ground pork – SIMCHA FISHER

What’s for supper? Vol. 468: In which we feel the (freezer) burn

Happy Friday! The world hasn’t ended yet, so let’s talk about food.

This week we found ourselves in a bit of an Oops No Money situation, so I cleaned out the freezer and built my menu around what I found, which is good practice anyway, from time to time. It was a little weird, and the predominant flavor of the week was “freezer,” but it was not terrible overall, and I’m happy to have more space in my freezer!

Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY
Leftovers, Hot Pockets

On Friday, I had gone to try to pick up a free clothesline set-up someone was giving away. I’ve been wanting a new clothesline situation for a while! I love hanging up clothes to dry in the warm weather, but I’m a little fed up with my current set-up, which is rope stretched from the swing set to the apple tree, with involvement by the grill. So that Fresh Linen scent always had a faint undertones of Old Hamburger.

Here is the one I was picking up.

Nice, right? I’m going to set it up in the spot way off to the side of the yard, where we used to have a garden. That was back when we had a bunch of little kids, and my main priority was keeping the main yard clear so they could run. That spot has since returned to weeds and brambles, but a good mowing should clear it fine.

I brought some lubricant spray and a set of socket wrenches, but was not able to get it taken apart, except for sawing the wood base off. So I sprayed the joints again and promised to be back the next day.

On Saturday, I went shopping and then went back for the clothesline, with an obliging Damien, who brought more tools. He couldn’t get it apart, either, but realized it would actually fit on top of the car, if’n we don’t drive too fast. So that is what we did. Yay!

SUNDAY
Hamburgers, chips, peas

Sunday a bunch of us were coughing too much to go to Mass, so I slept in, and then tragically dragged myself over to the Area of Broken Dreams, I Mean Glass. Spent a couple hours vacuuming. Got glass in my hands and feet. Eventually decided the ground was glass-free enough for the likes of us, and turned my attention to the remaining blackberry canes between the patio and the house. I did something I rarely do: I used Round Up. It was a sunny, breezy day, and I kept it far away from anything we or the animals might eat, and it was very satisfying! Sometimes you just have to get the jug of poison out.

I also managed to lose my phone pretty early on in the day. I am a shameful phone addict, and it was very disconcerting! Everybody was looking everywhere, and we just could not find the thing, which was crazy because I hadn’t gone anywhere, except trotting back and forth and back and forth in the yard. I knew the ringer was on because I had been listening to music. The screen is pretty badly cracked, so by the time I went to bed, I assumed that even if I eventually found it, it would be a goner.

But I had a really nice afternoon because Elijah came over, and he sat and chatted with me while I murdered blackberries. It’s awfully nice when your big kids come back and chat.

MONDAY
Fish or shrimp tacos, chips and salsa

Monday morning I made one last futile search for my phone, and, just so I could say I looked everywhere, I ripped open up a bag of wet dirt and broken glass. It was, of course, not in there.

Then I dragged that out and ripped open a second bag of wet dirt and broken glass underneath the first one, and . . . there was my phone. AND IT STILL TURNED ON. It’s not even in a case! I am very impressed.

It was April vacation this week for most of the kids, so after I got some work done in the morning, Benny and Corrie and I went to the park. This is a lovely park with a playground, and also big rocks to scramble around on, a fishy pond to look at, and, to my sorrow, a big hill with an intriguing area at the top.

So we went up the hill and got a neat view of the town, and discovered there is some kind of secret grassy amphitheater situation up there. I had no idea! We goofed around a bit and took turns trying to roll a tire all the way down and up again without it tipping over. I’m describing this because these world-weary children, alas, will not let me share pictures of them anymore. But we had fun, and it was sunny and lovely, very late April.

Came home and made some guacamole, heated up some venerable frozen fish, and then I sauteed some rather elderly frozen shrimp. I guess I minced up some garlic and sauteed that, then added the shrimp and I’m guessing lemon juice, salt, hot pepper flakes, and it looks like some cilantro.

I don’t remember, but it was tasty.

