Tag: fajita beef bowls

What’s for supper? Vol. 316: All Fall

We made it through Halloween and the Spooky Triduum! Plenty of cozy fall foods this week, although no applesauce as of yet. Here’s what we did have: 

SATURDAY
Vermonter sandwiches

By popular request. Your choice of ciabatta rolls or sourdough bread, roast chicken breast, bacon, thick slices of sharp cheddar, slices of tart Granny Smith apples, and honey mustard dressing.

Just an excellent sandwich. Nestle plate in among fabric paint and other craft materials because you are still frantically finishing up Halloween costumes. 

SUNDAY
Spaghetti and ragù; garlic bread; blueberry and pumpkin walnut ice cream 

Damien made this, following the Deadspin recipe. It turns out a little different each time. This time was a little spicy, and wonderfully — look, nobody likes it when I describe a meat sauce as “fluffy,” but the English language is just not helping me out. Here, have a picture:

If you’re thinking of pasta with a standard sluggish tomato sauce with some ground meat thrown in, think that no more. This is entirely different, and absolutely scrumptious. 

The kids miraculously scooped out the pumpkins on Friday while we were out of town, sorted out the pulp and seeds, and cleaned up. I know! So over the weekend, they carved their pumpkins, and all I had to do was roast the seeds.

I spread them in shallow pans, drizzled them with oil and sprinkled them with kosher salt, then cooked them in a 250 oven, stirring them occasionally, and switching the pans once so they’d cook evenly, until they are crunchy but not burnt.

I never know how long this takes because I always, always forget they are in the oven and almost burn them. Maybe forty minutes? I have no idea. 

I had a slightly better handle on dessert. Blueberries were on sale, so I bought a few pints, planning to make ice cream, with lemon pound cake from a mix. But then I felt bad that I hadn’t made any kind of Halloween-themed meal or dessert, so I decided it was important to make pumpkin ice cream.  (In the past, for Halloween I have made SPOOKY MEATLOAF

and once I made those mummy hot dogs

and you know, that was not a good use of my time. As usual, I’m the only one putting pressure on myself to come up with this stuff. Anyway, the ice cream turned out to be a great idea. I thought the two flavors would be terrible together (Watch: This Food Blogger Thinks Dessert Will Be Terrible But Makes It Anyway For Some Reason!), but they were actually great.

The blueberry was sweet and a tiny bit tart, and the pumpkin had all the comfy, custardy flavors of pumpkin pie, and somehow together they worked in the same way that peanut butter and jelly work together. They didn’t taste like peanut butter and jelly, you understand; it was just the same kind of combination. Fruity + earthy, or something. 

I did also make the lemon pound cake mix, but overbaked it, and I was worried the lemon would not go well with the other flavors (I had bought it just thinking lemon + blueberry), and this time I was right. Should have just skipped the cake. Oh well!

Imma have to come back later and write out the ice cream directions. I used Ben and Jerry’s recipes for both, except that I doubled the amount of blueberries for one, and added walnuts to the other, and increased the spices a bit. They both use the basic sweet cream base and do not require cooking. I will say that double blueberry was too much, and the berries clumped together in a way that wasn’t completely pleasant, because the tiny seeds get a little gritty one you get a certain volume of blueberry (they were macerated but not cooked). Next time I’ll just follow the recipe! But the walnuts were an excellent addition to the pumpkin ice cream, and I stand by that. I may make this again for Thanksgiving, or possibly this butternut squash ice cream with candied curry pecans.

MONDAY
Chicken nuggets; candy

Halloween! Dinner is only there to keep child protective services away. The kids had parties at school and ate all kinds of nonsense, then we zipped home and hurried to get costumes on for trick or treating. 

Benny and Corrie were Sarah and Duck

and I assisted them as Scarf Lady 

Lucy, Sophia, and Irene were Doc Ock, Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle, and a robot 

You can’t really tell, but the robot has three special features: It lights up in several colors, it has a little secret compartment for storing things, and it is wearing a fanny pack full of diabetic supplies for its sister, so as not to mess up her Doc Ock costume.

The other kids dispersed to various parties and promised me they would send pictures, but they did not!

TUESDAY
Bagel, sausage, egg, cheese sandwiches; caramel apples

On Tuesday I had an easy meal planned (bagels with sausages, egg, and cheese)

because everyone was exhausted and of course we had to get to Mass for All Saints Day, but I also suddenly couldn’t stand how there were apples all over the place, so I made caramel apples. We usually get the easy-peasy kind where you just stretch a sheet of caramel over the apple and warm it up to meld it on, but the boxes can be a little misleading, so I had two kits of the kind you need a candy thermometer.

Which reminds me of the last time we attempted this, which was one of my favorite Irene moments, when she was about seven. 

Irene, stirring caramel: “We don’t want it to get too hot. Not hard ball. Or hard crack. Or . . . [peering at thermometer] fish donut.”

WELL, THAT’S WHAT IT SAYS. The adult world can be very confusing, and you just have to go with it, even if it sounds a little fish donut.

So I made about 20 apples. 

They turned out lovely, but I surely did not have room for 20 sticky apples to cool and harden in the fridge, so I just left them out all afternoon. Usually our kitchen is about as cool as a refrigerator anyway, but we’re having a little warm snap, and by evening, the caramel had ooooozed its way downward until what I had was a panful of apples, each with its own caramel penumbra, sitting in a pool of caramel. Oh well! At least I got rid of the apples. Some weeks, cooking is like a game whose goal is to get rid of all the food. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken and salad; soul cakes

This was an okay idea that didn’t quite come off. I had the vague idea to serve a Greek-inspired salad with chicken. While I was out, Damien roasted some chicken breasts with plenty of lemon pepper seasoning, and I sliced up the meat and served it with a big green salad, black olives, feta cheese, pomegranate seeds, chopped walnuts, and cucumbers and tomatoes.

I think the tomatoes were the mistake.  You really can’t have tomatoes on pomegranates in the same plate. They threw the whole thing off. Also I forgot to buy any kind of dressing, so we were forced to dig through the fridge and take our chances. Damien found some creamy Italian dressing, and I was trying to tell him that we also had some kind of vinaigrette, but I couldn’t think of the word, so I called it “greasy Italian.” Which goes to show that describing things accurately is not all it’s cracked up to be.

I also just this minute remembered that I bought pita chips to go with this salad, and totally forgot about them. 

Regarding the pomegranates, I briefly considered looking up some clever TikTok idea for how to get the seeds off the rind in no time flat, but these things never, ever work for me. It’s always a video of some sun-kissed woman with shining, blue-black hair and a peasant blouse, standing in her garden going, “Oh, you cut up your pineapple with a knife, you DUMBASS? Try it like this!” and she grins at the camera and sticks a toothpick in the bottom, and all the pineapple just falls out into a basin in perfect little edible chunks and she eats one with very white teeth. Or else there is some perky dude with weirdly inflated biceps bopping around a spotless kitchen showing us how, when he wants 400 cloves of peeled garlic, all he does is make a little slit in the side and then tap it with a spoon, and the garlic absolutely cannot wait to scurry off and arrange itself into useful rows, all perfectly peeled and not a bit wasted. So I watch this stuff and it looks quite easy, so I imitate them exactly, and somehow slice the tips off my three favorite fingers, and then I have to explain to the ER nurse that I was trying to be like someone on TikTok.

So I decided to just cut the pomegranate into quarters and then just sort of scrabble at it until the seeds came out. And I got a bowlful that way. 

And then I took a picture, so there. 

OH, I also made soul cakes on Wednesday. I guess soul cakes are the original treats that people would give to beggars who would come to their house, and offer to pray for the souls of the dead in exchange for a cookie? I don’t know. I still had a shit ton of apples left, so I was getting ready to make applesauce when I suddenly remembered that the kids had asked about soul cakes, so that’s what I made. 

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It’s a very quick recipe, and I do like the taste. They have a faint cidery flavor from the cider vinegar, and they’re soft and a little spicy, very nice. I cut out two kinds and told the kids they represented souls before and after being prayed for. 

Raisins in purgatory, and then you upgrade to half a dried apricot when you go to heaven. That’s some high octane theology for you. 

THURSDAY
Mexican beef bowls and beans

Everyone was pretty excited about this meal. I actually started marinating the meat the night before. 

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I had already cut up the meat before marinating it, so I just fried it up in a giant pan along with the marinade. 

Earlier in the day, I made a big bowl of guacamole

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and a pot of black beans. The beans were completely yummy,

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but I wish I had cooked them with the lid off for a little longer (they were in the Instant Pot on “slow cook” most of the day) to simmer off more of the liquid. 

But all in all, a very tasty meal.  I made a big pot of rice, put out salsa, chopped scallions, sour cream, lime wedges, and corn chips, shredded some cheese, and heated up some corn. Everyone found something they liked to eat.

Mmm, I think I will have leftover beans for lunch. 

FRIDAY
Quesadillas

Lots of leftover fixins from Thursday’s meal, so I’m just going to make plain cheese quesadillas and people can dress it up as they like. I also bought some plantain chips, which I will no doubt forget to serve. 

Happy Friday! If you want some apples, come over. I have a lot. 

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Soul cakes

Servings 18 flat cakes the size of large biscuits

Ingredients

  • 1 cup butter, chilled
  • 3-3/4 cup sifted flour
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ginger
  • 1 tsp allspice (can sub cloves)
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp cider vinegar (can sub white vinegar)
  • 4-6 Tbsp milk
  • powdered sugar to sprinkle on top

optional:

  • raisins, currants, nuts, candied citrus peels, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350

  2. Put the flour in a large bowl. Grate the chilled butter on a vegetable grater and incorporate it lightly into the flour.

