Happy Friday! I’m going through my food photos and noticing that we are not doing great with the part of Lent where you don’t eat a lot. But really, there are two whole other important pillars of Lent. To wit: Praying, and giving alms. And those are going very, you know what, mind your own business.
Here’s what we had this week:
SATURDAY
Chicken burgers, chips
Saturday I went shopping, of course, so we just had chicken burgers and chips for supper. I did make a second batch of maple syrup, even smaller than the last one, though.
Annnd I may have overcooked it a skosh.
I was planning an Irish breakfast for Sunday, which was St. Patrick’s day. But I couldn’t find sourdough bread at either supermarket, so I decided to try making my own. In my usual thorough researchly fashion, I Googled “sourdough bread without a starter” and clicked on the first recipe that popped up. Started the dough and set it to rise in a warm spot (in the box of socks in the laundry room, which is over a heating vent) overnight.
I also, feeling very pleased with myself for all the things I was getting done, put both ice cream bowls in the freezer for the next day.
I also rented a pickup truck for the next day, so I could pick up an amazing offer from Facebook marketplace: Two docks, one 8×8 feet, one 16×4 feet, and the long skinny one had a handrail!!! Free!!!! And only about half an hour away.
The reason I wanted these was because I’m planning to build a bog bridge over the swampy area of the yard so we can get to the stream more easily. I had thrilling plans of using the long dock as a sturdy entrance point to the bridge, and the square one as a sort of floating deck halfway there, and I was thinking of adding birdhouses and solar-powered lights and geraniums in terra cotta pots, and a couple of tasteful deck chairs, and it would be such a lovely little project that would really transform that part of the property, and I was feeling incredibly lucky to have been the first one to jump on the offer, and they were really well-made, solid docks with no rotten wood, and it was all coming together!
You can probably tell, based on how excited I am about this, that it all went to hell. It really, really did. Read on!
SUNDAY
Irish breakfast, maple walnut ice cream
Sunday we went to Mass, I started some maple walnut ice cream going, using the syrup I had made yesterday, which I warmed up in a pot of water until it was soft enough to stir. (Here’s a similar ice cream recipe, and just ignore the part about coconut cream, and instead add 1/4 cup maple syrup, and then stir in some chopped walnuts after you churn it)
Jump to RecipeI also made a batch of chocolate chip ice cream (same base, but add chocolate chips). Jammed those in the freezer and headed out to get my wonderful docks.
Okay. So. I really can’t stand to revisit every last horrible detail, but it included a woman screaming “STOP!” and a man shouting, “What are you DOING??” and then when we got past that part and found the right field instead of the Very Wrong Field, there was a long spell where Damien and I were standing in the rain in that field, coming up with every last possible scenario we could that might possibly end up with us loading up these docks and bringing them home.
When we got to the part where I suggested going back home, getting our mini chainsaw and as many teenagers as we could find, and then using all our might to load the hacked-up pieces of dock into the truck and making maybe five or six trips to get it home, and then returning the pickup truck to U-Haul on time, we just kind of looked at each other and said, ” . . . Yeah, no.”
It was sad. It was tragic. But the fact is, we really needed a winch and a flatbed for this job. I did call a flatbed company and had a short argument with the dispatcher, but when they finally called back, I missed the call, and that was the final chapter in a long and stupid story called “It Was Just Not Meant To Be.”
So I went home and cried a little bit, to be honest with you, because I really wanted those docks, and also I felt like I was the dumbest person in the world because nothing every works out, boo hoo hoo, and the maple syrup was all my fault, and I had forgotten to buy potatoes for the Irish breakfast, and then I fetched the dough for the alleged soda bread that had been rising for 20 hours, and it was . . . in keeping with the rest of my efforts that day.
HOWEVER, I baked what I had, and they turned out somewhat reminiscent of bread.
Damien made the bacon, and we actually had a really tasty meal. I roasted some mushrooms with — I don’t remember, probably garlic, salt, pepper, butter, oil, and then some lemon juice at the end, and I roasted some tomato halves with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
I cut the bread into thick little wedges
and I heated up some baked beans, and then I fried a bunch of duck eggs in bacon grease, and yes, all together it was delicious.
Even without potatoes.
But! The ice cream didn’t freeze! I don’t know why! Maybe my freezer is overstuffed and the bowls are not getting sufficiently chilled. What can one say. Begorrah. We definitely ate it anyway, but it was more like a thin milkshake than ice cream.
