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What’s for supper? Vol. 253: Salad days

Hi! It’s Friday! Here’s what we cooked and ate this week: 

SATURDAY
Bacon cheeseburgers, chips

Damien cooked ’em outside.  

They were delicious, of course. Try pickled jalapeños on your burger instead of regular pickles. It’s just nice. 

SUNDAY
Turkey bacon wraps, cheese balls

These wraps were based around what was in the freezer and what was on sale. We ended up with honey turkey, sriracha turkey, thinly sliced corned beef, baby Swiss, and smoked gouda. I fried up some bacon, and it looks like I put some lettuce and maybe honey mustard in there. 

I like wraps because they present as a sort of efficient nutrition delivery system, but then there’s bacon and smoked gouda inside. I guess I’m easily amused. 

MONDAY
Pork ribs, baked potatoes, peas

Damien cooked again. I remember this being tasty, but not many details, and I don’t seem to have taken a photo. I think he put olive oil, salt, and pepper on the outside of the potatoes before baking them, and that was a very good idea. 

TUESDAY
Bagel egg cheese sausage sandwiches

Busy day calls for bagel sandwiches. Fried eggs, American cheese, frozen sausage patties. 

And orange juice. This bagel sandwich appears to be leering at me.

WEDNESDAY
Jerusalem mixed grill with tomato cucumber salad

I was pretty excited about this meal, because I remember being absolutely smitten by it last time. This time it was good, but not great. I forgot to sear the meat first, and I left the liver in pieces that were too big. So it was a hearty and pleasant meal, and the flavors were good, but the texture was not excellent, and I left a lot of meat on my plate. 

I still recommend the recipe, which is nice and easy.

Jump to Recipe

You have boneless, skinless chicken thighs, and livers (and hearts if you have them, which I did not. Ask anyone) tossed with your spices (which include cinnamon and nutmeg). You caramelize a ton of red onions, then sear the meats, then finish cooking them with the onions. 

Next time, I’ll sear the meat first, and also cut the liver into smaller pieces, and possibly even use two pans so as not to crowd the pans (ha ha, I am not going to do that. I would rather die than not crowd the pan). You serve the meat with a lemon wedge so you can give it a little squeeze before you eat it. Then we’ll see who leers at whom. 

Lena made a bunch of yogurt sauce

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and I made an Israeli salad, and we had sharp little pickles and your choice of pita or marbled rye bread. I’m not complaining!

I guess I’m complaining a little bit. It’s like everything else lately: You’ve been waiting and looking forward to it for such a long time, and then you get it, and it’s . . . fine. 

The Israeli salad was definitely the most popular part of the meal. This particular iteration was Roma tomatoes, little baby cucumbers with the peel on, fresh lemon juice, lots of fresh parsley, a little olive oil, and some kosher salt. I would have put some diced red onions in there, but I caramelized them all. 

This is a wonderful salad, with the lemon juice and parsley really adding interest and making it refreshing. A good accompaniment to lots of different meals. 

Half the kids were actually at McDonald’s having a BTS chicken meal, which they pronounced “fine.” It did not come in a pretty purple box as advertised. Now you know as much as I do. 

THURSDAY
Steak salad with pears and feta

A tasty meal with a few elements that work so well together. Mixed greens, sliced pears, feta, and roast beef cooked in red wine. 

I accidentally ended up with a kind of weird cooking method for the meat, but it worked out well. I seasoned a big hunk of beef with pepper and garlic salt and put it in a 350 oven in a pan with some red wine sloshed on. I cooked it for maybe 40 minutes until it was quite rare, then sliced it up, added some more wine, covered it, and finished cooking. I don’t think this is a technique so much as a demonstration of why I haven’t gotten around to writing that cookbook yet, but the meat was tasty and tender. 

I had my salad with red wine vinegar and it was delightful, very summery and sophisticated, but filling. I feel deep within me that red meat may be bad for your heart, but it’s good for mine. 

FRIDAY
Shrimp lo mein for those who want it, canned tuna for those who don’t

Gonna use my trusty basic lo mein recipe

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and throw some shrimp in. Here’s a lo mein of ages past. 

I may have some sugar snap peas, fresh ginger, and scallions lurking about. This is a great end-of-week meal, last chance to use up those vegetables. 

And that’s my story. Pretty happy to be fully into cooking summer food now. How about you? Anything nice on your table? 

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Jerusalem mixed grill

May not be the most authentic spice mix, but it sure tastes good. Serve with pita bread, hummus, yogurt sauce, dill pickles, and Israeli salad 

Ingredients

  • 4 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs trimmed and cut into pieces
  • 8 oz chicken livers
  • 6-7 red onions, sliced thin
  • olive oil for cooking
  • 4 lemons

spices:

  • 2 tsp cumin
  • 4 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 tsp paprika
  • 4 tsp thyme
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp salt

Instructions

  1. First caramelize the onions. You know this will take at least an hour. Set the onions aside. 

  2. Toss the chicken thigh pieces, hearts, and spices together. 

  3. Heat the oil in a large skillet. When it's very hot, add the meats and sear on all sides. Then turn the heat to medium and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the meat is cooked all the way through. Note that livers cook faster than thighs, so make sure the thighs are done all the way. 

  4. Serve with pita and yogurt sauce. Squeeze the fresh lemon over the meat. 

 

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Yogurt sauce

Ingredients

  • 32 oz full fat Greek yogurt
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • fresh parsley or dill, chopped (optional)

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together. Use for spreading on grilled meats, dipping pita or vegetables, etc. 

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basic lo mein

Ingredients

for the sauce

  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 5 tsp sesame oil
  • 5 tsp sugar

for the rest

  • 32 oz uncooked noodles
  • sesame oil for cooking
  • add-ins (vegetables sliced thin or chopped small, shrimp, chicken, etc.)
  • 2/3 cup rice vinegar (or mirin, which will make it sweeter)

Instructions

  1. Mix together the sauce ingredients and set aside.

  2. Boil the noodles until slightly underdone. Drain and set aside.

  3. Heat up a pan, add some sesame oil for cooking, and quickly cook your vegetables or whatever add-ins you have chosen.

  4. Add the mirin to the pan and deglaze it.

  5. Add the cooked noodles in, and stir to combine. Add the sauce and stir to combine.

On lace, and loss

So there I was, scrolling through Amazon to find a dress suitable for my daughter to receive the body and blood of Christ in.

Because of The Thing We Are All Tired of Talking About, her First Communion was delayed a year, and I suddenly realised the lovely, very suitable dress all her older sisters had worn won’t fit her. With little time to spare, we started online shopping.

“Let’s see if we can find something a little bit old fashioned, you know what I mean?” I suggested gently.

I have seen some of the monstrosities out there: First communion dresses that look like slinky club wear; first communion dresses that look like not even wedding dresses, but wedding cakes, bristling with ruffles and petticoats and little sprays and fountains of fabric.

I wanted my child to wear something pretty and special, but also tasteful and maybe even demure. Something that would signal to her that it was a significant occasion, but not something that would make her the center of attention, because that honor ought to belong to Jesus.

