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What’s for supper? Vol. 471: Tag yourself! I’m the community goat

Happy Friday! I’m parked in the shade outside the chapel, about to down a frozen mocha coffee. That’s three or four migraine triggers in a single cup. All I can say is I woke up feeling so fuddled and monstrous, I didn’t think I could feel worse, and the craving for this one particular gas station drink was so very strong. If I can still form complete sentences by the time I get to the end of this post, we’ll know I got away with it. 

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Leftovers and pizza pockets

Saturday morning I had set my alarm, which I am privileged enough to not usually have done on Saturdays! A customer was coming to pick up a number of mini cheesecakes and mini pies; and Clara’s boyfriend was coming to patch up the siding in front of the house where the porch used to lurk.

Here is what the front of the house looked like two years ago:

and here it is now:

Poor old house! In between these two pictures, it acquired a terrible scar, over which we stapled plastic. So believe me, this is better. The patch is white because we live in Maison De Nonstandarde, so of course they don’t sell that color of siding anymore. So I need to paint, and obviously do a power wash. But that’s an improvement! She’s getting there. The little rock garden in front is filling out nicely

with more things budding. 

So then we went shopping, and in the afternoon, Clara came by with pastries, including this magnificent one, which was spicy tomato and olive with saffron.

Actually, there were two of these, and guess who didn’t want any? Everyone but me! So guess who ate both??? Only me!!! No regrets. They were incredible. If you’re ever in Keene, Fire Dog Breads makes nothing but delicious food. 

It was so nice and warm out, we took the ducklings outside and let them run around. They get a little silly, especially since their leader, Lego Johnny Cash, is half black Swedish, which is the breed Daffy Duck was modeled after. LJC gets VERY daffy sometimes. But the four of them have a strong drive to stick together, and it turns out they all enjoy being whistled to. 

What silly, lovely creatures they are. 

Also, wow, I sit weird. (Yes, I know a prolonged habit of w-sitting is associated with autism. I think what happened is, because I was born in the 70’s, I’m not autistic, but most of my kids are. It happens!)

SUNDAY
Chicago-adjacent hot dogs, chips

Sunday after Mass, I mowed a big swath of the back yard. It’s crazy how quickly it goes from “oooh, we’re finally getting some touches of green back in the world” to “I know my shoes are out there somewhere, but they belong to the jungle now.”

Then I drilled out the remaining holes (there is something existentially wrong with that phrase, but you know what I mean) for the clothesline base, and put in the rest of the bolts; and then I conscripted some big kids into dragging the whole thing over to the side leg of the back yard.

I have to attach the washers and nuts to the underside of the base, and obviously replace the ropes, but it’s getting there. I feel a little bad, because it’s in a spot that has been overgrown for several years, and now when the people in the apartment house look out their window, instead of seeing wild green, they’ll see my fatass pants flapping in the breeze. However, they (the neighbors, not my pants) invariably fill the air with pot smoke and/or cotton candy vape stink every time it’s nice out, so I guess we’re even. 

In the afternoon, Benny asked me to show her how to make flower crowns, and then Corrie came out and Benny showed her. So we all had crowns and were happy princesses of the springtime. 

For dinner, we had Chicago-style hot dogs, more or less. I couldn’t find pickled peppers and nobody really likes pickle relish, so we had them with chopped onions and tomatoes, pickle spears, mustard, and celery salt.

Gotta say, these really are excellent hot dogs. Wish I had sprung for better quality buns, but they were very yummy. As far as I know, this is the sole reason for the existence of celery salt. 

MONDAY
Pizza

Monday morning, I went to pick up a kayak someone in town was giving away!

It does have a crack, but it’s on the top, and we can use plastic welding to make it watertight again. I super enjoyed my short trip out into the dirt road part of town. 

Nothing but birdsong going on. So lovely. 

I don’t really know what I did all the rest of the day. It suddenly got hot (high 80’s, which I realize is not hot for some people in May, but we are still getting frost warnings here!). I do remember weeding around St. Joseph and fretting because I hadn’t planted any summer-blooming perennials there — and then discovering some lupine seedlings. 

So that’s settled! Probably they are purple, but I don’t really know where they came from, so they could be any color. 

For supper we had pizza. I made a mere two pizzas, one plain cheese, one pepperoni. 

TUESDAY
Buffalo chicken drumsticks, pasta salad

Tuesday I did a whole bunch of weeding in the backyard, and there are all kinds of things popping up that I forgot I planted. Then it got REALLY hot. You know how candy thermometers have markings on them — soft ball, hard crack, and so on. (And of course fish donut, for my long-time readers.) Well, if I had a personal thermometer, when it gets up past 85, it would be marked “no brain.” Or possibly Wise Men of Chelm. 

What happened is, I was laying some chicken drumsticks out on a pan and thinking about clean up. I’ve been hounding the kids to do a better job cleaning, but the soft-hearted part of me feels bad about making messes they have to clean. So first I thought to line the pan with tin foil, but sometimes meat sticks to the tinfoil. So I thought parchment paper, but I knew I was running a little low. So then I thought, oh heck, I can just cover the pan with a second pan! Then it will stay perfectly cl—

oh, wait. 

Which reminded me of The Wise Men of Chelm, a story which can be found in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories, which is masterfully illustrated by the great Maurice Sendak. In one story, it snows in the village of Chelm, and the elders believe silver, diamonds, and pearls have fallen from the sky. Their money troubles are over! But they soon realize they must warn the villagers not to come out of their homes and trample the treasure.  What to do? 

Silly Tudras had an idea.

“Let’s send a messenger to knock on all the windows and let the people know that they must remain in their houses until all the silver, all the pearls, and all the diamonds are safely gathered up.”

For a while the Elders were satisfied. They rubbed their hands in approval of the clever idea. But then Dopey Lekisch called out in consternation, “The messenger himself will trample the treasure.”

The Elders realized that Lekisch was right, and again they wrinkled their high foreheads in an effort to solve the problem.

“I’ve got it!” exclaimed Shmerel the Ox. “Tell us, tell us,” pleaded the Elders.

“The messenger must not go on foot. He must be carried on a table so that his feet will not tread on the precious snow.”

Everybody was delighted with Shmerel the Ox’s solution; and the Elders, clapping their hands, admired their own wisdom.

The Elders immediately sent to the kitchen for Gimpel the errand boy and stood him on a table. Now who was going to carry the table? It was lucky that in the kitchen there were Treitle the cook, Berel the potato peeler, Yukel the salad mixer, and Yontel, who was in charge of the community goat. All four were ordered to lift up the table on which Gimpel stood. Each one took hold of a leg. On top stood Gimpel, grasping a wooden hammer with which to tap on the villagers’ windows. Off they went.

Click through for the picture of me figuring out how to keep my pan clean. 

Anyway, I put down some parchment paper and roasted the chicken with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, then glopped some buffalo sauce on it, cooked it a little longer, glopped on some more and cooked it some more. 

Then I made some pasta salad. I used radiatori, and I looked it up, and it is indeed named after radiators.  I rinsed the cooked pasta to cool it down, then added . . . let’s see, olive oil, white wine vinegar, asparagus tips from my garden, chopped olives, bits of pepperoni, leftover tomatoes and onions from the hot dogs, salt, pepper, oregano, and garlic powder, leftover red pesto from Mother’s Day sandwiches, chopped sugar snap peas, leftover feta from who knows what, and some grated parmesan. 

We had some appointments in the afternoon, and the receptionist at one place said to me, “You ARE dressed for the hot weather!” Why did she say that? At first I felt bad, because why did she say that? Then I felt good, because I’m not the only one out there yapping weird stuff.

Then we came home and had cold buffalo chicken and pasta salad, and it was a very good hot weather meal. 

Looks like I ate outside, either because it was cooler outside than inside, or possibly it was so hot I didn’t want to be with anyone, so I went outside. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken burgers, raw vegetables

Wednesday Clara took me out for lunch! We had a delightful meal at the Fresh Day Cafe, which is an Eastern European-themed spot in Keene. I had avocado toast on a wonderful dark, seedy bread, with fresh cheese and pomegranate seeds, and Clara got pierogies with bacon and scallions. We both had Turkish coffee, and everything was absolutely delicious. A VERY pleasant spot, run by the absolute nicest people. 

After lunch we did a little thrifting, and both talked ourselves out of numerous foolish purchases. I did come away with two table fans and a peach pitter, which I NEEDED. 

Supper was chicken burgers, leftover pasta salad, and a bunch of raw veggies. 

This looks like such a sensible, restrained plate, except then I went back and has seconds and then thirds on pasta salad. I just find that radiator shape irresistible. 

THURSDAY
Butter chicken, rice, flatbread, kachumber salad, mango

Thursday it finally cooled down, which was good, because the last thing on the menu was butter chicken, which I was looking forward to, but I really didn’t wanna cook it (or eat it) on a hot day.

In the morning, I did all the prep. Not exactly mise en place, but I assembled the gang

and more or less followed the recipe from RecipeTinEats. I had a bunch of driving to do during the day, so I started the chicken marinating, and right before I left, I made some dough for flatbread, using this taboon recipe I have settled on.

Jump to Recipe

I hurt my arm sometime in the past few weeks, and it’s gotten worse and worse, so I was smart enough to realize I would not want to be crouching over a pan flipping naan; but butter chicken really wants some kind of bread. When I got home, I started some rice cooking in the Instant Pot. I thought I had a big sack of basmati rice, but it was actually jasmine, oh well! Then I started the butter chicken cooking, and then I made something new to me: A kachumber salad. I read a few recipes and then wung it. 

This is a mixture of chopped-up tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, cilantro, salt, pepper, a bit of fresh minced jalapeño, white wine vinegar, fresh lemon juice, a lot of cumin, a medium amount of dark chili powder, and I think that is it? It is essentially Indian pico de gallo, and wow, it’s wonderful. 

“Kachumber” comes from the Hindi word kachumbar, which means shredding or chopping. It is not, to my sorrow, related to “cucumber,” which is etymologically mysterious. I did learn this:

In 1790s the pronunciation “cowcumber” was standard except in western England dialects and “coocumber” was considered pedantic, but 30 years later, with the spread of literacy and education “cowcumber” was limited to the ignorant and old-fashioned.

To think! We could have been putting cowcumber in our choppy-choppy salad all along, but for the snobbery of nations. 

LOTS of cultures have some variety of this dish, and I’m so delighted to have found this one. Damien loved it, too. I think next time, I will try a little amchur powder and mint. Hoo de hoo hoo! I put it together just before supper, because I didn’t want it to get soggy. 

I was nervous about the bread, because usually I make taboon in one big slab, and serve a juicy chicken dish on top of it. But this time I separated the dough into eight pieces and stretched them into rounds, then dimpled them with my fingers as usual.

I had no idea if they would meld into one piece, or shrink up, or what. I baked them and they turned out so good! They kept their size and shape, but puffed up nicely (like spongy bread, not separating into a pocket like pita), and were just lightly browned on the bottom. Here they are baked, with one flipped over:

I could have brushed them with butter and given them maybe a sprinkle of herbs or something, but they were great as they were. A little chewy, quite salty, and a happy addition to this meal. 

I had some extra chicken, and because most of the kids are not crazy about butter chicken, took the extra and dusted it with flour, salt, and pepper, and fried it up in butter. Something for everyone. I also found some mint chutney and some tamarind chutney, and everything was delightful. 

Also on Thursday evening, SOMEONE TOOK THE ACADIA AWAY. This terrible, terrible car has been giving me tsuris for years now, long after it stopped running. And now it is gone! Hooray!

FRIDAY
Quesadillas, tortilla chips and salsa, salad

I picked up the kids with the half day, stopped at the thrift store for more fat pants, stopped at the town garden club sale for some dahlia tubers, went to adoration, got the kids, stopped at the store for a birthday present, picked up some prescriptions, and now I am home, feeling great. Looks like the curse of the frozen mocha missed me this time! I’m not going to tempt fate and try these all the time. But next time I’m feeling like garbage and my body is trying to convince me that all I need is a gas station drink, I guess I’ll listen! 

Print

taboon bread

You can make separate pieces, like pita bread, or you can make one giant slab of taboon. This makes enough to easily stretch over a 15x21" sheet pan.

Ingredients

  • 6 cups bread flour
  • 4 packets yeast
  • 3 cups water
  • 2 Tbsp salt
  • 1/3 cup olive oil

Instructions

  1. Mix the flour, salt, and yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer.

  2. While it is running, add the olive oil. Then gradually add the water until the dough is soft and sticky. You may not need all of it. Let it run for a while to see if the dough will pull together before you need all the water. Knead or run with the dough hook for another few minutes.

  3. Put the dough in a greased bowl, grease the top, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm spot for at least an hour until it has doubled in size.

  4. Preheat the oven to 400. Put a greased pan or a baking stone in the oven to heat up.

  5. If you are making separate pieces, divide it now and cover with a damp cloth. If you're making one big taboon, just handle it a bit, then put it back in the bowl and cover it with a damp cloth. Let rest ten minutes.