I had mine with shredded cabbage, more cilantro, guacamole, and lime juice. I really love shrimp tacos. Yum yum.

Then Damien got the glass out of my foot, phew. The number of things he has gotten out of my foot, my word.

TUESDAY
Pork empanadas, cassava fries, rice

Tuesday we had an appointment in the morning, and we were running late because I had to take a phone call just as we were leaving. Then my car wouldn’t start! This stuck in my craw a bit because we had just gotten it back from the garage, where we had dropped $840. It’s just sad, that’s all. Oh well. Oh well! oh well.

I was already fretting a bit because the upshot of the phone call was that a big story I’ve been working on fell through. Blah. But I had to go, so I took Damien’s car, and when I got home, I moped a bit, and went down to the stream to see what I could find. The water is low, and there’s all kind of interesting stuff lodged in the banks.

I have a growing collection of porcelain and interesting glass, and absolutely no plans for it. I just like collecting it. Check this thing out:

I don’t know what it is, but it’s clutching a marble!

Then I prepped supper. First I started thawing the frozen cassava, then I cooked up some ground pork for empanadas.

I myself would have gone for a version with olives and capers, but I was hoping to not be the only one in the family who ate supper, so I stuck with a more tame version. I kinda based the seasoning off this recipe, but I didn’t have everything, so I just wung it. I rolled out each dough disc a bit, added a couple of spoonfuls of seasoned meat and a little shredded mozzarella (because that is what we had! Don’t @ me!)

wet the edge of the dough and crimped it shut. I made 18. Then I cut up the thawed cassava into fries and rolled them up in a towel to get them really dry.

I was feeling a little argy bargy about various things, so it seemed like a good time to throw together a new garden bed. This is a spot that gets a good amount of sun, but I’ve never tried to grow anything here before, and I really didn’t feel like digging. So I decided it would be a hugelkulturish garden. I lugged over a bunch of fallen trees and scrap wood for a border, then laid down some cardboard on the weediest spots and piled on some old logs and branches

then a bunch of dry stalks from last year’s sunflowers, and then I cleaned out the duck house. We have been doing the deep litter method over the winter, which basically means you just keep adding fresh layers without cleaning out the old ones, and then clear it all out a few times a year. So let me tell you, the smell was SPECTACULAR.

So I heaped all that shit up on top of the other material, and I think if I dump a little soil on top, I should be able to grow something here.

My original plan was to plant corn there, but I think that will need a more stable base to support tall corn stalks, so I will probably do pumpkins instead, or something else that doesn’t mind lying down.

I couldn’t quite bring myself to take a shower before deep frying, so I just changed my clothes and washed my arms real good, and starting deep frying the empanadas. They did turn out crisp, flaky, and yummy,

and the cheese inside was melted. They did end up tasting unexpectedly Italian. Disconcertingly similar to Hot Pockets, really. But I thought they were pretty good. I served them, and then used the same hot oil to fry all the cassava.

I have never eaten cassava, don’t know how to prepare it, and don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like. I still don’t! These cassava fries were . . . fine. They tasted somewhere between potatoes and, I don’t know, zucchini. Very fibrous and starchy, without much flavor. I salted them when they came out of the pan, but the salt just kind of bounced off. I ate it because I had gone to the effort to make it, but I think my relationship with cassava ends here.

Anyway, it was definitely hot food, and I sure was hungry.

Then I took a shower! Phew.

WEDNESDAY
Penne with meat sauce, garlic knots

Wednesday the tow truck came to drag away my poor old car. I had another meeting, so I took Damien’s car and got back feeling fairly argy-bargulous again, so I assembled some tools, and Corrie and I managed to get most of the old bolts off the clothesline base, and then knock the remaining rotten wood off with a sledgehammer I think I will need to cut the remaining three bolts off, and I do need to buy new bolts, so that was as far as we could get for the day.

Then I turned my attention to Corrie’s tree house, which so far consists of some pieces of wood stuck to a tree.