Forty minutes later, I said, “LOOK, THIS ONE HAS A DETACHABLE CAPE WITH RHINESTONES AND BUTTERFLIES ON IT AND IT’S IN YOUR SIZE, OKAY?!”

We didn’t buy that one. We did buy one with butterflies and sequins on it, though. It’s not demure or tasteful, but she loves it to death, and as long as the Chinese factory doesn’t screw up the order, it should arrive on time. And that’s that.

This is what happens, more and more. I still have standards, but I give them up so easily. I let go of the things that once seemed to matter so much, and it barely makes a ripple in my conscience.

It’s not just the strain of trying to shop with one particular kid; it’s the cumulative strain, the decades-long piling-up of aggravation and compromise and defeat and loss that wears you down, until suddenly you realize that the things you were super hung up on are only as important as so many rhinestone butterflies fluttering on the cape on a nine-year-old’s shoulders, and the only thing you should truly be pursuing is the sweet, sweet relief of being done with a task so you can get back to the things that really matter, such as going to bed.

Is this wisdom, or is it giving up? I truly do not know. If you wanted to illustrate my mid-40’s, you’d just have to draw a fist letting go, over and over and over again.

So many things being let go, if not forcibly removed from my grasp: Trivial things, and heavy things, silly things, precious things. Things that felt vital and irreplaceable for decades, only to reveal themselves as disposable, and not worth replacing.

I hope I’m not the first one to break this to you, but life is very fleeting and full of loss, and if you deal with its fleetness by grabbing on and trying to hold it back, you’ll just end up hurting yourself. Better to relax into the speed.

Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Image by liyinglace via Flickr (Creative Commons)

What I got wrong about Fr. Altman and disobedience

Yesterday, I got heated and wrote an essay about Fr. James Altman’s public response to his bishop. I classified it as disobedience, and called it satanic.

This was dumb of me, because it has to do with canon law, and I know almost nothing about canon law. I apologize for adding heat without light. I’m sure the bishop doesn’t appreciate any more muddying of the waters.

Let me be clear: I don’t think I’m wrong about Fr. Altman’s general attitude. If you have the stomach to wade through his many recorded words, you will hear an overwhelming and unvaried tone of arrogance and defiance, and a desire to put his own judgment over anyone else’s; and I believe he is causing scandal by encouraging his followers to adopt the same attitude of defiance. I haven’t heard or read anything by him that shows Christlike humility. However, I said he was currently disobeying his bishop, and I now believe I was wrong. Here’s some better information:

According to Canon Law Made Easy, the church tries to ensure a certain amount of stability when a bishop appoints a pastor to a parish. It’s common for a pastor to be appointed for an indefinite (and usually long) amount of time, and they can’t be removed from an indefinite appointment without grave cause.

But even if there is grave cause, the bishop can’t just say “go” and the pastor has to instantly go. The bishop has to follow a procedure which includes requesting the resignation. The pastor does not have to respond to this request, and he has the right to contest the removal. The priest can argue for staying, and two other pastors examine arguments from both sides. If the bishop still thinks the pastor has to go, the pastor can appeal to Rome. While this is going on, the pastor remains a pastor, but can’t function as one; and the bishop can’t replace him; he can only appoint a parochial administrator to do his job. 

So I was wrong to say that, in hiring a canon lawyer, Fr. Altman is demonstrating “utterly scrambled incoherent nonsense.” However distasteful it may appear for him to accept gobs and gobs of money while claiming he’s being persecuted, he is apparently pursuing his rights under canon law, which he is entitled to do. And this means that, while it’s hard to imagine his followers docilely accepting the bishop’s ultimate judgment on the matter, he’s not disobeying his bishop by not accepting his removal. I was just wrong about that, and I apologize. (I would, however, like to be a fly on the wall if Fr. Altman eventually makes his case in Rome. I have my quibbles with Pope Francis, but . . . well, I’d like to be a fly on the wall.)

The question is, what counts as a grave cause to remove him as pastor? Here is what Canon Law Made Easy says:
Canon 1741 gives us a list of the principle reasons why a pastor can lawfully be removed from office. It’s important to note right away that “principle reasons” are not the only reasons, so this list is meant to be illustrative but not exhaustive. They include:

-behavior which causes grave harm to ecclesiastical communion;

-ineptitude or permanent illness which renders the priest unequal to the task of running the parish;
the loss of the priest’s good name among parishioners, or their aversion to him;

-grave neglect or violation of his duties, even after a warning; and 

-bad administration of the parish’s temporal goods, causing grave harm to the Church, if no other way to eliminate this harm can be found.

 
 
Here, I will attempt to learn my lesson and not speculate on whether Altman’s behavior constitutes grave cause. The bishop seems to think it does (and has evidently been trying to resolve the conflict without making a big public stink). Here is the statement from the diocese:
 

“Fr. James Altman has recently made public the request from Bishop William Patrick Callahan that he resign his office of pastor of Saint James the Less Parish in the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, as well as his intent to decline the request. As a result, the Diocese of La Crosse will respond in accordance to the canonical process as needed for the removal of a priest from his office as pastor.

“During the past year, concerns have been expressed related to the ministry of Fr. James Altman, a priest in the Diocese of La Crosse. Bishop Callahan of the Diocese of La Crosse, and canonical representatives have worked to fraternally and privately address those concerns. The process has been pastoral and administrative with a desire toward a just resolution among all parties.

“The ministry of pastor was instituted in the Church not for the benefit of the one to whom it is entrusted, but for the pastoral and sacramental care of those for whom it is conferred. The salvation of souls takes precedence over the stability of the pastor in office when these two values come into direct conflict. Although attempts were made to allow Fr. Altman the opportunity to respond to fraternal correction, a resolution of this situation has been unsuccessful.

“It is important to note that this is not a penal remedy but a pastoral remedy. Bishop Callahan asks for your prayers for Fr. Altman, for the congregation of St. James, and the faithful of the Diocese of La Crosse and beyond. While any change made to the ministry of a pastor is difficult, it is done with the hope that God’s work of justice, reconciliation and healing may be realized in the Body of Christ for a positive outcome.
“The Diocese of La Crosse asks for the consideration of respect, safety and prayers at this time for all involved.”

One thing I got right in yesterday’s essay was calling for prayers for Fr. Altman, and I will include the bishop, and the entire parish, as the bishop requested. And I am grateful to readers who pointed out my error, and to those who offered prayers for me. 
 

While I’m apologizing, I also wanted to credit the folks who dug up and started circulating some of the quotes and videos I referenced, which I should have done sooner. Mike Lewis of Where Peter Is has once more done yeoman’s work, and I believe he is the one who first publicized Fr. Altman’s Pentecost sermon. @VagrantCatholic on Twitter transcribed and shared an excerpt from the discussion in which he blames Warsaw Jews for the holocaust; and Melinda Ribnek found and shared the video clip wherein he shares his views on the intellect of women. 

 

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Who’s in charge of Fr. James Altman?