  6. Using a little flour, roll out the dough into the shape or shapes you want. Poke it all over with your fingertips to give it the characterstic dimpled appearance.

  7. Bake for 10-12 minutes until it's just slightly browned.

What’s for supper? Vol. 470: Glory to God in the pie crust

and peace to His people of girth. 

Happy Friday! I started off this week determined to eat sensibly and serve vegetables every single day.

That! Did not happen!

Here’s what we had: 

SATURDAY
Cuban sandwiches, fries, lemon meringue pie

Saturday, Moe was in town to see some of his friends graduate, and in the evening, we belatedly celebrated his birthday. In the morning, I made a couple of pie crusts, and made them pretty decorative while I chatted on the phone, completely forgetting what happens when you bake meringue on top of a pie. I made one crust with a braided rim and roses and leaves, and the other with overlapping discs. I amazed myself by cutting out a random number of discs, and then discovering I had made exactly the right number!

I always manage to know exactly what’s going on when it matters the least. 

I don’t remember what recipe I used for the curd filling, but there is not a lot of variety among recipes, really. I did use duck egg yolks, which are the most wonderfully yellow things in all of creation.  Then I made the meringue and piped it over the top, and, as I mentioned, of course it puffed up in the oven like it’s supposed to. 

almost completely obscuring the crust. I consoled myself by thinking about the monks who would carve beautiful details even in the backs of pews, because that would be for God alone to see; but the truth is, I also forgot to refrigerate the pie crusts before I blind baked them, so there was less secret, exquisite beauty that gives glory to God, and more just blobby, shapeless pie crust under meringue. Which gives glory to God in its own way, because it’s pie. 

I saved out one lemon, cut it in thin slices, and candied it , and left the slices to dry while I went out and did a bit of shopping. Came back and made the Cuban sandwiches. I was running very late, so I just heavily seasoned a boneless pork loin with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and roasted it. Maybe I put some cider vinegar in there, I don’t remember. I let it cool a bit, cut it up, and made them sandwiches: Bread, mustard, swiss cheese, pork, ham, pickles, more cheese, more mustard, bread. I fried them in lots of butter.

We haven’t had cubans for a long time, and they are deeeelicious. Here’s a non-Instagrammable picture of our festive dining room table these days.

Ketchup and ducklings, baby. It’s a good life. (It got even better the next day, because I requested that, as a special mother’s day act of service, they drag the loveseat out onto the side of the road. Nobody took it for several days, and now it’s been rained on three times, but one can’t have everything.) 

By dessert time, the candied lemon slices were still pretty sticky (they really need to dry overnight) but oh well. Also, I forgot that I ran out of lemon and candied some lime, but they’re so sweet, I don’t think you could tell the difference. 

Poor Moe was too tired to stick around and make us watch a musical, which we were absolutely ready and even enthusiastic to do, but it was nice to see him!

SUNDAY
Italian sandwiches, Doritos, Italian ices

Sunday was, of course, mother’s day. We went to Mass and Corrie made me a mother’s day hat out of the prayer card, which I allowed because I think it was an AI image. Take that, robuts!

I got home and ate a donut and then a cinnamon bun and then another donut, and then pursued my heart’s desire, which was something in my garden, I forget what, but I did take this picture of my beautiful compost heap

and THEN, Damien and Corrie and I got the floor joists up for the tree house! They were already screwed onto the tree, but I had finally gotten the right drill bit and washers, so we screwed holes and attached the wood with nice big lag bolts. The next thing to do will be to box it in and add some diagonal supports, and then I will be able to climb up there and work on it, and it should go a lot faster. (Here one must imagine my grandmother muttering, “kenahora, kenahora,” and spitting three times to ward off the evil eye.)

I don’t have a pic of the work we got done, but here is a picture of me and Corrie being absolutely useless while Damien uses power tools. 

Well, I guess I’m not in this picture, except in that Corrie let me take a picture of her solely because it was mother’s day.

Nice spot for a tree house, though, right? 

We had yummy Italian sandwiches for supper

and the kids gave me excellent, thoughtful presents — a flower pot with a water reservoir, a wooden lazy susan I can use in cake decorating, a glass hummingbird feeder, a copy of one of my favorite movies, Moonstruck; and a Swiffer Wet Jet, which I have been loudly and repeatedly pining for. Lena crocheted me a long garland of beautiful white and gray stars, and Elijah painted me a picture of an old man confounded by ducks. I also got a mug that said it was from my favorite child, which came with a mystery card with messy coloring and strange misspellings, that was signed only with a dog’s paw print. We are still trying to figure out who did this! 

They also gave me lots of candy, which I ate immediately. Then we had Italian ices and watched some Daffy Duck cartoons and I went to bed happy and absurdly full of sugar. Another wonderful mother’s day. 

MONDAY
Leftovers and potato skins

Monday I kinda had to go shopping, which I hadn’t done over the weekend, but luckily I still had the previous week’s leftovers banked. So we had that, plus stuffed potato skins. 

Those terrible frozen potato skins are really good, dang it. 

TUESDAY
Salad with chicken, strawberries, feta, almonds

Tuesday morning, the weather was clear, so I got to work on my clothesline. There were four bolts I wasn’t able to unscrew, so I buzzed away at them with the reciprocating saw, then whacked what was left with a sledgehammer, until they succumbed.

Highly satisfying.

I dragged the parts (two U-shaped pipe arrangements, and two long wooden boards) over to the swingset to prop them up while I reassembled them, and that is how I discovered, maybe for the fourth or fifth time, that there are four pipes held down with four bolts each. Last time I counted them, this made twelve bolts total; so I had gone to Home Depot and bought ten. Why? No idea. Sometimes I will spend money, spend money, spend money, spend money, and then suddenly cheap out over two bolts. That is probably what happened.

But of course, if you have been following closely, you will know that even if I had bought the “right”number, that would have brought the total up to twelve, and I really needed sixteen.

So I said a long string of Yosemite Sam things and put my tools away for the day. Good thing I can cut out exactly the right number of pie dough discs without counting them, though. 

In my defense, I did manage, with great effort and concentration, to NOT bolt the clothesline together in such a way that it could not be removed from the swingset that was propping it up. I was pathetically proud of that, too. 

The rest of the day was chock-a-block full of errands, and I didn’t really leave enough time to roast some chicken for the salad, so I put it (it was bone-in breasts) in the Instant Pot with some salt, pepper, lemon juice, and water, and pressed the “poultry” button. Did it come out delectable? No. But it was fully cooked and tasted faintly of lemon, and it wasn’t dried out, so there you go. 

Mixed greens, strawberries, crumbled feta, toasted almond slices, and crunchy fried onions. 

Looks like I had mine with ranch dressing. Oh, and I made some leftover hot dog and hamburger buns into okayish croutons. I drizzled them with olive oil and seasoned them heavily with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and just shoved them in a hot oven until they were crunchy. I usually use butter, and I usually toast them slowly in a low oven, but these were fine. 

We also had more lemon meringue pie, because I had made two pies for eight people.

WEDNESDAY
Bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwiches

Wednesday, the only thing on my calendar is Ascension vigil (Ascension Thursday is still a holy day of obligation in our diocese! One of the few places where Jesus doesn’t obligingly hang around until Sunday), but the only thing I can remember about the actual day is that we were so busy and exhausted, there was no way we were gonna do that. It was raining all day, and I do remember getting a bunch of writing done, so that was good. 

For supper, I got out a bunch of cheese, then fried up a bunch of bacon and toasted a bunch of bagels, and kept those warm while I fried a bunch of eggs in some of the bacon fat. Look how tidy they turned out! 

I have gotten very good at compensating for how tilted my kitchen is.  (These are just chicken eggs from the store. The kids do not like duck eggs.) This is also the moment where I was like, huh, I guess we’re not eating a lot of vegetables this week after all. What with the eggs fried in bacon fat, and the no vegetables. 

Maybe I was just super hungry, but I thought these were the greatest sandwiches ever. 

Or maybe I just haven’t had bacon in a while. 

THURSDAY
Rainbow noodles and cheesecake

Thursday we lurched off to Mass in the morning, and then some kids felt sick and needed to get home, and Irene had a dentist appointment, and I was so confused and off schedule by the time we got back, I completely screwed up the rest of my day. I basically just ate everything I could find, and eventually ejected myself from the house purely so as not to eat the furniture.

I thought some errands would bring me up to the time I needed to pick up Corrie, but they did not. So I ended up going to like eleven different places, including two pharmacies and two thrift stores. I was pretty proud of myself for not buying anything at the thrift stores. I did find two new packages of reusable beeswax food storage covers, and carried them around the store for a while, but then pictured myself constantly finding reusable beeswax food storage covers wadded in random places around the house with dog food and kid hair stuck to them, and that helped me decide that someone else could have them.

I also talked myself into and then out of a citrus juicer which is slightly nicer than the one I have, but not that much nicer. I also took a picture of this item

but was not even tempted to buy it. Looked it up at home and it’s a watermelon cuber. I am glad I did not spend a dollar on that!

Anyway, Damien had to be in Concord all day, and by the time I got home and thought about supper, which was supposed to be buffalo chicken drumsticks, baked potatoes, and peas, it was late enough that the realization that the chicken was still frozen felt pretty insurmountable. Much like that sentence. Go ahead, try to mount it. I’ll watch. 

I consulted with the kids, and we settled on noodles with butter, plus a mother’s day cheesecake that nobody had bought, due to man’s inhumanity to man. I was a little bummed that it didn’t sell, because it was a cute cheesecake, and also looked like it was just plain on the outside, and you don’t see the chocolate until you cut it. 

Secret chocolate! It looks underbaked in the middle, but that’s just because I’m bad at cutting stuff. Except for rusty bolts. I’m good at that. 

FRIDAY
Tuna boats, popcorn

Speaking of cheesecakes, before I go to adoration, I have an order to fill, yay! Three mini chocolate swirl cheesecakes, one mini plain, plus three mini pumpkin pies and one mini apple pie. I’m so curious about what occasion this order is for, but I’ll probably never know. Just gonna make the cheesecakes and pies.

Damien took Corrie to TWO appointments this morning, and this afternoon, he is chaperoning her and Benny at a coding competition. I hope he gets a mug for father’s day! I think he’s earned a mug. 

Print

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

  1. Freeze the butter for at least 20 minutes, then shred it on a box grater. Set aside.

  2. Put the water in a cup and throw an ice cube in it. Set aside.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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!

  7. 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.

  8. 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.

What’s for supper? Vol. 469: Loveseat! That’s where we eat!

Happy Friday! Every year, May takes me by surprise with how incredibly, bounteously, tenderly gorgeous it is, and also! with how many freaking events we have to go to!

Happily, both cars are currently running, so we are able to do that! And it is just swooningly beautiful out there. My peach tree burst into bloom this week, there are daffodils and tulips swaying in the breeze, the birds are hysterical with love, and the skies are the bluiest bluesty blue I’ve ever seen. I thought I saw a little patch of ice in the stream, but it turned out to be just bubbles.

Shortly after I wrote last week’s post, the ducklings started hatching in earnest! Only one had totally emerged by the time Damien and I went to bed,

so we moved the incubator into our room overnight, for fear of the cats. I did fret about them all night, but this is what we saw in the morning:

Totally exhausted, poor things, but very healthy. These are all pekins.

One more, half pekin and half Swedish black, eventually muscled its way out of the shell the next day. Two did not make it, but the remaining four are doing absolutely great. Everyone got to see at least one baby emerging from the egg, which is dramatic and excruciating, thrilling and ridiculous, just like many other births. I posted a few videos on Facebook. This is seven minutes of hatching compressed into one minute of video;  this is the poor Swedish black trying to hatch while being repeatedly trampled by its three half siblings; and this is their first living room rodeo. 

They grow insanely fast, and they are now living happily under a heat lamp in a tub on top of the dryer, gobbling up their food, thrashing around in their water dish, and wearing themselves out and falling asleep in a fluffy pile. 

Sonny is pretty resigned to having these peeping little maniacs dashing around his living room in the evening

but he does clearly feel like it’s one of our dumber life choices. He’s not necessarily wrong! But they are so lovely. 

SATURDAY
Shawarma, pita, cream puffs, strawberry ice cream 

On Saturday, Lena came over for a belated birthday celebration! It was great to see her. I made chicken shawarma 

Jump to Recipe

and yogurt sauce, and also gave people one final shot at the toum. The shawarma turned out great, although I overcooked the meat a tiny bit because the pita too so look to cook. I use this recipe for pita, and I made a double recipe but just make really big breads. It turns out yummy, but I always underestimate how long it will take to cook eight breads for six minutes each, even though my father did sit me down with flash cards in third grade and I did finally learn my multiplication facts. Next time, I will get two pans going. 

Anyway, it was worth the wait, and it was all very tasty. 

For dessert, I had made strawberry ice cream

Jump to Recipe

and some extremely messy cream puffs. 