  3. Stir in the sugar and spices until evenly distributed.

  4. In a smaller bowl, beat together the eggs, vinegar and milk. Stir this into the flour mixture until it forms a stiff dough.

  5. Knead for several minutes until smooth and roll out to 1/4 thick.

  6. Grease a baking pan. Cut the dough into rounds (or other shapes if you like) and lay them on the pan, leaving a bit of room in between (they puff up a bit, but not a lot). If you're adding raisins or other toppings, poke them into the top of the cakes, in a cross shape if you like. Prick cakes with fork.

  7. Bake for 20-25 minutes until very lightly browned on top.

  8. Sprinkle with powdered sugar while they are warm

 

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Beef marinade for fajita bowls

enough for 6-7 lbs of beef

Ingredients

  • 1 cup lime juice
  • 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1 head garlic, crushed
  • 2 Tbsp cumin
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 1 Tbsp paprika
  • 2 tsp hot pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 2 tsp pepper
  • 1 bunch cilantro, chopped

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Pour over beef, sliced or unsliced, and marinate several hours. If the meat is sliced, pan fry. If not, cook in a 350 oven, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I cook the meat in all the marinade and then use the excess as gravy.

 

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Instant Pot black beans

Ingredients

  • 2 tsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 6-8 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 16-oz cans black beans with liquid
  • 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 1 Tbsp cumin
  • 1-1/2 tsp salt
  • pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Put olive oil pot of Instant Pot. Press "saute" button. Add diced onion and minced garlic. Saute, stirring, for a few minutes until onion is soft. Press "cancel."

  2. Add beans with liquid. Add cumin, salt, and cilantro. Stir to combine. Close the lid, close the vent, and press "slow cook."

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White Lady From NH's Guacamole

Ingredients

  • 4 avocados
  • 1 medium tomato, diced
  • 1 medium jalapeno, minced
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped roughly
  • 1 Tbsp minced garlic
  • 2 limes juiced
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • salt and pepper
  • 1/2 red onion, diced

Instructions

  1. Peel avocados. Mash two and dice two. 

  2. Mix together with rest of ingredients and add seasonings.

  3. Cover tightly, as it becomes discolored quickly. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 263: Cardiologist’s delight

Let’s go! No tears! No tears! Where is your mask! Where are your shoes!!! Here’s what we ate this week, which was BACK-TO-SCHOOL WEEK: 

SATURDAY
Prosciutto sandwiches

Damien handled dinner while I took the kids shopping for school supplies on the absolute last possible day I could get away with it. I don’t remember if I actually ate some hemp gummies beforehand, or just planned to, but I’m here now, so I clearly survived somehow. 

My particular sandwich was a length of baguette with prosciutto, provolone, tomato, olive oil and vinegar, fresh pepper, and a schmear of red pesto. Yum yum. I wish I had one right now. 

Sometimes people ask us, “Simcha, Damien, your household seems to run so smoothly, and your children all seem so capable and well-rounded. What’s the secret to your success?” We always smile and gently explain that it’s simple: We invite our children to help us in the kitchen. This not only teaches them skills they’ll lean on for the rest of their lives, it keeps them invested in the immediate well-being of the family, and shows that their actions in the here and now truly are, in a very real way, who we are as a community. Here, for instance, is a tomato one of the children sliced up for dinner in a very real way:

Nice slicing, jerk. I’ll invest you in a very real way.

SUNDAY
Ape law

Clara and I were at the Green River Festival, as I mentioned.

Those are my migraine sunglasses. I know they look stupid but they’re the only frames that don’t squeeze my head. I had a falafel wrap for lunch from Ahli Baba’s Kabob Shop based in Burlington, VT (fresh and tasty, and the pita was top notch) and some kind of pork dumplings and coconut curry for dinner, but I paid cash so my bank statements aren’t reminding me who that vendor was. I also bought some peaches and cream ice pops from Crooked Stick Pops, and they tasted exactly like peaches and cream, so that was nice. 

I am not sure what the people at home had? Possibly grilled burgers and hot dogs. We call this “ape law,” which just means I’m not there and didn’t make any plans or buy any groceries, which just means Damien usually makes burgers and they watch SpongeBob or something. In order to get a really good Ape Law situation going, you have to be not exhausted, and we are all exhausted. 

MONDAY
BLTs

First day of school for college kids and Catholic high school. We had LEFTOVER BACON after supper, can you imagine? I truly just do not know how much food to buy anymore. 

Benny and Corrie made a back-to-school cake together, very cute.

They accidentally added three times too much water, then bulked it up with flour. They then gave this brand of cake mix low ratings because the texture is fine, but it’s kind of bland. And their mother officially has no opinion about that. 

TUESDAY
Vermonter sandwiches, broccoli, bacon-roasted corn on the cob

Orientation day for elementary and middle school charter school kids. This turned out to be a half day, but I somehow missed that detail, so what could have been a mere 3/4 of a day of driving around like an idiot turned into a full day of driving around like an idiot (because they were two different halves of the day and two different towns, but not the same town we live in). This is what people are referring to when they say some parents are just too lazy to homeschool their own children [skin falls off from sheer exhaustion].

Anyway, Vermonter sandwiches are: Roast chicken breast, bacon, sharp cheddar cheese, green apple, and honey mustard on sourdough or ciabatta. 

A good, hearty sandwich, and you can of course make everything ahead of time. If you rinse the apple slices in lemon or lime juice, they won’t go brown.

I also cut up a bunch of raw broccoli, and then forgot I had done so and thought we still needed a side, so I shucked a bunch of corn. I then got a brilliant if not precisely heart-healthy idea: I put the corn on a giant baking pan and poured a bunch of bacon grease and bits over it and rolled it around, and sprinkled it heavily with salt. I covered it loosely with tin foil and roasted it for several minutes until it was making a little noise. Then I uncovered it and let it brown up a bit, and turned it a bit and browned the other side. 

It was pretty fab! Not monstrously, earth-shatteringly wonderful, but it tasted special and crisp and savory, and it sure was easy. Definitely worth doing if you have bacon fat around, especially if you do not feel like heating up a giant pot of water, which I could go the whole rest of my life without feeling like. 

WEDNESDAY
Mexican beef bowls

First day of public high school and first full day of everyone in everything. I wanted to make a hearty and popular meal, but I bobbled it a little bit. I didn’t buy enough meat, and I cooked it too long, and I forgot to get corn chips or avocados, and I accidentally put basil-flavored tomatoes into the beans instead of chili tomatoes, and I burned the rice a bit. Come to think of it, everyone must have been absolutely starving, because I screwed that up pretty bad! Oh well. 

It’s a great marinade, though,

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and a good meal if you don’t screw it up. So we had rice, beef, corn, sweet peppers, cilantro, sour cream, beans and tomatoes, cheddar cheese, and limes. I didn’t get around to sautéing the peppers. I did use Taijin powder liberally, which always helps.

I cut the corn off the leftover corn on the cob and heated it up in a pan. Hey, I actually burned that, too. You know what, it was a very trying day, but everyone got fed. 

THURSDAY
Omelettes, sausages, cinnamon buns

I didn’t burn a single omelette, and even managed to do a fancy trifold on some of them, but the photos didn’t turn out great, so you’ll have to use your imagination. We just had your choice of cheddar cheese and ham, and the cinnamon buns were from a can. Everyone was happy. 

FRIDAY
Stuffed shells

Benny has been longing for this meal for weeks, but it’s been way too hot and steamy to even consider it, but I have to admit, today it’s chilly and foggy and perfectly fine for stuffed shells. I always think, “Just because school starts, that doesn’t mean we have to stop going to the beach and stuff! We can still have summer fun on weekends for a while!” but it seems like the temperature plummets the very moment the school year begins, and bam, it’s fall. Oh well. At least we have stuffed shells. I guess I have to heat up a big pot of water, though. 

My recipe isn’t spectacular, but it’s serviceable, and has nutmeg. Gonna shave up a ton of fresh parmesan, which makes a big difference, too. 

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Stuffed shells

Just a basic recipe. You can add meat to the sauce or spinach to the cheese, or anything that strikes your fancy. Serves about 10.

Ingredients

  • 2 12-oz boxes jumbo shells
  • 2 32-oz tubs ricotta cheese
  • 8 oz grated parmesan cheese
  • 4 cups shredded mozzarella, divided
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 1 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 2 Tbsp dried basil
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 4-5 cups pasta sauce

Instructions

  1. Cook the shells in salted water, drain, and rinse in cool water. Mix them up with olive oil so they don't stick together.

  2. Preheat the oven to 350. Mix into the ricotta cheese all the seasoning, the parmesan, and 3 of the cups of mozzarella.

  3. Spread a little sauce in the bottom of an oven-proof pan or dish. Stuff each shell with about 1/2-1/3 cup of cheese filling and lay the stuffed shells close together.

  4. Top with the rest of the pasta sauce, and sprinkled the remaining mozzarella on top of that. Cover loosely with foil and cook for 45 minutes or longer, until it's bubbly. 

 

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Beef marinade for fajita bowls

enough for 6-7 lbs of beef

Ingredients

  • 1 cup lime juice
  • 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1 head garlic, crushed
  • 2 Tbsp cumin
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 1 Tbsp paprika
  • 2 tsp hot pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 2 tsp pepper
  • 1 bunch cilantro, chopped

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Pour over beef, sliced or unsliced, and marinate several hours. If the meat is sliced, pan fry. If not, cook in a 350 oven, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I cook the meat in all the marinade and then use the excess as gravy.

