Hello! Happy Friday! It is upside-downy day. I slept later than I meant and then spent the whooooooole rest of the day writing until it was time for dinner. Made some spaghetti, THEN did yoga, then cleaned the kitchen because Lucy wasn’t feeling well, then cleaned the dining room because I suddenly couldn’t stand it anymore. And now I am finally writing my food post, which I usually do first thing after yoga on Fridays.
So! Here is what we had:
SATURDAY
Leftovers and Aldi pizza
I absolutely trapped myself into going to confession while we were out shopping, and that was a relief. (No murders or anything; it’s just been a while.) I don’t remember much else about Saturday, except that hardly anyone was home. I think Damien was helping Moe with something. Oh yes, and he took Corrie along for the ride. Sadly, the hedgehog shop below Moe’s apartment (yes) was closed for the day, but they had a nice day anyway.
SUNDAY
Beach food!
Sunday we finally got to the ocean, on the very last day of summer vacation. Poor Damien hurt his back and couldn’t go, and the older kids all went together in a separate car with friends to belatedly celebrate Lucy’s birthday. So that left me, Benny, and Corrie. We were pretty far away from the hurricane, but the ocean was still feeling it.
Bunch more pictures here.
Since it was just the three of us, we hit the arcade and then picked a beachside restaurant. Corrie got her very first footlong hotdog
and Benny got a burger and I got some ridiculous cheesy bacon fries. We don’t have a lot of outings with just the three of us these days, and it was fun! We got home purty late, showered the sand off, and fell into bed.
MONDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips, fruit salad
First day of school! The younger kids just had half days (not the same half, of course), so we were pretty much driving all day. A fine day for ham and cheese.
I cut up a watermelon and a bunch of strawberries and threw in some grapes and called it good.
TUESDAY
Chicken genovese, bread
This past weekend I got fed up with my cinnamon basil, which I bought accidentally, and which has been flourishing like nothing else I’ve ever planted. I don’t really like cinnamon basil, though. But I kept telling myself I was going to make something with it, so I kept watering it and picking the blossoms off every few days, and getting madder and madder as it got bigger and bigger. Anyway, I finally dug it up, chunked it in holes in the front of the house, and declared it flowering plants. I used the open garden space, plus the space where the potatoes were, to plant some cucumber seeds. I don’t know if I’ll really get a harvest before the frost comes, but I might!
Then on Tuesday, I picked a ton of regular basil and made pesto, more or less following this recipe.
Good stuff.
I ran out of pine nuts, so I toasted a bunch of almonds and then forgot to put them in. OH WELL. Pesto still turned out great, if a bit pale.
The recipe is actually for chicken genovese, which is chicken roasted with pesto on and under the skin. It was whole chickens that were on sale, and it turns out most of the kids don’t like pesto (THEY DON’T LIKE PESTO), so I just roasted one with basic seasonings (salt, pepper, garlic powder, I think maybe paprika) and olive oil, and one with the pesto. One of the kids came in when I was shoving pesto under the skin and got permanently creeped out, and I have to admit, it was a little creepy!
Delicious, though. I honestly can’t tell if this looks yummy or grisly, but it was, in fact, yummy.
When I cut it open, the layer of interior pesto looked so fancy.
Again, not really sure if this looks gross! I’m tired, and just can’t tell!
I just cut up a bunch of baguettes and dumped a bag of fresh spinach into a bowl, and it was a nice meal. Something different.
WEDESDAY
Weird tacos, tortilla chips
Wednesday I made some really terrible tacos. I couldn’t find the garlic powder, so I used garlic salt, forgetting that I had already added quite a bit of salt. Then I was out of cumin, so I decided to put a whole extra lot of chili powder, which doesn’t even make sense. I guess I was kind of distracted. Anyway, we had tacos.
THURSDAY
Salmon, risotto, roast butternut squash
Thursday I was planning to try my new-to-me air fryer, and a few people told me salmon was a great thing to make it in. So I bought some frozen salmon at Walmart, and then for some reason at the last minute I decided to try a slightly more complex recipe than just, you know, salt and pepper and lemon juice. This calls for cutting the salmon into chunks, rolling it in a mixture of spices and brown sugar, and then air frying. Which isn’t that hard, except that I could not get the air fryer to heat up, at all. The light went on, the timer ticked and binged, but no heat, no matter how I set it. UNFORTUNATE.
So I pan fried the salmon in hot oil, and they turned out pretty okayish.
Salmon is already on the sweet side, so I think next time I’ll stick with a simpler recipe next time, with no sugar. I guess I was hoping maybe the kids would eat it if it had sugar on it. Don’t tell that shaved ape who runs the health department.
I also cut up a couple of butternut squashes and roasted them on a pan with honey, olive oil, uhhhhh salt, cinnamon, and chili powder, I think.
That, too, turned out okay.
The last part was risotto, and I made it in my new-to-me pressure cooker. My Instant Pot kicked the bucket, and what I really wanted was another 8-quart Instant Pot, but those are hard to find (it’s mostly 6-quart ones); so I settled for an 8-quart Instant Pot knockoff. I got it on the day we went to see the petroglyphs. And immediately realized it was, in fact, 6-quart Instant Pot knockoff, and kind of smelled like cigarettes.
NO MATTER. I wiped it down and there was juuuust room in it to make a triple recipe of risotto. I followed this recipe, except without the sage and squash, and also I shoved a stick of butter in there before adding the cheese. And I doubled the cheese. And I used regular rice instead of arborio. Well, I guess I didn’t really follow the recipe. But it was good!
A good meal altogether, if a bit Ship of Theseusish.
FRIDAY
Regular spaghetti
I already told you about Friday. What I didn’t tell you is doing yoga after eating a hearty bowl of spaghetti is not highly recommended. But you probably didn’t need me to tell you that.
So tomorrow, my SISTER is coming, and she and some of her kids are going to spend TWO NIGHTS here! (Okay, yes, that is why I cleaned the dining room. But really, it was out of control anyway.) I am very excited. Thinking about trying out our new-to-me rotisserie thing, since we’ve had so much success lately with new-to-me appliances. I think I’m gonna finally pick my first round of corn, too.
Okay, that’s it! Happy Friday!
Happy Labor Day weekend, and I hope you have a wonderful time with your sister!