The cream puffs were actually from a Bridgerton-branded kit that was on clearance at Walmart, and they definitely made me realize that, from now on, I will be making cream puffs from scratch. They’re actually really easy. A choux pastry is very simple to make, and once you know how, you can make all kinds of fancy stuff. I really wish I had made an actual cream filling, instead of the mix stuff from the package, which had a bland, oily taste. At least we had something to stick candles in, though! Nobody complained, and we had a nice evening. 

SUNDAY
Leftovers, pizza

I moved leftover day to Sunday, and supplemented it with Aldi pizza.

Those empanadas make great leftovers! It’s crazy to me that the rest of the family isn’t in love with everything pie-like. To me, that is just the standard, baseline desire of humanity: To want to be eating some form of pie. 

MONDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, potato puffs, steamed broccoli

On Monday, I made the first inquiry into my compost heap. I don’t do any of the perpetual turning or sprinkling or layering you’re supposed to do for compost; I just dump organic stuff in one spot and let nature take its course, and then in the spring, I see what I’ve got. It works well enough for my purposes! I dug up four wheelbarrows full of dark, rich soil and dumped it on top of the new garden bed I made in front of Damien’s office. 

The idea is to give it couple of weeks to get rained on, and think about what it’s done; and then by the end of May, which is when it’s safe to plant in this zone, it should be ready for seeds. I saved tons of seeds from that one gargantuan pumpkin last year, and that’s what this bed will be for.

Then I made one final offensive push against the blackberries, and dumped them in the pool so they could think about what they’d done. The liner is torn, so right now it’s just a big drying area, and you have to dry out wild blackberry canes before you dispose of them, or else they’ll just start over again. 

Supper was grilled ham and cheese, tater tots (or possibly potato puffs. These are separate things, but I don’t know which is which), and steamed broccoli.

Corrie thought this was a hilarious combination of foods, for some reason. I forget she is still young enough that everything we do (for instance, eating chips and raw vegetables with grilled ham and cheese) gets registered as The Way It’s Done, and any other way looks absurd. 

TUESDAY
Tacos al pastor

It was Cinqo de Mayo, which, as I understand it, is Mexican Arbor Day or something? So obviously we had tacos al pastor, to honor our Lebanese ancestry, which is the best we can do since we don’t drink anymore. I cut the pork up thinly and sorta kinda followed this recipe for the marinade. Then I cut up a couple of pineapples, chopped up some cilantro, and sliced up a few red onions and set those to pickling. I believe I used cider vinegar, pineapple juice, salt, sugar, and hot pepper flakes. 

Then I turned my attention to . . . other things. 

I don’t know if I’ve ever favored you with the Sad Tale of the Wrong Loveseat. We had this loveseat that fit our tiny living room perfectly, and even though the room is small and kind of shabby, I was really happy with how cozy and harmonious it was. But then a child accidentally saturated it, down to its bones, with a smelly lotion which gives me migraines. So we threw it out, and I’d been hunting for a replacement on Marketplace.

We did find one, and the kids loved it, because it was so spacious and comfy and plushy.

IT WAS TOO SPACIOUS. It was about eight inches longer than the people said it would be. But I pride myself on being able to tetris furniture into compliance, so we can make room for whatever we need to make room for (hence the ten children). WELL, I could not, could not figure out how to make this dang loveseat fit. And also, it was grey, and the rest of the room is warm colors.

Also, it’s not really a loveseat, but actually just the orphaned short end of a sectional. 

So I started looking for another loveseat again, and I finally I found one! and this one is the right size, and it was free! It’s not, like, an amazing piece of furniture? 

But it fits, and it’s brown, and I was able to put the room back the way I like it. I’m very happy. And very grateful that Damien goes along with my dumb furniture struggles. 

So, but now we have the old loveseat on its end in the dining room. We couldn’t put it out on the side of the road because it kept raining. But in the meantime, the cats discovered that it’s the greatest spot in the world to fulfill their true destiny: Being High Up. 

SO, I didn’t want to take that away from them. But I also didn’t feel like we needed a sideways couch in the middle of the living room. So I started looking at cat trees so I could throw out the loveseat, and I looked at a few, and I was like, HECK, I COULD MAKE THAT. So I did!

I found a dry tree in our little woods, and cut it up, and screwed the ends to a piece of wood I’ve been saving for just such a purpose. Then I used leftover pool deck spindles to make supports for the tree parts. Then I added some wooden rounds left over from some craft projects, and made little platforms; and then I used a broken drawer piece for the top platform. And it was not bad!

Level and sturdy. Then I cut a bunch of fabric off old loveseat #1 and stapled it on to the little platforms. Then we kind of forcefully placed a cat on it, and Behold: A cat tree. 

Of course we still haven’t dragged loveseat #2 out of the house yet. So now the dining room looks like this:

and I think it goes really well with the ducklings in the laundry room. 

But anyway, by late afternoon, I had this wonderful marinated meat to cook. I decided to broil it in the oven while cooking the pineapple on the stovetop. I just heated up some olive oil and then sauteed the pineapple until the edges browned up a bit. 

Cooked pineapple is SO sweet and wonderful, and amazing with cilantro and spicy meat. So we had tortillas with sour cream, cilantro, pineapple, pickled onion, meat, and hot pineapple, with lime wedges.

Oh my gosh, you guys. This was the most delicious thing ever. I was definitely hungry from my cat tree project, but also it was just amazing food. Definitely returning to this recipe, and definitely adding pickled onions to more things!

WEDNESDAY
Hamburgers, chips, veggies and dip

Wednesday began rather whimsically with our very first fairy egg.

It’s not a true egg; sometimes a duck’s plumbing gets irritated and then it’s like, oh, I guess we’re making an egg! and builds a shell around the irritant. Because a duck’s insides are not any smarter than its outsides.

I haven’t cracked this fairy egg yet, but it is probably all egg white inside; but there may be a tiny yolk. I am going to try to blow the insides out so I can save it to decorate. 

I don’t even remember what we did all day, but we had hamburgers with the last of the mysteriously cheap ground beef I stocked up on a few weeks ago. Gobbled up my burger, did not take a picture.

Oh wait, I did take a picture of my veggie platter.

Food styling is my passion. 

Oh, I had leftover pickled onions on my burger, and it was YUMMO. 

Wednesday night, I made pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting for staff appreciation day. We’ve been sending our kids to this school for . . . I don’t even know how many years. Ten kids’ worth, anyway, and I DO appreciate the staff, so very much, but I’ve never had my act together enough to make muffins. Until this year!

Here’s the muffin recipe

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and I used this simple recipe for the frosting: Just 8 oz. of cream cheese, 1/3 cup of sugar, and 1/2 tsp vanilla. I made a triple batch of frosting, which was more than enough, so I, uh, ate the rest. (In my defense, it was over the course of three days.)

They turned out great, and for once in my life I thought to buy disposable trays to carry them in. 

I was also immensely pleased and gratified to have a separate little fridge to keep them in overnight. This is one of my great satisfactions in middle age: I have my very own mini fridge which is exclusively for baked goods I don’t want anyone to touch. 

THURSDAY
Pork rice bowls

Thursday I had some cheesecake orders for Mother’s Day, and LET ME TELL YOU. I did nothing but make mistakes all day. Not even just with the cheesecakes, but with every little thing, just one dumb thing after another. I ended up having to make the cheesecakes twice, because I lowered the temperature in the oven too dramatically, for no reason, and they all cracked. 

Just for fun, I did make one extra one, which turned out pretty cute: 

This is about 6.5 inches in diameter and actually has a secret chocolate center. Which reminds me, I need to put up an ad and see if someone wants to buy it!

Anyway, the plan was pork quesadillas, but I forgot to buy cheese, so I just made kind of spicy pulled pork. I cut the pork into chunks and browned them in oil with salt and pepper. Then I put it in the Instant Pot with the last of the pineapple juice, some jarred jalapeños and their juice, some garlic powder, a bunch of cumin, and bunch of that Valentina’s salsa picante. I let that cook all day, and then before supper I made a truly terrible pot of rice. How do you mess up rice? I don’t know, but it was that kind of day. 

But actually it was a decent meal, considering it was forged in sheer panic. I had mine with sour cream, cilantro, and lime.

Not bad at all. I may start keeping pineapple juice in the house! Very handy. 

Damien has had to be out of town covering various hearings and whatnot this week, and then Benny had a fundraising event in the evening, and when I got home, I still had to remake those cheesecakes, so I switched kitchen clean-ups with Irene, made the cheesecakes, cleaned the kitchen, Damien picked up Benny, and then I fell asleep on the couch, phew. 

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

I just remembered that, when I went shopping for cream cheese, they had everbearing strawberry plants for $3 each, so I bought six. Yay! I forgot about that. My strawberry bed got all eaten up by varmints over the winter, so it will be nice to stock it up again. Maybe I will go back for another six plants. I’m solidifying my vegetable garden plans for the year, and have pretty much settled on corn, pumpkins, potatoes, basil, and eggplant. Might do butternut squash on an arbor this year, if I can get around to rigging it up. 

I slept in this morning while Damien got the kids to school and brought one to an appointment, and then some of them had a half day, and then he’s going to cover adoration while I get one kid to her new art class, and then pick up the rest. And then we shall have spaghetti! And maybe drag the loveseat out of the dining room. Because it is chilly as heck today, but it is NOT raining. And guess what, the surgeon just called and I have a surgery date. August 20, which is absolutely perfect. We’ll have a nice summer, I’ll get my head fixed, and we’ll all be in good shape by Christmas. 

For dessert, it just so happens we have a bunch of cracked cheesecakes in the house. Mom in a heart, indeed. 

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Chicken shawarma

Ingredients

  • 8 lbs boned, skinned chicken thighs
  • 4-5 red onions
  • 1.5 cups lemon juice
  • 2 cups olive oil
  • 4 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 Tbs, 2 tsp pepper
  • 2 Tbs, 2 tsp cumin
  • 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes OR Aleppo pepper
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 entire head garlic, crushed OR bashed into pieces

Instructions

  1. Mix marinade ingredients together, then add chicken. Put in ziplock bag and let marinate several hours or overnight.

  2. Preheat the oven to 425.

  3. Grease a shallow pan. Take the chicken out of the marinade and spread it in a single layer on the pan, and top with the onions (sliced or quartered). If you kept the garlic in larger pieces, fish those out of the marinade and strew them over the chicken. Cook for 45 minutes or more. 

  4. Chop up the chicken a bit, if you like, and finish cooking it so it crisps up a bit more.

  5. Serve chicken and onions with pita bread triangles, cucumbers, tomatoes, assorted olives, feta cheese, fresh parsley, pomegranates or grapes, fried eggplant, and yogurt sauce.

 

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Pumpkin quick bread or muffins

Makes 2 loaves or 18+ muffins

Ingredients

  • 30 oz canned pumpkin puree
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup veg or canola oil
  • 1.5 cups sugar
  • 3.5 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1.5 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/4 tsp ground ginger
  • oats, wheat germ, turbinado sugar, chopped dates, almonds, raisins, etc. optional

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter two loaf pans or butter or line 18 muffin tins.

  2. In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients except for sugar.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix together wet ingredients and sugar. Stir wet mixture into dry mixture and mix just to blend. 

  4. Optional: add toppings or stir-ins of your choice. 

  5. Spoon batter into pans or tins. Bake about 25 minutes for muffins, about 40 minutes for loaves. 

 

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Ben and Jerry's Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

For the strawberries

  • 1 pint fresh strawberries
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1-1/2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

For the ice cream base

  • 2 eggs
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 cups heavy or whipping cream
  • 1 cup milk

Instructions

  1. Hull and slice the strawberries. Mix them with the sugar and lemon juice, cover, and refrigerate for an hour.

Make the ice cream base:

  1. In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs for two minutes until fluffy.

  2. Add in the sugar gradually and whisk another minute.

  3. Pour in the milk and cream and continue whisking to blend.

Put it together:

  1. Mash the strawberries well, or puree them in a food processor. Stir into the ice cream base.

  2. 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.)

What’s for supper? Vol. 4SIX SEHHHHHHVEN

Happy Friday! A couple of days ago, I thought of a really witty pun title for this week’s post. Then I thought, “I don’t need to write that down. It’s so good, there is no way I will forget it.” Then a great river went rushing through my mind, and left behind 

–okay, now here I broke away for a bit to try and hunt down an authentically ancient description of what it looked like when the Augean Stables got cleaned out, and I got as far as people singing “ting-a-ling” in praise of Herakles afterward

and I decided it wasn’t really that funny. So please just imagine that my mind is sparkling clean, and also quite empty. And I have a middle schooler. So that explains the title. 

Well, here is what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Leftovers and pizza pockets(?) 

I remember being super busy on Saturday, but I can’t remember why. 