What’s for supper? Vol. 260: In which I say tomatermorts

It’s been a while! We’re in a bit of a summer fun frenzy and going on a lot of day trips and side quests, so I’m busy and confused. There are only a few food photos on my phone and lots of zoo, planetarium, concert, birthday, swimming, yard project, and campfire photos (along with flat tire, dumb dog, flooded basement, calamitous kitchen, and ER parking lot photos). We also bought a used ice fishing house and Damien’s converting it into an office. More on that later, you bet.

I’ll just do highlights of the last few weeks’ suppers, to bring us up to speed. And you know, I’m pretty impressed at what yummy meals I made. My secret is that now I have more time and more money. And that’s my secret. 

Here’s what we had:

Buffalo chicken wraps

Another meal-turned salad-turned wrap, like the chicken caesar wrap of last edition. I cooked some frozen buffalo chicken tenders and served them on pita with tomatoes, lettuce, crunchy fried onions, and blue cheese dressing. I think there was also shredded pepper jack cheese. 

Not mind-blowing, but tasty, and a good addition to the rotation. 

Taquitos and cowboy caviar

Aldi’s chicken taquitos are really tasty. They include discernible bits of meat and the flavor is nice, and they get crisp in the oven. Plus they are called “Casa Mamita” which makes me laugh, because you have to say all their food names with a German accent. 

I made a big bowl of what’s apparently called “cowboy caviar,” which is one of those completely unnecessary cultural phenomena, like a Polaris Slingshot, or neufchatel cheese, or the state of Arizona. Cowboy caviar itself is delicious, but I’m talking about that name. They should have named it literally anything else. The zoo has an anteater named “Giacomo,” so that proves we have more freedom than we may realize. 

Anyway, I made it with  . . . well, I didn’t write it down, but squinting at this photo, it looks like tomatoes, avocado, green peppers, scallions, corn, black beans, and red onions. Probably cilantro. I think I made the dressing with white vine vinegar and olive oil, but I honestly don’t recall. There are tons of variations of this dish, so if you mooch around on Google, you’ll get the idea.

I skipped the chips and just had extra cowboy caviar. No ragrets.

I also tried not one but two TikTok recipes. I’m too old to be on actual TikTok, but I found websites that describe what may be found there, without any danger of having to see sassy nurses dancing and pointing to things. I went with the tomato feta pasta bake and the suggested cream cheese sausage balls.

The first was a win. It’s a very easy dish to make. You throw all your vegetables in a pan with a few seasonings and olive oil. As you can see, I added onions and basil. 

Then you chunk some feta and stuff on top and just bake it. People tell me the secret is to use the kind of feta that comes in brine, so it melts well.

It’s done when the tomatoes are squashy and the feta is toasty.

While that’s cooking, you make a big pot of pasta and then throw it all together and mix until the feta is a creamy sauce, and throw some lemon zest in there just for nice. 

I wish I had roasted it just a tiny bit longer to make those tomatoes really piping hot and collapsed, but it was very, very good. Tonys of melty flavor, very filling and pleasant. I might add the basil after cooking next time, so more of the flavor comes through. 

The little meatballs, made of sausage, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and bisquick, were easy enough to make (although it took a LONG time to get the ingredients blended), and they were fine.

but if something is going to taste, and be, that fatty, it really needs to be magnificent, and these were just fine. (To be fair, I didn’t make the suggested dipping sauce, so maybe that would have made a big difference.)  We only ate half, and I froze the rest so I’ll have a quick meal on hand, but I won’t bother making these again. The feta pasta was a hit, though. Very happy to have a new meatless meal, with tons of variations possible.

Chicken shawarma again!

Well met, old friend.

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I marinated the chicken overnight and just threw the onions on top of the meat before I cooked it. This is the way. 

Served with pita, garlicky yogurt sauce,

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feta, tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives. Still the tastiest low-skill meal around.

Mexican beef bowl

Actually, all the bowls were dirty, so we had Mexican beef plate. This is sounding less and less like an actual recipe, and more like one of those foods that can’t quite bring itself to be specific. I wish I could remember what I saw, but it was something like “chewy munch snacks” and it did not inspire confidence. But anyway, this is an actual recipe and quite a delicious one.

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The marinade is simple but excitingly tangy and rich. 

I served the marinated meat strips with rice, fried peppers and onions, a mixture of tomatoes and chili peppers and black beans, slightly charred corn, and cilantro, sour cream, and lime wedges. It was so much food I forgot to eat corn chips, which is saying something. 

Looks like I have one more photo: 
Chicken caprese sandwiches

Grilled sliced chicken on baguettes with tomatoes, fresh basil, and fresh mozzarella, with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and freshly-ground salt and pepper. If your stupid refrigerator freezes your cheese, you can defrost it gently by submerging the sealed package in warm water for a while. The vital part of this dish is the fake Pringles in a violent shade of orange. This is the way. 

***

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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
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 entire head garlic, crushed

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). 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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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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Beef marinade for fajita bowls

enough for 6-7 lbs of beef

Ingredients

  • 1 cup lime juice
  • 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1 head garlic, crushed
  • 2 Tbsp cumin
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 1 Tbsp paprika
  • 2 tsp hot pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 2 tsp pepper
  • 1 bunch cilantro, chopped

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Pour over beef, sliced or unsliced, and marinate several hours. If the meat is sliced, pan fry. If not, cook in a 350 oven, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I cook the meat in all the marinade and then use the excess as gravy.

What’s for supper? Vol. 251: Viva la vacuna!

Friday again! What do you know about that!

Before we go any further, feast/shield your eyes on this:

Clara made Moe a Frasier cookie cake for his birthday. AS ONE DOES. 

With extra cookies. 

SATURDAY

I think the people at home had burgers, but Lena and I went OUT for burgers, because it was her birthday (kindofalongtimeago) and we finally managed to go out (and ate outside, since Lena’s not fully vaccinated yet). We both had teriyaki burgers with pineapple. Not bad! The burger didn’t taste much different than normal, to be honest, but it was tasty. I guess I forgot to take a picture. There were a lot of distracting dogs going by. 

This being the world’s swankiest birthday celebration, after we ate, we went to the dollar store, and then we went to see the new Mortal Kombat movie (the theater was almost empty and we wore masks. doot-do-doo, normalizing continued caution, doot-do-doo). We LOVED the movie. It was so gleefully stupid.

Haha, I forgot about the part where the guy stabs the other guy with a knife made out of his own quick-frozen blood! Quite a few funny moments, some well-done fight choreography, and it had a kind of dumb-innocent sweetness. Of course it was insanely violent, because it’s Mortal Kombat, but if you’re okay with that and want to be cheered up, I recommend this movie. 

Oh, and we played a dinosaur shooting arcade game. Happy finally birthday, Lena!

Also, don’t tell anyone, but unless we’re in the throes of COVID-20 by then, we’re going to see Hadestown in November. !!!!!

SUNDAY
Shrimp skewers, steak, fresh bread, key lime pie

Mother’s day! We do have a lot of celebrations around here. My family has gotten pretty great at mother’s day. I was showered with thoughtful gifts, went to Mass, went for a run, spent most of the day gardening (well, mostly installing a new mailbox, which I did so boneheadedly that I don’t even want to remember it), and then Damien grilled up a feast, and we ate outside while looking at my new flowers. 

People always say “You deserve to be pampered!” and I always say “do not consider what we truly deserve” but anyway the shrimp and steak were wonderful, and so was the pie, which Clara made using this recipe

and I had a truly lovely day. 

MONDAY
Vemonter sandwiches

Always popular. Ciabatta rolls, a few thick slices of roast chicken, a thick slice of sharp cheddar cheese, bacon, green apple, and honey mustard. 

I had the brilliant idea to use the pineapple corer on the green apples, but I could only find one piece of it. So I used it anyway, which resulted in this Escher apple

and a slightly mangled hand. I continued using it for five more apples, because I’m the kind of person who keeps going “ouch!” but then sticking my hand in there again.  

TUESDAY
Pork bibimbap

It’s been too long for this champion of all bowl dinners. Someday I will have authentic bibimbap, but I’m pretty happy with the version we’ve come up with. Everyone gets bowl of rice, and you heap on meat with lots of sauce, various fresh and pickled vegetables and crunchy noodles, and slap a fried egg on top. The sauce seeps down, the egg yolk trickles down, you have layers and textures and all kinds of mingling of cool and spicy and savory and mellow, and it’s just scrumptious. Pure happy food. 

I had mine with sugar snap peas, baby pea shoots, crunchy noodles, plenty of spicy sauce (new recipe below), and sesame seeds. Normally, I’m opposed to sharing photos of half-eaten food, but look how beautifully the egg yolk made its way to the bottom and mingled with the rice: 

Every time I make this meal, I prowl about the world seeking a new recipe for the meat. This time I marinated it in a standard mixture of brown sugar, red pepper flakes, minced garlic, kosher salt, and pepper, seared it in oil, deglazed the pot with a little water, then put it in the slow cooker for 6 hours, and shredded it.

It was tasty, juicy and not too spicy for the kids. But the sauce I made with it was va va voom. Very spicy and warming. Here’s the recipe card:

Jump to Recipe

Oh, I suggest frying the eggs in oil, rather than butter, to give them a nice crisp, lacy edge.

WEDNESDAY
Pizza

Last week, Rebecca in the comments mentioned she made a pizza with artichokes, bacon, and blobs of pesto, and man, did that sound good, so Damien went and did likewise, plus sun dried tomatoes and some fresh parmesan shreds on top of the mozzarella.

He also made one with onion, feta, fresh garlic, and fresh parmesan, for a total of three cheeses, three cheeses! So good. And if you play your cards right, you can have three pieces of pizza and still come in at a calorie deficit for the day. WHICH I DID.