IMPORTANT UPDATE: I made some pretty serious mistakes about canon law in this essay. You can read my correction here. I apologize for my errors and my rashness. I hope there is still some good to glean from my original essay, below, but you can judge that for yourself. 

A fundraiser for Fr. James Altman has raised over $100,000 for legal fees to defend him against  . . . being Catholic, as far as I can tell. 

Fr. Altman announced in his pentecost homily on May 23 that Bishop William Callahan asked him to resign as pastor of St. James the Less in La Crosse, but Fr. Altman doesn’t wanna. You can watch his homily here:

Fr. Altman has enjoyed a bubble of internet fame by promoting a hodge-podge of far right conspiracy theories in his sermons, in his church’s bulletin, and in independent videos and podcasts. He’s referred to people who support mask mandates as “Godless vermin.” He’s defied local ordinances about covid safety, and he has a long track record of saying cruel and outrageous things (a few examples: women can’t preach because all they’re concerned with is questions like, “Does this dress make me look fat?” whereas men want truth and straight answers; and the Warsaw Jews brought the holocaust on themselves by not fighting against abortion. There is more, but I don’t have the heart to keep hunting.)   

Why am I writing about this, rather than just shaking my head and minding my business? Normally I have no patience with people who spend their days amplifying ideas that disgust them. Unless you’re gathering information to make a specific argument, or building evidence to make a specific a case, then what’s the point? You’re just whipping up a froth of rage that will lift you up over the meaningful things that rightly demand your attention in your actual life. So I try not to reflexively engage in that.

But I guess I still have a little pocket of naïveté, because even though I’m not shocked by any of the ugly, awful things the guy has said, I am shocked by his open defiance of his bishop (who is, after all, not asking him to sin). This priest is apparently going to accept money to hire a canon lawyer to try to force the bishop to let him remain pastor of a church. I’m not an expert in canon law, but this strikes me as utterly scrambled incoherent nonsense. If he rejects the authority of the bishop, and he’s directed his flock to reject the authority of the pope (which he’s done), then who will he appealing to, exactly, by hiring a canon lawyer?  Who does he imagine is in charge? 

This is a dude who thinks a lot of things are diabolical. Being a democrat damns you to hell; wearing a mask is demonic; pretty much anything that he doesn’t like is either from hell, or will send you straight to hell. Fine, this is normal far right rhetoric.

But even if you believe he’s right about that stuff, how are you gonna say “I don’t have to listen to my bishop, but I’ll fight him until I can get what I want” . . . and then go into the confessional and tell someone it’s a sin to use a condom, or skip mass, or be a woman priest, or anything? How are you gonna pick and choose when obedience matters, without capsizing the whole ship? Either we have to do what the Church tells us to do, or we don’t. And if we don’t, then why are we here? Why is a man who rejects obedience asking people to call him “father?”

Show me a saint who rejected obedience, whether the person in authority was just or unjust. Show me a saint who set an example of defiance to a legitimate church authority, or any legitimate authority who wasn’t asking them to sin. 

Or, show me that time that Jesus was condemned to suffer and die, and rather than submit to the Father in obedience, he raised a bunch of money for a lawyer so he could keep on making podcasts. 

Look, I haven’t made it any secret that I’m feeling disenchanted with my faith these days (I know, so original). Things that used to make perfect sense feel sketchy and wobbly to me, and things that used to seem beautiful look dumb and pointless half the time. I’m clinging by my nails, here. But I’ll tell you what, I may be disenchanted, but I’m not a freaking idiot. I know who I am, and how unreliable I am. I know what happens if I make up the rules according to what suits me. I know where that path leads. I’ve smelled the smell that comes from that place where the worm dieth not. I know that worm, and I know how he likes to make you think you’re a hero for doing whatever you want. And I know what happens next.

If I want the strength of the Eucharist and the sweet relief of confession, the sanity and coherence of the Gospels, the beauty and splendor of the truth, it’s a package deal. I can’t pick and choose. So I obey the church, as best I can. And when I don’t obey, at least I know that I’m the one who’s out of line. 

Obedience sucks. Jesus obeyed the Father. It sucked. But it worked out, because God is God and God made the Church and that’s how it works. Obedience is central to our faith.  Every Catholic has someone to obey. It’s true of Fr. Altman, it’s true of pro-abortion Catholics, it’s true of Fr. Altman’s bishop, it’s true of the poor saps who sit in the pew and listen to him tell you who to hate and why and send him money so he can keep doing it. Every single person from every walk of life in the Church has someone to obey. Nobody’s exempt from obedience, unless you’re being asked to sin.

If you’re a priest and you’re not obeying your bishop, that doesn’t mean you’re independent or brave or bold. You’re still obeying.  You’re obeying the one who said “non serviam.” And I don’t mean that as a rhetorical “gotcha.” I’m gonna pray for Fr. Altman, because disobedience is literally Satanic. 

 

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Image: Fr. Altman (Screenshot from video embedded above)

What’s for supper? Vol. 252: The bright-eyed marinator

Apparently it’s Friday! Here’s what we cooked this week:

SATURDAY 
Meatball subs

Had my sub outside with a short, chatty person who, after a rather violent bath, was drying her hair in the setting sun. 

I could try to pass off that sub as the sub that a silly child has clearly started eating sideways, but in fact that is my sub.

Damien made the meatballs. He uses the same recipe I do,

Jump to Recipe

except he’s much, much better at seasoning meat than I am, and they turned out very yummy indeed. 

SUNDAY
Beef gyros

This is it. This is the simplest, tastiest gyro marinade yet.

Jump to Recipe

It’s just olive oil, lots of garlic, fresh mint, oregano, and paprika, and salt and pepper. The wild mint has come up in the yard, so I added a big bunch chopped up. 

I don’t remember how I cooked the meat. Maybe I seared it and then roasted it, or maybe I just roasted it. It sliced up beautifully rare and juicy.

I served it with fries and sliced cucumbers and tomatoes and plenty of spicy yogurt sauce, and a little hot sauce. Three of the kids spontaneously said it was good! I don’t know if you realize what a dazzling triumph that is for me. 

I took some of the marinade and added it to some plain Greek yogurt, for a zippy dipping sauce. I also made my usual yogurt sauce, with fresh garlic, pepper, salt, and lemon juice. This is definitely the recipe I’ll be using from now on. 

MONDAY
Cumin chicken and chickpeas with yogurt sauce, pita, and red onion salad

An easy, very appealing one-pan meal I haven’t made in some time. You marinate the chicken thighs in a cumin yogurt sauce for several hours before cooking, then just spread it out on a pan with some seasoned chickpeas, and away it goes. The meat is SO juice and the skin is SO crisp and tasty. You really must try it. 

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Really lovely with some fresh pita bread, garlicky yogurt sauce, and red onions and cilantro with lemon juice.

Great for people who like middle eastern food, but mild enough for people who don’t especially. 

TUESDAY
Kielbasa, cabbage, red potatoes; green beans

Another easy one-pan meal (or two pans, as the case may be)

I normally flip the components halfway through cooking, but skipped it this time, and that was a bit of a mistake. The kielbasa got a little burnt on bottom, and the cabbage was a bit flabby, but that was my fault, not the recipe’s.