SUNDAY
Hamburgers, chips, steamed broccoli

Sunday after Mass, I did part 2 of cleaning the kid room that needed a drastic overhaul. This is the project that’s been preventing me from getting anything done outside! This task has been looming in my mind, so it’s a huge relief to get it done. We are hoping to paint over April vacation. 

I have soooo many projects I have to get to outside. Gotta build Corrie’s tree house, prep the gardens for planting and start a new spot for corn, replace the grape arches that fell down over the winter, plant the new grapes I got on clearance at Walmart, maybe build a second brick step/stoop in front, finish the duck pond, finish the garden I started building on the side of the back steps to maybe prevent people from dropping crap there, and, less glamorously, finish up the new roof we put on in the fall, and take a million pounds of trash and scraps to the dump. And fix the mailbox. But knowing that bedroom inside was such a wreck was making it impossible to commit to anything outside. So now I can!

Well, the truth is, I am waiting to hear back about if I will be having surgery soon or in several months, so everything is very much up in the air. But a girl can dream. 

So then we had hamburgers, chips, and steamed broccoli for supper. 

I’ve been on a huge steamed broccoli kick lately. Just something very satisfying about the two different textures in each bite Nobody else is that crazy about it, so I’ve been eating leftover all week for a snack, and that is how I keep current with my fart schedule. 

It snowed. 

MONDAY
Turkey bacon wraps, hot pretzels, fruit salad

Monday I had a meeting and then a boring pharmacy adventure, and then it snowed. I compensated by making a very bright and cheerful dinner, kind of 90’s brunch style or something. Deli turkey and bacon, tomato, lettuce, cheese, and honey mustard wraps, hot pretzels, and fruit salad. 

While the bacon was cooking, I started making the fruit salad, and it was so pretty in layers, I left it that way, rather than mixing it. 

Color! Must have color! 

I absolutely love this kind of meal. It’s like something your grandparents would buy you at a hospital cafeteria. 

Possibly you will even get to pick out an eraser shaped like an ice cream come at the gift shop, if you are good. 

TUESDAY
Spaghetti and meatballs, salad, hearth bread

Tuesday I got some lab work done on the way home from the school run, and I was so reluctant to do anything else when I got home, I ended up making a slightly more elaborate meal than I had planned. It was just meatballs,

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but I usually bake them in the oven on a rack, because it’s so much easier and less messy. This time I browned them in a pan, and it did take quite some time!

I also made King Arthur Hearth Bread. Last time I made this recipe, it was decent, and had a nice crackly crust and chewy inside, but didn’t hold its shape, and was much flatter than the picture in the recipe. So I tried it again, paying closer attentions to the rising time, and the exact same thing happened. But I did recall that you can improve the appearance of a weird loaf of bread by serving it already cut in pieces, so that is what I did. 

Made a little salad with the leftovers from the wraps

and it was a yummy meal. Ground beef was $2.99 a pound, for some reason (usually that’s Superbowl prices), so I bought as much as I could fit in the freezer 

WEDNESDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips, veggies and dip

Wednesday is when I had to admit to myself that I was really sick. I was hoping it was just allergies from the dust I stirred up while cleaning, but really I had succumbed to the respiratory ick that is circulating around the family. I really hardly ever get sick anymore since I started taking big doses of vitamin D for the dark months of the year! But this one got me. I slept most of the day and we had grilled ham and cheese for supper, and I did not take a picture of it. 

THURSDAY
Bibimbap sort of 

Thursday I was still sick, but I was so mad about being sick when the weather was finally warming up, I decided to pretend I wasn’t sick. This usually doesn’t work, but I got away with it this time.

It was sunny and breezy, so I hung out a bunch of laundry to dry, then started picking at the broken glass debacle in the back. To refresh your memory: Through a completely avoidable bit of stupidity on my part, one of these windows

now looks like this

and after spending two good long sessions gloomily cleaning, there are still millions of bits of broken glass on a probably 4×8′ area that is covered with small rocks that you can easily move, and large rocks that are fully embedded in the ground, and every day that passes makes it harder to clean up the glass because things are starting to grow in the cracks. The good news is, all of this is entirely my fault, so I can think about that while I clean! 

I have now tried every  conceivable method for cleaning up this glass, including using different sizes of soup spoons, and nothing was getting me anywhere. The only thing I know would work is if some friendly mice and sparrows got busy and, with a rush and a twitter, made it spic and span for me in no time. But I would have needed to start that several months ago (i.e. leaving treats for them so they would befriend me and come to my aid in my hour of need), and while it is true that, in a certain sense, we do routinely leave snacks for the mice, the overall tenor of our relationship remains hostile. So that was out. 

So I bowed to my fate and inquired about a used shop vac on Facebook Marketplace. Then, because I had sort of done something about the glass, I felt clear to tackle the blackberry bushes that are encroaching on the spot between the patio and the house, which is where I want to plant wildflowers.

Every time I mention getting rid of wild blackberry, somebody goes, “oohhhh, I wish I had that problem!” Fine! I believe you! Please come and get them. Take all you want. We have 423 million of them, and they have sent root systems snaking around all over the property, and the one thing they hate is for anything else to grow. But maybe I’m wrong, and it’s actually quite nice to have them. Like I said, come on over. 

But it really was incredibly satisfying to sit in the dirt and dig and scrabble and uproot, even knowing that it was only slowing them down at best. I listened to the last two parts of The Rest Is History series on the KKK, and started on their series about Samurai before I had to call it quits for the day.

Got a quick shower, got a CT scan (this was to confirm that I don’t have an aneurism and that the schwannoma is not strangling my carotid artery, and I’m happy to say that I don’t and it isn’t), picked up the shop vac, and went home to make supper. I was extremely proud of this supper, because I really had only a concept of a plan, and it turned out very tasty. 

First I got some rice cooking in the Instant Pot. Then I started broiling some pork ribs with salt and pepper. While the first side was cooking, I made a thick sauce from brown sugar, corn start, soy sauce, garlic powder, and some hot chili paste. I flipped the ribs over and brushed the sauce on the other side and let them finish cooking. I found some spinach and crunchy noodles. and quickly sauteed some mushrooms. Then I started some eggs frying and called people to supper, and by the time everyone was assembled, the food was all hot 

Ribs turned out great! The sauce was really good and sticky. Of course I didn’t write down the proportions, except that I used way more sugar and corn starch than I meant to, so that was probably the secret. 

It was warm enough to eat outside — first time this year — so I had a lovely meal while my companions, the ducks, happily rooted around in the compost heap.

The table doesn’t super duper have a top yet, but it has enough decorative wrought iron that you can use it if you don’t move around a lot. Whatever, it’s on my list. Anyway, I used up the last of the fresh eggs that lady gave me in exchange for my excess toum, and it was a tremendously yummy meal. 

FRIDAY
Tuna sandwiches or broiled salmon

Last Friday I ended up making tuna sandwiches for the kids, Instant Pot risotto

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for everybody, and sesame-crusted ahi tuna for me and Damien. It was very tasty, although I was sad to see that the cheapo sack of ahi tuna from Aldi now only has three pieces of tuna in it, rather than four. 

As far as I can recall, I marinated the tuna in sesame oil and soy sauce for about ten minutes, then pressed them into a mixture of sesame seeds, brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt, and then seared them in oil. Served it with the risotto and really needed a vegetable, but the closest I could find was some furikake.  So we had that, and it was yum dot com. 

I ended up sort of flaking the tuna into the risotto, and it all melded together deliciously. 

So tonight we have some equally cheapo frozen salmon, and I’m not sure what I will do with it. Maybe just broil it, and serve it with, like, potato chips and an old apple. Maybe some friendly sparrows will come and help me. Maybe!

Oh, I forgot! We got an axolotl.

This is Benny’s pet. Lena knows someone who works for a vet, and they found themselves with that common problem, Too Many Axolotls, so obviously Damien went and got one. Benny is currently calling him Mordred, but she originally suggested “Ravioli,” and I like that much better, because it scans exactly like axolotl:  ˘˘/˘.  He’s a nice little guy, very chill. 

I haven’t tried my new shop vac yet, because if it doesn’t work, I just don’t know what I’m gonna do. Pave the whole back yard, maybe. Or reroute a river and just wash the whole thing away. Ting-a-ling! At least that’s what it says here. 

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Meatballs

Make about 100 golf ball-sized meatballs. 

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs ground meat (I like to use mostly beef with some ground chicken or turkey or pork)
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups panko bread crumbs
  • 4 oz grated parmesan cheese (about 1 cup)
  • 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400.

  2. Mix all ingredients together with your hands until it's fully blended.

  3. Form meatballs and put them in a single layer on a pan with drainage. Cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes or more until they're cooked all the way through.

  4. Add meatballs to sauce and keep warm until you're ready to serve. 

 

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Instant Pot Risotto

Almost as good as stovetop risotto, and ten billion times easier. Makes about eight cups. 

Ingredients

  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground sage
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 4 cups rice, raw
  • 6 cups chicken stock
  • 2 cups dry white wine
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • pepper
  • 1.5 cups grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Turn IP on sautee, add oil, and sautee the onion, garlic, salt, and sage until onions are soft.

  2. Add rice and butter and cook for five minutes or more, stirring constantly, until rice is mostly opaque and butter is melted.

  3. Press "cancel," add the broth and wine, and stir.

  4. Close the top, close valve, set to high pressure for 9 minutes.

  5. Release the pressure and carefully stir in the parmesan cheese and pepper. Add salt if necessary. 

I don’t care what Trump posts on social media

The late great Norm McDonald used to talk about what it was like to discover that beloved actor and comedian Bill Cosby, known far and wide as “America’s Dad,” was actually a rapist. McDonald said a friend of his told him the worst thing about the story was the hypocrisy. 
 
 
Let’s keep that in mind as we talk over the events of the week. 
 

Perhaps you saw Donald Trump’s dumb picture of himself as a divine healer, before he deleted it, and then said he just meant to show himself as a Red Cross doctor or something. Here is the image he posted:​

​​

Maybe you also saw his insane little rant about the Pope, which he apparently stands by. ​

​

Bishop Robert Barron, the founder of Word on Fire Media who serves (and I do mean “serves”) on Trump’s “Religious Liberty Commission,” did see it, and he responded. Here is Bishop Barron’s response post on Twitter:

Barron wasn’t the only one who thinks Trump should apologize. Lots of Catholics, and others, including the President of of Iran?? were horrified and offended that he would say and share such things. 

Not me! I don’t care. It’s all dumb and ridiculous and yes, I guess it’s offensive, although my capacity to be offended has been worn down to a mere grease spot these days.

What I do care about is why this, a stupid little social media post calling names and being dumb, is what finally stirred Bishop Barron out of his long, comfortable slumber and spurred him to make a statement (sandwiched in between some bootlicking). This? This is what finally gave his conscience a little twinge? 

The Pope doesn’t want or need an apology for the president being disrespectful, I guarantee you. It’s the kind of thing Trump posts all the time, and always has. It doesn’t matter.

What does matter is what Trump DOES. 

So I wonder, Bishop Barron. Should Trump apologize for bombing a girls’ school? 
Should he apologize for referring to our fellow children of God as “animals,” “garbage,” and “people with bad genes?” Should he apologize for sharing an AI video of himself dumping liquid shit on the heads of American citizens? 
Should he apologize for yanking funds away from USAID, consigning thousands of utterly innocent people to death,  while pouring torrents of money into wars of choice, vanity projects, and of course golf?   
Should he apologize for gleefully cramming countless human beings into a man-made hell without even the pretense of a trial?  

I could go on. Bishop Barron, though, is apparently pacing himself, saving his dissent for the crimes that will really echo through the halls of eternity: A post on social media.

Social media matters because it amplifies opinions and shapes people’s worldview. But when that worldview and those opinions are already being translated, in real time, every day, into real life acts of terror and destruction and wholesale degradation of the entire country, only a fool cares what someone posts on social media. Only a fool adjusts his collar and asks for a Truth Social apology when the real world is in flames. 

An insult on social media post isn’t the worst part of what Trump has done, your excellency. The worst part is everything else. 

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 463: Wiggly eggs and other perverse urges

Happy Friday! We’ve had kind of a nutty week that I can only describe as RIFE WITH INTERPERSONAL COMPLEXITY. By which I mean I’ve changed my mind, and from now on I’m going to clean school buses for a living, and raise mushrooms instead of children, and possibly stop speaking entirely, like . . . 

Well, I couldn’t think of a good example, so I googled “vow of silence who took” and this is the first result that popped up:

And now I feel better! Also we’ve had ABOVE FREEZING TEMPS all week, and dang, it’s nice. Water flowing, grass showing, fewer ice patches, more mud puddles. Good stuff. 

Okay, here’s what we ate this week: 

SATURDAY
Pretty luxurious leftovers

Look at this! 

Leftovers get a bad rap, but that’s just because they haven’t had Saturday night at my house. I wish there were, like, some hungry seminarians who lived next door or something. Or maybe we should buy a goat. 