THURSDAY
Mexican beef bowls

A very fine meal. I didn’t go bananas with the toppings, as I sometimes do, with roast corn and corn chips and spicy beans and whatnot, but there was a big pot of rice, lots of well-marinated beef strips, sautéed peppers, cheese, sour cream, and cilantro. Here’s the recipe for this lovely piquant marinade:

Jump to Recipe

Here’s a beef bowl photo from ages past:

HOWEVER, Damien and I hit two full weeks after our second shot on the very day that the CDC announced that such people could do pretty much whatever they want! So we set dinner on the table for the kids, look’d at each other with a wild surmise—and went to the Winchester, I mean Chili’s.

Look, we really like Chili’s. It’s cheap, the food looks exactly like the pictures on the menu, the waitresses has no interest in forming a relationship with you, and this particular Chili’s boasts a beautiful view of part of Home Depot and a tree. I had grilled salmon, rice, and broccoli and kind of a lot of margaritas, went to lie down, got a little cussy on Twitter, watched the Sopranos, and went to bed. ¡Viva la vacuna!

FRIDAY
Spaghoot

Kids 12 and up are getting the first shots today! The older kids are getting their second ones next week. Full immunity by the beginning of summer vacation, you guys. Little by little, we’re getting there. 

 

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Spicy sauce for bibimbap, etc.

Drizzle this over any meat or dish that needs a bump in flavor. A little goes a long way! Adapted from the New York Times cooking section

Ingredients

  • 1 Tbsp olive oil
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 2 inches fresh ginger, grated or minced
  • 1/3 cup gochujang
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce
  • 2 Tbsp mirin (can substitute sweet red wine)
  • 2 Tbsp honey
  • 1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
  • 1 tsp fish sauce
  • 1 tsp sesame oil

Instructions

  1. Heat the olive oil and lightly sauté the garlic and ginger.

  2. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir to blend, and continue cooking at medium heat for several minutes until they are thickened.

 

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Beef marinade for fajita bowls

enough for 6-7 lbs of beef

Ingredients

  • 1 cup lime juice
  • 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1 head garlic, crushed
  • 2 Tbsp cumin
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 1 Tbsp paprika
  • 2 tsp hot pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 2 tsp pepper
  • 1 bunch cilantro, chopped

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Pour over beef, sliced or unsliced, and marinate several hours. If the meat is sliced, pan fry. If not, cook in a 350 oven, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I cook the meat in all the marinade and then use the excess as gravy.

What’s for supper? Vol. 247: In which beef is on sale

Yeesh, it’s been three weeks! Sorry about that. Slowly scrabbling my way back to normal. Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
BLTs and root beer floats

Saturday was Irene’s fake birthday. Her actual birthday was on Good Friday, and she has decided to postpone her friend party until she can have a beach party. So on her fake birthday on Saturday, we went mini golfing, where she (a) hit the ball completely across the highway (b) hit a baby with a ball and (c) got a hole in one and (d) still came in last. She liked her presents, though, and those parents definitely should not have left that baby sitting around so close. 

And it was warm enough outside for me to slink away and eat my dinner in the yard!

I mention this because today, in this same yard, there are about 4 inches of snow outside, and it’s still coming down. 

I won’t make the joke about how I brought this on by finally putting away all the mittens and boots and snow pants a few days ago, because everyone’s making that joke. Instead I will confess that it’s because I stabbed a man and buried him under the St. Joseph statue in the pansy garden. Sorry, it’s all my fault. In my defense, he was sharing that LifeSiteNews story about how Pfizer is halfway to genocide via “top up” shots. I did what I had to do.

SUNDAY
Banh mi with liver pâté (well, chopped liver)

By a strange twist of culinary fate, we now have a tradition of eating banh mi not too long after Easter, because we usually have leftover chopped liver from Passover. Chopped liver is what most people would call pâté, and it is rich and velvety smooth and pungently wonderful. We just call it “chopped liver” to keep the goyim away so we can have it all to ourselves. I made a recipe card just for you, though:

Jump to Recipe

But first you have to pass the test of knowing that it looks like this at a certain stage, and still deciding to make it:

Now for the banh mi! I usually make banh mi with pork,

Jump to Recipe

but beef shoulder continues to be $2.99 a pound, so that’s what I used. I also only had about half the amount of fish sauce I needed for the marinade, so I made up the difference with oyster sauce, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce; and I cut the sugar by about 1/3. Well, it tasted exactly the same. The strong flavors of fish sauce and garlic are so strong, that’s what came through. 

The beef was rather tough, sadly, but still tasted good. I served it on toasted baguettes with cucumbers, cilantro, your choice of mayo or sriracha mayo, jarred jalapeños, and quick-pickled shredded carrots. 

I also tweaked the pickled carrot recipe. Normally I just splash in some white vinegar, water, and dump in some sugar (yes, there’s a recipe, Jump to Recipe but I don’t always bother to look it up)  but this time I carefully measured out white vinegar and cider vinegar, honey, salt, and hot pepper flakes according to this recipe. You’ll never guess: It tasted exactly the same.

So either I’m some kind of naturally gifted master chef whose culinary improvisations are flawless, or else I just like food and don’t care much what it tastes like as long as I can gnarrrrrr. 

MONDAY
Chicken burgers, pasta salad

Chicken burgers were chicken burgers. But we had tons of leftover specialty foods in the house from various things, so it ended up as quite a nice pasta salad. I used a pasta called “casarecce,” which are sort of rolled-up little twists; and I added herb-infused olive oil, black olives, diced red onions, some bits of hard salami, sun-dried tomatoes, raw asparagus tips, and some smoked cheddar from a local farm.

Then I glopped in some jarred pesto, which probably drowned out the herbs in the olive oil, but it was delicious. I added the fixins while the pasta was still hot, so the smoked cheese melted a bit. I usually like a crumbly cheese like feta in a pasta salad, but this worked out very nicely. 

And I enjoyed the victory of not serving chips or fries, even if no one else did. I also happen to love raw asparagus. I think the taste comes through well, and they are crunchy but very light. Good stuff. 

TUESDAY
Chicken on salad with green apples and walnuts

We had tons of walnuts in the house from passover. I roasted up some chicken breasts with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and oregano, sliced it, and served it on salad greens with green apples, walnuts, feta cheese, and dried cranberries. An elegant meal, consumed elegantly in bed. 

I had a brief urge to make rolls or something, but it passed. 

WEDNESDAY
Hamburgers, veg and dip

Nothing to report. Oh, except some of the veg were sugar snap peas, and they are so good, and, get this, 35 calories for a whole cup. I’m super tired of being fat, so I’ve started counting calories, and am very grateful that I already like raw vegetables. If you give me any advice, though, I will stab you and bury you under the St. Joseph statue in the pansy garden. 

THURSDAY
Mexican beef bowls (formerly beef fajita bowls)

Just a fantastic meal. I think only one person in my family doesn’t like this meal, which is pretty darn good. The marinade is so rich and bright and tangy, I just love it. 

Jump to Recipe

The meat turned out wonderfully tender. Here is one of the more well-done hunks. The other ones were bigger and more rare.

I made a big pot of white rice and served it with strips of meat (I marinated and roasted the meat and then sliced it), fried peppers and onions, roasted corn, black beans and tomatoes with chili peppers, cilantro, sour cream, lime wedges, and corn chips. 

I could easily have skipped the rice and corn chips and still had a very filling, satisfying meal. I forgot to use the lime wedge because there is already tons of flavor in this meal. 

As you can see, these aren’t strictly bowls. All our bowls were dirty, so we used plates, so I accidentally helped myself to twice as much food, oops.

I also bought but forgot to use something from Aldi called “elote seasoning,” which is cumin, cayenne pepper, chili powder, and cheese in a little bottle. It goes on corn or whatever you like. The kids thought I was just kidding about people selling corn on the street, the rubes. 

FRIDAY
Mac and cheese

My mac and cheese recipe is just that you make a white sauce and throw in whatever cheese you have lying around, plus a little mustard and/or hot sauce. You don’t really taste it, but it gives the sauce some more depth. Mix with cooked macaroni, pour into a greased pan, and top with buttered panko crumbs, and bake at 350 until the sauce is bubbling and the top is lightly toasted.

Damien and I were actually planning to skip out on the kids and have pizza, but the heavy covering of snow is making outdoor dining less appealing. We shall see. 

Here’s the recipe cards for the week. 

Oh, wait, one more thing! I was browsing through a Julia Child book and she suggests an easy way to peel garlic: You cut the ends off the cloves and then dunk the whole head in boiling water for 30 seconds, then rinse it in cold water. The peels really do slide right off if you’ve completely detached the ends first. This is only worth the trouble if you need to peel an entire head of garlic, which I often do. I OFTEN DO. 

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Chopped liver (chicken liver pâté)

A very rich, pungent, velvety pâté made with cheap and humble ingredients. Spread it on crackers with a little horseradish, or add it to your banh mi. It freezes very well (but takes a while to defrost, as it is dense).

Ingredients

  • 2 to 2-1/2 lbs chicken livers, rinsed and trimmed
  • 3 eggs
  • 3 onions
  • 1 quart chicken broth
  • oil for frying the onion
  • salt and pepper

Instructions

  1. Put the livers, the raw eggs in their shells, and one onion into a pot with the chicken broth.

  2. Bring to a boil and then simmer, covered, for an hour. (This part looks very weird, but don't lose heart.) Drain off the broth and set aside the livers, onion, and eggs. When the eggs are cool enough to handle, peel them.

  3. Chop the other two onions. Set one aside and fry the other one in oil until crisp.

  4. Using a meat grinder or a food processor, grind up the livers, the boiled eggs, the boiled onion, the fried onion, and the raw onion.

  5. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and chill. It should be moist and spreadable. If it's too dry and crumbly, add a small amount of oil.