MONDAY
Mussel lo mein
Monday I was pretty ready to have everything go better, and it did. Aldi was selling pouches of cooked mussel meat for $3 a pound a while back, so I pulled those out of the freezer and let them defrost while I did yoga. My sprained (or whatever) ankle was finally feeling well enough to do a full class again, so that was nice; and the cat stole one of the bags of mussels but did not manage to open it, so that was also nice!
At dinner time, I boiled three pounds of linguine, and started the lo mein with minced garlic and ginger, then added diced red onion and sugar snap peas, and then the mussels,
and then I put in 2/3 of the pasta and the sauce, and it was a lovely lo mein.
I served the rest of the pasta plain, for people who prefer that.
The lo mein was so good. I adore this recipe. It’s so fast and easy, and just delicious, and you can put whatever you want in it.
TUESDAY
Pizza, cannoli
Tuesday I had to face the fact that, even though I love St. Joseph very much, I had just plain forgotten that it was his feast day. Most years, we do a big Italian feast, but we were pretty zonked this week, so I just made pizza.
I did make a pretty deluxe pizza for the wild card one (I generally make one pepperoni, one plane, and one wild card pizza): Fresh garlic, roast tomatoes (left over from the Irish meal), spinach, anchovies, artichoke hearts, and black olives.
Gonna be your mom in motionAll I need’s this bag of cheese.Take me where my future’s lyin’St. Joseph’s pizza!
Look, the original song doesn’t make any sense, either.
We also happened to have cannoli shells in the house, which Damien grabbed months ago because they aren’t always in stores, so you get them while you can. I made a basic filling (ricotta cheese, vanilla, cinnamon, and powdered sugar) and piped it into the shells, then decorated them with rainbow sprinkles.
Not actually very swanky (I didn’t have time to let the filling drain, so it was kinda wet), but heyyy. St. Joseph. Not Srebenica.
WEDNESDAY
Butter chicken, rice, dal
Wednesday was duckling day! We ordered them a while back, thinking they would arrive after Easter when things had “”””””calmed down a little,”””””” but in fact they came on Wednesday. Here they are, noisily waiting in the post office to be picked up
The last batch of ducks we got were named after some of Damien’s great uncles, E.J., Coin, Fay, and Ray; so these ones are named after my paternal grandmother, Annie, and her sisters Mickey and Bebe.
They’re a little confused
but quite winsome
Here’s a couple of videos from the first and second day, meeting the rest of the animals.
They are Black Swedish ducks, and their personalities are somewhat different from the last little flock we got, which are pekin ducks. They are less sleepy and more jumpy, and they already look more duck-shaped than the pekins did at this age. (The pekins were just fuzzy blobs for about a week, but these guys have discernible necks already.)
Last time, we got a straight run, meaning nobody had figured out yet what sex they are. We ended up with two boys and two girls, which is not ideal (there are some power struggles). So this time we paid extra to get them sexed, and these are all girls. They’re supposed to be friendly and cold-hearty and good foragers, and the shells of their eggs will be a darker, bluish shade. This is what they will look like as adults.
One of my upcoming projects is to make a better fence, because our current flock finds it very easy to escape, and they’ve been roaming all over the property and also off the property, and we’re not really sure if everyone else finds them as charming as we do. They do get plenty of exercise this way, and nobody has eaten them yet.
Anyway! Still had to make supper, and the menu said butter chicken and dal. I’ve never had or even seen, much less made dal before. I followed the recipe in Julie Sahni’s cookbook, except I think I had the wrong kind of lentils. It said yellow or pink, and I had ones that were kind of orangey and are called “football lentils.”
Anyway it was a super easy recipe. You just simmer the lentils in water with turmeric until they’re tender,
whisk them until they’re blended (that was fun), and then at the end, add some oil that you’ve browned a bunch of sliced garlic in.
I think it came out much thicker than it’s supposed to be — more of a paste than anything you could conceivably sip — but it was DELICIOUS.
The butter chicken is also so easy. You just have to start early (or the night before) so it can marinate, but then I followed this recipe from RecipeTinEats, except I accidentally bought vanilla yogurt instead of plain, so I used sour cream instead. Worked great. You just cook up the chicken, then put in your tomato, cream, salt, and sugar, and let it simmer a bit longer.
I ended up with a lot more sauce than we needed for the chicken (possibly it was thinner because it was sour cream instead of yogurt? I don’t know), but better too much than too little.
I sure wish I had some naan or some other kind of bread, but I was — well, to be honest, I was tired because I was so excited about the ducks. So I just made a big pot of rice to go with it. Set out some more cilantro and there it was.