I made an attempt to drill some holes so I could secure the planks with lag bolts, but the drill bit was very warped, and I didn’t get anywhere.

Instead, I got a shovel and started digging up some stuff to fill in my garden in front. It’s less shady than it used to be, because the porch is gone, but it’s still in shadow a lot of the day. I got some false hellebore, two kinds of ferns, and a patch of pretty pink and white wood anemone and crammed them into the ground. The lupines I planted last year made it through the winter, and I think this will be a really pretty spot in a year or so!

For supper, I just cooked up some more pork (I forget why I had so much ground pork in the freezer, but I sure did) and threw it in some jarred sauce, and cooked up a bunch of penne.

I also found a stray ball of pizza dough, so thawed that and made it into garlic knots. I baked them and then tossed them with melted butter, garlic powder, salt, and parmesan cheese.

They were a little rubbery, but who the heck knows how old that dough was, so it was whatever. They got et.

That night, the kids asked if they could have a fire, and I told them I had used up all the firewood to make my garden, and also felt incapable of getting up. So they went into the woods and gathered more wood, and built themselves a fire, roasted marshmallows, were nice to each other, and even presumably put the fire out afterwards!

THURSDAY
Pork ribs, roast butternut squash

Thursday, you’ll never guess, I had a meeting, for which Sophia kindly let me borrow her car. And I just did not get a lot else done. I was really, really tired. Damien was out of town all day, and Sophia took Lucy to a job interview and Benny and Corrie to the movies. I thought I was alone in the house, but just spent my wild and precious hours of solitude eating pop tarts like a goblin and making trouble on Facebook, and sort of slogging around getting very small things done, like filling my weekly pill box and moving clutter around. I feel bad it was such a boring, at-home vacation, but at least the weather has been nice. Whatcha gonna do. I did fix Corrie’s swing. Oh, and she gave herself an amazing haircut, and then her sisters helped her dye it blue.

For supper, I defrosted and roasted some butternut squash from ages past, and then I roasted some pork ribs with salt and pepper. Damien got home and we ate dinner together, at the table. Then I realized that, oops, Irene has been home all this time. She was just upstairs. All afternoon I was remarking to myself, boy, those cats are so noisy up there, and you would think it was actually a person up there, boy! Sorry, Irene.

Thursday evening, Damien noticed all six duck eggs were starting to crack! Very exciting. It’s hard work and takes a long time, and there was not much progress by bedtime, so we moved the incubator into our bedroom, because it would be a shame if the only ones there to welcome them when they hatched were a couple of naughty cats.

FRIDAY
Mac and cheese and broccoli

No duckling action yet! Today is day 28, but as anyone who has waited for a baby knows, these things run on their own schedule. The cracks are a little crackier this morning, and Damien and Benny have both heard some muffled peeping. Just gotta be patient.

Damien just fixed the kitchen sink pipe, and next on his list is the water heater and a third thing, I forget what. I still don’t have a surgery date. The axolotl is healthy and happy. I think we will have lots of peaches and lilacs this year. And that’s-a my story!

What’s for supper? Vol. 409: Lucid cooking

Happy Friday! Sorry so late! I’m running so late today. First I slept extremely late, woke up, and decided to go back to sleep and try having a lucid dream; and the thing I chose to do with my powerful mind was go into the community house basement rummage sale and discover a box of antique toothpicks, and when I opened the box, I found both toothpicks and a tooth inside. Just like I planned.

Then I decided I might as well get up, and then I ran to Home Depot for some unthreaded off-white 1/2″ PVC T connectors, because Damien is at the point in his project where he know he needs one now, which means he’ll be glad to have five within an hour.

Yes, the piiiiiipes frozzzzzzze despite all our normal New England precautions, and then theyyyyyy burssssssst despite all our thawing efforts. So he has been down there in the crawl space for two days, putting new pipes in, and insulating everything in sight. Gentlemen, if you are wondering what women want, they want someone who can fix things and also be a nice guy to his family while doing it. This is what we want.