5 from 1 vote
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Pork banh mi

Ingredients

  • 5-6 lbs Pork loin
  • 1/2 cup fish sauce
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 minced onion
  • 1/2 head garlic, minced or crushed
  • 2 tsp pepper

Veggies and dressing

  • carrots
  • cucumbers
  • vinegar
  • sugar
  • cilantro
  • mayonnaise
  • Sriracha sauce

Instructions

  1. Slice the raw pork as thinly as you can. 

  2. Mix together the fish sauce ingredients and add the meat slices. Seal in a ziplock bag to marinate, as it is horrendously stinky. Marinate several hours or overnight. 

  3. Grill the meat over coals or on a pan under a hot broiler. 

  4. Toast a sliced baguette or other crusty bread. 

5 from 1 vote
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quick-pickled carrots and/or cucumbers for banh mi, bibimbap, ramen, tacos, etc.

An easy way to add tons of bright flavor and crunch to a meal. We pickle carrots and cucumbers most often, but you can also use radishes, red onions, daikon, or any firm vegetable. 

Ingredients

  • 6-7 medium carrots, peeled
  • 1 lb mini cucumbers (or 1 lg cucumber)

For the brine (make double if pickling both carrots and cukes)

  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 cup rice vinegar (other vinegars will also work; you'll just get a slightly different flavor)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 Tbsp kosher salt

Instructions

  1. Mix brine ingredients together until salt and sugar are dissolved. 

  2. Slice or julienne the vegetables. The thinner they are, the more flavor they pick up, but the more quickly they will go soft, so decide how soon you are going to eat them and cut accordingly!

    Add them to the brine so they are submerged.

  3. Cover and let sit for a few hours or overnight or longer. Refrigerate if you're going to leave them overnight or longer.

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Beef marinade for fajita bowls

enough for 6-7 lbs of beef

Ingredients

  • 1 cup lime juice
  • 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1 head garlic, crushed
  • 2 Tbsp cumin
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 1 Tbsp paprika
  • 2 tsp hot pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 2 tsp pepper
  • 1 bunch cilantro, chopped

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Pour over beef, sliced or unsliced, and marinate several hours. If the meat is sliced, pan fry. If not, cook in a 350 oven, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I cook the meat in all the marinade and then use the excess as gravy.

What’s for supper? Vol. 243: Teen Titans and other captivating compositions

Hi! Food! Here we go:

SATURDAY
Hot dogs, chips

I did buy hot dog buns, but not nearly enough. I’m new here and have no way of knowing how to shop for food. But of course you can turn a mediocre meal into something very different, with the right presentation. 

I’m tempted to enter this in Eva Kosmas Flores‘ #captivatingComposition challenge but she seems like a nice lady and I don’t want to upset her.

SUNDAY
Roast pork ribs, peas, pink risotto

Pretty good meal, but I ran out of white wine for the risotto and had to add some red, and I really just don’t prefer it that way. Can’t beat white wine, butter, and onions. Oh, I also used beef broth instead of chicken, because I couldn’t find my chicken bouillon cubes. Several years ago, I switched from using bouillon cubes to using a giant jar of powdered chicken bouillon. YEARS ago. But I hid this information from myself for some reason, and also somehow didn’t see the giant jar of powdered chicken bouillon I keep on the counter. So I was forced to use beef.

It’s a good recipe, when you follow it!

Jump to Recipe

 

The pork ribs, I just seasoned heavily with salt and pepper and shoved them under a hot broiler, turning once, and they always turn out juicy and nice. The hardest part is running over to turn off the smoke alarm when you turn the ribs over. The whole meal tasted better than it looks. We’re getting some more light these days, but still not enough to make food look good in the evening. 

MONDAY
Mexican beef bowls

Everybody’s favorite meal this week. I adore this meal. The marinade is only a few ingredients, and then you just have to roast the meat for 40 minutes or so, slice it up, and put in a little time prepping the other toppings — not really more work than prepping for tacos or something. 

 

Jump to Recipe

The only hitch was I only had three cups of rice; but I had picked up these silly taco shell boats (“Fiesta Flats“) on a whim, and was dubbed Mother Hero for my efforts. We had fried onions and sweet peppers, shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, plenty of cilantro, black beans + tomatoes and chili (one can of each, drained and dumped together), and some sweet corn charred in a pan with olive oil. And lime wedges and corn chips. 

This meat is so good, so tangy and savory. My current favorite thing to do to beef when it goes on sale. Whenever we make this meal, I scoop up plenty of the gravy and pour it over the whole thing. I firmly believe this is good for my heart and will enable me to live forever, a Gravy-filled Hero Mother forever.

TUESDAY
Nobody knows what we ate on Tuesday. I don’t have any pictures, so it probably wasn’t very good. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken caprese sandwiches, fries

A fine meal. I took some chicken breasts, drizzled them with olive oil, and heavily seasoned them with salt, garlic powder, and oregano and dried basil and rosemary, and roasted them, then sliced them thin. February tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, freshly ground sea salt and pepper. Toasted buns. Very nice.

We ate late because I had spent a good part of the day shopping for Corrie’s birthday party, putting her presents together, and baking a ridiculous cake, as you will see.

THURSDAY
Domino’s pizza

Corrie’s birthday! We’re still not having guests, so we made it as festive as possible with just us chickens, considering that several of us chickens had to work during the day.

She requested a Teen Titans cake, and drew this helpful diagram for me:

Sure, kid.
So I did what any loving mother would do: I begged one of my other kids to deal with it. I did bake a cake, and decorate it so it looked sort of like a sort of comic book city at night, sort of:

And then Clara made EXTRAORDINARY cookies of the Teen Titans. She printed pictures of the characters, cut them out, traced them in dough, cut the cookies out, and then I guess just freehanded in the design with icing.


Note, her decorating equipment consisted of plastic sandwich bags with a little hole cut in the corner.

The most amazing part was that she worked on them all day, and then when it was time to serve the cake, she didn’t even wince as we went ahead and ATE them. Two of them played wishbone with Beast Boy’s legs. 

So, Corrie loved her cake, loved her presents (well, except for the one she opened after waking up shortly after dawn, and it wasn’t exactly the way she expected, and she did not love that), loved the piñata Irene made for her, loved her Teen Titans decorations

and pretty much liked her party games. She had asked for a balloon shooting game with a stuffed animal for the big prize and then bad prizes for the rest of the prizes. It turns out that a combination of darkness and snow and a very old BB gun and balloons is . . . less than ideal.

The balloons wouldn’t pop! We had to bring the game inside and stab the balloons with a knife. Coincidentally, Corrie won the big prize, and everyone else got bad prizes, which included some seltzer and a can of tomato paste. 

Phew. That was some day. I honestly think it would have been easier and more relaxing to invite a bunch of kindergarteners over for a few hours. 

FRIDAY
Elijah’s mac and cheese

I had the brilliant idea to get the kids to pick a favorite meal and cook it for everyone during vacation week. But I didn’t shop until Tuesday, and then we had various things going on that confused me, and now vacation is just about over, and here it is Friday. So today, Elijah is going to make mac and cheese. 

I think we can squeeze some kid-made dinners out over the weekend, too. Irene is going to make stuffed shells, and Lucy is going to make breaded mozzarella sticks. Sophia earned some side eye by volunteering to make English muffin pizza, but dinner is dinner. Clara already earned her stripes with the Teen Titan cookies, and Lena was going to make the caprese chicken sandwiches but I forgot and made them myself by mistake.  Moe has been doing inventory at work and I didn’t have the heart to ask him to cook, too. 

Okay, that’s it for this week! Here’s some recipe cards for yez. And stay tuned, patrons, for a new podcast episode! This week Double Feature with the Fishers tackles Master and Commander and Appaloosa. 

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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. 

 

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Beef marinade for fajita bowls

enough for 6-7 lbs of beef

Ingredients

  • 1 cup lime juice
  • 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1 head garlic, crushed
  • 2 Tbsp cumin
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 1 Tbsp paprika
  • 2 tsp hot pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 2 tsp pepper
  • 1 bunch cilantro, chopped

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Pour over beef, sliced or unsliced, and marinate several hours. If the meat is sliced, pan fry. If not, cook in a 350 oven, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I cook the meat in all the marinade and then use the excess as gravy.

What’s for supper? Vol. 238: Will the real potato butt please stand up?

First, some important news. I don’t mean to be melodramatic, but this week, we all saw the dawn of a new era in America. It’s easy to sit around and hope for great things on a macro level, but it behooves us all to look around and see what changes we can make on a personal level. I’ve been thinking hard about the direction I want to go in, and after much prayer and reflection, I’m ready to announce the launching of a brand new project, and I truly hope you will all join me. It’s called Potatoes with butts, and you can follow it @PotatoesButts.What it is, is a twitter account that is just photos of potatoes with butts. I got the idea last week, when I saw this potato with a butt.

Here’s the thing, folks. This won’t work if I try to do it alone. My DMs are always open, and you can submit your photos of potatoes with butts and I will share them with mankind, and together we will do our part to make the world a little more full of photos of potatoes with butts. In these unprecedented times let us all work toward unity, and never allow ourselves to be cleft in two unless we are a potato with a butt. 

In other news, I am determined to be less of a potato butt on a personal level, so I started on my treadmill again, and I was passing the time by processing some food photo files. Here’s a little preview of what you’re in for this week:

That does sound tasty!

EDIT: I have unintentionally caused confusion with this joke. The screenshot above shows what autocorrect does to the names of my food photos when I’m on the treadmill and huffing and puffing too much to fix it while I upload them. If you wanted to, you could guess which of the following photos match up with irk chops, yffalo doh, hi ken plate, and Eminem inside chicken. I regret to inform you that “chickens vertical” is actually what I meant to type. I had a number of chicken photos, and in this particular one, well, they weren’t horizontal. 

