What’s for supper? Vol. 480: Peter Piper, meet Mike Mulligan

Happy Friday! I just want to say thank you to so many people who were so kind and sympathetic about my dumb ocean scare the other week. It’s crazy that it’s something that it’s such an incredibly common experience, but it was still genuinely traumatic. It really got to me. But I have been feeling SO much more myself this week, and I appreciate your prayers and kindness so very much. Basically I decided I am not going to die this month, or even this year, and then the world went back to being beautiful again, which was a relief. 

I was going through my camera roll and was surprised at how much nice food we had this week! Although I leaned pretty heavily into watermelon as safe produce. Could be worse. Leaning into watermelon sounds so cool and refreshing, doesn’t it? 

SATURDAY
Leftovers and pizza pockets

Just a regular shopping day during the day, as far as I can remember. The shopping turn kid chose Hot Pockets for a frozen food supplement to the leftovers. Looks like I had one of those, plus pulled pork, and yes, watermelon.

At some point I cut up a bunch of strawberries and put them in a pot with the rhubarb I harvested last week, and I made a compote.

I knew this was the prettiest it was gonna look, because my rhubarb plant doesn’t turn red, so when you cook it, it always goes dull in color. I may violate one of my stupider principles and add a few drops of red food coloring next time. 

Then I made a cheesecake! I have backed away from selling cheesecake for the time being, but I figured I might as well make one for my own dang family for once. I layered cheesecake batter and compote, and then swirled it with a skewer and baked it. Turned out purty. 

Put that in the fridge to chill and went to bed. 

SUNDAY
Bacon egg cheese sandwiches, hash browns; strawberry rhubarb cheesecake

Sunday after Mass, I picked all the cucumbers I could find in my garden. I honestly thought growing cucumbers was a no-brainer, but it turns out you need to use at least a little bit of your brain. And I did not do that. So this is my first cuke harvest:

Apparently the shape indicates that they are low on potassium(?), or else there was some kind of pollination problem. But what is life for if not for giggling over cucumbers?

I had that dill-infused vinegar I started two weeks ago

I sliced up most of the cucumbers, except for the two round ones, and more or less followed this recipe for refrigerator pickles. And YES, I used dill, garlic, and cucumbers from my garden, AS PLANNED. I cut them into chips, rather than spears, because burgers were on the menu later in the week. They looked very promising!

Although in retrospect, I could have packed them a lot tighter. 

I still had some vinegar left over (you mix it with water to make the brine), so I sliced up . . . now wait a minute. I was going to say “leftover peppers,” but it looks like I didn’t actually cook any peppers until Monday. Well, clearly I am confused, so let’s just put a pin in this for the moment.

One thing I did definitely do on Sunday was repair the grape arch that got knocked down in a rainstorm. It was one of those cheapy metal arches, and it just collapsed. 

People kept walking on my grapes and it was stressing me out so much! So I cut down a bunch of saplings and thin branches, stripped off the leaves and twigs, and zip tied the heck out of them, to make a new arch. Then I cut down a few more branches and twisted them around the whole thing and zip tied that to itself. In theory, as it dries out, it will just become stronger. So far, so good. 

I spent the rest of Sunday finishing adding diagonal braces to Corrie’s treehouse. They each had to be cut slightly differently, and even when I put a ladder in the stream, I couldn’t reach the two corners on the far end, so Damien nailed in the ones I couldn’t reach. We also added a sister joist to one that came up a bit short, and I attached four hurricane ties. 

Her Corgnoness was pleased with our work. 

And at this point, the platform was officially strong enough to hold my weight! That’s what I kept telling myself, and everyone else. 

For supper, we had toasted bagels, fried eggs, bacon, and cheese sandwiches, with hash browns and OJ. 

Breakfast for dinner eaten outside after swinging a hammer all afternoon is incredible. I should write a cookbook pairing recipes with activities, for peak enjoyment. 