Such a nice, lovely meal. I ate so much. Just about everybody likes butter chicken. The dal was not a huge hit, but I myself loved it, so I’m probably going to try again on a day when I can also make naan, and maybe I can talk them into it that way.
THURSDAY
Banh mi, Doritos
Thusday we had banh mi, which we haven’t had for quite some time, because the smell is a bit of a trial for some people who live in this house.
I made a very slight tweak in the marinade
Jump to Recipe(running the cilantro through the food processor, rather than just chopping it up coarsely) and I liked it, so I’ll do it that way from now on.
I quick-pickled some carrots
Jump to Recipeand did the ol’ glass-skull-full-of-pickled-carrots maneuver
I just cut up the cucumbers and left them unpickled, because there are so many sharp, attention-getting flavors in this sandwich already.
The meat turned out extremely tender.
I had my sandwich with pickled carrots and fresh cilantro and some sriracha mayo, but I forgot to add cucumbers and jalapeños. I did toast the rolls, though, which I don’t always bother to do.
Magnificent. This is truly one of the great lights in the universe of sandwiches. My only regret was the pickled carrots were too sweet, but (so) the kids liked them a lot. We also had Doritos, which were a surprisingly good accompaniment to this sandwich. Or maybe I just like Doritos.
Late Thursday night, we lost one of the ducklings. I mean it died, we didn’t lose track of it. They were only a few days old and I don’t really know what happened. It just happens sometimes. The other two seem pretty hale and hearty, and now . . . I have to figure out which name I should assign to the one who didn’t make it, which is an unforeseen pitfall of naming brand-new ducklings after real people!
Ah well.
FRIDAY
Bagel, egg, cheese sandwiches
Friday was Benny’s school conference (Corrie’s was Thursday afternoon), and we made a stop afterwards at a favorite thrift store, where Benny found an absolutely lovely, brand new dress that fits her like a dream, and I found eighteen matching tiny wine glasses for $4. Perfect for Passover, which we will be celebrating on Holy Saturday as usual. Which is . . . .coming right up, isn’t it. There isn’t much in the way of Passover food to be found in the supermarkets, because actual Passover isn’t for more than another month, but I’ll figure it out.
Deep down, I’m glad I’m not frantically trying to figure out what to do about the two docks that are in my driveway right now. It just took a couple of days to realize I felt that way.
It is snowing.
Ben and Jerry's coconut ice cream
Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 cups whipping cream or heavy cream
- 1 cup milk
- 15 oz coconut cream
Instructions
-
In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs for two minutes until fluffy.
-
Add in the sugar gradually and whisk another minute.
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Pour in the milk and cream and coconut cream (discarding the waxy disk thing) and continue whisking to blend.
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Add to your ice cream maker and follow the directions. (I use a Cuisinart ICE-20P1 and churn it for 30 minutes, then transfer the ice cream to a container, cover it, and put it in the freezer.)
basic lo mein
Ingredients
for the sauce
- 1 cup soy sauce
- 5 tsp sesame oil
- 5 tsp sugar
for the rest
- 32 oz uncooked noodles
- sesame oil for cooking
- add-ins (vegetables sliced thin or chopped small, shrimp, chicken, etc.)
- 2/3 cup rice vinegar (or mirin, which will make it sweeter)
Instructions
-
Mix together the sauce ingredients and set aside.
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Boil the noodles until slightly underdone. Drain and set aside.
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Heat up a pan, add some sesame oil for cooking, and quickly cook your vegetables or whatever add-ins you have chosen.
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Add the mirin to the pan and deglaze it.
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Add the cooked noodles in, and stir to combine. Add the sauce and stir to combine.
Pork banh mi
Ingredients
- 5-6 lbs Pork loin
- 1/2 cup fish sauce
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 minced onion
- 1/2 head garlic, minced or crushed
- 2 tsp pepper
Veggies and dressing
- carrots
- cucumbers
- vinegar
- sugar
- cilantro
- mayonnaise
- Sriracha sauce
Instructions
-
Slice the raw pork as thinly as you can.
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Mix together the fish sauce ingredients and add the meat slices. Seal in a ziplock bag to marinate, as it is horrendously stinky. Marinate several hours or overnight.
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Grill the meat over coals or on a pan under a hot broiler.
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Toast a sliced baguette or other crusty bread.
quick-pickled carrots and/or cucumbers for banh mi, bibimbap, ramen, tacos, etc.