Okay, here’s what we had this week:

SATURDAY
Spaghetti carbonara, french bread

Delightful as always, and low-skill (although cooking for a crowd does require you to keep your head). I used four pounds of bacon and 3-1/2 pounds of spaghetti, and 423 mashed ends of butter sticks, and a whole thing of parmesan cheese.

Jump to Recipe

Some day I’ll get a block of parmesan and grate it fresh into the carbonara, but even the jarred stuff makes a great meal.

I haven’t made fresh bread for a while, so I was a little nervous, but it turned out well, fragrant, light, and a little sweet.

Nice simple recipe, just flour, water, salt, yeast, sugar, oil. A little cornmeal for the pan and a little butter to run over the hot top. 

Jump to Recipe

This recipe makes four long, fat loaves. (I do not intend to start a Twitter account for loaves of french bread that look like something it’s not. Because it’s VULGAR, that’s why.) A couple of them split, as you can see, because I didn’t slash them deeply enough, but no one complained. If you’re not great with bread, this is a reliable recipe, as long as you give it plenty of time to rise (it takes two rises). 

SUNDAY
Ina Garten’s roast chicken with fennel and lemon, candied sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce

Now here is a tasty roast chicken. Damien volunteered to make the main course, and he followed Ina Garten’s recipe, which calls for stuffing the bird with lemons, garlic, and thyme, and roasting it atop a bed of fennel, onion, carrots.

Very, very juicy and tasty. The lemon, garlic, and thyme flavors really make themselves known in the meat, but it was the caramelized vegetables that really wowed me, especially the fennel. Must get more fennel into life.

This led to me browsing my way through Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Classic Cooking, so we shall see what fennel may come. 

And here, for the curious, is a picture of Eminem inside chicken:

I also opened up some cans of cranberry sauce, which turned out to be whole berry because I’m a monster; and I made some candied sweet potatoes. It’s a fine recipe

Jump to Recipe

but in retrospect, something less sweet would have been a better foil for the other two dishes. 

MONDAY
Hot dogs of many nations, cheezy weezies

Not even really hot dogs of many nations. I intended to serve Chicago-style hot dogs (mustard, tomatoes, pickles, pickle relish, onion, pickled peppers, and celery salt) and buffalo hot dogs (blue cheese, scallions, and hot sauce), but by the time dinner came, buffalo seemed adventurous enough. 

Ugh, I will be so glad when it’s finally light at dinnertime again. The lighting is killing me. You can see all the grime in my house, but everything looks so garish and dire. Oh well. 

TUESDAY
Oven fried pork chops, pink risotto, peas

I’m just over here exhausted with all my same old same old pork recipes, so I poked around a little and tried something different, yet decidedly un-exotic: Breaded fried pork chops.

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I was planning to just chunk them in the oven, but at the last minute I thought they really needed a little browning up first, so I fried them in oil just to cook the outside

and then baked them to make sure the meat was done. I thought they were great, if a little bit of a hassle (because I made 12).

Will make again, probably using boneless pork ribs. The breading could easily be made more spicy, but it had a good, balanced flavor, and the texture was perfect, crunchy and light, and the meat was juicy. My mother used to make pork chops often, and they looked and tasted like a mitten that had fallen in the slush by the bus stop and been run over repeatedly, so I feel pretty good about this.

I made my reliable Instant Pot risotto, which is so easy and always turns out creamy and lovely, especially when I’m generous with the butter and cheese. On this day I was a little low on cheese, so it was slightly less gooey than normal, but still very nice.

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It calls for chicken broth and white wine, but all I had was three half-empty bottles of rosé and merlot, so in they went. Predictably, this changed the flavor slightly, and the color dramatically. 

I definitely prefer white wine in this, but the kids thought pink risotto was amusing, and I cleared up some counter space, so overall a win. 

WEDNESDAY
Pork ramen

The last few times I made fancy ramen, it caused a lot of suffering, I mean really bad suffering, like really bad, because someone’s mother had made JUST RAMEN FOR SUPPER (and meat and vegetables and crunchy noodles and sprouts and sauces and eggs), and so there was a lot left over. So this time, I only made six packages of ramen. You will be surprised to hear that everyone was very excited about ramen for supper, because it’s SO GOOD, and they gobbled it up and howled for more. So Lena made some more, but by the time it was ready, everyone had left to go lie on their necks and listen to K-pop. 

Anyway, here’s my ramen.

I ha it with wilted spinach, scallions, accidentally hard boiled eggs, quick-pickled carrots, scallions, pea shoots, a little broccoli, and pork sautéed in sesame oil, then sliced and simmered in soy sauce. I usually put hot sauce on it, but I tried some sweet chili oil and it wasn’t great. The carrots and vegetables added enough sweetness. 

THURSDAY
Beef fajita bowls

I love this meal. I got the meat marinating first thing, using this very sharp, savory marinade

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I actually used lemon juice rather than lime, and didn’t really notice the difference. Then, close to dinner time, I was afraid there wasn’t enough meat, so I went out and bought more, so some of the meat only had an hour to marinate. 

Ladies and gentlemen, marinating is magic. I was too hungry to stop and take a picture, but the difference between the two hunks of meat was astounding. The acid in the lemon (or lime) juice and the Worcestershire sauce breaks down the connective tissue and makes it so tender and yielding, and really opens it up to receive the flavor. 

I made a big pot of rice in the Instant Pot, and I set out bowls of everything so people could build their dinner as they pleased. I chose, uh, everything: Rice, beef, some sweet corn slightly charred in oil, scallions, fried onions and sweet peppers, black beans with tomatoes and chili peppers, cheddar cheese, sour cream, and corn chips. Oh, and some Taijin chili lime powder.

I scooped up a bunch of the gravy and poured it over the bowl because I can’t get enough of that tangy, garlicky juice. So good. 

I really love this meal. Beef is my favorite meat by far, and this is one of my favorite things to do with it. 

FRIDAY
Fish tacos

I guess just tortillas, batter-fried fish from frozen, shredded cabbage, salsa, sour cream, limes, and avocados. This would be great with guacamole, or, even better, pico de gallo, but we always have it on Fridays when my ambition is so low.

Well, adios. Don’t forget to send me your potatoes with butts. DM my Twitter, or email it to simchafisher at gmail dot com, or message me through Facebook, or just throw it through my window as you drive by. 

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Spaghetti carbonara

An easy, delicious meal.

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs bacon
  • 3 lbs spaghetti
  • 1 to 1-1/2 sticks butter
  • 6 eggs, beaten
  • lots of pepper
  • 6-8 oz grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Fry the bacon until it is crisp. Drain and break it into pieces.

  2. Boil the spaghetti in salted water until al dente. If you like, add some bacon grease to the boiling water.

  3. Drain the spaghetti and return it to the pot. Add the butter, pieces of bacon, parmesan cheese, and pepper and mix it up until the butter is melted.

  4. Add the raw beaten egg and mix it quickly until the spaghetti is coated. Serve immediately.

 

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French bread

Makes four long loaves. You can make the dough in one batch in a standard-sized standing mixer bowl if you are careful!

I have a hard time getting the water temperature right for yeast. One thing to know is if your water is too cool, the yeast will proof eventually; it will just take longer. So if you're nervous, err on the side of coolness.

Ingredients

  • 4-1/2 cups warm water
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 Tbsp active dry yeast
  • 5 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup olive or canola oil
  • 10-12 cups flour
  • butter for greasing the pan (can also use parchment paper) and for running over the hot bread (optional)
  • corn meal for sprinkling on pan (optional)

Instructions

  1. In the bowl of a standing mixer, put the warm water, and mix in the sugar and yeast until dissolved. Let stand at least five minutes until it foams a bit. If the water is too cool, it's okay; it will just take longer.

  2. Fit on the dough hook and add the salt, oil, and six of the cups of flour. Add the flour gradually, so it doesn't spurt all over the place. Mix and low and then medium speed. Gradually add more flour, one cup at a time, until the dough is smooth and comes away from the side of the bowl as you mix. It should be tender but not sticky.

  3. Lightly grease a bowl and put the dough ball in it. Cover with a damp towel or lightly cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for about an hour, until it's about double in size.

  4. Flour a working surface. Divide the dough into four balls. Taking one at a time, roll, pat, and/or stretch it out until it's a rough rectangle about 9x13" (a little bigger than a piece of looseleaf paper).

  5. Roll the long side of the dough up into a long cylinder and pinch the seam shut, and pinch the ends, so it stays rolled up. It doesn't have to be super tight, but you don't want a ton of air trapped in it.

  6. Butter some large pans. Sprinkle them with cornmeal if you like. You can also line them with parchment paper. Lay the loaves on the pans.

  7. Cover them with damp cloths or plastic wrap again and set to rise in a warm place again, until they come close to double in size. Preheat the oven to 375.

  8. Give each loaf several deep, diagonal slashes with a sharp knife. This will allow the loaves to rise without exploding. Put the pans in the oven and throw some ice cubes in the bottom of the oven, or spray some water in with a mister, and close the oven quickly, to give the bread a nice crust.

  9. Bake 25 minutes or more until the crust is golden. One pan may need to bake a few minutes longer.

  10. Run some butter over the crust of the hot bread if you like, to make it shiny and even yummier.

5 from 3 votes
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Candied sweet potatoes

Easy and pleasant. Please do not top with marshmallows, as that is an abomination.

Ingredients

  • 3-4 lbs sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks. Canned is fine, although they will be slightly mushier.
  • 6 Tbsp butter, melted
  • 2/3 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400. Grease a baking dish.

  2. Combine the sugar, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg. Add the melted butter and stir to make a paste.