Oh, and then we had the cheesecake! It was very nice. I think I underbaked it a tiny bit, or maybe it was just that the compote destabilized it a little bit. It was good, though, and I got to use my portion marker I got at the thrift store (one of these dealios). Not really necessary for family use, but it’s a handy thing to have if I ever want to sell an evenly-portioned cheesecake. 

We had the cake with more strawberry rhubarb compote ladled over the top

See, just not the most picture-perfect dessert ever! But it was good, and I was pleased with myself for thinking ahead to have a nice dessert ready.

MONDAY
Spicy chicken sandwiches, pesto pasta, watermelon

Okay, so MONDAY was the day I cooked peppers and therefore had leftover peppers to pickle. I made those spicy chicken sandwiches with pepper and cheese from Sip and Feast, except I had bell peppers instead of shishito peppers. Which is fine, except I forgot they take FOREVER to cook on the stovetop. They’re just so much heftier than shishito peppers. To speed up cooking, I squashed them down using the pan full of chicken and cheese, and that worked out fine because it kept the chicken warm. 

The peppers eventually cooked through, and they sure looked pretty in the evening sun 

So the sandwiches are spicy chicken thighs, peppers, raw red onion, American cheese, and BBQ sauce on a toasted roll. Really delicious. 

Oh, I forgot, I made a quickie pesto with basil from the garden. And garlic from the garden! I just threw a ton of basil into the food processor with some cloves of garlic, a bunch of parmesan cheese, some olive oil, and pepper. I was gonna throw some nuts in there (you can use any kind of nuts for pesto; it doesn’t have to be pine nuts), but, I don’t know, it was hot and I gave up looking. The pasta salad was delicious anyway, very green and pungent. 

And more watermelon! 

TUESDAY
Korean beef bowl, rice, sesame broccoli 

Tuesday was crazy busy. Two appointments, and a ton of errands, including multiple pharmacies, and I also bought a used fire escape ladder from someone off Marketplace. This will be for the treehouse. I think I may have also gone to Home Depot. Seems likely.

I made supper super fast when I finally got home. Here’s my Korean Beef Bowl recipe

Jump to Recipe

I was tempted to use powdered ginger and garlic to speed things up, but I haven’t made this dish in a long time and I wanted it to be good, so I went for the fresh stuff, and it’s so worth it. 

I also cut up some broccoli and roasted it quickly in the oven with sesame oil, soy sauce, sesame seeds, and pepper. This dish really wants chopped scallions on top, but not These Days. I was kicking myself for not having some scallions growing in water on the windowsill. Got out of the habit, and now we are scallionless. But it was still a very tasty meal. 

Oh how I love eating outside. 

Oh dang, the leftover peppers! So like I said, I had leftover brine from the refrigerator pickles, so I sliced up the leftover peppers into thin strips and threw them in a jar with some sliced red onions leftover from who knows what, and poured the rest of the brine on top of that. 

I’m not sure what I will do with this or how it will taste, but it sure is pretty. I might chop it up and serve it with brats. That sounds good! Or maybe I will add some olives and make muffaletta sandwiches. Or maybe I will just eat pickled peppers like a fermentation goblin. 

On Tuesday I made a bunch of ice cream, because Benny was planning to have some friends over later, and I wanted to try making fried ice cream. I made two batches of vanilla and one batch of coffee. For that, I just did the normal sweet cream/vanilla base (two eggs, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 cup of milk, 2 cups of heavy cream), and added I think three tablespoons of instant espresso powder to it. Turned out WONDERFUL. Really rich and creamy. 

WEDNESDAY
Mussakahn, taboon, cantaloupe and dates

I was freaking busy on Wednesday, and I don’t even remember why, but I remember being mad at myself for planning a relatively complex meal. Then I was even madder when I realized we didn’t have sumac, which is the primary flavor in this dish! And one of my errands is Home Depot, which is near a Price Chopper, and THEY ALSO DIDN’T HAVE SUMAC. New Hampshire is just… so caucasian. Anyway, I just made the recipe without sumac. I more or less follow this Saveur recipe. So I got that marinating and then at some point started some dough for taboon.