And we want water, which we will have by the end of the day! In conclusion, winter is stupid, but my husband is my hero.

Here is what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Leftover Buffet with pizza pockets, homemade apple sauce, tapioca pudding

We had our usual assortment of reheated goodies, plus pizza pockets.

It was Corrie’s Shopping Turn, and part of the deal of Shopping Turn is that you get to pick the two weekend desserts. (You also get to pick the weekend “Silly Cereal,” and you get lunch at your choice of drive thrus; and you get to influence the snack purchases for the week, plus you get to pick the pot sweetener for leftover buffet.)

But we somehow forgot to pick dessert! But! I had done some fruit decluttering in the morning, and had started some apple sauce cooking in the morning.

For applesauce, I quarter the apples and put them into the slow cooker along with the peels and cores, with a little water and let it cook all day. (I had a ton, so I filled up the Instant Pot, too.)
When they are mushy, I run the apples through a food mill

(the only tool I’ve ever found that works for this job) and add a little butter, some cinnamon, and sometimes some sugar or honey, sometimes not.

I myself would eat warm homemade apple sauce for dessert, but not everyone feels that way. But! I had also picked up a box of tapioca on a whim, and I thought MAYBE if I made some tapioca pudding, and we had warm, cozy, homemade applesauce and warm, creamy, fluffy tapioca pudding, that would be a nice dessert for a chilly, blustery day?

Well, I WAS WRONG. Damien and I had actually signed up for an hour of adoration for 40 hours of what have you, and then we went out for pizza. So we came home as the kids were eating dessert.

I said, “Oh, how did you like your grandma dessert?”
One kid said, “Yeh.”
One kid said, “Meh.”
And one kid said, “Never do this again.”

So I won’t! But I ate most of the tapioca pudding all by myself, and, right or wrong, I have no regrets.

SUNDAY
Marry Me Chicken, french bread

I ran across this recipe from Sip and Feast, and it looked incredible. I don’t think I’ve had a bad recipe from this site yet, and this one was also a win.

I could tell it was one of those dishes where you would want some bread to sop up the extra sauce, so I started some dough for this basic french bread recipe.

Jump to Recipe

It was quite chilly in the kitchen, so I sprayed the crock pot with baking spray, put the dough in, and set it to “keep warm.”

Started like this:

and an hour later we had this:

A successful rise, I would say! It actually baked a tiny bit on the bottom, because it really ran out of room (this is a recipe for four long loaves, so it was a lot of dough). I rolled out the loaves and set them for a second rise, this time on the stove top with the oven on and slightly opened.

Ideally, I’d bake the bread right before dinner and have piping hot bread along with the main course, but I’d never made this chicken before, so I figured I’d play it safe and get the bread baked and then focus on the chicken. You see? Wisdom. Or whatever.

The bread turned out sightly pale, but it was baked PERFECTLY inside. Extremely fluffy and soft

with a really thin, crusty crust. Probably could have given in another, like, 2.5 minutes in the oven and gotten a crisper crust, but I’d rather err on the side of not overbaked.

Then I started the chicken! I had such insanely pneumatic chicken breasts that I cut them into thirds, lengthwise, and beat them flat with my marble rolling pin. Which I took a picture of, so I might as well share it.

Then you salt and pepper the chicken breasts, dredge them with flour, and then you sear the chicken in the oil you have drained off the sun-dried tomatoes.

Oh, my mother would have loved this recipe.
When the chicken is done, you take it out and add a little more tomato oil to the pan, and brown up sliced garlic

and then add the sun-dried tomatoes, then white wine, then chicken stock

then cream

then baby spinach

and then freshly-grated cheese

You cook this sauce down a bit to thicken it up, and then you add in the chicken, and let it all enjoy each other’s company for a while.

And that’s it! You serve it with some fresh basil on top, and YES, I was glad to have fresh bread to sop up that incredible sauce.