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I usually make a mustard sauce with honey and wine vinegar and fresh garlic, but also skipped that, and put out a bottle of some kind of fancy trick mustard from Aldi.

Not bad at all. It was a hot, salty meal that you could easily eat with a fork, and I had no complaints. 

WEDNESDAY
Beef and broccoli on rice, red bean buns

Another surprisingly popular meal! I followed the marinade recipe from Damn Delicious to the letter, so I didn’t bother writing up a recipe card (which I generally only do if I alter the recipe). Slightly spicy (courtesy of sriracha and hot pepper flakes). The sauce didn’t thicken, but I wasn’t expecting that. My sauces just don’t thicken. I accept this. Yes, I used corn starch.

The pictures turned out bad, but it was a pretty dish, as well as tasty.

I had some bean buns in the freezer, that I grabbed when we ventured into a different supermarket a few weeks ago. I wasn’t really sure how to cook them, so I put them in the Instant Pot on the rack with a cup of water and set it to high pressure for 8 minutes. I also wasn’t really sure how they were supposed to taste, but that worked well enough, although I crammed twelve of them in there, so they stuck together a bit. 

What do you normally eat bean buns with? Are they an appetizer? These were sweet. I’m still very much a country mouse and don’t know much about other cuisines. 

THURSDAY
Chicken nuggets/supermarket sushi

I’ve spared you all the details of how busy we’ve been this week, but suffice it to say the schedule made me cry more than once, and also the car broke down again because of course it did. Hence Thursday’s meal. I accidentally bought something called “teriyaki chicken sushi,” which is an abomination. I mean, I ate it, but still. 

FRIDAY
Domino’s, and cake 

Today is Benny’s first communion and Benny, Irene, Lucy, and Sophia’s confirmation! There’s a long sad story about how we kept traveling over diocesan lines right when various parishes were switching order of sacraments, and then when we got caught up, we got covid symptoms and had to stay home. So we’re finally finally getting this done, and then having cake and pizza. Clara made this pretty “stained glass” cake:

We make this by covering a cooled cake with royal icing, which gives you a flat, dry surface to work on.

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Then you make your stained glass design with black icing (you can plot out the design with a toothpick first), then carefully fill in the spaces between the lines by spooning in jellies and jams of various colors. You can whip up the jelly with a little water to make it more spreadable. Very handy for people who have a lot of sacrament parties. 

And that’s it! 
 

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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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Yogurt sauce

Ingredients

  • 32 oz full fat Greek yogurt
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • fresh parsley or dill, chopped (optional)

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together. Use for spreading on grilled meats, dipping pita or vegetables, etc. 

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Cumin chicken thighs with chickpeas in yogurt sauce

A one-pan dish, but you won't want to skip the sides. Make with red onions and cilantro in lemon juice, pita bread and yogurt sauce, and pomegranates, grapes, or maybe fried eggplant. 

Ingredients

  • 18 chicken thighs
  • 32 oz full fat yogurt, preferably Greek
  • 4 Tbsp lemon juice
  • 3 Tbsp cumin, divided
  • 4-6 cans chickpeas
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 red onions, sliced thinly

For garnishes:

  • 2 red onions sliced thinly
  • lemon juice
  • salt and pepper
  • a bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 32 oz Greek yogurt for dipping sauce
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced or crushed

Instructions

  1. Make the marinade early in the day or the night before. Mix full fat Greek yogurt and with lemon juice, four tablespoons of water, and two tablespoons of cumin, and mix this marinade up with chicken parts, thighs or wings. Marinate several hours. 

    About an hour before dinner, preheat the oven to 425.

    Drain and rinse four or five 15-oz cans of chickpeas and mix them up with a few glugs of olive oil, the remaining tablespoon of cumin, salt and pepper, and two large red onions sliced thin.

    Spread the seasoned chickpeas in a single layer on two large sheet pans, then make room among the chickpeas for the marinated chicken (shake or scrape the extra marinade off the chicken if it’s too gloppy). Then it goes in the oven for almost an hour. That’s it for the main part.

    The chickpeas and the onions may start to blacken a bit, and this is a-ok. You want the chickpeas to be crunchy, and the skin of the chicken to be a deep golden brown, and crisp. The top pan was done first, and then I moved the other one up to finish browning as we started to eat. Sometimes when I make this, I put the chickpeas back in the oven after we start eating, so some of them get crunchy and nutty all the way through.

Garnishes:

  1. While the chicken is cooking, you prepare your three garnishes:

     -Chop up some cilantro for sprinkling if people like.

     -Slice another two red onions nice and thin, and mix them in a dish with a few glugs of lemon juice and salt and pepper and more cilantro. 

     -Then take the rest of the tub of Greek yogurt and mix it up in another bowl with lemon juice, a generous amount of minced garlic, salt, and pepper. 

 

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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. 

Print

Marinade for beef gyros

enough for 4-5 lbs of meat, plus a little extra to mix into yogurt sauce if you like

Ingredients

  • handful fresh mint, chopped fine
  • 1 head garlic, minced or crushed
  • 1-1/3 cups olive oil
  • 4 tsp dried oregano
  • 2 tsp paprika
  • kosher salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together and marinate meat. If you like, take a few spoonfuls of the marinade and mix it into 2-3 cups of Greek yogurt with a little water, for a sauce.

Print

Royal icing

An icing that dries hard, so you can use it to glue pieces together, or use as a flat surface to decorate. Add less sugar to make it thinner and pour over cookies or petits fours; add more sugar to make it more thick for spreading or piping. It will be stiff enough to decorate over within about half an hour, and it will be like cement in four hours.

Ingredients

  • 4 egg whites
  • 6 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted
  • 2 tsp lemon juice

Instructions

  1. In an electric mixer with a whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites on high until they are opaque and foamy.

  2. Add the sugar a little scoop at a time, continuing to whisk on high. Add the lemon juice.

  3. Keep whisking on high until the icing is as thick as you want it. Adjust how much sugar you add to make it as thick as you want.

  4. Keep the icing covered tightly, with plastic wrap touching the icing, until you're ready to use it because it starts drying out immediately.

When neuroscience discovered hardness of heart

Does lying become easier with practice?

Common sense and experience say, “Of course,” and now some neuroscience researchers agree with that assessment. In Aeon, Neil Garrett of Princeton describes how he and three other researchers tested a group of people to see whether and how they could be acclimated to dishonesty. Here’s how the study worked:

“We had participants lie in an fMRI scanner and send messages to a second person, who sat outside the scanner, by entering keyboard responses. Participants were instructed that their responses would be relayed via connected computers. In some stages of the task, participants had repeated opportunities to make their messages dishonest in order to earn additional money. Importantly, they could be as dishonest as they wanted to – it was entirely up to them and could vary from message to message. This allowed us to see if the messages were equally dishonest, or if there was a change in people’s willingness to be dishonest over time.”