  3. If you're using canned sweet potatoes, drain them. Spread the potatoes in the dish and distribute the butter-sugar mixture evenly over them. Use a spoon or spatula to toss the potatoes so they are coated with the mixture.

  4. Cook for 30-40 minutes. If you're using fresh potatoes, stir every 15 minutes to keep the sauce distributed well. If you're using canned, let it be, so they don't turn into mush.

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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. 

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Beef marinade for fajita bowls

enough for 6-7 lbs of beef

Ingredients

  • 1 cup lime juice
  • 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1 head garlic, crushed
  • 2 Tbsp cumin
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 1 Tbsp paprika
  • 2 tsp hot pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 2 tsp pepper
  • 1 bunch cilantro, chopped

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Pour over beef, sliced or unsliced, and marinate several hours. If the meat is sliced, pan fry. If not, cook in a 350 oven, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I cook the meat in all the marinade and then use the excess as gravy.

What’s for supper? Vol. 234: In which I discover how to make rugelach without burnt bottoms!

Raise your hand if you’ve been falling asleep on the couch every night. Not that hand, you’re still holding a glass of wine! Oh well, those were old pants anyway.

Before we go any further, here is some Creedence, with Keep On Chooglin’. 

Good for any old time, but especially when you have set yourself up to make 160 little rugelach and every time someone comes into the kitchen, they comment that you just keep on rugelin’, which is true.

Here’s what else we ate this week: 

SATURDAY
Loaded baked potatoes, onion soup

I made this meal mainly so I could stop wondering how this meal would go over, even though I knew the answer would be: Okay. I baked a bunch of giant potatoes and set them out with bacon, sour cream, french onion dip, chili, cheese, scallions, and I forget what else. And I made a pot of onion soup just so they couldn’t say I only fed them potatoes for supper. 

I honestly believe this was just as filling and interesting as any meal I make, but some people just couldn’t get past the mental roadblock of having a side dish as a main dish. So now I can cross that off my “how to be a monster” list, and get back to serving real meals of meat and potato, rather than fake meals of potato and meat. 

They didn’t really complain, but they definitely pondered and discussed for longer than absolutely necessary. Some people don’t remember when the dinner we could afford was oatmeal soup, and it shows! Come to think of it, I don’t really have a problem with that.

Here is my basic onion soup recipe. 

Jump to Recipe

I made it in the Instant Pot just to keep it out of the way, which is legitimately handy sometimes, but there was no other advantage to using the IP instead of the stove to caramelize onions, despite what lies people may tell. You have to let the pot come to pressure, then cook the onions, then release the pressure, and then finish them up on sauté anyway, so it takes exactly as long. I guess there is a little less stirring, but it definitely isn’t a time saver.

SUNDAY
Beef fajita bowls

Last time I made this dish, I went on autopilot and accidentally cut up the meal before marinating it, and then pan fried it. That was very tasty, but this time, I marinated the roasts whole, and oven roasted them (350 for about 40 minutes) and then sliced them up.

(Sorry, I know it’s Friday.)

A vast improvement to an already delicious dish. My goodness, it was so tender and juicy and flavorful. This is a really tangy, savory marinade.

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I had mine with rice, meat, guacamole, beans and tomatoes with chili peppers, cilantro, sour cream, fresh lime, and corn chips, and I scooped up some of the sauce from the meat pan and gave everything an extra little gravy baptism, mmmmm hmmmmm.

Somehow I’ve gone most of my life without using Worcestershire sauce, and I did not associate it with Mexican food at all, probably because of the. name. When you live in rural NH, you have to figure these things out the hard way (by reading recipes on the internet). Well, I’m a big fan now! Not quite up to putting it on my pizza, but a fan nonetheless. 

The guacamole was definitely B grade guacamole. Canned tomatoes, garlic powder instead of fresh, canned jalapeños instead of fresh, and the avocados were overripe, so I had to mash them pretty hard, rather than leaving some nice chunks. Here’s my recipe for decent guac:

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MONDAY
Hot dogs, chips, beans

Monday was shopping day, so we needed something fast and easy. I used to buy cheapo hot dogs and then a few Hebrew National or something yummier for people who cared. Then I discovered people who care prefer natural casing hot dogs to Hebrew National, so I bought a few of those. Then more people started caring, so I started buying more natural casing hot dogs. But I had it in my head that there needed to be an alternative hot dog, so now I buy a big box of natural casing hot dogs plus a small package of terrible cheap weenies. A few people asked me why, and I had to admit that I did not know. 

TUESDAY
Ravioli, chocolate strawberries

Tuesday was Benny’s birthday. We’re having an at-home party on Saturday, but she really wanted to do some special stuff on the actual day, so she chose dinner (frozen ravioli, can do) and we made chocolate-dipped strawberries. Actually I made one, and then I left the room. This is generally the best way to ensure the kids have a fun kitchen experience. 

She opened one of her presents, Moe made her french toast, and then we played hooky from virtual school and got Wendy’s for lunch, which we attempted to eat on the bridge by the waterfall

but it turned out it’s December, so we finished our meal in the heated car. Which is where I found out that she thought a Baconator was pronounced “buh-CON-ah-torr,” like “matador,” so that was a little present for me, too.  

Then we went to Walmart and bought a new zipper pull for her jacket and a Mickey Mouse balloon, and then Dora stopped by the house with a present of a stack of books she liked when she was that age. Benny ended up having a wonderful day, because she is a wonderful kid.

WEDNESDAY
Chicken thighs with chickpeas

This is one of my favorite meals. I got up and got the chicken thighs marinating in the yogurt marinade pretty early, and also got the yogurt dipping sauce and the onion salad made; so when it was time to eat, all I had to do was open a bunch of cans of chickpeas and throw it all on a pan to cook. 

If you like shawarma, you will probably like this meal. If you like crispy, toothsome chicken skin, you will adore this meal. 

We had plenty of pita bread and I was so happy, tearing off bits and dunking it in the yogurt sauce and scooping up a little bright, lemony red onion and cilantro. The chicken just falls off the bone, and the salty chickpeas are a little chompy on the outside and tender and mealy on the inside. So good. The yogurt sauce came out so garlicky, my breath was glowing in the dark.

THURSDAY
Salad with chicken

Bit of a lackluster meal. I was planning a hearty, harvest-y salad, like this one, maybe with candied yams on the side, but I ended up just roasting some chicken breast and serving it on greens with dried cranberries and crumbled goat cheese. Oh, I did make a big batch of croutons from our vast collection of stale rolls and hot dog buns.

I didn’t even end up eating dinner, because I got caught up in a sudden baking frenzy. I made rum balls and, because it was the first night of Chanukah, three kinds of rugelach. 

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 (this is an updated recipe card, with step by step pictures, simplified and improved from the previous version I’ve shared)

Let me tell you about rugelach. To me, they taste normal and cozy when the bottoms are absolutely burnt to hell, like this:

This is because, no matter how thinly you spread the filling on the dough, it oozes out, pools around the pastry, and then burns. Normal, but so frustrating. 

WELL.

I always say I hate baking, but really what I hate is feeling stupid, and baking almost always makes me feel stupid. But this one time, I felt smart! I made a big batch of rugelach dough, enough for eight batches, and I kept on experimenting until I figured out how to get golden brown rugelach without a burned bottom.

 You line a pan with parchment paper to contain the mess, but you put a baking rack on top of that, spray it with cooking spray, and bake the rugelach on the rack, and then the filling still oozes out, but it oozes onto the parchment paper below

leaving your rugelach unburnt!

Then you move the rugelach off the rack onto a lined tray as soon as they come out of the oven. If you wait, they will just cement themselves to the rack, and they won’t burn, but the bottoms will get torn up. I find a butter knife is the best tool for this job, and you will absolutely burn your fingers, oh well. 

I made three kinds: Apricot walnut (my favorite)

blueberry, which for some reason doesn’t brown up as much,

and Nutella.

Lovely. This recipe is labor intensive, but requires very little skill. The dough comes out light and tender, but it’s much, much easier than pie crust or other kinds of pastry dough. It holds together very well and doesn’t need a light touch. It’s just butter, cream cheese, and flour, and then you roll it in tons of sugar. Spread your filling on, cut it in triangles, roll them up, and bake, doop! Here’s the recipe again:

Jump to Recipe

Some fruit fillings ooze more than others, but you won’t really know until you try them. I really love rugelach. They are so cute and nice, and they freeze well, too, so you can make a bunch and give them out as gifts. 

Oh, the rum balls, I made using this recipe, but I used chocolate wafers rather than vanilla ones, because that’s what they had at Aldi. I can’t taste them because migraine, but the kids said they were good. I made some rolled in powdered sugar and some rolled in little candy balls. Wishing I had done some in finely-chopped nuts, but I have no idea where I put the nuts.

FRIDAY
Pizza

And don’t you forget it! I got some olives and artichoke hearts and we’ll just have to see what’s nessa. 

Okay, here are the recipe cards!  We made it through another week, and good for us. 

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Simple French onion soup

Serve with a piece of toasted baguette at the bottom of each bowl. Finish with cheese on top.

Ingredients

  • 4 Tbsp butter
  • 4 cups onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 Tbsp flour
  • 1 tsp white sugar
  • 4-6 cups beef broth (can also use chicken broth or a combination of water and white wine)
  • pepper
  • parmesan or mozzarella cheese

Instructions

  1. In a heavy pot, melt the butter and then add the onions. Cook very slowly over a low heat for about an hour, stirring occasionally, until the onions are very soft and somewhat darkened.

  2. Stir in the sugar until dissolved. Stir in the flour and mix to coat.

  3. Add the broth (or water and wine). Add pepper to taste and simmer for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer.