My photos did not turn out great! It looks a little bit ghastly, actually. But it was actually fabulous. Rich and fresh and just delightful, absolutely dancing with flavor. It was fun to make, too. Most definitely adding this in to the “special treat” list of dinners. It wasn’t horribly expensive, but it took a lot of active cooking time, because you have to let it cook in between each ingredient addition. Totally worth it, but not a weekday meal!

MONDAY
Mexican beef bowls, black beans

Monday was Inauguration Day, and the kids had the day off for MLK Jr. Day, and I sort of muscled Elijah into taking them sledding, which we haven’t done yet this year. I wanted a really popular, hearty meal (to warm up the kids and to cheer up the grown ups), so this was pretty good.

Here is my recipe for the beef marinade, which I truly love.

Jump to Recipe

It’s very rich, and the little sparkle of lime juice is very pleasant.

I also started some black beans cooking in the Instant Pot.

Jump to Recipe

and when they were done, I moved them to the slow cooker and used the Instant Pot to make a big bunch of white rice. So we had rice with the meat and gravy on top, plus beans, cilantro, corn chips, sour cream, some corn I blackened a bit in a pan, and lime wedges.

Always a very popular meal. I originally put my beans in a dish that a child then revealed was the dish that used to hold gerbil food, and that was less popular, with me.

Pretty sure it was the same kid who (completely unmaliciously, probably unconsciously) did this to my kitchen candle

This is the candle I use to heat the tip of a knife to make drainage holes in milk jugs for my winter sowing. Which I’m not doing this year. But STILL. Leave my candle alone!

TUESDAY
Buffalo chicken wraps, veg and dip, cheez balls

Tuesday I listened to the news until I got the sudden urge to tear apart the refrigerator, scrub everything down, throw out half our food, and reorganize everything.

So we had that going for us. I’m still trying to get the kids to go along with this system where produce goes in the doors, for high visibility, and bottles and jars go in the bottom drawers, for easy access, but it’s a losing battle. Which is apparently my favorite kind.

In keeping with this sentiment, I dropped off my car for inspection, pointed out where I had put it back together with zip ties, and asked them to just do whatever was one step up from zip ties. I love our mechanic. They totally understand us. And get this: When I take my car in, and then Damien and I show up together to pick it up, they talk to me about it. Because it’s my car!

For supper, we had buffalo chicken wraps, for which some of my kids have an almost baffling level of enthusiasm. Tortillas, ranch or blue cheese dressing, buffalo chicken (or sometimes I just get regular chicken and serve it with buffalo sauce), shredded pepper jack cheese, shredded lettuce, and crispy fried onions from a can. I forgot to get tomatoes.

It really is a good wrap. I like it as a salad, too, but there is less general enthusiasm for that in this house.

I also made a giant, rather festive platter of broccoli and sweet peppers that I meant to serve along with the beef bowls.

And I put out one of those barrels of Cheez Balls or whatever they’re called. Quite an orange meal, overall.

WEDNESDAY
Pizza

Wednesday was when the pipes froze and burst. Here’s the dog’s water dish in the morning:

The duck’s water thawing thingy also broke, and the stream is frozen over, so I gave them a big pot of hot water to enjoy, and they really did. Whatever else you can say about ducks, they do know how to enjoy themselves. The turtle’s heat bulb also broke! I got him a new one, and it was really hard to tell if he appreciated it or not.

My car was done, and it cost sighhhhhhh a little less than $600, which is better than more than $600. I also had to get my driver’s license renewed. Last time I did this, I was half zip ties myself, so I was looking forward to getting a new picture. The old picture:

I guess this new one is better?

Making you get your picture taken after waiting at the DMV for forty minutes is the equivalent of when you go to the doctor and they take your blood pressure, and it’s a little high, so they review all the things that are wrong with you, and then they weigh you, and then they re-take your blood pressure, and GUESS WHAT? That didn’t help! OH WELL. (Actually my blood pressure is fine these days! Normal! If that don’t beat all.)

We had pizza for supper, and I made it early in the day but forgot to cover it, so the dough got kinda crusty and unpleasant, but oh well. Pizza’s pizza. Nothing fancy, just one cheese, one olive, and one pepperoni.

