What’s for supper? Vol. 484: It finally happened, I used up all my words writing and now I can’t think of a title

Hola, amigos. I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya. (And now ends the part of this post where I find out how old you guys are.)

Happy Friday! Coming up to five weeks post surgery, I am still doing VERY LITTLE INDEED. Lots of naps, lots of lurking about, lots of soup. Damien has been doing an absolutely phenomenal job of not only taking care of all the kids and all the household stuff and appointments and driving and also doing his actual job, but also constantly reassuring me that I’m not being lazy or crazy or malingering or anything, and the whole craniotomy thing really was a big deal, and it really is my job to rest, rest, rest. So that is what I’m doing. 

However! I am also very gently working toward Doing A Few Things. This week, I started cooking again, and although Damien (along with some of the incredibly generous staff at our kid’s school!) was keeping everyone very well fed, it feels pretty great to be back in the kitchen, wrecking the place up.

SATURDAY
Awards dinner!

Wait, I’m confused. The awards dinner was on Friday. Well anyway, on Friday afternoon, Damien and I drove down to Boston where he received the Freedom of Information award from New England First Amendment Coalition. It was a truly wonderful event. Incredibly, Damien was introduced by Diane Foley, the mother of journalist James Foley who was beheaded by ISIS, and she and her husband were so warm and gracious. Kind, friendly, intelligent, sincere people everywhere, delicious food, wonderful venue. We were at the Commonwealth Hotel, right across from Fenway Park.

And it was a lovely night! Here’s a few pictures. 

Saturday morning, it seemed like a shame not to go do fun Boston things while we were in Boston, but I was truly a blob of glup and had a hard time even sitting up to drink my coffee, yeesh. So we made a quick stop to see Clara and Wesley on the way home and then went home, and I spent the rest of the day just blobbing gluppily at home. I think we had leftovers and pizza pockets for supper. 

SUNDAY
Brats, french fries, peach cobbler

Sunday I did get to Mass, and it was much easier than the previous week. I am less paranoid that someone is going to leap out of the bushes and whack me in the head with a hammer. Damien did the week’s shopping, and I took a nap and then picked some peaches and made a very basic peach crumble for an afternoon snack. 

I can’t find the recipe I used, but I remember messing with it anyway. Probably I used corn starch, sugar, a little salt, cinnamon, and butter, and mixed that up with the sliced peaches (skin on). I topped it with a box of cake mix mixed with cinnamon and scrunched up into clumps with melted butter. Baked at whatever until the top was slightly browned and the filling was bubbling. 

Would have been great with ice cream or whipped cream, but an unexpected warm dessert in the middle of the day was well received (declared by the kids to be yum dot com).

I also had a moment of satisfaction because the household has been getting along ALARMINGLY well without me. But when I went to get some butter for the streusel, I found this:

Turns out I was the one keeping the butter situation around here reasonable. Me!! I’m useful after all!!!

MONDAY
Ina Garten’s roast chicken with carrots and potatoes

Monday I got tired of worrying about the carrots I never dug up, and went outside to see what was going on. I discovered that something (probably some combination of wild animals and feral Corrie) had already dug up most of them. So I got what was left, and fetched a few heads of garlic from my drying corner. 

I washed and trimmed all the carrots except for these two, who already had other plans. 

This is the roast chicken recipe. I had dried thyme instead of fresh, and no fennel, and I threw in a pound or so of little red potatoes. It’s SO EASY and it takes literally 15 minutes to throw together, and it always turns out absolutely juicy and delicious, with a tasty, crackling skin, and you don’t have to baste it or flip it or anything. 

I was a little miffed that I hadn’t thought to get some nice crusty bread to sop up the splendid lemony garlicky juices,

but it was still great. And now I did something about the damn carrots. 

TUESDAY
Chicken cheesesteak sandwiches and chips

Tuesday I took care of another thing that’s been nagging at me: I made two big jars of pickles. Just cucumbers from the store, since my cucumber garden was a bust; but I had stuffed the last of the dill from my garden into a jar of vinegar, and it was just sitting there daring me to forget about it. This is basically the recipe I used, except I fiddled with it a bit, and added peppercorns, bumped up a lot of the spices, couldn’t find coriander seeds, forgot to heat it up, and couldn’t find the kosher salt, so I used table salt. 

I haven’t tasted these pickles yet, but the kids told me (about 48 hours after I made them) that they are slightly mushy, but tasty. Good enough for me. 

For supper, I picked the chicken off the carcasses and shredded it in the stand mixer with a little Tony Cachere’s. I was sort of following this recipe from Sip and Feast, except for the seasoning, and also I used American cheese. He has you cook the peppers, then take them out of the pan and cook then onions, then add the chicken, and then melt cheese onto the chicken and onions. Then you melt more cheese on top of it, scoop it onto rolls, and add the peppers. 

I opted to just do one dose of cheese per serving

and I had mine with BBQ sauce. 

I thought it was totally delicious. I think about half the family liked it, which is a pretty good score. It’s nice to have a new idea for leftover chicken, anyway! 

WEDNESDAY
Whatever

On Tuesday I heard a cheerful chirping noise, and looked out my window to see Corrie clambering around picking grapes and singing. (Singing a violent parody of “Frosty the Snowman,” if you must know.) She has been steadily working her way through the first batch of grape juice we made the other week, and wanted more, so she went ahead and picked about a bushel of grapes. Her enthusiasm lasted right up until the moment I suggested she help me sort them, and then grape juice suddenly appeared overrated. WHICH I GET. 

On Wednesday, Damien, that lucky man, got to drive to Boston again after school, to bring Lucy and Irene to a Brandon Flower concert. Moe and Sophia were at work, so that just left me, Corrie, and Benny at home for dinner. We had french toast and boxaroni, and then Sophia got home and took Benny and Corrie out to the movies.