Jump to Recipe

Every single time I make this bread, I think, “That must be a typo. It can’t possibly need that much salt.” But it does. It is a salty bread, that’s all! 

It’s not really a hard meal at all; you just have to start the chicken several hours before supper, and start the taboon maybe an hour before supper. But then the actual cooking and baking is super simple. You just throw the chicken in the oven on a pan and cook it for about an hour. Right before it’s done, you brown up some pine nuts to throw on top. For the taboon, it rises for an hour, rests for ten minutes, and then you stretch it over the pan, give it some dimples, and bake for another 12 minutes or so, so basically it’s just throwing two things in two pans and letting them go. I think I had the oven at 400 the whole time (which is hotter than what the chicken recipe calls for) and it still turned out great. 

For a side, I cut up a cantaloupe and served it with some dried dates, because I am freaking running out of ideas for safe produce dishes. 

For the taboon, I couldn’t find my second giant sheet pan, but it was a smaller crowd for supper anyway (Lucy and Sophia went to see BTS!), so I baked it in a pizza pan and we had ROUND mussakhan. 

Leading Moe (who had moved out before I discovered this dish, and had never seen it before) to say, “Mama, I don’t mean to be rude, but this is the weirdest pizza you’ve ever made.” 

It was tasty, though, even without the sumac. Just not as piquant. The taboon turned out really nice, soft and chewy. And salty!

On Wednesday, Benny used a half-cup measure and made the ice cream into balls, and put them back in the freezer on parchment paper. (Oh, come to think of it, that’s where my second pan was, duh!) The idea was to give them plenty of time to freeze very solid, for frying on Thursday. 

I also mowed the heck out of the yard in the evening, when it cooled down a bit. We’ve been getting giant dumps of rain, and then periods of scorching hot sun, so the yard was looking pretty disreputable. The lawnmower was making really tragic noises and kept quitting, but I forged ahead. I honestly think that, between yoga and mowing and swinging a hammer, I’ve bullied my arm into healing. My range of motion is definitely improving, and it doesn’t ache so much at night. I dunno. Maybe I should become a physical therapist. “Here’s a hammer, now quit whining.” 

THURSDAY
Burgers, chips, fruit salad, fried ice cream

Thursday I spent allllll day on the treehouse. I wanted to add in a bunch of diagonal supports to the frame before I put the floor on. I started out really well

and then things went. . . a little silly. I don’t think I really made any mistakes, per se, but it looks like a deranged person was building it, which is absolutely accurate.

I had to trot back and forth between the treehouse and the saw, which can only be plugged in in a certain spot to avoid tripping the house circuit; and you know, a lot of things can happen in between measuring a piece of wood and cutting it! For instance, you can get really hot, and get dumb. Or maybe you can measure and cut the wood right, but then when you get back and climb up the ladder, you forget where you meant to attach it. You would think the solution would be to mark directly on the wood where it’s supposed to go, but this only works for a while until you drop both your pencil and your marker into the stream, and also your shoes. I also dropped my hammer multiple times, but eventually tied it to the freaking tree, so score one for the slow learner there! 

Anyway, here is a quick video from earlier in the day, where you can see my view from up in the tree, and also my view climbing down the ladder, stomping through the woods, and then trudging through the yard. 

So here is what the frame looked like when I was done: 

My basic theory was: Triangles are strong. Must make triangles.

And you know what, that thing is freaking solid. As I mentioned, I had kept saying to everyone, “As soon as I get the braces in place, it will be strong enough to support me!” but actually making myself get off the top of the ladder and sit on just the platform was really scary! But the more I stayed up there and moved around, the more secure I felt. It really is strong. Triangles, man. 

And it is GORGEOUS up there. Just absolutely dreamy. 

Look at that cool, green light. The spot under the treehouse is right where the ducks like to hang out during the hottest part of the day, and it’s just a fairytale up there. Ducks bobbing, water sparkling and babbling below, green leaves and dappled sunlight dancing around you and boughs waving gently overhead. I am so very pleased. 