THURSDAY
Chinese(?) soup, rice, potstickers

Thursday I defrosted the pork filling that was leftover from New Year’s Eve dumplings, with the intention of making nice little meatballs with it. I have done this several times, and it usually works? But this time it did not.

The meat just fell apart in the pan, so I decided to just fry it up in a big slab, and then divide it into bite-sized pieces. Which also didn’t really work, but I was in too deep.

I made a big pot of chicken broth, simmered some fresh garlic and ginger in it, then added in the pork, which was already seasoned and had cabbage and carrot shreds in it. Then I broke up some seaweed sheets in it, and shook in a bunch of soy sauce and some sesame oil, and some chopped scallions, and let it simmer for a while.

It was not terrible! It tasted persuasively Asian. I made a pot of rice and cooked some frozen pot stickers

and it was a decent meal. But I told the kid who cleared the table not to bother saving the soup. It was fine, but I didn’t think anyone would want seconds.

I had actually bought some tofu and planned to fry it up and put some cubes into the soup, but I couldn’t get the package open. So now we live tofu another day. (This joke implies that I pronounce “tofu” like “too-foo,” which I do not.)

FRIDAY
Grilled cheese, tomato soup, pickles and chips

And a nice, easy, pleasant meal to round off the week (or, to eat while you quickly finish up your food post; your pick).

Damien is finishing up the pipe repair, and we have water again! He’s still down there insulating the hell out of everything. (Obviously we already have insulation down there, and pipe insulation, and heat tape, but that was some cold snap.)

And now my story is all told. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go see what’s inside this box of toothpicks.

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

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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Bake 25 minutes or more until the crust is golden. One pan may need to bake a few minutes longer.
Run some butter over the crust of the hot bread if you like, to make it shiny and even yummier.

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

Mix all ingredients together.
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.

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

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

What’s for supper? Vol. 186: The world is cold, but food is warm.

Everyone is sick and mopey and overworked, and there is frost on the windshield in the morning. And we’ve decided that Corrie is watching far too much TV, so we are doing a little detox there, which is hard on everyone. So I focused on cozy, unchallenging meals for this week. Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY
Steak, hot bread, salad

Well, London broil. That’s a steak, right? Everyone looked so droopy and sad, I thought we could all use some steak, and it happened to be on sale. Damien seasoned and broiled them, and I bought a few of those pull-apart bread rings and threw them in the oven right before supper. I put out some salad but it remained largely unmolested.

The pictures are lackluster but the meat was great. Much better than the other way around, as sometimes happens.

SUNDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips

Sunday we went to Mass and I led my first faith formation class, which went great! Overall. Some of those kids know a lot and some of them know hardly anything, but they are all interested in Jesus! And why not? He is an interesting guy.

We came home for lunch and some of us were clever enough to fix ourselves steak and cheese sandwiches.

Then we met my dad and went apple picking at our absolute favorite orchard, Wellwood Orchards in Springfield, Vt. It’s way up in the mountains where the air is so clean and good. You buy your bags and then get into a wagon, and a tractor pulls you wherever you want to go. We wanted mostly Macintosh, Macouns, and Cortlands, although some of the younger and more naive children were swayed by the deceit of that apple that calls itself “delicious.”

This orchard has a little farm animal petting zoo, with cute little goaties and fancy ridiculous chickens, and the sun shone down, and the air smelled like apples, and it was just a good day. There are a bunch of pictures on my FB page. Here’s my favorite:

We also stopped at the Vermont Country Store and spent more money on candy than I have ever imagined it was possible to spend on candy. Irene bought wax lips with fangs, because Monday is school picture day and she’s not made of stone.

MONDAY
French toast casserole, sausages, plums, OJ

Continuing the theme of “life is cold; here is some food that is hot.”

I’ll do my best to make a recipe for french toast casserole, but it turns out different every time. It’s definitely a good meal for kids to help you make. Although I would not recommend letting your very contagious four-year-old mix the orange juice in the other room. We ended up making a whole separate batch for those who did not wish to drink plague juice.