And so I found myself ALONE. Which VERY rarely happens. So I dragged the bucket of grapes into the living room, put on some disposable gloves, opened a can of diet ginger ale, and slowly, slowly sorted grapes while watching Best In Show and then an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Sometimes it’s a little startling to be by yourself, to be able to do whatever you want, and then your heart’s desire turns out to be a little weird. Anyway, I got the grapes sorted. 

THURSDAY
Meatloaf and rice

Thursday I got started on Clara’s birthday tiramisu! Usually Damien is the tiramisu guy around here, but it turns out I really can do kitchen stuff, as long as I allow myself three times the normal amount of time. I more or less followed the Betty Crocker recipe, except I realized we were out of eggs, went to collect eggs from the duck house, and then realized the water was off in the house, and sent Sophia to the store for eggs from the clean world. I also skipped the rum, ran out of vanilla, supplemented it with almond extract, and made a double recipe, and I decided to fit it into a large springform pan, with a little fence of ladyfingers around the outside, rather than serving it still in its glass dish. 

I have no idea if this will hold up to having the side removed, but I guess we’ll find out! I wanted to make it fancy, because we’re celebrating Clara’s birthday, but of course the whipped cream tends to deflate over time. So I did the inside layer with regular whipped cream (it’s ladyfingers, custard, whipped cream, ladyfingers, custard, whipped cream), but then I took the rest and did the thing where you bloom a little gelatin and then add that to the cream as you whip it, and I piped that over the top. 

Actually, what I did was whip the cream, realize it would fall apart overnight, mix up some gelatin with a random amount of hot water, and add that to the already whipped cream, which of course resulted in some horrible buttery rubber cream curds. So I threw that out, gave myself a stern talking to, found some more cream, found my reading glasses, and very carefully followed the actual instructions, and then piped it on. 

Yes, that’s the same picture, but I’m not lying this time. 

I also made a batch of sugared raspberries. You find the firmest raspberries and brush them with foamy egg whites using a pastry brush. I think last time I made these (for my raspberry lemon pavlova birthday bombs), I just brushed them with egg white that I had rustled up a bit with a fork, but this time I really whipped them and just brushed the foam on. Then you carefully roll the berries in sugar (supposed to be sanding sugar, but I never have that in the house) and set them to dry overnight.

It’s not difficult, but you can’t really do it quickly. (Believe me, I tried every dumb idea.)  A few of them are a little weepy this morning, but who among us. They turn out with this lovely, fragile, crackly sweet shell. And again. Who among us. 

While I was preparing the raspberries, I asked the kids if there were any wild blackberries left in the yard (there were not), and then I was musing about maybe buying some cultivated thornless blackberry bushes in the spring, so we could enjoy the sweet juiciness of the fruit without having to deal with the thorns. Well, they were unanimously appalled, and felt strongly that getting torn up a little bit was an indispensable part of the experience, and made the berries even sweeter. Which just goes to show: They certainly are my kids. 

So my plan is to dust the top of the tiramisu with cocoa powder to bring out the piping, if any, and then add in the raspberries in between, and maybe some fresh mint leaves. Won’t that be pretty? And if it collapses when I take the side of the pan off, at least it will be yummy, because I did NOT burn it. (This is a big deal, as I’ve been burning EVERYTHING lately.)

Oh anyway, after I got this squared away, I made a couple of big meatloaves. Here is my recipe,

Jump to Recipe

which is honestly nothing special, but we haven’t had meatloaf for a while, and it’s pretty popular. I couldn’t find the worcestershire, so I added some soy sauce. And yes, I slathered on plenty of ketchup as the good Lord intended. 

I forgot to take the soy sauce into account when I was adding the salt, and it was PRETTY SALTY, but no one complained. Made a big pot of plain rice in the Instant Pot and it was a perfectly fine supper for a chilly day. 

Damien, luckiest of men, spent much of his day repairing the water heater (which is why we didn’t have water earlier). The lurkworm showers were kind of annoying in the summer, but now that it’s getting into the 40’s at night, we’re all pretty happy about hot showers again! The man can fix just about anything. 

FRIDAY
Pizza and tiramisu

Clara and Wesley are coming over, and I believe they are bringing pizza.

OH. And I mentioned this on Facebook, but not yet here, so I am EXTREMELY HAPPY TO TELL YOU THAT THEY ARE ENGAGED. I love these two so much, and I’m so glad they found each other. 

What a month it has been! My goodness. My goodness. I am slowly making some headway into writing thank-you notes to all the wonderful people who pitched in. It was so immensely helpful not to be freaking out about money while I was (am) recuperating. 

I did get some grape juice going, finally. Once you sort the grapes, the rest is so easy. You just mash them up a bit, bring it to a simmer and let it simmer for ten minutes, occasionally mashing,

and then strain it all through cheesecloth. Usually I am dumb and attempt to squeeze it through while it’s still straight out of the pot, but this time I am smart, and I put the cheesecloth in a colander and let it drip. 

Looks like maybe six quarts or two gallons of juice (this is the second pot). If it’s too tart, you can add sugar, but we usually don’t do this. Still thinking about making some gummies, which is just grape juice, sugar, and gelatin mixed and poured into molds. I have silicone skull molds, but have yet to mold any skulls this year! Besides my own, I mean, ho ho. 

Anyway, I am feeling pretty good about having made supper this week. My next goal is to Bring Back Vegetables, but one thing at a time. I have been trying and trying to get some writing done, and as much as I wish I could blame my struggles on the brain surgery, I think I’m just rusty. Alas. Maybe some grape juice will help. It couldn’t hurt.