I was less pleased when I nailed the final support in place, looked around, and realized I had Mike Mulliganed myself. Yes, I built so fast and so well, I forgot to leave a way to get out. I could not believe it. I kept trying to find a spot that was big enough for my ass and also near a ladder, and there really wasn’t one!

Which is good! I was hoping not to have gaps. But also, I really needed to get out of the tree at some point. Eventually I rotated myself around so I was aligned with the biggest gap I could find, then I started slithering and scooching, and shimmying myself downward, at one point manually stuffing my belly and then my boobs through the gap, and giggling insanely to myself while feeling grateful that at least the entire town of Popperville hadn’t come out to watch. 

Well! It was almost time for Benny’s friends to turn up. Benny never really got a birthday party back in December, despite my best bullying efforts, so we figured we owned her a party. It’s a complicated situation where she has different friend groups and loves them all, but they do not love each other, and the one thing Benny is allergic to is drama. So she ended up inviting over four boys for a pool party.

When I was fourteen, this is not what I would have done. But she had a great time. Where she gets her confidence from, I have no idea. They went to the stream, played in the pool, played in the pool in the rain, and got out for burgers, which Damien grilled. 

The burgers were super juicy and delicious. I also made a nice fruit salad with watermelon, cantaloupe, kiwi, peach, and nectarine, which is what I happened to have in the house because I forgot to buy fruit for a fruit salad, oops. We also had chips and leftover pesto pasta. 

AND, we had the refrigerator pickles, and wow. they were delicious! Just delightful. Crisp and garlicky and hotter than I was expecting. Everyone who likes pickles was really impressed by these, so I’m definitely making more, although I may need to buy some cucumbers. 

I was feeling somewhat smug because I had had so much foresight about making the ice cream balls ahead of time. Then I uhh read the rest of the recipe, and it turns out you’re supposed to roll them in the coating and freeze them for an additional four hours! OH WELL. Luckily, Benny wanted to play games with her pals before dessert, so the ice cream balls did get nearly four hours in the freezer by the time I fried them. 

I think I made 24 total, and they turned out pretty okay. 

The recipe I used calls for a coating made of crushed corn flakes, a little salt, and cinnamon, and then you serve it with a drizzle of chocolate sauce or honey, and top it with whipped cream. Sadly, the heavy cream had frozen and then thawed, so it separated, and I thought maybe if I just whipped it real good, it would reintegrate itself.

This did not happen. 

So I junked that and just served the ice cream with honey or chocolate syrup. It was good!

Just not amazing. Probably 1/3 to half of the ice cream balls opened up even during a very quick frying, which wasn’t disastrous, but it kind of broke the enchantment of having something hot and crispy outside and frozen inside. I don’t know if it’s because I was rushing so much to get the balls coated, and I didn’t coat them well enough, or what.

I do think I want to try this again, but probably with a batter coating, rather than crumb. But honestly, nobody was really enthusiastic about trying it except for me, so I may just let it go. Oh well! The ice cream part was good. Definitely gonna make the coffee flavor again. I have to say, the combination of coffee ice cream, cinnamon, and honey was really nice. 

FRIDAY
Pizza

Just regular old pizza! I didn’t have time to work on the treehouse today, but I I did go out to look at my work, and I forgot that I had added two posts for the railing!

They’re a little crooked, but this is just the initial attachment point, and that will get fixed. Corrie wants to me to string barbed wire around it, but I will not be doing that. I may add railings and then make a fence with rope; not sure yet. 

And it’s just nice out there. My annuals are finally off to the races, and it’s real pretty in our back yard.

Front’s not bad either! 

A little shaggy, but who among us. The two big patches of mixed wildflowers I planted on the sides of the house yielded mostly queen anne’s lace, oh well. A lot of the stuff I planted this year grew leaves, but no blossoms. At least not yet! Gladioli, rain lilies, dahlias, and dianthus, all just keepin it green this year. It’s okay. We do what we can. 

Just got backed from adoration, and prayed for yez all.