Happy Friday! We are having a COUSIN day, which happens all too infrequently. My brother is up with two of his sons, and they and Corrie are happily working out the rules of some complicated board game.
SATURDAY
Japanese food
Saturday was an uncharacteristically sociable day for the Fishers. Corrie had a birthday party, Lucy had her senior prom, for which she dressed in the way she saw fit:
and Damien and I went Out. Lena had bought tickets to Stephen Malkmus, but couldn’t make it, so she gave them to us. First we went out to eat at the new Japanese restaurant in town, and had some very delicious steak tips
then we got gelato and strolled around
and then it was concert time! Super fun.
It has taken me almost 30 years, but I have finally warmed up to Stephen Malkmus/Pavement (whereas Damien has been a longtime fan). I do think about an hour was as long as I want to hear it at one time, though. It escaped me, previously, how sad some of the songs are. Being there live and letting the layers of sound reverberate around and seep in was really quite moving. What do you know about that!
Lucy’s prom was on a boat on a lake (they opted to spend their money on boat tickets, rather than on a bunch of balloon arches and streamers and bubble machines, and I think that was brilliant), and it rained and thundered the whole time, but they had a good time. We all had a good time!
SUNDAY
Chicken on salad, strawberry rhubarb pie
Sunday I had to go shopping, and also did a bit of gardening. The original plan was to make a salad with chicken, almonds, and strawberries, but I had the first rhubarb of the season from my garden, so instead, I made some croutons to bulk up the salad (greens, chicken, toasted almonds, feta cheese, and croutons)
and then used the strawberries for a pie. I never have the proportions that any strawberry-rhubarb pie calls for, but it doesn’t really matter. I can’t find the recipe I followed, but it was a pretty simple one. I think it just used flour to thicken it.
I made a big batch of pie crust
Jump to Recipeand made one really big pie, with a very sloppy lattice crust
Not bad! I took this picture to show that you can leave the rhubarb in much smaller pieces than I previously realized, and it still tastes good.
I love rhubarb so much.
MONDAY
Pokish bowls
I had shrimp from something or other that I had defrosted but didn’t cook, so I wanted to use it today; but most of the family (bafflingly) doesn’t like shrimp. SO I bought some ahi tuna for poke bowls, which just about everybody does like.
BHUT, I realized that the kind of tuna I’ve been serving raw is maybe not super duper the kind you are supposed to eat unless you’re trying to acquire a really close and personal group of friends, by which I mean parasites. Oops.
So I looked up how to cook tuna, and it turns out you’re just supposed to sear it really quickly. I truly do not understand how this is safer than eating it raw, but this is what all the pictures looked like. (The kids requested just plain, no seasonings crusting the outside.)
However, I don’t see any signs that we have worms or anything, so I guess it’s fine? I don’t know.
I also sauteed up the shrimp really quickly with a little Taijin seasoning, and I made a big pot of rice, and we had the fish and shrimp and rice, plus salt and pepper cashews, sugar snap peas, and mangoes, and sesame seeds.
Delicious. I see that I also got some frozen pot stickers, which I don’t really remember, but that’s why I take pictures!
TUESDAY
Bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches
Tuesday was the day I decided to Do Something About The Egg Situation. We have a huge backlog of duck eggs, which the kids will eat if they’re baked into something, but if they’re still eggform, they don’t like them.
So I cleaned out an old broken mini fridge, set it up on the side of the road with an ice pack, printed out and framed my PayPal and Venmo QR codes, and painted a big sign:
I am selling them six for $4 and $7 for a dozen, which is pretty cheap considering how big they are, but I sure have a lot of eggs! I’ve gotten a few sales, and I feel pretty good about it.
For supper, Corrie helped me fry up a few pounds of bacon
and I fried up a bunch of chicken eggs in the iron frying pan. I rustled up a bunch of mason jar rings and sprayed them with cooking spray, just to keep the eggs a little bit contained. It worked pretty well!
I let them cook most of the way, plucked the rings off, and then flipped them briefly.
Yummy sandwiches.
Mine had American cheese, because sometimes that’s exactly what you want.
WEDNESDAY
Carnitas, tortilla chips, beans and rice
Wednesday I made the fastest carnitas ever. I used this great recipe
Jump to Recipeexcept I used Diet Cherry Coke and tangerines, and it’s such a great recipe that it still turned out great. I actually just let the tangerine peels cook right down and then mashed them into the meat, rather than fishing them out, and it was great. I spread the meat out on a tray and threw it under a very hot broiler for a few minutes, and oh man. Good stuff.