SUNDAY
Meatball subs, curly fries, birthday cake

Sunday we celebrated a birthday, and the kid in question requested meatball subs, curly fries, and a chocolate cake with Kit Kats and Reece’s Peanut Butter cups, and not too much frosting. 

I made the meatballs with ground beef and ground pork, eggs, panko bread crumbs, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, and Worcestershire sauce, and cooked them on a rack in a hot oven, then transferred them to the crock pot with jarred sauce. 

I did a three-layer box cake, but made the frosting from scratch. I creamed together 1.5 sticks of butter and 4.5 cups of powdered sugar, then a little salt and three ounces of melted, unsweetened chocolate. Then I just added milk until it was the consistency I wanted. 

The cake turned out . . . fancy! 

The design on top is the logo he uses to sign his artwork. 

Twenty-two candles, and it was a hit. 

The kids were trying to work out how many birthday cakes I have made over the years, and I really don’t know. Ten kids, and the oldest is 27, so you can work out that formula; except some of them had multiple cakes in a year, and occasionally they would request tiramisu or something instead. Anyway, it’s a number that’s so high, you’d think I’d be better at decorating by now! I always give it my all, anyway. Never an unenthusiastic effort; this is my pledge. 

MONDAY
Chicken ranch wraps, chips, raw vegetables

Just chicken tenders on tortillas with shredded lettuce, shredded pepper jack cheese, and ranch dressing. I actually love this and would make it every week if I could get away with it. I love wraps of all kinds. 

I am working on increasing my vegetable consumption. I’ve been serving big platter of raw veggies early in the week, and then I will have them ready to snack on for the rest of the week, and I have actually been doing it. I don’t even have any illusions of losing weight at this point; it’s just a matter of self respect. Hard to respect self that is coated in orange cheez dust. 

TUESDAY
Chicken biryani, naan

I had four big chicken leg quarters that were on sale, and I really never know what else to make with them besides chicken biryani, which Damien and I happen to love. They get seasoned and then seared. 

Then you take the meat out of the pan and start building up the rest of it: First ginger and onions, then your spices, then the raw rice, plus cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, and blond raisins. 

I have begun to play pretty fast and loose with the seasonings, but I more or less followed this recipe, except that after I put the meat back in and add the broth, I immediately move it all to the slow cooker, and let it cook all day. That is the only way I’ve ever been able to actually get the rice completely cooked. 

Before I left for the afternoon drive, I made a double recipe of naan dough from King Arthur, except I was out of yogurt so I used sour cream.  I make a double recipe, which should make 16 pieces, but I only make eight, so they come out nice and big. 

Doesn’t look big here, but this pan is huge. 

I keep a wet cloth ready and wipe the burnt flour out of the pan in between frying each piece, and they turned out yummy. Nice buttery taste, and chewy but not tough on the inside, with a little crispness on the edge. Brushing them with melted butter at the end really makes them special. 

I served it all with mint chutney, and some cilantro and some almonds that I pretty much burnt, but it was really tasty meal. I burnt the almonds because I made them in the oven and they burn REALLY fast. Next time, I’ll go back to toasting them in the microwave like I usually do. Although the microwave has reverted to one of its old habits of turning on any time the door is closed, so I get nervous using it, wondering if the next trick is going to involve flames or what (there is always a next trick with our appliances. They can’t just die quietly; they have to be on fire). 

WEDNESDAY
Spicy chicken soup with corn chips and guacamole

Wednesday I had about six chicken drumsticks I forgot to cook last week, and the original plan was chicken tortilla soup, but that calls for chicken breast, which I think is an inferior chicken part for soup anyway. So I roasted the drumsticks with oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, and chili powder and pulled the meat off. 

Then I started throwing stuff in the food processor to make the soup base. I put in two onions, 6 cloves of garlic, a jalapeño, a bunch of cilantro, and about a pound of tomatoes. I whirred that to a pulp, then cooked it in the pot in hot oil to thicken for about ten minutes. Then I put the meat back in and added a bunch of chicken broth. 

The recipe I usually use calls for chiles and adobo sauce and tortilla strips, but I realized I’m really the only one who likes tortilla soup anyway. I offered to the kids that I could make crunchy chili lime tortilla strips, or corn muffins, or even quesadillas, but they didn’t want any of that. So I made a nice bowl of guacamole

and served the soup along with some of those oversized “street corn” corn chips from Aldi, with a little sour cream and cilantro on top of the soup, and it was a highly delicious and nourishing meal. 

The soup was thick and very spicy, and I liked the corn chips much better than tortilla strips. I might have also added some corn and/or beans to the soup if it were just for me, but it was really good as it was. Also I couldn’t find the can opener. 

In situations like this, where the kids just do not want any part of dinner, they generally just go fix themselves whatever they want. They’re all old enough to cook, and they have some general idea that protein=good. Often this means they make omelettes, which is great; but sadly, on this day, what they all wanted was things in cans, and the can opener had really gone thoroughly missing. They were all mad at me about this, for some reason, even though I, too, frequently wish to open cans, and had not hidden the can opener for my own perverse reasons. Anyway,  I guess they all found something, and I have gotten so much better about not caring what they eat, and I enjoyed my soup and guacamole! We did have some bleeding when one kid tried to open a can of Spagehtti-o’s using the stabbing method, but it wasn’t a deep cut, and we did have bandaids in the house for once. Maybe next week, I’ll just serve bandaids. Bandaid omelettes. 

Now that I think of it, I think I actually made the soup on Tuesday, while I was making the biryani, because I knew I was going to be busy the rest of the week. I remember people coming in and asking what was cooking, because it smelled like so MANY kinds of things. 

THURSDAY
Chef’s salad, fresh bread

Thursday I had some apprehension about the meal I had planned. I talk big about not caring about what the kids eat, but obviously I actually care deeply. However, I have to balance food the kids enjoy with food I have time to make and food that isn’t outrageously unhealthy and food we can actually afford in This Golden Age of America, and it’s not always obvious what to make. So I was starting to have my doubts about the chef’s salad. 

Again, to me, this is a pleasant and yummy meal that I’d be happy to eat every other day. I did my best to present it in an attractive way. I even cut the hard boiled eggs with a special wiggly cutter!

Isn’t that cute? There’s a big bowl of greens in the back. Two kinds of cheese, two kinds of meat, cute li’l grape tomatoes. I would have gone ape over this when I was a kid. I even put out some of those crunchy onions that come in a can.

But I still thought maybe it needed to be bulked up a little, qua a meal. So I made some bread, following the King Arthur hearth bread recipe, which is apparently an old classic, but which I have never made before. It was going great, but I started it at the wrong time, and ended up leaving it for the second rise for way, way too long while I was driving around. So by the time I baked it, the loaves had overinflated and then slumped pretty badly. I baked them anyway, and you know what? It was nice bread!

Wonderfully crackly outside and soft and chewy inside. I was pleased, and will definitely make this again, just timed better. I liked the whole meal. 

And I got my dang vegetables. I also got a new can opener, and I’m pretty sure some people had Spaghetti-o’s for supper.  

You know what, though, these kids do like bread with all kinds of nuts and seeds and stuff in it, and I bet this hearth bread can be adapted pretty easily that way. I’m enjoying the novelty of just making single recipes of things, these days. I’m starting to realize how much my cooking has been affected by quantity. Like, there are meals that seem incredibly laborious and/or expensive to me, but that’s because I was serving twelve for so many years. It now feels very freeing to just . . . follow the recipe, as written. It feels like cheating!

FRIDAY
Pizza

Just regular pizza, no tricks!  And Damien and I are planning to be very kind and gentle with ourselves this weekend. It’s been a hell of a year, honestly, and that goes for just about everyone I know. I would bake you all some nice bread if I could.

Anyway, spring is coming, birds are returning, snow is melting, can opener is with us again. I think we’re gonna make it. Poopsmith out! 

Fisher Family Mandatory Lent Film Party limps on!

The Fisher Family Mandatory Lent Film Party! It’s our annual Lenten tradition, except sometimes we don’t do it. This year, we’re sort of doing it. The idea is that we have screen-free evenings in Lent, but on Fridays, we cordially insist the kids join us in watching a movie that has spiritual or moral themes, and which we expect to be worth watching for one reason or another — and which we probably wouldn’t get around to watching otherwise. You can find I think a few dozen previous reviews at the Lent Film Party tag. 

So far this year, we have watched two very different movies: Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison and A Man For All Seasons. We paid $3.99 each to rent these on Amazon Prime, but they’re both available on other platforms as well right now.

Here are some quickie reviews!

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957) 
where to watch

I had no idea what to expect from this movie, but since it has Deborah Kerr as a young Irish nun and Robert Mitchum as a hard-bitten marine, and they’re both stranded on the same South Pacific island, I kind of assumed smoochiness would ensue. I will spoil it for you: They do not end up together. 

It’s a John Huston movie, but it’s no African Queen or Treasure of the Sierra Madre. There’s nothing wrong with it; it’s just not that deep. The story moves along fine, there is a decent amount of suspense, and you do wonder what will happen to the characters. It’s very nice to see the faith, and holy orders, being explained simply but clearly by an intelligent, admirable woman. And Robert Mitchum is always fun to watch. 

And that’s it! It’s a reasonably entertaining movie that more or less held our interest. It’s hard to imagine anyone making this movie today without cramming in a romantic entanglement (although Wake Up Dead Man managed, come to think of it. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND WAKE UP DEAD MAN, BY THE WAY.) There was not much to talk about after Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, but most of us liked it well enough. Here’s the trailer, which is a little goofy, but gives the general idea. 

 

Suitable for all but very sensitive viewers. It has a little violence, nothing gory, and lots of shooting and bombs falling, and Mr. Allison gets drunk at one point. I feel like it shows a Japanese soldier’s butt cheek at one point. 

***

A Man For All Seasons (1966)
where to watch

This movie deserves all the hype.

First, the casting is impeccable, and the acting is thoroughly persuasive. Robert Shaw (whom my kids know as Quint from Jaws) is tremendous as Henry VIII. You feel like you’ve definitely met this guy, and this is exactly how he would act if he were the king (bad); and Damien says that, as far as he can tell, the portrayal is pretty historically accurate. But also the wife, the daughter, the son-in-law, the friend, the traitor, and of course the exceedingly unhealthy cardinal (Orson Welles) are all fully formed characters who deliver subtle, compelling performances.

So too, most of all, does Paul Scofield as Thomas More, who comes across as kind of a pain in the ass who is aware he is annoying people, but truly can’t help being who he is, and putting who he is thoroughly in God’s service. (This is a message that was kind of good for me to hear right now, for reasons.) But the acting is good enough that you can really see his distress toward the end, as he struggles to convey his motivation to his family, even as he sees them suffering because of it. Lots of under-the-surface emotions portrayed in several characters. 

I also appreciated seeing a saint who is heroically holy without being scrupulous or self-immolating. He doesn’t want to die! He wants to live, and keeps looking for ways to stay alive in ways that won’t violate his conscience. Sort of reminds me of Gianna Molla. So many people believe she found out she had cancer and immediately embraced or even pursued death as a sacrifice for her baby. In fact, she hoped all along that they would both survive. An often-misunderstood point about sainthood.  I also like how he makes room for other people’s weaknesses. He sees through his son-in-law, but allows his daughter to marry him anyway. He recognizes that the law only requires him to pay a certain fare, but when the boatman tells him it’s harder to row upstream, he pays him more than he’s required to. He has such high standards for himself, and so much compassion for everyone else. 

The dialogue requires you to listen attentively. They speak quickly and they say a LOT (it was originally a play). This is the part the kids struggled with the most. There’s a lot of talking, but the dialogue is all carefully crafted and illuminating, well worth paying attention to, and sometimes pretty funny.

The pacing works perfectly, but you have to allow it to not be an action movie. I thought it was important that they show people in great haste and agitation — but still having to row laboriously up and down the Thames, sometimes throughout the night, to deliver urgent messages. That illustrates one of the themes of the movie, which is having to work within the framework (or season?) you are given. That’s what Thomas More does: He is who he is, and that’s what he has to work with. The world is as it is, and you have to understand it thoroughly in order to discern how to behave morally. I need to develop this thought more — something about the tension between what changes and what is unchangeable —  but I’d need to see the movie again. 

Anyway, the settings and most of all the costumes were so fabulous, I almost passed out. I would absolutely watch this movie again with no sound, just to stare at the various fabrics. I also admired how comfortable the characters seemed in the period clothing. They wore them like clothing, not costumes. Same for the setting. They seemed really at home in the 16th century, and not just moving around in a museum. 

All that said, most of my teenagers and young adults didn’t think much of it. They didn’t like the characters, they got frustrated at all the talking, and they wanted more exciting things to happen. This is more or less how I felt about the movie when I was a teenager. My 15-year-old daughter, however, was spellbound, and didn’t take her eyes of the screen the whole time. She found the drama moving and compelling. So, I guess it depends on the kid! 