They discovered, as expected, that people initially had a strong emotional and neurological response to lying; but as they continued to lie, they felt less and less of a physical emotional response (flushed cheeks, racing heart) and, accordingly, their brains’ amygdalae responded less and less.

The study is especially interesting because the participants’ brains were reacting not to conditions outside their control, but to their own free choices. So, yes: Lying gets easier with practice.

It’s hard to know what to say about a study like this, other than, “Well, duh.” We’ve all seen this phenomenon. The first time we do something wrong, it feels wrong, and it feels bad. The second time we do it, it doesn’t feel great, but there’s less of a hurdle. The third and fourth time, it becomes even easier and less troubling. And eventually, with practice, we can barely remember why we thought the behavior was wrong in the first place, much less muster up any enthusiasm for quitting it – especially if we think we’re getting away with it. As any alert human knows, consciences are shallow wells, and run dry quickly if they’re not replenished.

The Church already has a word for this phenomenon, even if she hasn’t specified which region of the brain does the legwork. It’s called “hardness of heart,” which leads to vice, or a habit of sin, and it first rears its head in Genesis. It’s only a few chapters from Eden to the Flood. Vice is very efficient. Sin clears the way for more and more sin to roll through on more and more level ground.

Not only does sin become easier, but it becomes easier to commit worse sins. The researcher in the “dishonesty” experiment noted that, after a few repetitions of dishonesty,

“eventually, the door flew open: they could be much more dishonest than at the beginning, but with increasingly limited emotional sensitivity.”

And the Catechism nods gravely:

 

“Deliberate and unrepented venial sin disposes us little by little to commit mortal sin.”

The author in the study says,

“This study might suggest a pessimistic view of humanity, with everyone gradually becoming emotionally null to bad behavior, more corrupt and more egotistical. But that’s not the only way to see these results. One positive message to take away is that emotion plays a crucial role in constraining dishonesty. Perhaps that means a solution to dishonesty is available: strong emotional responses in situations where dishonesty is a temptation could be reinstated so as to reduce one’s susceptibility to it.”

I don’t mean to be rude; but again, I say unto you: DUH. The Church is way ahead on this one, too. Why do you suppose we confess our sins out loud to a priest? It’s not because the Church wants to humiliate or discourage the penitent, but because she is well aware that strong emotional responses reduce one’s susceptibility to temptation. It grabs our attention when we have to kneel in a little box and croak out loud, “I hit my little sister” or “I masturbated to porn” or “I stole five dollars from the cash register.” It reignites that healthy, desirable emotion of shame and revulsion, which makes it easier to resist doing those things again.

(Of course confession also offers forgiveness and grace, which strengthen our souls and reunite us with God! But I’m speaking here only of the psychological effect of confession, as it’s intended to work.)

The researcher continues:

“There have also been a number of behavioral interventions proposed to curb unethical behavior. These include using cues that emphasize morality and encouraging self-engagement. We don’t currently know the underlying neural mechanisms that can account for the positive behavioral changes these interventions drive. But an intriguing possibility is that they operate in part by shifting up our emotional reaction to situations in which dishonesty is an option, in turn helping us to resist the temptation to which we have become less resistant over time.”

He is right again. “Cues that emphasize morality and encourag[e] self-engagement” are, for Catholics, things like reading the Bible, praying sincerely to God and the saints, doing penance, spending time with other Catholics who share your values, talking and reading about the Faith, receiving the sacraments regularly, and actively and consciously pursuing virtue, rather than just trying to avoid sin. These behaviors are all “cues” that bolster that emotional/neurological response, making it easier for us to be honest rather than dishonest.

Now, we can approach these actions as “positive behavioral changes” which we hope will stimulate emotional responses which will, in turn, engage certain areas of our brains, making it easier for us to do what we perceive as moral. But the question is, Why? Why go to all that trouble to manipulate your own brain?

You could say that it’s an evolutionary imperative, something we do because society rewards us for behaving in ways that are sometimes mutually and directly beneficial to those involved, and sometimes beneficial to the survival of the species.

Or, you could say that our eternal Father created us to love him and serve him in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next, and that his Son gave us the Church and the sacraments to help us find our way back home, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The two realities, neurological and spiritual, do not oppose or negate each other. When we discover how our brains actually function in response to the world, this is not proof that there is no soul, or no such thing as objective morality. But recall the scene in C S Lewis’ The Dawn Treader, where Eustace (converted, but still habituated to certain patterns of thinking) says,

“In our world, a star is a huge ball of flaming gas,” and Ramandu responds, “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.”

Practice habituates us to sin, deadens our consciences, reduces our horror of evil, accustoms us to vice – or, if you like, neurally adapts us, making us less sensitive to stimuli after repeated exposure. Either way, thank God we have the sacramental means to fight back.

***
Image by pramit marattha from Pixabay
This essay was originally published in a slightly different form in The Catholic Weekly in 2017. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 250: Flandemic!!1!

Look, it’s Vol. 250! A few months ago, when I noticed this milestone was coming, I decided to do something really special. Then I forgot about it and just kept on cooking stuff. So here we are. 

Today’s post does include two vidyas: One of me thumping the side of my very first flan, to see if it ripples in waves, or wobbles as one; and one of me attempting to turn said flan out of the pan. Stay for the flan drama, which includes schlorping!

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Smoked ribs and brats; spicy Asian coleslaw

Damien got a new smoker to replace the one that was essentially a rusty garbage can. He christened it with these wonderful smoked ribs, while several of the kids and I went to explore Madame Sherri’s castle and forest. There is a short loop trail and a longer loop trail, so we chose the short one, hiked half of it, somehow looped into the long one, did the entire thing, rejoined the first one, and finished that. I think. There was a mountain involved. In my defense, I am stupid.

Anyway, we did get back home eventually, and there were these magnificent ribs waiting for us: 

He made three racks of ribs, and also smoked a bunch of beer brats, too. We had leftover spicy Asian coleslaw from last week , so that rounded out the meal. 

Absolutely delicious. I’ll put the recipe card at the end. 

Jump to Recipe

SUNDAY
Hot dogs, fries

Nothing to report. I don’t even remember what we were doing on Sunday. Something strenuous, no doubt. 

MONDAY
Caprese chicken burgers, broccoli and dip

Elevate that chicken burger! Plenty of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, kaiser rolls, and tomatoes and basil. 

I forgot to get cheese, but nobody noticed. 

TUESDAY
Salad with chicken, strawberries, feta, and walnuts

Here I would like to pause and congratulate myself for serving all the meals this week in the correct order. I had tomatoes, basil, strawberries, and (as you will see) avocados and mangoes, and we ate everything when it was ripe.  I’m just patting myself on my back for this achievement. And it’s easy, too, ever since I grew this third Pfizer arm. *pat pat*

Anyway, broiled chicken breast with salt, pepper, and garlic powder; strawberries, feta cheese, red onions, and toasted walnuts. Toasted by putting them in the microwave for a few minutes. 

Oh, and croutons. We had no end of leftover hot dog buns in the house, which make great croutons. Tons of butter, pepper, garlic salt, and oregano in a 300 oven for maybe half an hour. 