I browned up some frozen breakfast sausages and set out a bowl of sweet little plums, lovely, dusky little plums.

TUESDAY
Pork and ricotta meatballs on spaghetti with Marcella Hazan’s sauce

Sometimes you see a recipe and you just know. This one, from the NYT, calls for ground pork, ricotta, parmesan, bread crumbs, eggs, and salt and pepper, and that’s it. You bake them, so it’s nice and easy.

They don’t look like much, but they are delightfully fluffy and so full of flavor (although I thought the amount of salt it called for was way too much), with little creamy pockets of cheese. I ended up using three pounds of pork and one pound of ground beef, and more parm than the recipe called for, and panko bread crumbs; so I guess that’s a good enough reason to make up my own recipe card. I had to cook them ahead of time and then heat them up in the sauce, but next time I want to cook them right before we eat them, so they can be as light as possible. They did soak up a lot of the sauce, which was unexpected. Possibly because of the panko bread crumbs.

I made Marcella Hazan’s miraculous three-ingredient sauce in the morning in the crock pot.

Boy, does it not look like it’s going to be delicious. BUT IT IS.

This was a popular meal, and we have been snacking on meatballs all week. In fact, the other day, I was working and thinking about meatballs and asked Benny to snag me a couple. This is what she brought me:

WEDNESDAY
Hot dogs, beans, fries

This meal was just a gift to myself. I actually asked Benny and Corrie to make it for me, and they somehow didn’t do a very good job, but still.

THURSDAY
Nachos

Again, no culinary adventures, but everyone was happy. I spread tortilla chips in a pan, spread cooked, seasoned ground beef over that, and sprinkled it heavily with shredded cheddar, and then topped it with chopped scallions. The scallions were third gen, if anyone cares.

I had mine with salsa and sour cream. And very good they are, nachos.

FRIDAY
Fish tacos

I splurged on batter-fried frozen fish instead of the breaded kind. We have tortillas, shredded cabbage, cute li’l cherry tomatoes, lime wedges, sour cream, and ooops, I forgot to buy avocados.

Here’s the recipe cards!

5 from 1 vote

French toast casserole

An easy, kid-pleasing meal, pleasant and cozy for breakfast, brunch, or brinner. Use any kinds of bread you have in the house. You can also add raisins, slices of apple, or whatever sounds good.

I'm not putting measurements in, because you can make this so many different ways, so it's more pastry-like or more custardy. Use the same proportions you'd use to make regular french toast and it will be good.

Ingredients

bread, torn up
eggs
milk
dash of salt
white or brown sugar
cinnamon
vanilla

Instructions

Grease a casserole dish or cake pan. Preheat the oven to 350.
Tear the bread up into chunks and spread them in the buttered pans.
Mix together the eggs, milk, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and vanilla, and pour the batter over the bread. Stir up the bread so all of it is wet.
If you like, you can let the casserole sit for a few hours to let the egg soak in, but it's not essential.
Sprinkle the top with more sugar and cinnamon, if you like. Bake for 40 minutes or so, until the egg is all cooked and it's a little toasted on top. Serve in wedges and drizzle with syrup, sprinkle with powdered sugar, or serve with jam or fruit toppings.

Pork and ricotta meatballs

Adapted from a NYT recipe, found here. Very easy to put together, and the extra creamy, fluffy, cheesiness make these remarkable.

Ingredients

1 lbs ground pork
1 lb ground beef or turkey
2+ cups panko bread crumbs
4 eggs, beaten
32 oz ricotta
8 oz grated parmesan cheese
4 tsp freshly ground pepper
4 tsp kosher salt

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 425.
Lightly mix together all ingredients in a bowl. The ricotta doesn't need to be completely incorporated. Form into balls. This makes about 75 walnut-sized meatballs.
Grease a rimmed baking sheet and arrange the meatballs on it.
Bake for about half an hour, until the meatballs are slightly browned.