An easy way to add tons of bright flavor and crunch to a meal. We pickle carrots and cucumbers most often, but you can also use radishes, red onions, daikon, or any firm vegetable.
Ingredients
- 6-7 medium carrots, peeled
- 1 lb mini cucumbers (or 1 lg cucumber)
For the brine (make double if pickling both carrots and cukes)
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup rice vinegar (other vinegars will also work; you'll just get a slightly different flavor)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 Tbsp kosher salt
Instructions
-
Mix brine ingredients together until salt and sugar are dissolved.
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Slice or julienne the vegetables. The thinner they are, the more flavor they pick up, but the more quickly they will go soft, so decide how soon you are going to eat them and cut accordingly!
Add them to the brine so they are submerged.
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Cover and let sit for a few hours or overnight or longer. Refrigerate if you're going to leave them overnight or longer.
I’ve made that exact recipe for butter chicken before. It just makes an excessive amount of sauce. You did it right. Nagi (the author) just loves that sauce too much.
That’s so true!! It’s my go-to recipe, but I double the amount of chicken without modifying the sauce.
oh wow, thanks! I will keep that in mind next time.
Your weeks always read as if you live 3 times as much life as anyone else, and yet you still manage to cook great meals! After docks and ducklings too!
I’d be crumpled on the couch , waving weakly at a box of cereal for dinner.
Irish soda bread has so many variations, and mine is so not traditional. (It has butter, and a touch a sugar, and absolutely no currants- but delicious, so hopefully my ancestors will not haunt me.)
I hope your ankle continues to heal!
No, you’re not the only one who has great ideas that turn into “What was I thinking?!?” moments. I keep telling myself that everything is a learning experience…but I would really like to skip the experience and get right to fabulous results more often than I do. However, the food looks like it worked out this week, so not the worst week, right? And maybe a better solution to the marshy area will come along. In the meantime, the creek with the ducks is beautiful and there were some thrifting successes!
yes, that’s how I try to look at stuff! Very few experiences are a complete bust. You definitely need some space before you are ready to extract a lesson sometimes, though.
If you still have leftover saucy butter chicken, I hear you can put it on naan for butter chicken pizza, but that’s all I know (no idea what, if anything, you’d be supposed to do about cheese, etc.). Also, mmmm, cannoli.
WHAT. I must investigate butter chicken pizza.
If you ever overcook the syrup again, you can just add some water back to it. I’ve done that. It’s no problem. And I’m sorry your maple ice cream didn’t work out, because maple ice cream so unbelievably good.
oh smart, thank you! We had more cold temps, so I think I have one more shot this year.
I’m sorry about the awful start to your week.
I’m sorry about your sourdough. I love love love sourdough bread, but funny enough this Irish girl never associated it with Irish cuisine. Yeast free bread WAS frequently made by both my mom and grandmom, but it was it was always in the form of soda bread and scones.
So you did get the docks in the end! Or did I misread?
If you you like RecipeTin, she also has dal* and no-fish-sauce banh mi recipes!
The slow, no shortcuts one, is better but not harder.
no docks for me! Ducks but not docks.
Oh thanks, I am curious about the no fish sauce recipe. I love the recipe I use, but it may be more popular if I take out the fish sauce.
I don’t think sourdough is especially Irish; it’s just what we usually have with this meal. I like soda bread ok but hardly anyone else here will even eat it, so it’s not worth making even once a year.
Ahh! I never know if the environment I grew up in is representative of Irish culture, or just indicative of my own experience.
My husband and I and several of our good friends (Irish Americans all – none of us more than two generations removed from the boat) have some eerily similar stories and situations from our youths. For instance, once the oldest child turned 12, there was the family paper route. And having two TV’s next to each other, one with a picture, and one with sound. Knobs long gone, channels were changed with pliers. It would be easy for me to extrapolate that 8 year olds delivering newspapers and having one sound/one picture TV were Irish things, but I know those things don’t have so much to do with being Irish, as they do growing up poor with a lot of siblings, which many Irish Americans my age did.
As for food, I never know if Irish cuisine is as horrible as the jokes. In my experience and observation, it’s pretty bad. It’s hard for me to imagine any of the Irish mothers I’ve known deriving joy from cooking or expending any energy on it. But then again, the Irish mothers and grandmas in my circle had a lot of kids and no money. They were tired! And there was no money in the budget to experiment in the kitchen. It’s hard to enjoy cooking when that’s the case. Next thing you know you’re serving your kids spaghetti with ketchup.