WEDNESDAY
Tacos, guacamole and chips, flan with mangoes, palomas

Just regular old tacos, to everyone’s relief. And some guacamole made with a sight tactical error: I used canned tomatoes because the two tomatoes I had set aside the other day vanished down someone’s gullet. I know canned tomatoes are no good, but I did it anyway. I don’t know why. 

Jump to Recipe

Anyway, the big deal was that I wanted to make flan for the first time. I adore flan. I adore custards of any kind. I had heard that flan is rather fiddly to make, but I wanted to at least try. 

Guys, it was really easy. This recipe has five ingredients, and the hardest part is how boring it is to stir the sugar when you’re melting it for the topping. So basically you have to stir it forever over a medium heat, so it melts into a lovely caramel: 

Then you pour it into your dish (I couldn’t rustle up enough ramekins, so I made one big flan) and let it spread over the bottom and a bit of the sides. 

(It hardens like candy at this point; but after it sits for several hours with a custard on top of it, it loosens up into sauce again.)

Then you whisk together the rest of the ingredients — eggs, condensed milk, evaporated milk, more sugar, and vanilla — and blend them well, and pour them into the pan on top of the caramel. Then you bake it, covered, for a long time in a water bath (which just means inside a bigger pan that’s full of hot water. This steams the custard and helps keep it cooking at an even temp throughout). 

You do want your eggs to be room temperature so they meld nicely into the custard. Here’s a tip I didn’t know until this week! You can take cold eggs and put them in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes, and guess what? They warm up! If they’re not warm enough, do it again. How about that? 

So here it is in its bath:

The hussy!

It took considerably longer than expected to cook — almost 2 hours. You will know when it’s done when it wobbles as one, rather than rippling, when you bump it, like so:

 

 

Then you cool it, chill it in the fridge, and then you run a knife along the edge to loosen it, and flip it upside down, and that’s how you get that gorgeous caramel sauce gracing the top. For some reason I thought this, too, was worth documenting on video, so here I am, schlorping it out of the pan:

 

 

And here it is! Lovely, lovely caramel flan, shining like the setting sun. 

It has a bunch of air bubbles along the outer edge, which apparently is a point against it, but it didn’t bother me!

I had a bunch of mangos, so I scattered those over the slices of flan. 

Truthfully, it was fully sweet enough and didn’t need the mango. Next time I will try maybe toasted coconut, or toasted pecans maybe. Or nothing. It was so good on its own. Silky smooth, creamy, mellow, buttery, warm, rich. Just perfect. 

Damien also made a new-to-us drink: Palomas. It’s tequila with grapefruit soda, and salt on the rim. 

It was pretty good. Not as good as the fact that the grapefruit soda is called “Squirt.” 

THURSDAY
Puntas de filete

Something new. It’s basically — well, pieces of meat in a sauce, served over rice or noodles (fideos). That doesn’t narrow it down much, but the kids liked it, and I thought it was tasty enough. The version I made is very mild. 

I browned up some beef chunks in oil, then took the meat out, melted a bunch of butter in the same pot, and cooked up some diced onion, then minced garlic and serrano pepper, then added in beef stock, crushed tomato, bay leaves, and salt. Put the meat back in, heated it through, and that was it. 

Here’s the recipe I used, from an actual paper book called The Border Cookbook: Authentic Home Cooking of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico. 

If you’ve got all your ingredients prepped, it comes together very quickly. I served it with cilantro, on rice cooked in chicken broth, which the kids like so much, I’m starting to think they’re making fun of me in some way.

If you’ve made this dish, tell me your favorite variations! I definitely want to make it again, but with a little more flavor in the sauce. 

FRIDAY
Sugar rub chicken thighs, brats, Fasier cake

Today is Moe’s 19th birthday, so Damien fired up the smoker again, and we’re having sugar rub chicken thighs, which everybody loves, and I guess a Frasier cake. Clara’s been slaving over it for about 48 hours and I’m almost afraid to look. I sure do have weird kids, but they make cakes for each other, so that’s nice. 

For the chicken thighs, Damien uses the same sugar rub that he used for the pork ribs (or I guess it’s never quite the same, but it’s the same basic idea), so if you want to do this recipe (WHICH I RECOMMEND), just do the sugar rub part. 

Jump to Recipe

Oh, one more thing: We’ve been using white pepper a lot, because, I don’t know, we lost our regular pepper. White pepper is really interesting. It’s not necessarily more spicy than black pepper in itself, but it adds a kind of fizzing spark to other things and enhances their spiciness, somehow. I like it! But you have to not get carried away. 

And them’s the facts!

Print

sugar smoked ribs

the proportions are flexible here. You can adjust the sugar rub to make it more or less spicy or sweet. Just pile tons of everything on and give it puh-lenty of time to smoke.

Ingredients

  • rack pork ribs
  • yellow mustard
  • Coke
  • extra brown sugar

For the sugar rub:

  • 1-1/2 cups brown sugar
  • 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 2 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 2 Tbsp salt
  • 1 Tbsp white pepper

Instructions

  1. Coat the ribs in yellow mustard and cover them with sugar rub mixture

  2. Smoke at 225 for 3 hours

  3. Take ribs out, make a sort of envelope of tin foil and pour Coke and brown sugar over them. close up the envelope.

  4. Return ribs to smoker and cook another 2 hours.

  5. Remove tinfoil and smoke another 45-min.

  6. Finish on grill to give it a char.

 

 

How to achieve peace of mind about your POS

I just dropped off my car at the mechanic. Tell me, is it a bad sign when he takes a look at it and says, ”  . . . woof”?

The good news is, I don’t really care. We only need the mechanic to make it legal for a few more weeks (currently the doors flap open when you take a curve, which I understand is an automotive safety no-no), because we are on the cusp of buying a new car. A car so new, it will require payments to be made on it.

This is a departure from the past, in which my idea of financing a vehicle was borrowing money from my dad so we could pay Bodey the tow boy to get rid of the old car, which had been slowly filing up with mice. I cannot even stand how fancy we are now, and how mouseless. 

Here’s an essay I wrote several years ago, back when we were not on the cusp of buying a new anything, except 12 ice cream cones (and even then, we had a coupon): 

**

A few years ago, my kids were very excited about getting ice cream at Friendly’s. They were so excited that they weren’t careful about how they opened the door to the van, and wham! It whacked the car next to us in the parking lot, leaving a small mark.

Being decent people, we immediately got out, apologized to the car owner, and offered her our insurance information. She, being an absolute lunatic, got hysterical, called the police, and reported us to child protective services because our kids were out of control.

Happily, it was obvious to everyone else that she was crazy, and since the insurance claim went nowhere, CPS refused to investigate, and the policeman showed the woman that the “damage” to her car could be rubbed off with some spit, it was pretty easy for us to just shake our heads and drive away.

But it really hammered home how happy I am that there’s no chance that we’ll ever own a vehicle we care that much about. Having a gorgeous, shiny car does something funny to your brain, and you do things like cry because there is a scratch in your paint, or call somebody obscene names because they put a ding in your bumper.