It’s suitable for all ages, although my youngest (age 11) fell asleep halfway through. It might possibly be upsetting for sensitive viewers toward the end, when Thomas More is in a dungeon and has an emotional final visit with his family. And of course it is a martyrdom story, and it does have that scene. You don’t see the death, but you hear it. 

This is a pretty thin review of a great movie, but so much in-depth commentary has been written about it, I’ll just urge you to watch or re-watch it. It was much more entertaining than I remembered, and gave me a lot to think about, even though I’m already very familiar with the story. Some of it felt extremely relevant to 2026 — this scene in particular (starting about 1:51)

“Where would you hide, Robert, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, coast to coast. Man’s laws, not God’s; and if you cut them down …  do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?”

Yeah, go watch it! So good. 

Not sure what we’ll watch next. I would like to finally watch Of Gods and Men, which I haven’t seen, and I would like the kids to finally see The Passion of the Christ, which they’ve been resisting, but out of sheer honesty, if they can sit through Nosferatu and other gross stuff, they can watch this one. Out of sheer honesty. 

 

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 462: Mutter love

Happy Friday! We’re about a month away from Easter, can you believe it? I don’t even know if I mean it’s that soon, or that far away. Either way, it feels unreasonable. 

A few months ago, I was having a spell of OH I HAVE RUINED MY CHILDREN’s LIVES, WHY HAVE I BEEN SUCH A WORTHLESS MOTHER ALL MY DAYS, so when an ad for the circus came across my feed, obviously I bought a bunch of tickets. So that is what we did on Saturday, rather than go shopping. 

SATURDAY
Pizza

We arrived in the city early and I took this photo which is just begging to be made into a meme. Feel free to use it if you need it!

We had some yummy pizza at Caesario’s, where the pizza is delightfully garlicky, and positively gloppy with stretchy cheese. Then we went to the arena where the circus was, and IT WAS LOUD. 

It was, to be honest, kind of incoherent — I mean, even for a circus. I been to circuses before, and they generally have some kind of loose theme, even if the various acts could be anything at all. This particular circus was, I guess, 90’s pep rally style, and they had a singing ringleader, a DJ who did absolutely nothing, a sassy robot dog, and a breakdancing red dragon. I dunno. The kids liked it, so that’s what matters!

Some of the acts were truly thrilling and amazing, but there was also a ton of filler, and some of the acts were actually a little dull, and the clowns were actually terrible. And this was Ringling Bros, not some rinky dink outfit! But as I said, the kids liked it, and we all had a good time. 

Got a kind of cool shot of the night sky as we went back to the car. 

And it was a fine way to wrap up February vacation. 

SUNDAY
Oven fried chicken, biscuits, glazed carrots

Sunday I ran out to the store and grabbed a bunch of miscellaneous things that seemed like they were reasonably priced, and I figured I would work out a menu later. I used the drumsticks I got to make oven fried chicken

Jump to Recipe

and biscuits. After I made the biscuits, I was pretty low on butter, so the chicken was cooked in mostly oil with a little butter, rather than my usual half-and-half. I mean 50% of each, not that I cook it in half-and-half. 

I used Recipe Tin Eats recipe for the glazed carrots, except, again, all olive oil rather than some oil and some butter. I made them early in the oven and then warmed them up later on the stovetop, because I knew the oven was gonna be busy. 

Then I went to make the biscuits

Jump to Recipe

and I’ll be durned, I was also out of white sugar. So I used brown sugar. I halved the recipe and made it into eight large biscuits. 

Meal turned out great. The chicken was gorgeously crispy, and I seasoned it nicely. 

And that was that. I think that was the last recipe I used all week. 

MONDAY
Aldi pizza

Monday I had  a lady check-up and a mammogram. I made the face you’re supposed to make when you get a mammogram 

but actually I have never found them to be terrible. I think if you have very small breasts, it’s pinchy, but that is not a problem I myself have encountered. I did ask the tech if I could see the images, which is something I do every time I get something imaged, and it was cool! With all the ducts lit up, they look like Power Boobs. I do like seeing the inside of my body, as long as it’s on a screen. 

I think it may actually have been Monday that I went shopping, because I remember we had Aldi pizza. I dunno. Anyway we had pizza. I think I probably spent Sunday filling out forms. I have gotten . . . a little behind on my forms, and I’m going through a season in my life when filling out forms is the main thing I do. I hate it and it sucks, but I got that mofo done.

TUESDAY
Carnitas, beans and rice

Tuesday I had this giant pork shoulder and no real plan, but I did have the ingredients for carnitas, so that was settled. Oh, I guess I did use a recipe for that

Jump to Recipe

although I pretty much wing it. Hack up pork, salt pepper and oregano, brown it, then simmer it with cinnamon sticks, orange chunks, bay leaves, oil, and Coke. 

You cook it way, way down and then take the meat out, shred it, and brown it up

While it was cooking, I made some okayish beans and rice. Just rice, kidney beans, diced jalapenos, diced tomatoes and juice, I guess probably garlic and onion, and I imagine cumin, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. We were out of chili powder, sadly. 

Served on tortillas with sour cream and cilantro. 

I have spoiled my family by usually making guacamole with this, so there was a little muttering, but oh well. I thought they were yummy. 

I think it was also Tuesday we got a call from the school saying that a certain child had insisted on being goalie and then, when child got hit with a soccer ball, flew into a rage and spent kind of a long time muttering about what fate the person who had kicked the ball deserved. This is not the first time we have gotten a call from a school, informing us that a child has engaged in muttering. I guess I’m glad they’re paying attention? But also, their father is Irish and their mother is Ashkenazi Jew. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Fishers gotta mutter about who’s gonna die. It’s our patrimony. Just let it go. 

WEDNESDAY
Pork quesadillas, chips and salsa, raw veggies 

Wednesday it got WARM. Well, warmer. The ducks wandered off their beaten path for the first time in many months, and found it confusing. 

They find everything confusing. 

On Wednesdays we get home around 5:00, so I was glad to have a quick meal to make. I heated up the leftover beans and rice, cut up a bunch of raw vegetables, and made quesadillas with the leftover carnitas. I also served tortilla chips and salsa. 

Most of the kids opted for just plain cheese, but I had mine with meat, and I thought they were fab. I also shocked myself by opting for vegetables instead of chips. 

THURSDAY
Cumin chicken, tomato salad, fries

Thursday we got our first duck egg of the season! This looks like an Annie (black swedish) egg to me. Usually they have started laying much earlier by now (it’s the amount of light that affects them, not the temperature), but you really can’t make a duck do anything. I was pretty glad to see this egg. 

This year, we are going to hatch a bunch of them and sell the ducklings, probably. I saw a gal on Facebook showing how she was incubating eggs in her crock pot, and to my delight, all the comments were interested and encouraging. Not a single person berated her for torturing a defenseless animal by refusing to use a certified Hen Bum Simulator with a bluetooth-enabled hygrometer. So that was nice. 

For supper, I looked at my freezer and rapidly cycled through several possibilities before landing on a vaguely middle-eastern meal. I started the chicken thighs marinating in Greek yogurt with lemon juice, lots of cumin, and a little water; and then I made a tomato salad.

It was supposed to be a Jerusalem salad, but the cucumbers had somehow both frozen and rotted since Sunday. So this salad was tomatoes, leftover feta cheese, leftover cilantro, olive oil, salt, and pepper, and a little red wine vinegar. 

I was planning to make pita, but realized we had fries in the freezer, so that was settled. I cooked the chicken for about an hour at 425 and they came out nice. 

Although there was some muttering from certain dogs who had, despite the best legal advice, convinced themself that mom was making an entire platter of chicken just for them. 

I put hot sauce on my fries, rather than ketchup, hoping the combination would make the whole plate reminiscent of gyros. 

Truth be told, everything was a tiny bit bland. Not a terrible meal for no plan, though. But everything except the fries needed salt. 

I had to stop at Market Basket on Thursday to get cheesecake ingredients, and they sometimes sell these packages of cheese ends at the deli — just miscellaneous cheese that was too small to cut or too misshapen to sell. You never know what you’ll get, and it’s like $2 a pound, so obviously I got some. 

Mine turned out to be mostly Swiss and provolone, which is A-OK with me. 

I also picked up some Passover stuff, which was mysteriously cheap ($4.99 for one of those five-pack cartons of matzoh??). We once again planned to separate Passover and Easter, but the calendar once again put them together, so I’m starting to amass my seder food.

FRIDAY
Pierogies, spinach quiche

Friday morning I made a quiche. Here’s my pie crust recipe

Jump to Recipe

and this was more than enough for a deep, 11-inch bottom crust. I used my new pie weights and my new dough crimper that I got for Christmas! I was flaking out a bit when I rolled it out, though, and next time I’ll put the crimper to better use. It’s fine, it just looks a little weird.

We did get another egg this morning, but rather than incubate it or put it in the quiche, I opted to put it in my pocket and then forget it was in my pocket. And yes, I muttered about this a bit. 

For the quiche, I think I used six eggs and 1.5 cups of half and half, and some salt and pepper and a bit of nutmeg, and I put in provolone, steamed spinach, and some leftover tomatoes. I did blind bake the crust, and then baked the quiche at 350 for, I don’t know, 35 minutes? It looks promising

although I wish I had used more eggs. Kinda low in the dish, oh well. Although probably I’m the only one who’s gonna eat it anyway, mutter mutter. 
I also have a big sack of frozen pierogies in the freezer which I intend to fry up, and I’ll probably serve the rest of the spinach as a salad. I’m really trying to get more vegetables on the table! 

Now I have a cheesecake about to come out of the oven, and then I gotta clean that egg out of my pocket, and then, let’s face it, I’ll probably eat some cheese ends. We had a two-hour delay for school today because there was basically ice falling out of the sky all night, but it’s melting now. I’m always ready for spring, but this year, BOY am I ready for spring. 

my life is so romantic
capricious and corybantic
and i m toujours gai toujours gai

i know that i am bound
for a journey down the sound
in the midst of a refuse mound
but wotthehell wotthehell
oh i should worry and fret
death and i will coquette
there s a dance in the old dame yet

mutter mutter 

5 from 1 vote
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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

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. Lay the floured chicken in the hot pan, skin side down. Let it cook for 25 minutes.

  5. Flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes.

  6. Check for doneness and serve immediately. It's also great cold.

 

5 from 1 vote
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moron biscuits

Because I've been trying all my life to make nice biscuits and I was too much of a moron, until I discovered this recipe. It has egg and cream of tartar, which is weird, but they come out great every time. Flaky little crust, lovely, lofty insides, rich, buttery taste.

Ingredients

  • 6 cups flour
  • 6 Tbsp sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, chilled
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups milk

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 450.

  2. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and cream of tartar.

  3. Grate the chilled butter with a box grater into the dry ingredients.

  4. Stir in the milk and egg and mix until just combined. Don't overwork it. It's fine to see little bits of butter.

  5. On a floured surface, knead the dough 10-15 times. If it's very sticky, add a little flour.

  6. With your hands, press the dough out until it's about an inch thick. Cut biscuits. Depending on the size, you can probably get 20 medium-sized biscuits with this recipe.

  7. Grease a pan and bake for 10-15 minutes or until tops are golden brown.

 

5 from 1 vote
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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

  1. Cut the pork into chunks and season them heavily with salt, pepper, and oregano.

  2. Put them in a heavy pot with the cup of oil, the Coke, the quartered orange, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves

  3. Simmer, uncovered, for at least two hours

  4. Remove the orange peels, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves

  5. Turn up the heat and continue cooking the meat until it darkens and becomes very tender and crisp on the outside

  6. Remove the meat and shred it. Serve on tortillas.

 

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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

  1. Freeze the butter for at least 20 minutes, then shred it on a box grater. Set aside.

  2. Put the water in a cup and throw an ice cube in it. Set aside.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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!

  7. 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.

  8. 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.

What’s for supper? Vol. 461: You can certainly try

Happy Friday! The kids have been on February vacation this week, and we’ve been surprisingly busy with various activities, parties, unavoidable whatnot, and of course snow. Snow snow snow. And food. Here’s what we had: 

SATURDAY
Leftovers

Just a regular shopping day, with regular leftovers, supplemented by taquitos. I was pretty happy to have leftover vindaloo and rice from last week. 

When I went shopping whole chickens had been advertised @99 cents a pound, but when I got to the store, there was only one small bird left. I asked the meat guy if he had any more in back, and he said they had all gotten snapped up by people hysterical about the coming snow. So we complained a bit about people who live in New England but still get hysterical every time there’s snow in the forecast, and I guess he was so enchanted by my kvetching that he wanted to do me a favor, so he grabbed a big organic chicken and went out back, and when he brought it back, it was labelled 99 cents a pound. Score! I was only recreationally kvetiching, but it’s nice when it pays off sometimes. 

SUNDAY
Chicken ranch wraps, Storitos

Sunday after Mass, I ended up going on a bit of a wild goose chase. The original plan was that Damien and I would have a lovely Old Parents’ Day Out, toddle up to Brattleboro and visit the restored camera shop, get some tasty lunch from a Greek food truck, and stop by the convenience store that I’ve been told has a good selection of bulk Indian spices.

