholic high school, and eventually the college kids will go back to college. Moe is in quarantine. It’s been several days since anyone called Clara “Hitler” for enforcing mask rules in the store.  Walmart is selling unscented hand sanitizer again, so you don’t have to go around smelling like fermented cranberry fart. It’s okay. How are you?

TUESDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, carrots and hummus, broccoli salad

I cleaned out the cabinet and discovered I’ve been diligently stocking up on sunflower seeds and dried cranberries, for some reason. So I poked around and found a recipe that uses both of them, along with broccoli and a basic dressing (mayo, white vinegar, sugar, pepper). 

Everyone liked it well enough, and it was a nice change from coleslaw. Vaguely autumnal. Some people also add bacon, but I was trying to pretend it was a vegetable. You could also put minced red onion.  Maybe a little blue cheese. But it was nice in its simple form. 

WEDNESDAY
Steak teriyaki stir fry, white rice

Feeling unambitious, I bought two bottles of ginger teriyaki sauce. I’m often unhappy with my stir fries because they are watery and the vegetables are overcooked, because I crowd the pan and overcook some ingredients while others are catching up. So this time, I cooked the food in batches and in stages. I heated up some sesame oil and cooked the strips of beef in batches until just barely not pink, then took the meat out of the pan. Then I cooked the broccoli in the meaty pan until just barely done, and then I added the red peppers and cooked them just a little. Then I put the meat back in and added the sauce and just stirred everything up quickly so it was heated through, and served it over rice.

Good results! The vegetables were crunchy, the meat wasn’t chewy, and the sauce did not get watery. I made a bunch of rice in the Instant Pot, and it was a tasty, pretty meal. 

Steak continues to be cheap, and I’m running out of ideas! We’ve had steak and cheese, steak salad, steak steak, and tortas. What else do you make with steak? Never thought I’d have this problem. 

THURSDAY
Carnitas with guacamole, corn on the cob

Not the very fine carnitas from J.R.’s Art Place that you cook in a pot until the meat’s all lacquered and lovely, but still not bad. I put a giant bone-in pork picnic in the Instant Pot with a can of Coke, some cinnamon sticks and bay leaves, orange quarters, salt, pepper, and oregano, and cooked it for 35 minutes on high. It wasn’t really tender, so I gave it another 35 minutes. It still wasn’t as tender as I wanted, but I was out of time, so I pulled the meat out and shredded what I could, and cut the rest off. Then I spread it in a pan and sprinkled it heavily with chili powder and salt, and crisped it up under the broiler.

I flirted with the notion of beans and rice, but it seemed hard, so we just had the meat with guacamole, and cheese, sour cream, salsa, lime wedges, and cilantro. 

I made some rather tomato-heavy guacamole with the few avocados that didn’t turn out to be all sad and grey inside. What the heck is wrong with avocados lately? They’re not overripe, they’re just blighted or something. What do you expect: These are Joe Biden’s avocados. Ask yourself if you’re really prepared for four more years of Joe Biden’s avocados.

FRIDAY
Tuna burgers, cheesy tomato soup

This may just be a fantasy. Most likely, people will request plain tuna with mayo. But I will offer the option of tuna burgers.

 

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And I will offer tomato soup from a can, and they can put cheese in it. Or they can act like it’s not even exciting that it’s finally almost soup season. But it is exciting! It is. 

 

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Smoked chicken thighs with sugar rub

Ingredients

  • 1.5 cups brown sugar
  • .5 cups white sugar
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 2 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp chili pepper flakes
  • salt and pepper
  • 20 chicken thighs

Instructions

  1. Mix dry ingredients together. Rub all over chicken and let marinate until the sugar melts a bit. 

  2. Light the fire, and let it burn down to coals. Shove the coals over to one side and lay the chicken on the grill. Lower the lid and let the chicken smoke for an hour or two until they are fully cooked. 

 

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Garlic parmesan mashed potatoes

Ingredients

  • 5-6 lbs potatoes
  • 8-10 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
  • 8 Tbsp butter
  • 1-1/2 cups milk
  • 8 oz grated parmesan
  • salt and pepper

Instructions

  1. Peel the potatoes and put them in a pot. Cover the with water. Add a bit of salt and the smashed garlic cloves.

  2. Cover and bring to a boil, then simmer with lid loosely on until the potatoes are tender, about 25 minutes.

  3. Drain the water out of the pot. Add the butter and milk and mash well.

  4. Add the parmesan and salt and pepper to taste and stir until combined.

 

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Spaghetti carbonara

An easy, delicious meal.

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs bacon
  • 3 lbs spaghetti
  • 1 to 1-1/2 sticks butter
  • 6 eggs, beaten
  • lots of pepper
  • 6-8 oz grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Fry the bacon until it is crisp. Drain and break it into pieces.

  2. Boil the spaghetti in salted water until al dente. If you like, add some bacon grease to the boiling water.

  3. Drain the spaghetti and return it to the pot. Add the butter, pieces of bacon, parmesan cheese, and pepper and mix it up until the butter is melted.

  4. Add the raw beaten egg and mix it quickly until the spaghetti is coated. Serve immediately.

5 from 1 vote
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White Lady From NH's Guacamole

Ingredients

  • 4 avocados
  • 1 medium tomato, diced
  • 1 medium jalapeno, minced
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped roughly
  • 1 Tbsp minced garlic
  • 2 limes juiced
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • salt and pepper
  • 1/2 red onion, diced

Instructions

  1. Peel avocados. Mash two and dice two. 

  2. Mix together with rest of ingredients and add seasonings.

  3. Cover tightly, as it becomes discolored quickly. 

 

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Tuna burgers

Ingredients

  • 1 can tuna
  • 1/2 cup bread crumbs
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • seasonings, minced onion, etc.
  • oil for frying

Instructions

  1. Drain the tuna.

  2. Mix tuna thoroughly with egg, bread crumbs, and whatever seasonings you like. Form into two patties. 

  3. Heat oil in pan. Fry tuna patties on both sides until golden brown. 

How to act when you’re downstream

Guess how I spent my morning? Making phone calls, and worrying.

Well, first I got up, got dressed, made coffee, fed the cat, woke up the kids, crammed breakfast into them, and accounted for everyone’s backpacks and lunches and shoes and masks and reminded the kids at home that they had a dentist appointment later. Then we piled in the car, I dropped off one kid at work, and I dropped off one kid at one school. Then we drove to the other school with the other kid, and then . . . I had doubts. 

Last night, my son said a co-worker at his restaurant casually mentioned she had had COVID symptoms for four days, and she had also been exposed to someone who had tested positive. And she kept on coming to work! So my son told his manager and then went straight into isolation at home until we get more information. 

It’s a fairly distant level of exposure, and there may not even be a virus. No one in our family has symptoms. So I read a few guidelines and I thought it was okay to bring the kids to school? But then I started tracing a hypothetical in my head: Server takes her mask off to vape, and breathes a virus cloud at my son; son comes home and grabs some crackers from the family box; other kids also eat crackers, then go to school and accidentally drool on a class ruler or something;  classmates use the ruler, then go home and kiss their parents; parents need toothpaste and go to Walmart, where they paw through the $2.88 DVD bin without wearing a mask because last they heard, they woke up in a free country . . . yeah, that’s what a pandemic looks like. Even with hand washing and sanitizer and masks and temperature checks. Some people are responsible and some are not. Some get away with it and some don’t. 

So, holding my masked kindergartner’s hand, I stood on the playground six feet away from the school’s director and described the situation, to get her verdict. Then I called the dentist; then I called the pediatrician, where we are supposed to be headed for check-ups with three kids tomorrow; then I texted another mom, whose house one kid was supposed to be going to after school for an outdoor, socially distanced birthday party this afternoon.

I can’t even tell how worried I’m supposed to feel right now! I can’t tell if I overreacted or under reacted. At least I work from home and don’t have to deal with daycare or complicated commutes, so it could be much worse. We just have to wait and see whether the gal at work actually has COVID or not.

But it’s almost noon and I haven’t gotten a damn thing done today, except make a bunch of phone calls for what may or may not be a problem, just because some waitress I’ve never even met apparently just opted out of taking a pandemic seriously. She wasn’t even going to tell anyone she had symptoms! She happened to mention it to my kid, and he’s the one who had to tell the manager. She was completely irresponsible, and that means that all the rest of us have to go into responsibility overdrive. I guess I still have to call the health department and make a report. I can feel myself returning again and again to a well of annoyance at her, and at everyone like her who isn’t taking this stuff seriously. That’s what a pandemic looks like: People who are PROBABLY NOT EVEN BAD PEOPLE are also PROBABLY RESPONSIBLE FOR PEOPLE DYING. And I can’t even tell how worried I’m supposed to feel.

So. What we have here is one of those “two job” situations. The first job we have is to be as responsible and sensible as possible, according to our abilities and circumstances. Make all the phone calls, change all the appointments, disclose all the situations, wash all the hands, etc. This is going to be everyone’s lives for the foreseeable future: Doing the best we can after someone else didn’t.

The other job is to guard our hearts. This is the hard part. This is always the hard part. 

We can keep ourselves and everyone we meet as safe as possible, but still allow our hearts to be completely overcome with resentment, rage, and disgust for the people who put us in this position. And it’s reasonable to do so! And it’s so easy! But it’s the part that can really hurt us. This is the part that will linger with us forever, making us weak and compromised long past this virus season. 

I can’t control anyone else’s behavior. I can’t make people take something seriously if they don’t want to take it seriously. All I can do is control my own behavior to try to mitigate the spread caused by careless and selfish and foolish people. In a pandemic, all I have is my own little portion of the river that runs through my property, as it were. I can’t control what kind of risk and contagion come to me and my family from upstream, but I can control what goes downstream from us.

And while I do it, I can control what I allow to happen in my heart. I have a choice to be as safe as possible while being angry, or to be as safe as possible while . . . being like Jesus, a little bit.

That’s really what it comes down to, you guys. This whole original sin thing? And all the actual sin that happens every minute of the day and night? Not His fault. Not His deal at all. All the muck and disease and pollution and contagion that came to Him from upstream was from other people. None of it was His. It was all from careless and selfish and foolish people like you and me. He was absolutely safe in Heaven from contagion. But He deliberately parked himself mid stream and let himself be exposed. Then, being Immaculate, He not only purified what came out of Him, He looked with pity and kindness on the people upstream, the ones who screwed everything up and hurt Him. That’s what He did. That’s who He is. 

THIS IS THE HARD PART. And . . . this is what we’re supposed to do. 

Can we do this? I am trying. I fail every day, even while the stakes are relatively low, and we’re mostly just dealing with hassle and anxiety, not ventilators and organ failure and financial ruin. I still get so mad. But I am trying. When I start to ruminate on other people’s lousy attitudes, I can take a breath, let it out slowly, and come up with something else to think about, because other topics besides COVID are still important. When the news is making me dig my nails into my palms with frustration, I can turn it off and put on Schubert, instead, because Schubert is real, too. When I realize some rando on Twitter is not interested in having an honest conversation, I can step away and mute him while there’s still some whiff of civility in the air. And I can pray, not only for health, but for peace. And I can make an act of faith that prayer is efficacious even when I don’t see it. 

This is the hard part. Trying to be like Jesus is always the hard part. But when you consider the alternative, what else can we possibly do? We can’t step out of the stream, but we can stand with Him.

 

 

Duty and salvation

When my oldest kid was about four, she happened to wake up around midnight to go to the bathroom. She stumbled through the living room, where my husband and I were sitting.

On this particular night – which was not a typical night! – we happened to be watching Daffy Duck cartoons and eating candy. She didn’t say a word, but just nodded to herself and kept walking. She was clearly thinking, “I KNEW it!”

It was, as I say, not a typical night. A typical night would be more likely to find us filling out insurance paperwork, trying to get stains out of someone’s favourite overalls, or simply trying to muster up the strength to get up, brush our teeth, struggle our way under the covers, and get a few hours of sleep before the baby woke up for her first feeding, so we could catch another few hours of sleep before it was time to get up and do it all over again, take care of everybody and everything all over again.

But what she saw was burned into her brain, and she thought she had found the real secret of adulthood: As soon as the kids’ bedroom door closes, you can do WHATEVER YOU WANT.

She wasn’t really wrong. Adults CAN do whatever they want. The catch is, if they DECIDE to do whatever they want, they’ll almost certainly ruin their lives and the lives of everyone around them, and go to hell when they die. It’s kind of a big catch.

What I tell my kids is that, when you’re a child, people make you do things you don’t want to do. But when you’re an adult, you have to make yourself do the things you don’t want to do. You have to be the unwilling worker and the strict taskmaster, both!

It occurs to me that we, even as adults, often fall into thinking of God as the strict taskmaster: the one who descends from on high, telling us what we can and cannot do. Every time we feel the urge to do WHATEVER WE WANT — uh oh, here comes God, saying “no, no, no.” Get up, take care of the thing, don’t do the thing you want to do, do the thing you don’t want to do instead. Then, tomorrow, do it all over again, even though you’re tired.

Following the ten commandments can feel very much like this, some days, or some years. And then we go to confession and admit, “I didn’t do the thing you told me to do. I failed.” And God forgives us, which is nice.

I’ve been teaching my faith formation class, over and over again, that Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are the sheep. We are the silly ones who need to be saved, and He is the saviour. We are the wandering ones, and He is the one who finds us. We are the ones who fall into the hole, and He is the one who pulls us out again.

So I was making up my lesson plans and I realised that, with all this talk about sheep, I had not yet introduced the kids to the idea that Jesus is the paschal lamb. And boy, the strangeness of it hit me right between the eyes. God is not only the shepherd, but also the lamb.

I know you know this. You’re a Catholic, so you’ve heard it all before. But have you ever thought about how strange it is?

Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.