What peace of mind there is, on the other hand, when you don’t exactly know what color your car is supposed to be, under the grime and the peeling paint. Nothing can compare to the interior freedom you can gain by acknowledging that the rear bumper is not so much attached to your van as stalking it, and that some of the seats were not only designed for another another make and model of car, they seem to be grieving over the separation.

I have such a van. And I fully claim the serenity I’ve earned by claiming it as my primary vehicle. If someone (if!) runs over and starts hitting it with a gravel rake, the only thing I worry about is if anyone’s favorite Elsa sticker from the dentist is going to get messed up. Because then we’ll have some trouble.

It may not be precisely healthy to behave as if your car is disposable, but it sure does simplify things. For your shmedification (that’s schadenfreude-mit-edification), I’ve put together a short list of the levels of car troubles, and what your response ought to be, as the owner of a genuine, American-made POS. 

Things that don’t even register: Drips, smells, rumbles, squeals, groans, blinking lights, shudders, tremors, mice, hiccups, spasms, heat that won’t turn on, heat that won’t turn off, heat that smells like dolphin meat, the unpredictable squirting of fluids, and the occasional refusal to acknowledge who’s in charge here. This is just what it’s like having a car that you aren’t making huge monthly payments on, and if you can’t live this way, then you’re overdue for a fancy pants check, Mr. Fancy Pants. 

Things that cause mild concern: The doors do not close. This can be solved by threading one of the unused seatbelts through the door handle and yanking it taut. If you worry that this system is somehow “unsafe,” just remind yourself that your grandpappy used to drive all around God’s green earth in a rattly old tin lizzy, and he went on to father sixteen children before they all died a horrible death in his tin lizzie.

Things that cause irritation: alarms that don’t stop. This is not a safety issue, unless you take into account what it does to the human psyche to hear “Bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . bong . . . ” for three hours every day. Optimistic drivers may try to make lemonade out of lemons and search for songs that go along with the bonging — the Anvil Chorus works pretty well — but eventually you’ll realize that you don’t know as much Italian as you thought you did, and that’s the end of that. Get the wire cutters.

Things that cause serious frustration: Gauges which work fine, only you have to reset them with a pencil every time you turn the engine on. Only an issue because nobody ever lets you have a pencil for more than a day or so.

Things that cause despair: When you finally break down, either literally or mentally, and go to the garage, where the mechanic treats you like a big idiot just because you assumed that changing the oil was something that only wealthy elitists do, like paragliding in Hawaii or using a napkin. So the mechanic gives you a number for how much it will cost to repair your vehicle, and then you are faced with one of those cost-benefit analysis questions: What makes more fiscal sense? Should I take out a small loan so as to sink more money into a vehicle that will only last another six months, tops, assuming the load-bearing rust holds and the water don’t rise? Or should I just kill myself?

Then you remember that you traded in your life insurance policy for a packet of coupons to Friendly’s. So that settles that. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 249: I’m holding out for a gyro

Man, that was a fast week. The kids were on vacation, so I had the time to cook a bit more than I have in a while. Some tasty meals! Come for the recipes, stay to see the worst thing I’ve ever done to my car.

Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY
Burgers grilled outside, chips

First outdoor meal of the year! I’m very happy. I love eating outdoors, even though we seem to run through tabletops like nobody’s business, and, not wanting to sit at a topless table like a jerk, I always end up perching on a rock and balancing my plate on my knees like a jerk. But I had a dinner companion on Saturday, who perches on rocks and balances things on her knees for fun.

SUNDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, veggies

A popular meal, as long as I don’t make it very often, which I do. 

MONDAY
Beef shish kebab, roast corn on the cob

Great price on big hunks of beef, so I cut it up into chunks and marinated it.

I wish I had let it marinate longer, as it was still fairly tough. Good flavor, though. I browsed a bunch of recipes and then came up with my own marinade, which I wrote down on a piece of paper and then lost. Please clap.

Anyway, I threaded the beef on wooden skewers with onions, mushrooms, green peppers, and little tomoots.

I usually soak the skewers in water for half an hour to keep them from catching on fire and to keep the meat from drying out, but this time I was seized with skepticism, so I skipped that step. Guess what happened. So fine, so next time I’ll soak them. 

I had a bunch of corn on the cob (from Florida, apparently. I don’t think of Florida as full of corn fields, but I guess it can’t be all alligators and headlines) but didn’t start any water boiling in time to cook it, and Damien didn’t have any space on the grill for it; so I heated up the broiler, slathered the shucked corn with melted butter, and broiled it for ten minutes or so, turning it once.

Then I sprinkled it with elote seasoning, and it was pretty good! Maybe a little bit dry, but it’s early corn anyway, so maybe that was inevitable. Definitely a decent, easy option. I do love corn that’s slightly charred.

Such an ornamental little meal.

TUESDAY
Lamb gyros

If I told you how cheap lamb was, you’d plotz. It was so cheap! So I did that crazy easy recipe from Tom Nichols’ grandmother, and as usual, it turned out juicy, incredibly tender, and bursting with flavor. I used to go to a lot of trouble inserting slivered garlic into lamb, but believe me: This is a thousand times easier and it really tastes better. 

Jump to Recipe

So I roasted the lamb and sliced it up

and we had it on pita bread with spicy fries, tomatoes, fresh mint leaves, and plenty of garlicky yogurt sauce.

Jump to Recipe

Freaking fantastic meal. 

I love lamb so much, and the mint leaves and yogurt sauce made it truly delightful.

WEDNESDAY
Bo ssam, spicy coleslaw, rice, pineapple, lemon meringue pie

I’ve been wanting to try this recipe forevvvvvver. It’s supposed to be a party dish: You serve up a gleaming mountain of a pork roast, and everybody gathers around and pokes their chopsticks through the crisp, caramelized skin, happily picking out scrumptious tender shreds of meat, which they then dip into various savory sauces and eat wrapped up in lettuce with a little rice. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

We didn’t quite get there. We got close! It was delicious. It was extremely late. It was juicy and screaming with flavor. It was not shreddy. It was the saltiest thing I have eaten since I just straight up ate some salt. The kids mostly loved it and said I should make it again, but that may possibly have been because it was three hours past normal dinnertime. I don’t know! I do want to make it again.

I used the recipe from My Korean Kitchen. You rub the pork with, like, an alarming amount of sea salt and sugar

wrap it, and let it sit at least six hours, or overnight. Then you unwrap it and cook it at a low temp for six hours. Then you slather a sugary mixture over it to finish it up with a nice rich crust, and then you serve it as described above. 

As you can see, I had two smaller pork shoulders, rather than one giant one, so I reasoned I could get away with cooking it for closer to 3.5 hours. No dice. 4.5 hours later, it still wasn’t shreddy, but we were ravenous, so I called it done and sliced it up. 

The flavors more than made up for the deficiencies in texture. I was also bowled over by the dipping sauce, which is made with (doenjang) soybean paste, gochujang (fermented chili paste), sesame oil, sesame seeds, honey, garlic, onion, scallions, and walnuts, all ground up together.