But poor Damien was sick and exhausted, so I went by myself, got sneered at by fancy camera people, was fairly grossed out by the spice store that was overpriced, grimy, and didn’t even have cardamom, and belatedly realized that ONCE AGAIN, I’d fallen for the old hippie trap. This town always promises it’s going to be a funky and whimsical hodgepodge of quirky graffiti, multi-culti eateries, and cozy used book stores. Just, you know, fondly preserved architecture all layered in jubilant palimpsest with glassy art galleries and fanciful urban updates. It always seems like it’s gonna be such a good time.

In reality, it’s all glum homeless men shuffling down the sidewalks and artsy people who don’t have time for you. And that is pretty much it. All the graffiti has been copied off Etsy, and instead of normal air, it’s just pot smoke, absolutely everywhere. SO much pot smoke. Bleh. The hippie trap! I fell for it again. I did meet a nice dog, though. 

Anyway, determined to at least get my money’s worth from the parking meter, I sat in my car with the seat warmer on and prowled through Facebook marketplace until I found a Polaroid camera, and drove off to get that. Nearly four hours later, I finally got home with the dang camera, and oops, I forgot one kid had a thing at the library, so we had to go right out again. But have I mentioned the car has seat warmers? Actually both cars do, but my car has been humbly waiting under the snow for a new fuel pump.

Seat warmers is one of those things that felt like unthinkably futuristic luxury to me when I was growing up. Finding out a friend’s mom had seat warmers was like finding out they were secretly a rajah or something. That, and skylights, and built-in microwaves, and the Barbie Dream house with the little hot tub that has a rubber bulb and, when you squeeze it, it makes bubbles in the water. I also had one friend who had a split level home with carpeted stairs, and I always felt like I was stepping into an alternate reality where everyone is a billionaire. Like, WHAT, you don’t have to open the front door by ramming it with your shoulder, and then immediately trip over a wood stove that’s draped with wet mittens? Instead you have some kind of FOYER? And a LIGHTED DOORBELL? With BOSTON FERNS? I was living amongst sultans, emperors, dwellers in a sumptuary futuristic wonderland. My friend Dena even had a waterbed!????!!!!

Anyway, if you are wondering if my new HRT is making my brain work better, no. However, sometimes when I gabble on and on about pointless things, people give me a chicken, so write that down.

Anyway, on Sunday, only a small group was home for dinner, so I just roasted up some chicken breasts and served them on wraps with lettuce, shredded cheese, and ranch dressing. I also got a cheesecake order and made a cheesecake. And that was that. 

MONDAY
Ina Garten roast chicken, steamed broccoli

Chicken time! I went with Ina Garten’s lovely, easy recipe, skipping the thyme and fennel. So basically plenty of butter, kosher salt, and pepper, and you stick some entire heads of garlic and lemons up in there, throw some vegetables around, and roast it without even touching it or basting or anything. It’s SO easy, tasty, and juicy, and comes out well every single time. 

While the chickens were resting, I steamed up a bunch of broccoli, and it was a yummy meal. 

I pulled out some of the garlic, because I like eating garlic, and weirdly it had turned blue in spots? I have no idea what that’s about. I did eat it. 

I think it was Monday that we got the first big snow dump of the week. This is snow that fell on top of several feet of previous snow, and we’re all kind of over it. Because we live on the highway, our road always gets plowed, so we weren’t stuck in our homes like some people, though! Some of my family in Rhode Island, who got way more snow than we did, had to manually shovel little tracks thrugh their streets so they could leave their homes! And they are vegetarians, so no one even gave them a reduced chicken. 

TUESDAY
Kielbasa, brussels sprouts, red potatoes

Tuesday, Corrie and I went out to buy party supplies. We went to uhhhh five stores. She’s crazy, I’m crazy, I don’t know. Anyway, we got the party supplies and got home and two of the kids were like, when are we leaving? For indeed I had forgotten I said I would get them to a thing and also another thing, I forget what. So we did that, with seat warmers. And eventually came home again. 

Dinner was a sheet pan meal of kielbasa, red potatoes, and brussels sprouts. This is a fairly divisive meal in the family. Some people are bananas for it, and some find it repulsive. So I split the difference and make it whenever I want to, but feel bad about it. I, myself, am in the bananas column, though. It’s so beautifully simple, and so beautifully salty. Here’s the recipe: 

Jump to Recipe

This recipe actually calls for cabbage, but you can just swap in brussels sprouts cut in half, and it’s even easier. You cook it for a while, then slop on the sauce and cook it a little longer, and boom, hot meal with a protein, a starch, and a green veg.

This is a meal that cries out for some kind of hot, chewy bread, like beer bread or hot pretzels, but I felt accomplished enough to have made dinner at all.

Yum. 

The older kids helped Corrie make her desired ice cream pies for Wednesday. It was a bespoke amalgamation of graham cracker crust, black raspberry ice cream, mint chocolate chip ice cream, twin snakes (which are gummy worms with two flavors, or something), and Skittles, all frozen together. 

Oh and I made the piñata, which was supposed to be a dragon egg shape. The kids basically grabbed me by the shoulders and made me repeat the words “there is no earthly reason to get papier mache involved.” So I just cut two ovals out of cardboard and attached their edges together with more cardboard (so basically an oval box), and then taped brown and gold scale shapes all over it, and everyone agreed it was a very fine dragon egg piñata indeed. Lucy and Irene mercifully agreed to make the desired treasure hunt, so I was off the hook for that. 

WEDNESDAY
BLTs, Pringles, ice cream pie

Wednesday was Corrie’s Actual Birthday, and also I got another cheesecake order, and also I had a rather intense interpersonal meeting, and then spent the rest of the day cleaning (?) I think? It’s a duck blur. But Corrie had requested BLTs for her birthday dinner, and no one was mad about that.

Clara came over, Corrie loved all her presents, and we had a good day. Lucy and Irene were away in Boston seeing Conan Gray, and I have been reliably informed that he did, indeed, wear his little sailor suit. 

We got more heavy snow, but the kids were spending the night in Boston, so I was glad they weren’t on the road. I’ve been spending about half my time in migraine town (thanks so much for that, Anthem/Blue Cross Blue Shield), and honestly even looking at the snow was more than I could handle much of the week. I mean everyone feels that way at this point. We better not have a drought this summer! 

THURSDAY
Calzones, fruit, birthday cake

Thursday was the party. The original plan was to invite lots of people for the party, then allow a select few to stay for a sleepover. But February vacation is a tough time to throw a party, because many people were sick or away on trips; and it turns out people don’t really do sleepovers anymore? Which I absolutely see the sense of.

So three kids came over and had a stay-late, or, I forget what it’s called. But they had their party and then stayed on to have dinner and have the FUN part of the sleepover, which is lying around drinking soda and eating candy, running around and yacking and getting into little fights while your parents hide in the other room. But nobody had to have a miserable night being too cold or too hot on someone’s floor, and no parents had to worry that their kids were in a house full of guns and vicious animals and sex offenders. So the guests stayed until about 11 and then went home, and it worked out great. 

It was a vaguely Dungeons & Dragons-themed party, but I never did work up any enthusiasm for imaginative snacks or decorations. Luckily Corrie had plenty of ideas. She made fancy labels, and the snacks were: Bugles (dragon claws), candy robin eggs (dragon eggs), punch (dragon blood), ginger ale (ale) and root beer (beer). The original plan was to twist brown packing paper into vines and transform the house into . . . I don’t even now what, an underground cavern with vines or something. But I was so tired, so we just taped up some gold foil tablecloths from the Dollar Store, and voila, it looked Different And Fancy. Good enough. 

The treasure hunt was set up so that the pinata was the prize at the end. I couldn’t find a baseball bat for the pinata, but a candle stick worked fine

I had been so proud of myself for remembering to reinforce the cardboard around the hanging part, so it didn’t immediately rip itself apart under its own weight and fall down. But instead, the zip tie it was hanging from broke, and it fell anyway. Luckily, these girls like stomping on things

so they got their candy! 

Dinner was calzones, which, happily, all the guests liked. I made twelve. 

They look dumb with the little food label on top, but I don’t know how else to keep them straight. Mine was olive, with a little ramekin of warm sauce, yum. 

Anyway, the kids are old enough that they entertained themselves, and I was just on standby. The one thing I did spend a lot of time on was the cake. She had initially requested a Kuo-toa cake, which I was not enthusiastic about. But we eventually settled on a D20 cake. For reasons I can’t explain, I persuaded her to let me try to make it three dimensional, rather than just piping a design on top of a flat cake. 

So I actually baked the cake on Wednesday. I used two hexagonal pans in different sizes, and put one on top of the other, then cut the top layer in angles. 

Then I just sat there staring at it for a really, really long time, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do next. 

I ended up carving up the scraps and building up the angled edges into equilateral triangles that reached the edge of the bottom layer. 

Then I sat there staring at it for a really long time again. I made some marks with a knife, and also some chalk, which, chalk is edible, right? Anyway, my kids have all eaten a lot of chalk.

Then I just did a bunch more carving and shaving and piecing together, and I mixed up a big bowl of very thick frosting (butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk) and basically spackled it all together. I came up with something that looked . . . convincingly geometric. 

 

At this point I realized that, for the result I was likely to get, I could have made things a lot easier on myself. If I had this to do again, I would bake a dome cake plus a large sheet pan of cake, and then cut the sheet into a bunch of equilateral triangles, then cut the dome into facets and stick the triangles on it. But my specialty is learning on the fly about things I hope never to do again.

Anyway, I ended up with this

and then piped the thick frosting into the cracks until it become one continuous surface. Then I stuck my finger in a cup of milk and smoothed the frosting out as best I could. I don’t usually bother with a crumb coat, but I had cut this cake up so much, it was half crumb at this point.

I also wanted to make the different planes of the shape more pronounced, because what I had was less of a icosahedron and more of a really bumpy hexagon. ANYWAY, I ended up with this:

So I jammed this in the fridge to chill and harden up a bit. This was on Wednesday. 

On Thursday, Corrie and I made our very first mirror glaze. I kept finding recipes with ingredients I have never even heard of, so I went with this recipe from Chelsweets. It only has five ingredients: White chocolate, sweetened condensed milk, unflavored gelatin, sugar, and gel food coloring; and you can work with it at a lower temperature than most recipes. I made a triple recipe and I think that threw off the heating times, but it still worked out more or less as she described.

We made four bowls: Blue, dark pink, lavender, and white with gold flakes. I wish I had skipped the lavender, because it just diluted the other colors. I also didn’t pour it correctly. But the main thing is, Corrie was absolutely delighted with the results. She threw some black sanding sugar over the top and declared it perfect. 

It was cool! It really did resemble one of those marbled resin RPG dies. So I let it sit for a bit, then trimmed off the drips and let it chill for a while longer. Then I piped lines and numbers on it. I thought perhaps I should put “11” on the top face, since she was turning eleven, but this suggestion was shot down with scorn, because it is a D20, so obviously it has to say “20” on top. Okay with me!

As I have repeatedly lamented, I have shaky hands and I’m not great at piping, but this turned out better than I hoped. I got a little confused about which way the numbers should face, but nobody noticed but me. 

The drawback of using white chocolate in this mirror glaze is that it loses its shine a bit after a few hours, but, again, I was the only one who thought so. I was afraid the glaze would continue to flow and travel right off the cake, or that the gold flakes would all drift down to the bottom, but that did not happen.

And she loved it! 

I actually liked the flavor of the glaze. It tastes mainly like sweetened condensed milk/white chocolate, which is a flavor I, a degenerate and uncultured swine, happen to enjoy. One of the guests said she loves Corrie’s parties because the cakes are so cool, which made me feel good. Then she corrected herself and said that the main reason she likes Corrie’s parties is because of Corrie, and THEN because of the cakes, and that made me feel even better. These kids are all right. 

The big kids got home safe and sound in time for cake. Then that evening we got some hard and scary medical news about someone I love very much, so I would really appreciate your prayers about that. I will tell you, this week, this month, and this year have been . . . difficult. Dih. Fih. Cult. For health, for relationships, for work, for finances. Many many opportunities for trusting in God. Which is what Lent is, so there you go. 

FRIDAY
Quesadillas, chips and salsa

We ran out of oil this morning, because of course we did; but Damien was finally able to see a doctor, and there’s even a possibility I’ll get my migraine meds this weekend. Tonight we are having quesadillas, and then on Saturday we are going to the CIRCUS, which I bought tickets for a while back. It’s hard to believe this post started with a gifted organic chicken and ends with a circus, and yet it’s still full of me just basically kvetching, but there you go. You think I’m kvetching here! You should hear what an earful God gets. At least it’s not snowing. I think it’s gonna snow tomorrow, though. 

Oh, I forgot to share my calzone recipe. Here you go!