  4. Serve with a hunk of toasted bread in the bottom of each bowl. Sprinkle cheese on top, and if you have oven-safe dishes, brown under the broiler to form a skin on top of the soup.

 

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Beef marinade for fajita bowls

enough for 6-7 lbs of beef

Ingredients

  • 1 cup lime juice
  • 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1 head garlic, crushed
  • 2 Tbsp cumin
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 1 Tbsp paprika
  • 2 tsp hot pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 2 tsp pepper
  • 1 bunch cilantro, chopped

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Pour over beef, sliced or unsliced, and marinate several hours. If the meat is sliced, pan fry. If not, cook in a 350 oven, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I cook the meat in all the marinade and then use the excess as gravy.

 

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White Lady From NH's Guacamole

Ingredients

  • 4 avocados
  • 1 medium tomato, diced
  • 1 medium jalapeno, minced
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped roughly
  • 1 Tbsp minced garlic
  • 2 limes juiced
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • salt and pepper
  • 1/2 red onion, diced

Instructions

  1. Peel avocados. Mash two and dice two. 

  2. Mix together with rest of ingredients and add seasonings.

  3. Cover tightly, as it becomes discolored quickly. 

 

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chocolate-dipped strawberries (or chocolate-dipped anything)

Basic chocolate dip for just about anything. The shortening makes it smoother and helps it harden into a shell, rather than remaining gooey. Do not use Aldi chocolate chips! They melt very badly. Also be sure to dry strawberries thoroughly, or the chocolate won't adhere well.

Ingredients

  • 1 lb strawberries, washed and dried thoroughly
  • 12 oz chocolate chips
  • 2 Tbsp shortening

Instructions

  1. In the microwave or the top pot of a double boiler, heat the chocolate chips and shortening until they are melted, stirring frequently until the mixture is smooth.

  2. Grasping the strawberries by the leaves, dip them in the melted chocolate and shake them gently to get excess chocolate off.

  3. Lay them on a tray covered with wax paper or parchment paper and let them harden in a cool spot for an hour. If you leave them in the refrigerator for more than a day, the chocolate will begin to separate slightly from the strawberry.

 

5 from 1 vote
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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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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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Rugelach

These are tender little pastries for Chanukah or any time. Use whatever kind of filling you like: Jams, preserves, cinnamon sugar, nutella, etc. These are time consuming, but don't take much skill, and they freeze well, so they make pretty little gifts.

Servings 80 rugelach

Ingredients

dough

  • half pound butter
  • 8 oz cream cheese
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 cup or more sugar, for rolling

filling

  • 1/4-1/2 cup preserves or other filling
  • 1/4-1/2 cup finely chopped nuts (optional)

Instructions

  1. In a food processor, combine the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Slowly add in the flour and keep mixing until smooth. You can do this by hand, but it will take a while! The dough should be fairly stiff and not sticky when it's done.

  2. Divide the dough into 8 balls. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.

  3. Preheat the oven to 400.

  4. Prepare a pan by lining it with parchment paper, then spraying a baking rack and putting the rack on the parchment paper. Line a second pan with parchment paper, to which you will remove the rugelach when they come out of the oven.

  5. Use the sugar to cover your work space, and use a rolling pin to roll a ball of dough into a round shape the size of a large plate. It should be thin enough to flap a bit when you give it a shake. If your rolling pin sticks, sprinkle more sugar on. You can turn the dough over to make sure both sides get sugared. It doesn't have to be perfectly round, as it will be cut into pieces.

  6. Spread the jam or other filling over the dough, leaving an open space in the middle. If you're adding nuts, sprinkle them over the filling.

  7. Using a pizza cutter, cut the dough into 16-20 triangles.

  8. Roll each triangle up from the outside in. Place each rolled rugelach on the sprayed baking rack on the pan, with the skinny point down. They puff up a bit, so leave the space of one rugelach in between.

  9. Repeat for each ball of dough.

  10. Bake for ten minutes. If the dough isn't golden brown, give it another two minutes. These go from perfect to burnt very quickly, so be alert.

  11. When they bake, the filling will ooze out and pool and burn on the parchment paper, but the rugelach will not burn.

  12. When the rugelach come out of the oven, immediately use a butter knife to transfer them to another pan or rack to cool.

  13. Once they are cool, they can be wrapped in plastic and kept in the freezer for weeks without harm.

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 231: Beef fajita bowls! Harvest chicken salad! Improved Instant Pot risotto! and endless pizza

How much pizza did we consume this week? All de pizza! Starting with Aldi pizza, ho ho ho.

SATURDAY
Aldi pizza

Like I said. 

SUNDAY
Pork chops, risotto

I was still feeling pretty punk on Sunday (health report: I do not have covid or pneumonia. I have Nonspecific Virus That Takes Forever to Recover From, plus massive reflux causing shortness of breath and chest pain, plus fluid in my ears), so I spent nine and a half hours trying to order food from Instacart. First they delivered it to the wrong house, but never texted me, so the food sat there for hours before I realized what had happened. Then they told me they could simply reorder the food, and I’d have it in two hours. Three hours later, they said: Oops, actually we don’t have any shoppers, but we can totally get it to you sometime tomorrow.

So I cancelled the second order, and they handsomely promised to refund my money within five days. BOO. This is my first bad Instacart experience. So I got to spend all day on Sunday shopping but not getting food, and then also go shopping on Monday. 

Luckily, we had pork chops and rice in the house (because when I say I don’t feel up to shopping, I mean I only feel up to going to two stores, not three), so I made this rather lackluster meal of broiled pork chops and Instant Pot risotto with Random Cucumbers. I think the dirty countertop really sells it. 

The yellow is duck sauce, which helped a bit. The fancy plate is because all the other plates were dirty.

The risotto actually turned out great, pretty darn close to laborious stovetop risotto. I increased the cook time by a minute, and it came wonderfully creamy. I also sautéed the rice in olive oil and then added extra butter along with the broth and wine, and that did not hurt one bit. 

Jump to Recipe

 

MONDAY
Harvest chicken salad

Monday we had a sort of Thanksgiving Lite Preview: Salad topped with pieces of roast chicken, dried cranberries, green apples, toasted pecans, blue cheese, and a balsamic fig dressing. It was so tasty and harvest-y. Bringing in the sheaves and whatnot.

Then I was struck with sudden pangs of guilt because I was serving my family “just salad” (even though you can barely see any green struggling away under the load of toppings). I happened to have a dozen graham cracker pie shells I bought on a whim a few weeks ago, and a can of pumpkin puree with a recipe on the label, and some heavy cream, so I made these cute little pies to serve along with dinner.

The kids were delighted. Yes, I will buy their love with pie. 

TUESDAY
Hot dogs, chips

Not even the good kind of hot dog! *shakes fist at Instacart*

WEDNESDAY
Fajita beef bowls

I hereby announce, proclaim, declare, set forth, and otherwise shriek that I know “fajita” originally referred to a certain cut of steak, and then began to mean grilled strips of meat served on a tortilla. So you will see that, because there is neither skirt steak nor tortillas in this dish, it doesn’t really makes sense to call these “fajita bowls.” But I don’t know what else to call them. Texmexibowls. Spicy bois. You see my problem. So let’s just pull together in these troubled times and not be pedantic, all right? It was good food, so there.

They had these hunks of beef, maybe like a chuck roast or something, on sale. I cut them up into strips, marinated it for several hours, and then pan fried it. Here’s the marinade, with lime juice, Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, fresh garlic, cumin, salt and pepper, paprika, chili powder, and fresh cilantro:

Jump to Recipe

Then I made a big pot of Instant Pot rice, and set it out with the meat and a bunch of toppings: Corn I sautéed in oil to give it a little char, fried onions, black beans with tomatoes and diced chili peppers; fresh cilantro, sour cream, limes, and corn chips. 

It was a hit! It definitely would have been nice to have some avocados or guacamole, pico de gallo, or fried peppers, but everyone liked at least some part of this meal. Some of the kids had rice and corn chips for supper, and I don’t care.

Very happy to have another option for when beef is cheap, but not so cheap we can all have steak. If there is a nicer cut of beef to be had, I may marinate it whole and then grill it, and slice it afterward; but the slice-marinate-panfry method was not a bad option. 

THURSDAY
Pizza

I did ask the kids if it was going to be okay to have pizza on the menu twice, especially since most of them get pizza for lunch on Fridays. They all said it was okay. 

They didn’t have pepperoni in either store, for some reason, so I made one cheese, two black olive, one sausage, one red onion, basil, garlic, and ricotta, and one black olive, basil, sausage, garlic, and ricotta. I top them all with oregano and garlic powder. I sometimes put parmesan on top of that, but I forgot. 

I am liking the results of using no more than about a tablespoon of ricotta in dollops all over the pizza, with red pepper flakes baked in. 

So nice. 

FRIDAY
Ginger scallion noodles

I don’t even have a recipe for this yet, but I plucked the idea off the internet airwaves, so I’m sure I’ll find something good. I definitely have some linguine and fresh ginger in the house, and so many little cups of sprouting scallions on the windowsills, so that sounds like a recipe, right? 

And the kids are eating pizza for lunch as we speak. It’s okay with me. 

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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. 

 

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Beef marinade for fajita bowls

enough for 6-7 lbs of beef

Ingredients

  • 1 cup lime juice
  • 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1 head garlic, crushed
  • 2 Tbsp cumin
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 1 Tbsp paprika
  • 2 tsp hot pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 2 tsp pepper
  • 1 bunch cilantro, chopped

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Pour over beef, sliced or unsliced, and marinate several hours. If the meat is sliced, pan fry. If not, cook in a 350 oven, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I cook the meat in all the marinade and then use the excess as gravy.