We had a bunch of leftover rice from the poke bowls, so I sauteed up some garlic and onions, then a whole bunch of spinach, a can of kidney beans with the liquid, and a bunch of jarred salsa, plus cumin and chili powder and maybe some paprika. It was excellent.
I had my carnitas with sour cream, salsa, and plenty of cilantro, and it was such a nice meal, I skipped the chips.
THURSDAY
Oven fried chicken, corn on the cob, chips, strawberry shortcake
Thursday two of my brothers came over! I haven’t seen them for such a long time.
We had oven fried chicken, corn on the cob, chips, and strawberries on angel food cake with whipped cream. I forgot to take any pics of dinner, but it turned out pretty great. Very satisfying on a cold, drizzly day. Here’s the chicken recipe:
Jump to Recipeand it was definitely the right call to do store-bought cake and canned whipped cream, so I could use up all my energy yucking it up with my brothers.
I also got a fairly insane alternate dessert from Aldi:
Fire Cherry Bomb Pop eXtremes: Spice to Nice. I don’t even know what this could be, but I’m anticipating some kind of cinnamon situation, like Atomic Fireballs? We haven’t eaten them yet, so I will report back. I am grateful that I don’t have the job of coming up with completely new kinds of food every six weeks, though.
FRIDAY
Spaghetti
My brother and his kids were very good sports about camping out in the living room with the dog, who is hysterically in love with them, but mostly my brother, and the dog is . . . well, he’s getting confused about what kind of emotions he’s feeling, but they are quite intense. So that’s exciting for everybody.
And in the time it took me to finish this post, the game has gone the way of so many board games, alas. Maybe we need some Fire Cherry Bomb Pop eXtremes: Spice to Nices to smooth things over.
Basic pie crust
Ingredients
- 2-1/2 cups flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1-1/2 sticks butter, FROZEN
- 1/4 cup water, with an ice cube
Instructions
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Freeze the butter for at least 20 minutes, then shred it on a box grater. Set aside.
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Put the water in a cup and throw an ice cube in it. Set aside.
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In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Then add the shredded butter and combine with a butter knife or your fingers until there are no piles of loose, dry flour. Try not to work it too hard. It's fine if there are still visible nuggets of butter.
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Sprinkle the dough ball with a little iced water at a time until the dough starts to become pliable but not sticky. Use the water to incorporate any remaining dry flour.
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If you're ready to roll out the dough, flour a surface, place the dough in the middle, flour a rolling pin, and roll it out from the center.
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If you're going to use it later, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. You can keep it in the fridge for several days or in the freezer for several months, if you wrap it with enough layers. Let it return to room temperature before attempting to roll it out!
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If the crust is too crumbly, you can add extra water, but make sure it's at room temp. Sometimes perfect dough is crumbly just because it's too cold, so give it time to warm up.
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You can easily patch cracked dough by rolling out a patch and attaching it to the cracked part with a little water. Pinch it together.
Carnitas (very slightly altered from John Herreid's recipe)
Ingredients
- large hunk pork (butt or shoulder, but can get away with loin)
- 2 oranges, quartered
- 2-3 cinnamon sticks
- 4-5 bay leaves
- salt, pepper, oregano
- 1 cup oil
- 1 can Coke
Instructions
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Cut the pork into chunks and season them heavily with salt, pepper, and oregano.
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Put them in a heavy pot with the cup of oil, the Coke, the quartered orange, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves
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Simmer, uncovered, for at least two hours
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Remove the orange peels, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves
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Turn up the heat and continue cooking the meat until it darkens and becomes very tender and crisp on the outside
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Remove the meat and shred it. Serve on tortillas.
Beans and rice
A good side dish, a main course for meatless meals, or to serve inside carnitas, etc.
Ingredients
- 3 cups uncooked white rice
- 1 15-oz cans red or black beans, drained
- 1 20-oz can diced tomatoes with some of the juice
- 1 diced jalapeno
- 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped roughly
- 1 small red onion, diced
- 2 Tbsp minced garlic
- chili powder
- cumin
- salt and pepper
Instructions
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Cook rice. Add rest of ingredients, adjusting spices to taste. If it's too dry, add more tomato juice.
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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Lay the floured chicken in the hot pan, skin side down. Let it cook for 25 minutes.
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Flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes.
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Check for doneness and serve immediately. It's also great cold.