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Calzones

This is the basic recipe for cheese calzones. You can add whatever you'd like, just like with pizza. Warm up some marinara sauce and serve it on the side for dipping. 

Servings 12 calzones

Ingredients

  • 3 balls pizza dough
  • 32 oz ricotta
  • 3-4 cups shredded mozzarella
  • 1 cup parmesan
  • 1 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp oregano
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1-2 egg yolks for brushing on top
  • any extra fillings you like: pepperoni, olives, sausage, basil, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400. 

  2. Mix together filling ingredients. 

  3. Cut each ball of dough into fourths. Roll each piece into a circle about the size of a dinner plate. 

  4. Put a 1/2 cup or so of filling into the middle of each circle of dough circle. (You can add other things in at this point - pepperoni, olives, etc. - if you haven't already added them to the filling) Fold the dough circle in half and pinch the edges together tightly to make a wedge-shaped calzone. 

  5. Press lightly on the calzone to squeeze the cheese down to the ends. 

  6. Mix the egg yolks up with a little water and brush the egg wash over the top of the calzones. 

  7. Grease and flour a large pan (or use corn meal or bread crumbs instead of flour). Lay the calzones on the pan, leaving some room for them to expand a bit. 

  8. Bake about 18 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. Serve with hot marinara sauce for dipping.  

 

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One-pan kielbasa, cabbage, and red potato dinner with mustard sauce

This meal has all the fun and salt of a wiener cookout, but it's a tiny bit fancier, and you can legit eat it in the winter. 

Ingredients

  • 3-4 lbs kielbasa
  • 3-4 lbs red potatoes
  • 1-2 medium cabbages
  • (optional) parsley for garnish
  • salt and pepper and olive oil

mustard sauce (sorry, I make this different each time):

  • mustard
  • red wine if you like
  • honey
  • a little olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • fresh garlic, crushed

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400. 

    Whisk together the mustard dressing ingredients and set aside. Chop parsley (optional).

    Cut the kielbasa into thick coins and the potatoes into thick coins or small wedges. Mix them up with olive oil, salt, and pepper and spread them in a shallow pan. 

    Cut the cabbage into "steaks." Push the kielbasa and potatoes aside to make room to lay the cabbage down. Brush the cabbage with more olive oil and sprinkle with more salt and pepper. It should be a single layer of food, and not too crowded, so it will brown well. 

    Roast for 20 minutes, then turn the food as well as you can and roast for another 15 minutes.  

    Serve hot with dressing and parsley for a garnish. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 460: It was the shroopiest of times, it was the doopiest of times

Happy Friday! The other day I thought of a really clever pun for this week’s food post title, and decided not to write it down because I would definitely remember it later. Now it is later, and, well.

It’s just as well. These things are always disappointing. One of my kids once had a dream about a fiendishly clever new advance in technology that would revolutionize the way we fight wars, and she woke and and DID write it down so she’s remember it. In the morning, she looked at her notes, and it said “bag of bees.” 

Anyway, I’m sorry it’s the first Friday in Lent and this post is gonna be full of the yummy things we ate for Valentine’s Day and for Mardi Gras and also because I’m a cooker of yummy things. Some years I come up with a putatively clever gimmick to shield the viewer from graphic (=meat) content, but we are solidly in bag of bees territory here, mentally. All buzz, no honey. I don’t know. Well, here is what we ate:

SATURDAY
Leftovers and french bread pizza

Saturday was shopping day, and I had the pleasure of paying for it almost entirely in cash earned from selling cheesecakes. That felt pretty good. 

Saturday was, of course, Valentine’s Day, so along with frozen pizza, I also got corn dogs as a romantic gesture, because only Damien and I like them. We didn’t eat a single corn dog like in Lady and the Tramp or anything. Don’t get the wrong idea. 

We all gave each other chocolate and candy, and for dessert, I decided to try my hand at one of those fancy decorated swiss rolls. I followed the directions from The Squeaky Mixer, which were nice and clear. (I see she also has a post for a master guide on decorated swiss rolls!) It was very pleasant using a small bowl and whisk for a change. I love my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, but it was nice to move more slowly. 

This recipe requires a very tender cake, so you can’t over mix anything. I did use the standing mixer to make stiff egg whites, which get folded into the batter. 

After you do that, you set aside a little bit and color it, and put that into piping bags (well, sandwich bags). The trick of putting the bags in cups and folding back the tops over the rim before filling them is SO helpful, especially if you just have a small amount in each bag

Then you grease and line a cookie sheet and pipe your design onto it. It opted for the old classic Valentine message: Shroopy doo.

Origin story: 

I wish I had spent a little more time coming up with an actual design, but I did manage to get the letters all backward! Then you freeze the design for a bit, to help it stay intact. 

Then I used a large bag to pipe the rest of the batter over the design. I took a pic just before I covered up the decorated part with plain batter.  

Here is where I made my first mistake. The pan is a rectangle, and you only decorate one half of it, because the other half is going to get rolled up and no one will see it. But I decorated the long half, rather than the short half. So at this point, I was locked into rolling a long, thin roll, rather than a short, stout swiss roll. Not necessarily a mistake, I guess, but not what I intended.

So you bake it for a short time (it’s a very thin cake), take it out of the oven, turn it out of the pan, and carefully peel the parchment paper off the bottom, revealing the baked-in design. I took a video of this part, and you can hear me breathing heavily. 

 

Here is where I made my second mistake, and this one was a doozy. I sprinkled the cake lightly with sugar and covered it with a damp towel and carefully rolled it up. 

The wrong way.

I rolled it so the design was on the inside. And I didn’t notice until it had cooled for about twenty minutes. So I unrolled and re-rolled it the other way, but of course it cracked, which is the one thing you’re trying to avoid with a swiss roll! 

I was annoyed at myself, but not devastated, because if something is going to go wrong, it’s best when the mistake is super obvious and super avoidable in the future. One has simply not to be a bonehead, and it will work out better next time!

So while it was cooling, I whipped the heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla, carefully unrolled the cake, spread it with the cream, and rolled it back up again, and let it finish cooling. 

It was, indeed, the shroopy doo-est of cakes. 

You can see that I festooned it with leftover molded chocolate from another project, and that really shrooped things up, I think. 

I actually used double the amount of cream filling, because, I don’t know, I like cream filling. When I sliced the roll open, it had a decent spiral, considering it was a long, skinny cake. (I know from watching Great British Baking Show that the spiral is very important.)

It was so bland, though. Next time I make one of these, I will do a layer of something with a stronger flavor on the inside along with the cream, and will  probably dress up the outside, as well. But honestly, I considered this project a success, because everything turned out well except for two things that are easy to correct next time. We live to roll another day. 

In the afternoon, we watched Yojimbo, and in the evening, we watched Moonstruck. Each perfect Valentine’s Day movies, in their own way. 

SUNDAY
Hamburgers, chips, king cake

Sunday our old friend Elijah was over, and it was another weekend where I felt powerless to resist making a bunch of big hamburgers (I had bought a bunch of ground beef while it was still on super bowl prices). I also got a sudden urge to make a king cake before Lent descended. I found a King Arthur Baking recipe and thought, oh yeah, I’ve used this recipe a few times before. Started putting it together and I was like . . . mmmmmm I don’t think I have used this recipe before. It calls for dry milk, which I didn’t have any of. It also calls for lemon oil or zest, which I also didn’t have, so I used orange zest. Then I tried to figure out what I could possibly use as a substitute for dry milk. You’d think wet milk is the answer, but that only works if you decrease the other liquid, which it was too late to do. I don’t even remember how I resolved it, but the dough I ended up with was less “soft and silky” and more “disgusting” and “something I don’t want to touch.” 

It requires two rises, and, by adding plenty of flour, I managed to coerce it into a reasonable shape. I added the cream cheese filling and then discovered there was a jar of homemade strawberry topping left over from cheesecake, so I spread that on, too.

Things are looking up! Many of us have untidy back stories, but we turn out well anyway! So why. not this king cake! All I had to do was fold over the margins and pinch them together, and carefully place the whole thing into a bundt pan. 

Well , . ., ,,,

I got the fuckin thing in the pan. Possibly the ugliest transfer possible. If there were king cake police, I’d be in jail for life for what I did to that dough. 

ANYWAY, I baked it, and it actually came out of the pan more or less intact, and I shoved a baby-sized rubber alien up in there, and drizzled it with three colors of icing, and threw some edible gold flakes on top because why not. 

It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. I did overbake it, so it was a little dry, but it wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t filled so much as infiltrated with cream cheese and strawberry.

I was cutting it up and passing out pieces, and Damien’s piece was last, with the rubber baby clearly visible. He was in the other room, so the kids and I declared that whoever gets the baby has to buy everyone ice cream, and then we gave Damien his piece. In other words, we shrooped his doo. Shrooped it good. 

MONDAY
Pork vindaloo, basmati rice, naan, mango

Monday I salvaged my good name in the kitchen. This meal turned out absolutely delightful, and I was very pleased with myself. 

In the morning, I assembled my spices for this pork vindaloo recipe from Bon Apetit. 

Then you just pulverize them all together and marinate chunks of pork in the resulting paste. The recipe calls for pork shoulder and pork belly, but I just used a rather fatty loin, and it was fine. I only used half the number of guajillo chiles it called for, and it was still quite fiery. I would do it that way on purpose. Hot enough to really light up your head, but not enough to make it hard to taste anything else. 

So I set the meat to marinate

cut up the mangoes, set up the rice, and made the dough for naan. I used the King Arthur Baking naan recipe, and this time I really had made it before. I decided I would get fancy and weigh the flour, rather than measuring it by volume like I usually do. Well, I had to add so much extra flour to get the texture right, I don’t know what the point was! 

But they turned out so, so good. I made a double recipe, which should yield 16 flatbreads, but I divided the dough into only eight pieces, so they were a nice, generous size. I cooked them in a very hot iron frying pan, wiped it out with a damp cloth in between fries, and brushed the pieces of naan with melted butter on both sides when they came out of the pan. PERFECT. 

They were SO soft and nice, I was just delighted. Probably the best naan I’ve ever made. 

The whole meal was delightful. 

I got a little ramekin of yogurt to sooth my mouth when the meat got too hot. I want to make this again right away, but it doesn’t feel very Lenten!

TUESDAY
Mardi Gras

I have such mixed feelings about Chili’s having somehow become our traditional final place of debauchery before Lent. The restaurant was practically empty, but they seated us next to the bathroom anyway. It was fine. I ordered some kind of chipotle chicken bowl and it was perfectly fine. Then we followed up with our other, equally dubious tradition and headed over to Price Chopper to pick out individual tubs of ice cream.. I got a Ben and Jerry’s thing with a caramel core and pieces of blonde brownie. Damien was sick and Elijah was working, so we brought them to-go boxes. And that was our festal meal! Shroopy doo.

WEDNESDAY
Spaghetti and salad

On Wednesday I was the one who was sick, so Damien brought the kids to Mass. I spent the afternoon ruthlessly decluttering the dining room (four bags of trash, yay!), and for supper we had spaghetti and salad, and, just to round out the church basement dinner vibes, white bread with butter.

THURSDAY
Roast drumsticks, mashed potatoes, roast butternut squash

Thursday I was busy all day, and for the life of me, I can’t remember what with. So I threw together supper at the last minute. I just sprayed the chicken drumsticks with cooking spray and seasoned them heavily with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and chili powder. I roasted them and then put them in a covered baking dish in a low rack in the oven to stay warm, so I could use the broiler to make the butternut squash. I peeled and sliced up two squashes and laid the disks in a pan on parchment paper. I may or may not have sprayed them with cooking spray, but I definitely put a little heap of brown sugar on each one, and then sprinkled them pretty heavy with a lovely biryani masala by Spicewalla. 

I had a five-pound bag of potatoes, and the original plan was to bake them, but you really cannot make baked potatoes for seven people when two of them look like this:

Five potatoes total in the bag! I used to buy potatoes like this on purpose, and slice them into these ludicrously long french fries; but it was definitely not a deep frying kind of night. I just boiled them and mashed them, and I did a pretty poor job, too. Very lumpy. The squash was great, though!

I just adore Indian spices on squash. Really tasty and interesting. 

It turned out to be a pretty good meal despite the potatoes. 

And that’s-a my story. 

FRIDAY
Grilled cheese and tomato soup

I’m actually really looking forward to this meal. I may even throw some leftover rice into the tomato soup. The kids got an early release from school because there is a big storm coming. I saw the highway department pre-salting the roads before the snow even started, so I guess it’s gonna be a doozy. 

I guess we are gonna try our Fisher Family Mandatory Lent Film Party again this year. Damien and I are both exhausted and couldn’t come up with anything creative, so we’re going to watch Spartacus, which I haven’t seen in many years. I remember it being very sweaty. The kids have been lots of fun to talk about movies with lately, though, so I have medium-high hopes. 

In conclusion, you will have a lizard in your pocket. Be you. Shroopy doo.