You guys, it was amazing. It was one of those foods that goes, “beep, bop, boop, KABLAMMO” in your mouth, one flavor after another. Really lively and intense. A tiny bit went a long way.

I also made the spicy Korean coleslaw she recommended, which had a lovely, bright kick, and helped balance out the intensely salty pork. I also cut up a couple of pineapples, and set out a big pot of rice and bunch of lettuce leaves. 

Note: This meal is about 46,300 calories per serving. So go run around the block a few times, you’ll be fine. It’s so good. 

And Clara, having made some rash promises to some Amelia Bedelia fans, came through with a lemon meringue pie. By the time it was time for dessert, the pies had slumped a bit, but they were still very tasty.

She used my recipe for cheater’s lemon meringue pie

Jump to Recipe

which is pretty easy, and has only a few ingredients and has a great, intensely lemony flavor. 

THURSDAY
Domino’s pizza

On Thursday we technically went to an art museum and technically ate restaurant food. Promises were made and then technically kept. I complained about Thursday in an essay I just sent off to Australia, so you will just have to wait. The short version is: It’s a good thing I haven’t bought a new car yet, because this is what I did to my old car:

100% my fault, nobody got hurt, and you can totally still open the other two doors, so. 

FRIDAY

Kids are having Giant Chocolate Pancake, adults are having shrimp lo mein. No doubt some people will have both. Imma use my super simple lo mein recipe

Jump to Recipe

and throw some shrimp in there and no one can stop me. Except possibly Pfizer. We had our second Pfizer shots yesterday and I may be just a damp spot on the floor by Friday evening, in which case, the kids know how to make their own pancakes. 

Okay, here’s the recipe cards! In case I didn’t heartily recommend the lamb gyros or the bo ssam enough, I’m heartily doing it again. 

 

Print

Tom Nichols' Grandmother's Leg of Lamb

Ingredients

  • boneless leg of lamb
  • olive oil
  • garlic powder
  • garlic salt
  • oregano

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 325.

  2. Slash the meat several times, about an inch deep.

  3. Fill the cuts with plenty of garlic powder.

  4. Slather olive oil all over the meat.

  5. Crust it with garlic salt. Sprinkle with all the oregano you own.

  6. Cover meat loosely with tinfoil and cook three hours. Uncover and cook for another 30 minutes.

Print

Yogurt sauce

Ingredients

  • 32 oz full fat Greek yogurt
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • fresh parsley or dill, chopped (optional)

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together. Use for spreading on grilled meats, dipping pita or vegetables, etc. 

 

 

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Cheater's lemon meringue pie

I like a pie shell made from several cups of animal cracker crumbs whirred into a sandy texture, mixed with a stick of melted butter and 1/4 cup of brown sugar and a dash of salt. Mix well and press into the pan.

Ingredients

  • 1 pie shell

For the lemon layer:

  • 14 oz sweetened condensed milk
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1/2 cup lemon juice
  • 1 lemon, zested

For the meringue:

  • 3 egg whites
  • 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350

  2. Mix together the condensed milk, egg yolks, lemon juice, and lemon zest until well combined. Pour the mixture into the pie shell.

  3. Bake 10-15 minutes until the mixture has a little skin.

  4. While it's baking, use an electric mixer with a whisk attachment to beat the egg whites until it has soft peaks. Then gradually add the sugar until it has stiff peaks.

  5. When the lemon layer comes out of the oven, spread the meringue over the top and make a little peaks all over it with a fork or spatula.

  6. Return the pie to the oven and bake for another ten minutes or so until the meringue is slightly browned.

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basic lo mein

Ingredients

for the sauce

  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 5 tsp sesame oil
  • 5 tsp sugar

for the rest

  • 32 oz uncooked noodles
  • sesame oil for cooking
  • add-ins (vegetables sliced thin or chopped small, shrimp, chicken, etc.)
  • 2/3 cup rice vinegar (or mirin, which will make it sweeter)

Instructions

  1. Mix together the sauce ingredients and set aside.

  2. Boil the noodles until slightly underdone. Drain and set aside.

  3. Heat up a pan, add some sesame oil for cooking, and quickly cook your vegetables or whatever add-ins you have chosen.

  4. Add the mirin to the pan and deglaze it.

  5. Add the cooked noodles in, and stir to combine. Add the sauce and stir to combine.

What we’re watching, reading, and listening too WHILE FULLY IMMUNIZED

Just got our second Pfizer shot today! Half the kids have had their first shot. We are so close. 

Today we’re wrapping up spring break by heading off to an art museum. (They’re taking reservations and limiting occupancy and requiring masks, so we feel pretty safe.) Cannot wait to start going places and doing things again! Cannot wait!

Before I run out, here are a few things I’ve been enjoying lately. We have begun severely limiting internet time, and especially social media, so if you have book and music and movie recommendations, I’d love to hear them! I’ll probably write more later about limiting internet, but so far it’s been ::chef’s kiss:: (except for how mad the kids are).

WATCHING
The Sopranos

Groundbreaking choice, I know. This is my second time watching the series, and it’s still the best TV that’s ever been made. That’s it, no debate. I cover my eyes for some of the more violent scenes, and we both cover our eyes during the graphic sex, but this show deserves all the accolades it’s gotten for writing, for acting, for musical score, for everything. If it’s been on your list, watch it!

READING
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

Terrible title, great book. The writing style is coming close to getting on my nerves this second time around, but I’m still 90% captivated. I guess it’s . . . Midwest magical realism? A highly original novel about love, family, revenge, justice, and miracles, and it’s SO hard to write about it without it sounding cheesy. Great, immensely believable characters, very moving and funny and has more than one passage that will make you gasp out loud. 

LISTENING TO

Any number of things:

Jade Bird

Kinda bluegrass Americana, but make it smart, and mean. This one’s pretty famous, but she’s really got something. Poke around a bit. 

also this guy, Charley Crockett, apparently, yes, a distant relative of Davey, super fun neo-honky tonk, who really knows what his gifts are and how to use them. Just a neat aesthetic all around, very appealing, even though he’s not exactly a skilled singer. Here’s “How I got to Memphis,” but do look around.  He’s got more than one trick. 

He’s black/Cajun/Creole/Jewish and I like his face a lot. Oops, I don’t think that video has his face! I’ll have to add another one when I get back home. 

From there I strayed into Kassi Vallazza. Her little intro to “Johnny Dear” made me not want to listen, but I’m glad I did:

Switching gears, here is Kimiko Ishizaka playing the Goldberg Variations, with the score highlighted in real time so you can follow along.

I still maintain that Bach is one of the funniest composers. He’s constantly setting you up and then pulling the rug out from under you. I’m not familiar with this pianist, but it’s a captivating and witty performance, and a good antidote if you need a break from Glenn Gould. 

I’m also revisiting Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms and it holds up, which is always a relief when you really liked an album but haven’t heard it for a long time. 1985 was maybe a little better than you remember. 

The featured image is Corrie’s picture of Supereman, just because it’s cool. Truly he and curl, and his unibrow,

are the heroes we need. And here are his muscles: