Tag: halloween

What’s for supper? Vol. 447: Mark me down as phojascent

Happy Friday! Let’s get the heck to it! Here’s what we ate this week. 

Oh wait! I forgot I haven’t showed you Halloween costumes yet. Okay, we had one Chestburster (from Alien):

one Rarity: 

one Red Hood: 

one Edward Elric from Full Metal Alchemist:

and of course one Bender, complete with cigar:

The three older kids made their costumes completely on their own (and at the last minute, I should add. The original plan was for them and two friends to be different versions of David Bowie, but that fell apart, sadly; so they had to throw these together). Benny made her entire Edward Elric costume by herself except for the shirt (which is a T-shirt with duct tape on it), including that incredible articulated arm; and Corrie made her entire Bender costume except for the body, which I started and she finished. She was particularly proud of her tidy little robot feet, which stayed on all night.

So I would say the costume torch has officially been passed! It stopped raining in time, they got tons of candy, and everyone was happy. Whew. 

SATURDAY
Leftovers and mozzarella sticks

Just a regular shopping and chores day, as far as I can recall. I was in a state about the messy house, so I gave the kids pre-cleaning assignments while I was out, and they really did them. This big kid thing is pretty great. 

For supper, we had leftovers, and mozzarella sticks for the frozen food bonus. Looks like I chose chicken soup with rice, caprese salad, and honey battered chicken. 

It was a non-HDO All Saints Day, and I’m ashamed to say we did absolutely nothing to mark it. Sorry, saints. 

That evening, I had already told the kids we’d be doing a deep cleaning on Sunday, so before bed I made an apple pie and the dough for soul cakes, so we’d be able to still have some good food after a busy day. 

SUNDAY
Beef pho, apple pie

When we got home from Mass, I got some broth going for pho, and cut out and baked the soul cakes. Here’s that recipe:

Jump to Recipe

These are not super sweet, and are kind of spicy and old-fashioned tasting, and they are much much better when they are fresh out of the oven and still soft. 

I did tell kids about the history of soul cakes (kids would go door-to-door singing a song begging for cakes, and they would pray for someone’s soul in return. This is apparently the origins of trick-or-treating), and then I said they had to pick someone dead and pray for them, and then they could have one skull cake (an un-prayed-for soul) and one winged cake (a soul released from purgatory). They were very relieved with this deal, because they thought I was going to make them sing. 

Then oh boy, did we clean. The kids tackled the living room, dining room, kitchen, stairs, and landing, including floors and woodwork, and I did the “tool area,” which is the geographically lowest point of the house and collects so much miscellaneous junk and just plain dirt, you wouldn’t believe it, and it was also full of pieces of dog food the dog likes to fling around just to keep his spirits up. It had gotten to the point where, just to get from the kitchen to the back door, you had to writhe around like you’re doing the merengue. But not in the fun way. 

So while the kids did their part, I cleaned and organized and swept and scrubbed furiously and sorted ruthlessly, and got rid of something like 200 dresses that I was finally ready to admit nobody fits into anymore. Some of them were dresses all eight of my girls have worn! I was very brave.

(Actually, I remember talking about this before — getting rid of clothes that have heavy nostalgic value — and a younger mom was like, “oh no, are you saying it never gets easier?” and I was like, “Yeah, sorry, it just stays hard.” But it turns out it does get easier! I think it’s probably the Prozac, honestly. Also I do that goofy “thank you for your service” thing if I have to get rid of something with especially fond memories attached, and it really helps!) 

I shan’t show an “after” picture of the area I cleaned, because it will look too much like other people’s “before,” but it’s a massive, massive improvement. You can just walk through it like a normal human being. Hooray!

The kids also did a great job cleaning, and it feels so so much better in here. 

It also smelled great, with the pho broth simmering away. Here’s the recipe I followed. Real pho is made with a bone broth, but I honestly figured I was already pushing my luck with an unfamiliar food, so I figured this would be sort of entry-level pho, and if they liked it, we could go from there. A phojascent soup, if you will. Beef is a big treat these days, so I was pretty excited about that part. 

In the morning, I had put the hunk of beef in the freezer and asked Damien to sharpen a knife for me, and I sliced the meat up as thinly as I possibly could

(it’s much easier to cut thin if it’s slightly frozen) and prepped a bunch of toppings: Scallions, cilantro, thinly-sliced onion, lime, jalapeños, and Thai basil. 

Right before supper, I turned up the heat on the broth and quickly cooked some thin rice noodles. I tried to keep them in nest shapes, but they just unwound and merged, oh well. 

The idea is everyone gets a piping-hot bowl of broth with noodles in it, and then you add the thinly-sliced beef right into your bowl, and it cooks right in front of you. Then you put whatever you want on top. I chose everything, plus some sriracha. 

Here’s my bowl, before the meat has entirely finished cooking. 

Some of the kids were uncomfortable with the rareness of the beef (it did cook more than in the picture above!) so they put their bowls in the microwave, and that did the trick. 

Holy wow, it was delicious. I know this is dreadfully inauthentic and so on, but it was so good. Light and savory at the same time, and delightfully filling. I think almost everyone liked it, which hardly ever happens! We’re definitely making this again.

I glazed and baked the pie in the afternoon, and it was still warm after supper, so that was also popular. 

This is probably the flakiest crust I’ve ever made. I ended up freezing the butter for way longer than I usually do (usually I chill it for half an hour or so, and then grate it into the flour and salt), but this time it was really frozen solid. That must have been what made the difference. 

Here is my pie crust recipe. 

Jump to Recipe

Works every time!

MONDAY
Butter chicken, basmati rice, terrible flatbread

Monday I was a little annoyed at myself because I was planning butter chicken, and I had bought chicken thighs with the bone and skin on, so I had to process all that. Sonny was . . . . the opposite of annoyed. He was enraptured. I didn’t actually even give him any scraps, because there has been entirely too much throwing up in this house lately, but I think he still enjoyed the afternoon. Just being near meat is good. He’s kind of into the whole agony/ecstasy thing. 

I had my own little agony going, because I had bought a sack of chappati flour

but the “gluten free” part didn’t really register with me until I made the dough, according to the instructions on the bag. Like, when I’m cooking new foods, I always keep an open mind. Maybe that’s what it’s supposed to look like! Or maybe it’s my fault, because this is my first time!

Well, sometimes it’s just because it’s gluten free, and that’s just a sad state of being. The dough is on the left here: 

As you can see, I decided to go in a different direction, so I made a double batch of this sort of generic no-yeast flatbread from Recipe Tin Eats. That’s the dough on the right. 

It’s just flour, salt, butter and milk, and you fry it in an ungreased pan. I did try that, but I burned the hell out of it, so I tried greasing the pan.

Ladies and gentlemen, they still sucked. Really, just terrible, all twelve of them.I don’t know where I went wrong, but these were truly disgusting. I guess not as bad as they would have been if I had used the gluten-free chappati flour, which tasted of lentils and miscellaneous grit, but still inedible. Oh well! Anybody want an opened sack of gluten free chappati flour that has regular wheat flour sprinkled all over it because that’s how I bake? Let me know. 

The butter chicken was fabulous, luckily. I made a big pot of basmati rice and garnished it with cilantro, and it was just wonderful. 

I use the Recipe Tin Eats recipe, and I’ve never found a reason to try a different recipe. 

My site is being weird, so if the recipe link above isn’t working, here it is:

Butter Chicken

I also roasted the pumpkin seeds the kids had saved from carving jack-o’-lanterns. I did reserve the seeds from the one massive one, and I’m air drying those out to be planted in the spring. The rest, I lightly oiled, spread in a single layer, and toasted in the oven at 300 degrees, stirring them occasionally. I think it took about forty minutes. Then I sprinkled them with kosher salt, and they were yummo. 

And that was Monday!

TUESDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips

Tuesday, I was supposed to leave early and take a kid to a medical appointment far away, and I felt so sick and lousy that I just cancelled it. I’m working on introducing myself to the idea that I don’t have to force myself to do every hard thing that presents itself, but can sometimes take an easier route, like rescheduling an appointment. It feels weird, but it was definitely the right call. We had a simple supper of grilled ham and cheese with chips, and in the evening I started a big hunk of pork with its dry rub (a cup of salt and a cup of sugar, rub it all over, and bag it overnight). 

WEDNESDAY
Bo ssam with basmati rice, kiwi and mango

In the morning, I cut up a bunch of kiwis and mangos, which is just a lovely combination

and around 12:30, I put the brined pork in the oven. I do the bare bones version of this recipe,

okay, again the linking is not working. Ugh. Here is the link:
https://mykoreankitchen.com/bo-ssam/

So you rub a cup of salt and a cup of sugar all over the pork shoulder and let it sit overnight, and then you put the pork in a 300 oven for like six hours. Then just before you serve it, you crank the oven up to 500 and slather brown sugar, cider vinegar, and salt on the top, and let it brown up. 

I know I always say it, but this is the lowest-effort, highest-yield recipe I know. It turns out absolutely scrumptious every time, and you barely have to do anything. There is a sauce that goes with it, but I rarely make it, because it’s already so juicy and tender and good. 

I reheated the leftover basmati rice, and put out some lettuce leaves and the cut-up fruit, and wow, it was a perfect meal. 

The idea is you tear off some lettuce and use it grab up some rice and some shreds of meat, and you make a little bundle for personal gobbling. Repeat. IT’S SO GOOD. I like having fruit as a side for this meal, because the meat is outrageously salty, and it’s good to have something juicy to sooth the tongue a bit. 

Everyone likes this meal, and I deliberately made a giant pork shoulder so there would be leftovers for Thursday. 

THURSDAY
Pork fried rice and wontons

Thursday we had to get up early to get to a flu and covid shot clinic. Very relieved to get that done! Then we got donuts and I brought the kids to school and prepped supper. I cut up the leftover pork, defrosted some peas and a bag of cooked rice I had stuffed in the freezer last week, and chopped up some onions and garlic. Sadly, I had used up all the fresh ginger for the pho, so when it was time to cook, I had to use powdered ginger. 

Here’s my basic fried rice recipe:

Jump to Recipe

When I got home, I made a pot of chicken broth from bouillon and cooked some frozen wontons in it. 

Not a spectacular meal, but it was tasty and popular and cheap, and took probably 20 minutes to cook. My meal planning skills have been in overdrive lately, and it’s been really gratifying to make stuff ahead of time, and use leftovers, and so on. My big secret is not having little kids hanging off my legs while I cook. I cannot emphasize what a difference this makes. I do now have a dog doing his Y E A R N I N G thing in the kitchen while I cut stuff up, but it’s not nearly as disruptive as toddlers breaking and trying to eat glass while I have raw pork on my hands, for instance. Truly, I don’t know how I survived that long, long period of my life. No regrets, but no desire to do it again, either!

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

Just reglear old spaghetti. 

I know I have a bunch of people who are waiting for me to get back to them, so if that’s you, I haven’t forgotten, I promise! Sorry about that! 

And that’s-a my story. Shall pray for you all at adoration in a few hours, if I manage to stay awake. 

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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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Basic pie crust

Ingredients

  • 2-1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1-1/2 sticks butter, FROZEN
  • 1/4 cup water, with an ice cube

Instructions

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

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

  3. In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Then add the shredded butter and combine with a butter knife or your fingers until there are no piles of loose, dry flour. Try not to work it too hard. It's fine if there are still visible nuggets of butter.

  4. Sprinkle the dough ball with a little iced water at a time until the dough starts to become pliable but not sticky. Use the water to incorporate any remaining dry flour.

  5. If you're ready to roll out the dough, flour a surface, place the dough in the middle, flour a rolling pin, and roll it out from the center.

  6. If you're going to use it later, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. You can keep it in the fridge for several days or in the freezer for several months, if you wrap it with enough layers. Let it return to room temperature before attempting to roll it out!

  7. If the crust is too crumbly, you can add extra water, but make sure it's at room temp. Sometimes perfect dough is crumbly just because it's too cold, so give it time to warm up.

  8. You can easily patch cracked dough by rolling out a patch and attaching it to the cracked part with a little water. Pinch it together.

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Basic stir fried rice

This is a very loose recipe, because you can change the ingredients and proportions however you like

Ingredients

  • cooked rice
  • sesame oil (or plain cooking oil)
  • fresh garlic and ginger, minced
  • vegetables, diced or shredded (onion, scallion, peas, bok choy, carrots, sugar snap peas, cabbage, etc.)
  • brown sugar
  • raw or cooked shrimp, or raw or cooked meat (pork, ham, chicken), diced
  • soy sauce
  • oyster sauce
  • fish sauce
  • eggs

Instructions

  1. In a very large pan, heat up a little oil and sauté the ginger and garlic for a few minutes. If you are using raw meat, season it with garlic powder and ginger powder and a little soy sauce, add it to the pan, and cook it through. If you are using shrimp, just throw it in the pan and cook it.

  2. Add in the chopped vegetables and continue cooking until they are cooked through. If you are using cooked meat, add it now.

  3. Add the brown sugar and cook, stirring, until the brown sugar is bubbly and darkened.

  4. Add in the cooked rice and stir until everything is combined.

  5. Add in a lot of oyster sauce, a medium amount of soy sauce, and a little fish sauce, and stir to combine completely.

  6. In a separate pan, scramble the eggs and stir them in. (Some people scramble the eggs directly into the rest of the rice, but I find it difficult to cook the eggs completely this way.)

  7. If you are using cooked shrimp, add it at the end and just heat it through.

What’s for supper? Vol. 446: Whoopy once! Whoopy twice!

Happy Friday! HAPPY HALLOWEEN! The kids made their costumes almost entirely on their own this year. I made one component each for Benny and Corrie’s costumes, and the older kids did it all themselves. Sweet! I haven’t seen them all put together yet, but I will share when I do. (Honestly, I would have been a little sad if they had 100% taken over the costume-making.) 

Also this week, Damien and I (mostly Damien) FINISHED THE ROOF. Well, basically. Maybe not every little detail, but it is doing what a roof is supposed to do, and I’m pretty happy. Especially since we’re suddenly getting all the rain we didn’t get all summer!

I got pretty cook-y and bake-y this week, and a little bit spoooooky. Here’s what we had: 

SATURDAY
Anniversary Indian food!

Saturday we got most of the shingles up, until we ran out of shingles. This was our anniversary; this is our anniversary picture. 

28 years! 

So we ran out of shingles, we gave up, cleaned up, and went out to eat at the local Indian restaurant, Royal Spice, which I heartily recommend if you’re anywhere in the area. They are SO nice and the food is SO good. We got the same fried vegetarian whatnot appetizer platter we always do, with the cute little stand that holds three kinds of chutney; and then Damien got some kind of lamb dish, maybe kadai? and I got a beef chettinad curry. Of course we both had rice and garlic naan. The waiter actually congratulated us on how much we ate (all of it). He said it made him happy. It made us happy, too! And it made my nose run. 

Then, in order to avoid going home, we stopped for ice cream. I was surprised to see how many other people were buying ice cream. It was nippy out! Maybe they were also avoiding their children. 

Oh, the kids had Aldi pizza. 

SUNDAY
Leftovers and chimichangas 

Sunday after Mass, I went shopping and Damien finished the roof! Here it is when we started taking it off a week ago:

and here is where we are almost done putting it back on.

Actually, darn it, the picture I was going to share is where it’s not quite done. I guess I’ll have to come back later. I would run out and take a picture now, but it’s raining right now and I am still in my payamas. 

The kids spent most of the day working on their costumes. The house is such a wreck, SUCH a wreck, you wouldn’t believe. Partly because of costume making, partly because we’ve been working on the roof rather than making sure kids actually clean, rather than just pantomiming it. But I’m holding off on a cleaning rampage until after Halloween, because we’re about to be hip-deep in candy wrappers. You have to let that happen for a few days, and THEN you can clean. 

MONDAY
Chicken tenders, caprese salad with skull cheese, french bread

Monday I suddenly realized that, if I was gonna use the silicone skull molds I bought on a whim, it needed to be this week. So I made a batch of mozzarella using my kit. I’ve taken to heating the cheese in the final stage longer than it says in the instructions, for a total of three minutes or more, and that has made it much stretchier and smoother. I also bought some kitchen gloves, and that helped a LOT. Because when you heat cheese, it’s, uh, hot. 

So I made a batch and planned to make individual skulls, but it doesn’t stay pliable for long, so I opted to just smoosh it over the molds in slabs.

I cooled it in water and then ice water for about fifteen minutes, and then peeled it off. SO SATISFYING. Here’s a little video of that. 

Then I cut the cheese into individual skulls, but I wasn’t happy with the square effect.

So I sort of grudgingly (not that the whole thing was anyone else’s idea besides mine) trimmed off the square edges with a paring knife, and I made a caprese salad.

I usually serve this salad undressed and let people add their own oil and vinegar, but the skulls looked much more defined after I splashed a little balsamic vinegar over them. 

Very pleased with this. 

Then I decided to try a balsamic reduction, which I’ve been meaning to do for some time. I can’t find the specific recipe, but I think it was just a cup of balsamic vinegar and half a cup of brown sugar or something, simmered until it’s thick and syrupy. I had pretty much the lowest-quality balsamic vinegar one can find (thank you, Aldi), and the recipe warned me that reducing it would make it even worse, but I liked it anyway, so there! I like good food, but I also like bad food, which has made my life much simpler. 

Then I decided we needed some fresh bread, so I made a big batch of french bread

Jump to Recipe

and decided to make twelve little loaves, rather than four big ones. They turned out pretty cute. 

Then when I got home, all I had to do was heat up some frozen chicken tenders, and we had a nice little meal. 

I told the kids on the way home that I had prepared a spooky surprise for supper, and they were incredibly impressed by the spooky caprese. I mean one of them took a PICTURE and sent it to her FRIEND GROUP. Let me tell you, you may think you’re over wanting to impress the cool kids by the time you’re fifty years old, but when you have four teenage girls in the house, it does sneak up on you sometimes. (I think they expected feetloaf, which they swear I have made in the past. I have not. I have made zombieloaf, which they were weirdly unimpressed by, and anyway who can afford ground beef?)

I keep seeing recipes for mozzarella where you just use milk, vinegar, and salt. The kit I got has rennet and citric acid. If you’ve done both, do you have any comment about the difference? The kit is plenty easy to use, and the cheese is great, but I like having options. 

TUESDAY
Ina Garten roast chicken, baked potato, mashed squash

Sometimes I look at my camera roll to remind myself what I did on a particular day, and it looks like I spent Tuesday morning noticing the pretty leaves in the back yard, the burgeoning trash heaps in various rooms of the house, the one fingernail I hit the hardest with a hammer, some fluctus clouds, people being dumb on social media, and misc. Eventually I got my ass in gear and got a couple of chickens roasting, using Ina Garten’s simple recipe again, minus the thyme and gravy.

Actually, wait, I had to take a kid to an appointment on Tuesday! I forgot. I always tell myself I’m so lazy and waste so much time, and then I look at my calendar, and . . . well, sometimes I am lazy and waste time, but sometimes I’m not and I don’t. It all evens out. 

Anyway, before the afternoon run I threw the chicken in the oven, and I prepped some potatoes and some butternut squash (I made a little video showing how to prepare it so it’s easy to cut and peel) and then ended up cooking it in the slow cooker anyway, so I didn’t really need to bother peeling it first! I just dumped it in the slow cooker with half a cup of water and set it to high, and let it go for probably three hours. Worked great. 

When I got home, I mashed it up with some cinnamon, a little chili powder, a pinch of salt, and a bunch of honey, and then covered it and put it in the oven to stay warm while the chicken and baked potatoes finished up. 

Chickens turned out lovely. I think you can see how crisp the skin is.

It’s kind of fun cutting the chickens up and out pops the heads of garlic and the lemons. Hello, boys! You did your job so well!

So it was a great little cool-weather meal of tasty chicken, mashed squash, and baked potato. Not the most artistic photos, but I was so hungry. 

 

You can see I squeezed some of the garlic right out of its wrappers and ate them, yum yum

WEDNESDAY
Basic asian pork chops, rice, sesame broccoli

Wednesday we had another appointment and I didn’t get going on supper until it was later than I would have hoped. The original plan was bulgoki, but believe it or not, I can’t find gochujang anywhere in this town. I gotta order some. They did have it at the International Market, but to everyone’s sorrow, it’s closing. I’m so sad about this. They were awfully nice, and they carried foods that no one else did. 

I did stop by to pick up some bargains as they liquidate, and they were out of gochujang but they did have these cans of BBQ sauce.

The guy on the can seemed confident, so I opened it up and off, it looked so gross. It was a solid, gritty chunk swimming in orange grease. I thought maybe if I heat it up and whip it a bit, it would help. 

It did not!

It tasted like . . . something a dog who lives on the docks would eat with reluctance. I don’t know. But it smelled bad and tasted bad and life is short, so I threw it away and made a quick sauce out of soy sauce, brown sugar, and garlic powder, and marinated the pork chops in that. 

When I got home, I poured the leftover marinade on top and roasted them under the broiler

and they were perfectly good and juicy. They tasted like soy sauce, brown sugar, and garlic. No complaints. 

I roasted a tray of broccoli with sesame oil, a little soy sauce, and sesame seeds, and cooked a pot of rice, and there you are. 

Damien has been working away furiously on his car all week. It has many, many things wrong with it, and it’s been a huge project, so I was honestly just so impressed that, when he went out to buy some more tools and parts, he also came home with caramel apple wraps, because even when he’s stressed out and overworked, he’s a nice daddy and always thinking about those kids. 

I was still riding the high of the mozzarella skull success, so I got the idea to use the molds again and make some candy skulls (we always have candy melts in the house). I made the caramel apples real quick and then stuck the skulls and some sprinkles on the apples, and they were pretty cute. 

That night we watched The Invisible Man from 1933, and it was a hoot. If you’re looking for something to watch that’s a tiny bit scary but really mostly silly, and pretty short, this is a good one. I wasn’t expecting it to be funny, but it was!

THURSDAY
Hot dogs, chips, chicken soup with rice, crostini, skull cake

Thursday the menu said we were having hot dogs (I had been expecting to have to go to a third doctor’s appointment an hour away, but it got rescheduled, so I found myself at home with an easy meal and extra time), but when I fished the hot dogs out of the freezer, they just didn’t look great at all.

I mean they’re hot dogs, so it’s not like they spoiled or something, but they just seemed like Discouragement Food, and who needs that. So I looked in the freezer again and found some chicken parts, and made a simple soup. I cooked the chicken in water for an hour or so, then pulled out the chicken and sorted out the meat and bones and — man, you guys know how to make chicken soup, but I’m in too deep now! Let me tell you, the dog was INCREDIBLY interested in this part, and wanted me to know, I mean really really know, that if I NEEDED anything, like for instance if I needed someone to EAT SOME CHICKEN, then HE WAS HERE, and I should not hesitate to call upon him. What a guy.  

So I put the meat back in the pot and dumped in a bunch of chopped carrots, celery, and onion. Didn’t have any herbs in the house. Let it cook for several hours and acknowledged that it tasted hot, wet, and, if you used all your powers of concentration, slightly chickeny. So I added some concentrated chicken broth and bunch of pepper, and about an hour before dinner, I added a bunch of rice, and let that simmer until the rice was a little bit exploded. 

I sliced up the leftover bread from the other night, drizzled it with olive oil, and sprinkled it with garlic powder and salt, put it in the oven, and forgot all about it. So they were PRETTY CRUNCHY, but oh well. I did also serve the hot dogs and chips that were on the original menu. 

Ahem. 

In October, I’ll be host
To witches, goblins, and a ghost
I’ll serve them chicken soup on toast. 
Whoopy once!
Whoopy twice!
Whoopy chicken soup with rice!

You see, I am using my literature degree! I use it all the time. 

I also spent several hours writing an essay, then got to a point where I realized it was crap, I’m a crap writer, my mind is gone, I can’t do this anymore, I need to go get a job cleaning Greyhound busses, etc. etc., and decided to make a cake. 

I was actually originally thinking to use my skull molds yet again, and make jello skulls, but the only gelatin I had in the house is unflavored. I briefly considered making rosewater Jello skulls, but pivoted to cake, and then remembered I had bought a cake pan at a thrift store for $2. It’s for making spherical cakes (it’s two hemispherical pans and two silicone rings to hold them steady while they bake), and I thought I could somehow . . . carve it into a skull? 

Which I couldn’t, really, but I did cut out eyes and a nose, frost it, and then frost the ramekin it was standing on for the teeth part. I realized too late that it had a Dios de las Muertos look, and I could have really gone to town with flowers and stuff, but I ran out of time. 

Then I went back and reread my essay and it was actually fine, I’m fine, everything’s fine, so I took out the line that might get me sued and sent it off. So now you know, my creative process involves cake, and sometimes a frosted ramekin. Go ahead and jot that down. 

The kids were moderately impressed by this third spooky surprise, but after supper it was time to carve pumpkins, so we forgot to eat the cake, and it’s still sitting there on the counter, grinning at nothing and slowly drooping. Who among us. Anyway, now I know those pans work well, so that’s something! 

Oh and the soup was fine. Tasted like chicken. 

FRIDAY
Bagel, egg, and cheese

This is the first Halloween since 2010 that we’re not going to the Halloween Parade at the school. The youngest kids are both in middle school and they have aged out. Ah, me. The older kids are going out with their friends tonight, but Corrie is going trick-or-treating with me and Damien, so, phew. Also the rain just stopped, and it’s supposed to stay more or less clear tonight, PHEW. 

It just now occurred to me that, for the spooky caramel apples, I could have put the candy skulls on the apples FIRST, and then stretched the caramel sheets over them, for a potentially creepy “oh no, it’s coming through the walls” effect. Next year! 

Also, here’s something nice, that I totally forgot existed: Carole King singing Chicken Soup With Rice. 

Before I forget, here is my post about what we have for All Soul’s Day, which is Sunday. Not putting away the skull molds yet, let me tell you. 

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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.

What’s for supper? Vol. 444: And don’t forget to put garlic on my grave

Happy Friday! in haste, in haste, for this is day two of me and Damien putting in a new roof, which we hope to finish by Sunday. It’s a small area, about 115 square feet, and only one storey up, but it’s something we’ve never done before, so I’m pretty impressed with us so far. (If you are wondering how one motivates oneself to take on a project like this, it helps to have no choice, and that’s my whole advice.)

Here is what we ate this week!

SATURDAY
Leftovers and I think pizza pockets

I myself had leftover chicken biryani with extra raisins and almonds, and it was yum dot com. 

SUNDAY
Vermonter sandwiches, fries

Sunday we made our annual trip to Wellwood Orchard in Vermont, and first we stopped at the cemetery to visit my parents’ grave. We said a decade and I planted some crocuses (I’ve planted various things over the last few years, including roses and lilacs, and they keep mowing them down. It’s very Claremont) and, just because I thought it was funny, some garlic. My parents didn’t agree on lots of things, but they certainly had similar views about garlic. (= It is good.)

We had a lovely time picking apples. Bunch of photos here: 

 

The kids are old enough that nobody insisted on each having their own separate little bag, so we got two half-bushel bags and filled them up, which is the same amount of apples as lots of little bags for about half the price. It’s a little late in the season, so there weren’t tons and tons of apples, but we did get some nice big ones. Nothing like a very in-season apple! It’s like a different fruit from what you get the rest of the year. 

For supper, we had Vermonter sandwiches, which is toasted sourdough bread, sliced chicken or turkey, sharp cheddar, green apple, bacon, and honey mustard. The meat I had was an entire frozen turkey breast (99 cents a pound, could not turn it down), but I made the mistake of slicing it first and then roasting it, rather than the other way around, so it kinda tried up. It was still semi-frozen in the morning and I really wanted to prep it ahead of time so we could eat as soon as we got back. But we all came home hungry, so it was fine. 

MONDAY
Honey soy chicken wings, coconut rice, sesame broccoli 

Monday the kids had the day off for Indigenous People’s day, and I fulfilled my promise to get to work on Corrie’s Halloween costume. 

Any guesses what this is going to be? She made the mask/head (not pictured) herself. 

She also made this unrelated mask

and was somewhat offended when I jumped in alarm, but then I showed her the picture, and had to agree, it was alarming. 

Supper was a great plan but turned out a tiny bit disappointing. Chicken wings were on sale (1.99/lb) so I got a bunch and made this marinade from Recipe Tin Eats. She specifically mentions that they are sticky, and that it can be very disappointing when chicken wings don’t turn out sticky, so she shows you how to achieve stickiness (pouring off the liquid from the cooked chicken, and then basting it with the marinade three times). I followed the directions exactly, but they really just didn’t turn out sticky. 

They were fine, just not amazing. 

I also made a bunch of coconut rice, also using a Recipe Tin Eats recipe. In this one, she promises it will be fluffy, not gluey, and I’ve made this recipe before and it really does turn out good. You make it in the oven. Then I made a tray of broccoli (just some sesame oil, soy sauce, I think garlic powder, and sesame seeds) and I didn’t really plan who was going to be in the oven when at what temperate, so it kind of baked, which is not ideal.

So overall, a decent meal, but I was bummed because I was expecting it to be spectacular. I made up for it by eating about a cubic yard of coconut rice. 

TUESDAY
Pizza

Tuesday I don’t even remember what I was doing — I think maybe I picked up a big bunch of materials at Home Depot, among other things — but I was completely exhausted by the time we got home from school, and I was so delighted with myself for having made three pizzas in the morning. So then I just about wept when Corrie reminded me there was an open house and pumpkin carving at the school at 5. But I got myself together and put my shoes back on and we went, and it was actually lovely.

 

I finally met her new teacher, who turns out to be a former homeschooler, so that explains a thing or two! (Like why they are reading Beowulf and why Corrie was researching the history of the Angles).

Damien got the pizzas in the oven and it was hot and ready when we got home, and then I collapsed like a bunch of broccoli. 

WEDNESDAY
Burgers, chips, raw vegetables

Wednesday I did a bunch of fall yard work. I composted some of the garden beds, planted a bunch of seed garlic and the nine peach pits we prepared, and mulched it all with duck hay. Still gotta mulch the strawberries, peach saplings, and rhubarb. Here’s a picture of what I did, because this post is kind of low on pictures!

Oof, it’s getting so grey and drab and chilly out there. 

I also did some more chimpy hardscaping in front, and planted a ton of spring bulbs in front and in back — daffodils, tulips, crocuses, alliums, and some kind of purple and orange fluttery-looking flower, I forget what it’s called. And mulched it all. 

Oh, do I hate planting bulbs in the fall. You’d think it would be an encouraging act of hope, staking out a claim for tomorrow, doing what you can to put your trust in a brighter future and so on. And it is that, but it feels awful, just futile. Fall is just tough. Everything is dead or dying, everything smells old and rotten, the birds are leaving, everything is leaning and weary and worn out. Plus I always manage to kneel in dog poop while I’m planting, and this year was no exception. But I got those mofos into the ground, and maybe they will even grow, who knows. 

I knew Thursday was going to be super busy, so I made supper Wednesday evening. 

Looking very promising. The recipe calls for boneless, skinless chicken thighs, but I was using turkey breast (the second whole turkey breast I got. This one was more suited for my purposes). 

THURSDAY
Chicken and dumplings

So Thursday we started on the roof. We didn’t completely know how damaged it was under the shingles, so I was pretty nervous about what we might find. We spread some tarps on the ground, climbed up, and started pulling the shingles and flashing away. It was nippy up there! Sunny but windy. 

About an hour into it, I heard traffic slowing down, and saw that cars were having to avoid my giant inflated fried egg that had blown into the road, and we decided that we are dumb enough to think we can do roofing, but we don’t need to compound that by getting sued by some driver who has whiplash because of our escaped inflated egg. So I climbed down and YOU KNOW WHAT? Climbing up a ladder is kind of scary, but nowhere near as scary as climbing down a roof and turning yourself around to get onto a ladder to climb down it! But I retrieved the egg, and we got all those shingles off

The roof underneath turned out to be rotten in the spots we expected, but quite a bit of it is sound. We talked to my brother, who is a builder, and he affirmed that we can definitely do this thing, and gave us some good advice about where the water is probably coming in and what to do about it. Very encouraging! I won’t share any pictures because I’m in no frame of mind for the internet to tell me we’re doing it all wrong.

I went out to pick up some more caulk and a tool to remove siding, and some more tarps, and then I picked up the kids while Damien started in removing the rotten wood. When I got home, I heated up the chicken I had made the previous evening.

I guess you would call it a chicken stew. It is this chicken and dumpling recipe from Sip and Feast, and when I got back, I made the dumpling dough, which calls for butter, milk, AND sour cream. This is an insanely rich recipe, and my only complaint is that I cooked the dumplings at least twice as long as recommended, and they still didn’t completely cook through, and were kind of damp. 

But I just had to serve it eventually, and it really was delicious

and, as I hoped, a very tasty, cozy, and nourishing meal after a chilly day on the roof. Damien and I thought it was great, although if I make it again, I may skip the peas. The kids were not impressed, and most of them didn’t even try it. Oh well! At this point, I’m storing up recipes to make again when it’s just me and Damien in the house. 

FRIDAY
Mac and cheese

Damien just went off to Home Depot for lumber, and when he gets home, we’re gonna start pulling out old mousy insulation, pulling off siding, waterproofing and caulking, and start rebuilding trusses and decking. We got our hands on a roll of high-end self-adhering water and ice shield, and, well, we are at the age when we’re pretty excited about that.

I also have a doctor’s appointment so my stupid doctor can tell me it’s okay to keep taking my medicine, because look at me, I’m still alive, which we definitely wouldn’t be able to determine vie telehealth. In anticipation of this visit, I have carefully arranged to gain ten pounds since our last visit, so I’m looking forward to this. 

I did find one final head of garlic in the garden, which I missed before. So, in answer to your question: Yes, I do think I’m the queen of the underground, but at least I’m willing to help with the insulation. And occasionally make undercooked dumplings. 

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 401: Hot, fast, cheap, and salty, just like. . . someone else

Happy All Saints Day! It is a solemnity, which means it’s a meat day! But most of all, it is a candy day. I mean most of all it is a holy day. With candy.

But even more than that, it was a monstrously (not in the spooky fun way, but in the very adult boring way) busy week. Because I have the time management skills of a much stupider person, I left myself a ton of writing deadlines for the week before Halloween, and I wrote something like 12,000 words this week, which is a lot for a slob like me! So I planned meals accordingly

SATURDAY
Leftover Buffet plus taquitos and burritos

Left over from last week  was zuppa toscana, squash muffins, and bo ssam. Someone had put the soup in the fridge in its original pot, covered it with plastic wrap, and then put two pies on top of it, but you do what you gotta do (which is eat leftover soup, and it was delicious). 

SUNDAY
Kids spaghetti; adults Indian food

On Sunday Damien and I did our belated anniversary outing in two parts. First we went kayaking on Meetinghouse Pond, then we came home and I worked on Halloween costumes and Damien worked on . . . I forget what, he always has ten projects going. Probably cars or heating ducts or possibly 12,000 words of his own, which he just does, and does not make an ungodly fuss about.

Then we went out for Indian food. We had a vegetarian sampler plate which had pakora and various other fried delicacies that I forget what they’re called, with a trio of dipping sauces. I ordered beef rogan josh (which sounds like a podcaster, but is actually delicious). Having nothing to prove, I requested “medium spicy,” and it was perfect. Damien had I think lamb chettinad with full spice, and he had no regrets. We both had rice and garlic chive naan. 

I was so hungry and it was so good, I didn’t take any pictures. Wonderful food, though. Royal Spice in Troy does not miss, and their staff is super friendly. Then we went to Target, I forget why, and we also checked out a new-to-us store, Five Below. We both kind of loved it. We are what’s wrong with America today. I barely restrained myself from buying ten $5 himalayan salt lamps. $5!! My goodness.

We did take pictures kayaking, and it was lovely.

 

I somehow never realized before that pond weeds and water lily leaves turn color in the autumn, too.  We also hadn’t really thought about the dangers of falling into chilly water, though. Pretty dangerous, oops! We’ll be staying on land in cold weather until we get some better gear, so as not to court death and whatnot. 

MONDAY
Monday I truly do not remember what we ate. It was my turn to clean the kitchen, even, and it’s just not ringing a bell. Oh, I think it was tacos. 

TUESDAY
Oven fried chicken, baked potato, roast butternut squash, pomagranates

I guess I felt like I should cook at least one meal, so I did! Here’s my oven fried chicken recipe.

Jump to Recipe

I started the chicken soaking in egg and milk in the morning, and, following a premonition, pre-baked the potatoes and prepped the squash. I stabbed it all over with a fork and hacked off the ends and microwaved it for four minutes. Then it was easy to peel, so I peeled it, cut it, scooped out the seeds and pulp, and cut it into cubes. I spread them on a pan and drizzled them with hot honey, olive oil, salt, pepper and cardamom. 

Later in the afternoon, still trusting the premonition, I dredged the chicken in seasoned flour and cleaned the kitchen and then headed out for the afternoon driving. It’s not an interesting story, but it does involve two trips to Home Depot and one trip to the Home Depot bathroom and a leetle bit of screaming, and by the time I got home, boy was I glad I had prepped all that food. 

Cooked the chicken and threw the potatoes back in to warm them up, and then added the squash into the oven halfway through the cooking time. Cut up some pomegranates I forgot I had, and boop!

A really nice meal, and not even super late. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken burgers, chips

Just chicken burgers and chips. Then Benny, Corrie and I made treats for their school parties on Thursday. I bought a bunch of pre-made rice krispie treats and heated up candy melts in the microwave, and we made 40 weird little Frankensteins. 

It took me 27 years, but I’m finally figuring out how to chill the heck out over kitchen projects with kids. Unfortunately, my new zen attitude has been paired with a type A child who thinks you’re yelling at her if you happen to blink in the wrong manner, but I suppose I had it coming. Anyway, everybody liked the Frankensteins. 

THURSDAY
Hot dogs, french fries

Thursday was, of course, Halloween. One thing I haven’t learned, in 27 years, is that it takes half an hour to get home from the school costume parade, so 4:00 at the soonest, and you really truly have to eat some kind of protein, and then trick or treating starts at 5:30, AND SO, it would be better not to plan costumes that involve a lot of face paint and spirit gum. Also, by about 5:10 I was plum out of zen attitude. So there was a wee bit of tension in the old Fisher household, but I, at least, ate a decent dinner 

by which I mean I bought hot dogs but not really hot dog buns, so much. 
And I DID get those kids out the door basically on time (we were supposed to meet someone, is why we had a specific time), and we ended up having a super fun night.

My older kids were totally in charge of their own costumes, and they did me proud with hot glue and spray paint, paper mache and tin foil. 

We had a Furiosa: 

A Frankenstein (she had a purple blazer and black shirt, but had already worn this ensemble twice on previous days, so she just decided to chillaxulate with the head for trick or treating) 

A very specific Robin, but I forget which one (and it’s a shame you can’t see her shoes, which were VERY detailed), paired with a very specific Batman

And then the costumes I made were Hell Boy

and *sigh* a vampire warrior princess, who had fang issues, backup fang issues, belt issues, cloak issues, bag issues, boot issues, and of course face paint issues, not to mention mother issues, but ENDED UP HAVING A REALLY GOOD TIME, whew. 

I must indulge myself and show a separate photo of her boots, which I thought were awesome.

Duct tape and disposable plastic plates, and they did not fall apart. 

When we got home, I did my best to convince the kids there had been a massive Laffy Taffy recall and I would be happy to help them dispose of it, but they were onto me. I would have fallen for that! 

FRIDAY
BLT’s 

Because it’s All Saints Day, and today we eat bacon! And I just now realized I forgot to buy rye bread. We let the kids stay home from school because some of the kids had a hike, which is bullshit, and some of the kids were tired from staying up and watching silly movies, which is just plain solid parenting. 

And me, I’m working at my desk which is my bed, setting up laptop and cords and pillows to make me sit up straight.
Now where is my phone?
Yanks away pillows and blankets and more pillows.
Ah, there it is!
Puts pillows back on top of phone. 
Tries to start laptop.
Won’t start.
Now where is my phone?

I also wondered why I was so cold, and then noticed I had my robe slung across my shoulder so I wouldn’t lose it. Like I said, it’s called “time management,” look it up. I did set an alarm so we don’t forget to go to Mass. Don’t forget! And then eat some bacon if you can. 

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Oven-fried chicken

so much easier than pan frying, and you still get that crisp skin and juicy meat

Ingredients

  • chicken parts (wings, drumsticks, thighs)
  • milk (enough to cover the chicken at least halfway up)
  • eggs (two eggs per cup of milk)
  • flour
  • your choice of seasonings (I usually use salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and chili powder)
  • oil and butter for cooking

Instructions

  1. At least three hours before you start to cook, make an egg and milk mixture and salt it heavily, using two eggs per cup of milk, so there's enough to soak the chicken at least halfway up. Beat the eggs, add the milk, stir in salt, and let the chicken soak in this. This helps to make the chicken moist and tender.

  2. About 40 minutes before dinner, turn the oven to 425, and put a pan with sides into the oven. I use a 15"x21" sheet pan and I put about a cup of oil and one or two sticks of butter. Let the pan and the butter and oil heat up.

  3. While it is heating up, put a lot of flour in a bowl and add all your seasonings. Use more than you think is reasonable! Take the chicken parts out of the milk mixture and roll them around in the flour until they are coated on all sides.

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

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

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

What’s for supper? Vol. 351: In which I finally get my head examined

Happy Friday! Gevalt, what a week. Today, in just a little bit, I am going to a REAL NEUROLOGIST. I am very excited. And we had a busy little week, full of candy and screaming! Here’s what we ate this week: 

SATURDAY
Tacos for kids, Indian food for adults

Saturday was the last installment in our rolling 26th anniversary celebration. Damien and I took the kayaks out on the Ashuelot River down by one of the covered bridges. We paddled upstream as far as we could until an uprooted tree blocked the way, and then we floated gently back down again among the yellow leaves.

We took a little detour into — I don’t know what you’d call it, the equivalent of a cul-de-sac for a river. It was SO QUIET in there, and the buggies were jumping around on top of the water because no one would bother them, and a giant blue heron lifted off and flapped away. By the time we got back where we started, it was getting chilly and a little dark, and it really was time to go, but we didn’t want to leave quite yet, so we paddled under the covered bridge. I howled a little bit, because of the acoustics, and then as soon as we popped out the other side, I SAW AN EAGLE. I’ve never seen one before. Absolutely unmistakable. What a wonderful trip. 

 

We stopped off home to change out of our damp clothes, and make sure the kids tore themselves away from that new Mario whatnot to get some tacos started, and we went to Royal Spice in Troy. We got an appetizer of assorted vegetable thingies, and then Damien got lamb saag and I got lamb biryani. Very, very fine. 

I also had a laugh because the waitress (who was very nice) asked us if we wanted “Naan? Nyaaaayn? Bread?” We had all three, thank you very much. Also papadum. 

SUNDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, tomato bacon bisque

Sunday the plan was grilled ham and cheese, but it was so gray and drizzly, and there was this stray pound of bacon in the fridge, so I got the idea of tomato bisque in my head, and couldn’t get it out even after I looked up the recipe and discovered I was missing, like, five ingredients. 

Jump to Recipe

Not that it’s a complicated recipe, but it does have more than bacon and a can of tomatoes in it. But I realized if I had to run to the store, that would be an excuse to go pick up Clara and bring her to the house for pumpkin carving. So that was nice. 

And dinner was very nice indeed! Perfect for a chilly, rainy day. 

I also realized it really was getting cold, and this was a trend that wasn’t likely to reverse itself soon, so if I was gonna pick some mint for the winter, then today was probably the day. So that’s what I did. 

I still haven’t fixed my food processor, so I made do with the Ninja blender, and blended it up as best I could with a little olive oil. My best wasn’t very good, and I lost a little enthusiasm for the project at this point, and then squunched the kind of uneven results into an ice cube tray, 

and lost at least another 20% of enthusiasm when I saw what I had done. I dunno. I just wrapped it up and chucked it in the freezer, and next time I want some mint for a marinade or something, let’s see if I remember it’s in there. 

I also have these ghost peppers in my garden. I don’t know what to do with them. 

Why did I grow them? I don’t know. 

I spent the rest of the evening putting the next-to-last last touches on the Halloween costumes. And I remembered to take the pizza dough out of the freezer!

MONDAY
Under-over pizza

My pride at remembering to defrost the pizza evaporated when I realized I had forgotten that the oven was still broken. So I did what any red-blooded American would do (?): I broiled the pizzas until the top was bubbly, and then put them on the stovetop, carefully rotating them over the hot burner, in an attempt to firm up the underside of the crust. 

It . . . didn’t completely not work. 

Good effort, edible pizza. And anyway, we had Halloween costumes to finish.

TUESDAY
Hot dogs, popcorn

Tuesday was, of course, Halloween, so we had our traditional quickie meal, at a table graciously decorated appropriately for the day:

and then we were off trick or treating! Here’s some photos from the evening: 

 

A successful night, and boy am I old and tired. Got home, lit the jack-o’- lanterns just to see them lit (nobody comes to our house because we don’t have sidewalks), and put on Army of Darkness, which I slept through. 

I had just snuggled in under the covers of my bed when I suddenly remembered I was planning bo ssam the next day. And that means getting the meat going the night before. SO I DID.  Hero! I’m a dinner hero. 

WEDNESDAY
Bo ssam, rice, kiwi

Wednesday was All Saint’s Day and we let the kids stay home from school because, not because of the saints at all, we were just tired. So tired! And there was a real hard frost. The nerve.  We made it to the noon Mass with just a little screaming.

Wednesday I did remember the oven situations and was prepared to make the bo ssam in the Instant Pot and finish it up under the broiler, but Damien, who is the other hero around here, fixed the oven in the morning. I was so excited about it being fixed that I put the pork in right away, so it was done cooking at like 4 PM. So then I moved it to the slow cooker (not the Instant Pot, because I needed that to make rice) so it would stay warm but not dry out, and then back to the oven about ten minutes before supper with the little finishing glaze of brown sugar, sea salt, and cider vinegar that gives it that opulent caramelized crust. I use the My Korean Kitchen recipe, but I just do the salt and pepper overnight part, and then the brown sugar glaze part at the end. Very basic and easy, big return. 

Everybody likes bo ssam! We had lettuce to wrap up the rice and shreds of meat it, and I added some sweet chili sauce to mine, which was tasty. 

I also cut up a bunch of kiwis because I like to have something cool and juicy with this meal, because the meat is so outrageously salty. 

 

A very fine meal. 

THURSDAY
Shakshuka (eggs in purgatory), soul cakes, pomegranates, pumpkin seeds

Thursday was All Soul’s Day and I must have my little joke and serve eggs in purgatory, which is basically shakshuka, and soul cakes. 

In the morning, I dropped off all the kids and spotted a ton of free fencing on the side of the road, but got a text from Moe that his battery was dead. So I started stuffing fencing into the car as fast as I could, sincerely wishing I had remembered to take the Dalek out of the back. A crusty old Yankee stopped to help, and we fit all but two rolls of fencing. I explained that I have a little duck problem , and that’s my story. He understood. The Dalek goes in front. I drive into town, locate Moe’s car, annnd discover my jumper cables are missing a clamp. So we decide to drive to Harbor Freight, but first we have to put the Dalek into Moe’s car so there’s room in my car for Moe.
 
I can’t just go into the store myself because I am wearing bright pink pajamas.
 
So he buys the cables, I Google instructions, we fearfully hook it up, wait five minutes, and it works! Moe goes off, I go home with the alarm
going off the whole time because the back door is slightly open, and unload the fence, which I’m 80% sure is terrible fence and useless, and all is well. I may need a tetanus shot from getting poked with fence wires. I forgot the Dalek.
 
I sat there for a few minutes on the couch trying to figure out if I was an idiot or not. Then I just had some coffee and wrote two essays and made some dough. 
 
Here’s the recipe:
Jump to Recipe
 

made the shakshuka sauce and moved it into the slow cooker

(here’s the recipe:)

Jump to Recipe

and prepped a bunch of pumpkin seeds, and then it was time to go again, and I had to stop at Walmart, and then I went to the school, and GUESS WHAT? 

There was still some free fence on the side of the road! And there was no Dalek in my car anymore, due to me having forgotten. So this time, there was plenty of room. Sort of. 

So then we got home, and the kids cut out the soul cakes. This year we did skulls, ghosts, and angels. There’s some silly little theological allegory there but we’ll just skip it

I added some detail with this weird dried fruit I had in the cabinet, that I got on clearance at the International Market a while back, and then I sifted some powdered sugar over them when they came out of the oven. 

The fruit is called Tutti Frutti Mix, which implies in not one but two ways that there are two or three kinds of fruit in there. Right? “Tutti” and “Mix,” not to mention that “Frutti” is surely plural. 

It turns out it’s just papaya! 

It tasted fine, and the texture was pleasant. I was expecting a kind of gummy consistency, like those red and green cherries that go in one of those yucky fruitcakes, but it was chewy with a little edge, almost nutty. So there you go. I have a lot more of it (IT WAS ON SALE).

So first I made the pumpkin seeds

and I remembered to save a few dozen out to dry, rather than roasting them, so we can plant some nice big pumpkins in the spring. (I just tossed them with olive oil and sprinkled them with kosher salt and spread them in two shallow pans in a 350 oven, stirring them up every twenty minutes or so, for maybe forty minutes or an hour.)

When those were done, I baked the soul cakes, and when those were almost done, I started poaching the eggs in the shakshuka sauce

You’re supposed to have parmesan or feta, and parsley, for the top; but I didn’t have either. It was a nice sauce, though, with plenty of vegetables, and rather spicy. 

I cut up the pomegranates I’d been withholding all week

and we had ourselves a weird little meal for All Soul’s Day

And that’s my story!

FRIDAY
Shrimp lo mein

If I make it home alive. 

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Tomato bisque with bacon

Calories 6 kcal

Ingredients

  • 1 lb bacon (peppered bacon is good)
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 5 cloves garlic, minced
  • 56 oz can of whole tomatoes
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 46 oz tomato juice
  • 8 oz cream cheese
  • 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
  • salt and pepper
  • crispy fried onions (optional garnish)

Instructions

  1. Fry the bacon until crisp. Remove from pan, chop it up, and drain out all but a a few teaspoons of grease.

  2. Add the diced onion and minced garlic to the grease and sauté until soft.

  3. Add tomatoes (including juices), bay leaves, rosemary, and tomato juice, and simmer for 20 minutes. Save some rosemary for a garnish if you like.

  4. With a slotted spoon, fish out the bay leaf, the tomatoes, and most of the rosemary, leaving some rosemary leaves in. Discard most of the rosemary and bay leaf. Put the rest of the rosemary and the tomatoes in a food processor with the 8 oz of cream cheese until it's as smooth as you want it.

  5. Return pureed tomato mixture to pot. Salt and pepper to taste.

  6. Heat through. Add chopped bacon right before serving, or add to individual servings; and top with crispy fried onions if you like. Garnish with more rosemary if you're a fancy man. 

 

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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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Eggs in purgatory

Ingredients

  • 1 lb spicy loose Italian sausage
  • 30 oz diced tomatoes
  • 5 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 8 eggs
  • parmesan cheese

optional:

  • 1 thinly sliced onion
  • 2 thinly sliced bell peppers
  • dash chili oil
  • 3 Tbsp tomato paste, if you like it firmer
  • coarsely chopped parsley for garnish

Instructions

  1. In a wide, shallow pan, brown up the sausage and garlic (and pepper flakes if using).

  2. If you're using onions or peppers, add them and cook until slightly soft.

  3. Add the diced tomatoes with juice. Cover and let it simmer for at least 30 minutes. Add the tomato paste if you want it firmer.

  4. Make eight shallow indentations in the sauce and carefully break an egg into each one.

  5. Cover the pan loosely and let it poach for six or seven minutes, until the egg whites are cooked and the yolks are as solid as you want them to be.

  6. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese toward the end, and serve immediately in scoops or wedges. Garnish with parsley if you like.

 

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basic lo mein

Ingredients

for the sauce

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

for the rest

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

Instructions

  1. Mix together the sauce ingredients and set aside.

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

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

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

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

What’s for supper? Vol. 349: Take that, Fürst-Pückler

Happy Friday!  Today I am knee-deep in Dalekanium. This week, we had our big anniversary party (our anniversary is Oct. 25, but we had a party on the 15th), and now I’m buckling the heck down with Halloween costumes. First I managed to get incredibly sick for 24 hours, but I’m working my way past that now and made some progress on Dalek Sec:

This may look primitive to you, but I think my budget is roughly the same as what the BBC had to work with in 1963, so it’s fine. 

This is for Corrie. Last year, she was Duck from Sarah and Duck, and Benny was Sarah. 

Benny is a little fed up with being civil and well-behaved, and this year she’s going as Classic Green Goblin. More on that later!

So this week, we kinda front-loaded all the good food, and then I collapsed like a bunch of broccoli. We did not, however, have any broccoli. I just don’t like it very much, except one time when I was litle, my father took us to to a Japanese restaurant in New York City, and I didn’t know what to get, so they picked a tempura dish for me, and there was a single piece of each thing. I shall never forget that tempura broccoli.

Here’s what we did have: 

SATURDAY
Aldi pizza

Saturday I was busy cracking the whip, forcing my poor beleaguered children to do foolish things like sweep the hallway and clean under the couch cushions even though the guests might not even look under the couch cushions. 

On Saturday I made two kinds of ice cream, the panna cotta, and the suppli.

I was planning pistachio ice cream, and I followed this recipe, which is a copy cat Ben and Jerry’s recipe. I only made one teeny error: I uh bought cashews instead of pistachios. In my defense, “cashew” has an “sh” in it, and “pistachio” has a “ch.” I honestly think that was what confused me. It doesn’t take much, on a good day, but on Saturday I had a migraine and I was more than half zombie. (Did I tell you I finally got a referral to a neurologist??)

My original plan, you see, was Neapolitan ice cream, which is supposed to be pistachio, vanilla, and strawberry, to kinda get the colors of the Italian flag, although AKSHULLY: “The first recorded recipe was created by head chef of the royal Prussian household Louis Ferdinand Jungius in 1839, who dedicated the recipe to Fürst Pückler. To this day, the German name for Neapolitan ice cream is Fürst-Pückler-Eis.”

Soo, I forged ahead with cashews. Take that, Fürst-Pückler. I added some almond extract and, at the last minute, threw in some white chocolate chips. 

The other ice cream I made on Saturday was chocolate, and I just followed the Ben and Jerry’s recipe from their Ice Cream book. 

Jump to Recipe

They actually have three chocolate ice cream recipes. This one uses both  unsweetened baker’s chocolate and cocoa powder. 

Then I made the panna cotta, and I made my second dopey move. I used this vanilla bean recipe, which I had made last time and it turned out so nice. So I infuse the cream, I make the special vanilla-rubbed sugar, I slowly bring the cream to the right temperature, I bloom the gelatin, I chill the cream, I’m going along, I’m going along, and I’m tasting it from time to time as one does, and every time I taste it, I think to myself, “Wow, it’s not very sweet, is it?” And every time, my entire response to this is, ” . . . . huh.” So I clear out the fridge and pour the panna cotta into styrofoam cups in muffin tins and close the door and feel very acccomplished, because that’s done . . . 

. . . and then I see the bowl of sugar, still sitting there. That’s why it wasn’t very sweet! Light dawns on blockhead. I was in quite a panic, because I didn’t know what could be done; but a Facebook friend clued me in that you can re-heat gelatin, as long as you do it gradually. So I put the sugar into the pot, added one or two of the cups of cream mixture and made a little slurry and heated that a tiny bit, and then slowly added and very slowly heated and stirred the rest of the cream back in, until the sugar was dissolved. Then I put it back in the cups and back in the fridge. Whew. 

Then the suppli!

Suppli, also sometimes called arancini, are breaded, deep-fried balls of risotto with a center of melted mozzarella. We ate them just about every day in Rome for lunch, where you could get them for 1,000 Lire (about a dollar) in 1995, which is when I spent a semester in Rome (Damien’s class was a couple years after mine). 

It’s a time-consuming recipe, but eminently worth it.

Jump to Recipe

I sprang for arborio rice, which I don’t always do, and the risotto came out so mild and creamy, I could weep. I let it chill, added egg, and then formed it into balls with little cubes of fresh mozzarella inside, then rolled them in panko crumbs. They sort of slumped because the risotto was so creamy; but I chilled them overnight and by the time it was time to fry them, they held together nicely. 

Then that was enough for one night. 

SUNDAY
Antipasto platters, suppli, fettuccine and ragu, bread, ice cream, panna cotta with berries

Sunday Damien made the ragù using this amazing Deadspin recipe. It was heavy on the veal this time, and it was superb, as always. 

I started the other two kinds of ice cream in the morning: The cherry vanilla (just vanilla ice cream with maraschino cherries thrown in, plus some almond extract and a little of the syrup from the cherries), and the grape sorbet. I had frozen some grape mash from when we processed all those millions of Concord grapes and all week I have been trying to think of a joke for this picture, but I got nothing

Feel free, like if you want to show it to your doctor or something, I don’t know. 

Anyway I managed to make the grape sorbet and the cherry ice cream without incident, and stowed them in the freezer to firm up for evening. Then the only thing I had to still make was the bread. Easy! I can make bread!

Jump to Recipe

I decided four loaves would probably be enough, so I made a big batch of dough, and, because it was a little chilly in the kitchen, I turned on the oven for a few minutes, then turned it off and put the dough in there to rise. 

Then I forgot I had done so. 

Then

I asked Damien

to preheat the oven for me,

so I could bake the bread. 

AND THAT IS NOT HOW YOU MAKE BREAD. I realized ten minutes into it what I had done, and it was definitely too late. The only good thing I could think was that this was the third idiotic thing I had done (first the cashew pistachio ice cream, then the sugarless panna cotta, and now the half-baked bowl of dough), and three is the magic number, so surely I was done being stupid! 

I had a tiny little bit of stupidity left in me, though, so I thought, “Well, as long as I have this dough, it couldn’t hurt to try baking it and see what happens.” So I clawed out the part that was still dough-like and made it into balls and baked it like rolls. 

When I say “like” rolls, I mean . . . well . . . 

In my defense, that’s about what I expected. And I did throw them away! Didn’t even feed them to the ducks. 

By this time, it was starting to smell pretty great in the house because of the ragù, and it was time to sit down and have some fun making antipasto trays. I don’t even know what-all I got. Just this and that, some cured meats and olives and fresh and pickled vegetables and various cheeses. 

and breadsticks, and a bunch of grapes and clementines

and I made a bunch of bruschetta out of store-bought bread, and all the kids came and brought more bread just for eating, and they brought flowers, too.

The suppli fried up REAL nice (I think I ended up with about 30) 

Our friends Sarah, Tiffany, and Theresa came and we all got to just sit around and eat and talk and laugh and it was so nice. 

Oh, and the panna cotta turned out fine! Everyone liked it. I meant to macerate the berries, but I forgot, so I just threw them on top, and it was great. 

So, happy almost anniversary to us. I wish I had gotten more pictures!

As long as I’m going on and on and on, I might as well tell you about my patio chairs. I got them FREE on the side of the road, and then I found cushions at Walmart on clearance, and don’t they look nice?

Whew. 

 

MONDAY
Leftover pasta and ragu

Monday, naturally, we had tons of leftover food, so I bought some more pasta on the way home and we had ragù again, which no one was mad about, believe me. It’s so good. 

TUESDAY
Aldi pizza again

Tuesday was when I had to admit I wasn’t just tired after the party, I was really sick. I dropped Corrie off at school and realized I wasn’t in any shape to drive home, so I parked in the school lot and fell asleep in the car for forty minutes, then crept home and slept most of the next 24 hours. Damien got pizza and managed everything else.

WEDNESDAY
Rotisserie chicken, salad, and leftover antipasto

Wednesday I felt half human, so I just napped a bit and then picked up some rotisserie chickens and cut them up, and pulled the rest of the leftover antipasto elements out of the fridge

and I had a nice little girl dinner 

Do you see how thick they cut the prosciutto, though? I forgot about this. I wasn’t watching, and they cut it like ham! I was so annoyed. I had been planning to make some kind of prosciutto-wrapped fruit slices for the party, but when I opened the package, it was impossible. Oh well. Pickled vegetables make everything better. 

THURSDAY
Burgers and chips

Thursday I was like, oops, the person who is me has still not gone shopping this week; so I got some hamburger meat, and we had burgers. 

Look at me, I had sugar snap peas instead of chips. I’m kind of furious at how slowly I’m losing weight, but it is coming off. Slowly. (Don’t ask me how I can eat panna cotta and prosciutto and still be furious about how slowly I’m losing weight. I just can, okay?) 

FRIDAY
I have no idea. Noooooo idea. I don’t even know what food is. I should have saved those rolls. 

I would seriously rather eat those than come up with something new for nine people to eat. Take that, Fürst-Pückler.

Oh, you know what? I never said, but the cashew white chocolate ice cream was really good. I may make it on purpose sometime.

 

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Suppli (or Arancini)

Breaded, deep fried balls of risotto with a center of melted mozzarella. 
Make the risotto first and leave time to refrigerate the suppli before deep frying. 

Ingredients

  • 12 cups chicken stock
  • 8 + 8 Tbs butter
  • 1 cup finely chopped onions
  • 4 cups raw rice
  • 1 cup dry white wine
  • 1 cup grated parmesan cheese

To make suppli out of the risotto:

  • risotto
  • 1 beaten egg FOR EACH CUP OF RISOTTO
  • bread crumbs or panko bread crumbs
  • plenty of oil for frying
  • mozzarella in one-inch cubes (I use about a pound of cheese per 24 suppli)

Instructions

  1. Makes enough risotto for 24+ suppli the size of goose eggs.


    Set chicken stock to simmer in a pot.

    In a large pan, melt 8 Tbs. of the butter, and cook onions slowly until soft but not brown.

    Stir in raw rice and cook 7-8 minutes or more, stirring, until the grains glisten and are opaque.

    Pour in the wine and boil until wine is absorbed.

    Add 4 cups of simmering stock and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally until the liquid is almost absorbed.

    Add 4 more cups of stock and cook until absorbed.

    If the rice is not tender by this point, keep adding cups of stock until it is tender. You really want the rice to expand and become creamy.

    When rice is done, gently stir in the other 8 Tbs of butter and the grated cheese with a fork.

  2. This risotto is wonderful to eat on its own, but if you want to make suppli out of it, read on!

  3. TO MAKE THE SUPPLI:

    Beat the eggs and gently mix them into the risotto.


    Scoop up about 1/4 cup risotto mixture. Press a cube of mozzarella. Top with another 1/4 cup scoop of risotto. Roll and form an egg shape with your hands.


    Roll and coat each risotto ball in bread crumbs and lay in pan to refrigerate. 


    Chill for at least an hour to make the balls hold together when you fry them.


    Put enough oil in pan to submerge the suppli. Heat slowly until it's bubbling nicely, but not so hot that it's smoking. It's the right temperature when little bubbles form on a wooden spoon submerged in the oil. 


    Preheat the oven if you are making a large batch, and put a paper-lined pan in the oven.


    Carefully lower suppli into the oil. Don't crowd them! Just do a few at a time. Let them fry for a few minutes and gently dislodge them from the bottom. Turn once if necessary. They should be golden brown all over. 


    Carefully remove the suppli from the oil with a slotted spoon and eat immediately, or keep them warm in the oven. 

 

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Jerry's Chocolate Ice Cream

This is the more textured chocolate ice cream from the Ben and Jerry's ice cream recipe book. It has a rich, dusky chocolate flavor and texture. Makes 2 quarts. This recipe requires some chill time before you put the cream mixture into the machine.

Ingredients

  • 4 oz unsweetened chocolate
  • 2/3 cup cocoa powder
  • 3 cups milk
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 cups heavy or whipping cream
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Melt the unsweetened chocolate. I used a double boiler, but you can use a microwave if you're careful. Whisk in the cocoa and continue heating until it's smooth. It's okay if it's clumpy. Continue heating and whisk in the milk gradually until it's all blended together. Remove from heat and let cool.

  2. In another bowl, whisk, the eggs until light and fluffy. Gradually whisk in the sugar and continue whisking until completely blended. Add in the cream and vanilla and continue whisking until blended.

  3. Add the chocolate mixture into the cream mixture and stir to blend. Cover and refrigerate for about three hours, or until it is cold.

  4. Use the cold mixture in your ice cream machine. I used my Cuisinart and let it churn for thirty minutes, then let it cure overnight.

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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.

What’s for supper? Vol. 347: Wouldn’t it be chili with no skin on?

In elementary school, we used to sing this Halloween round:

Have you seen the ghost of John?
Long white bones, 
With the rest all go-o-o-o-ne,
Oooooooh!
O00-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooooh!
Wouldn’t it be chilly with no skin on?

WELL, it all comes together in today’s post. 

SATURDAY
Hot dogs, hot pretzels, raw broccoli and dip

I woke up SO late on Saturday and everything got pushed forward SO far, I’m pretty impressed we had three actual distinct things for supper. 

Nothing else to report, except that I suddenly remembered a kid going through a phase of playing restaurant, and one of the featured items was “pretziles.” Which makes me remember I haven’t made homemade hot pretzels in a while. 

[Daphne Moon voice:] I don’t know whyyyy.

On Saturday, I also finally put up an extra little shelf that I’ve been meaning to put up, and now I officially have room for all my spices! If you’ll recall, this is what it looked like before. 

Then I got a bunch of spice jars and bunch of mason jars; and now I have an extra shelf as well, so here it is:

It’s . . . sigh . . . better. I swear it’s better. Only a few things are still in sacks, and everything is labelled, top and side. And I have hooks for red and yellow onions, and a little basket for my ginger and garlic. 

I haven’t organized the spices, though. There are just too many other people using them, and trying to keep them in the order I want would be asking for constant heartache.

I also still haven’t managed to re-hang the other shelf that came crashing down, that used to hold all my oils and vinegars, so that’s all crammed in there as well. It’s less upsetting if I think of it all as WEALTH, which it is. Never thought I’d need a spot just for all my various salts and peppers! My various oil! Look how lucky I am. 

SUNDAY
Hamburgers, chips, further raw broccoli

On Sunday I did a bunch of tragic gardening (I planted a few hundred bulbs and spent the time repeatedly reminding myself that absolutely none of them are going to come up and everything just dies anyway and what’s the point, oh boo hoo hoo hoo) and also put up some more skeletons. For, uh, self care. 

We have a number of skeletons year-round, partly because it helps Instacart find our house when GPS insists on sending them to the fence company and saying that’s our house; but mostly because I have had a lifelong love for skeletons. 

This one, I think the kids named Shakespeare 

and this one, Insulon, is new this year (his eyes light up):

Then we have Baba Mailbox, which doesn’t really make sense, but whatcha gonna do:

and of course The Gardener:

and also new this year is Horbert, who lives by himself.

Here is a short video of The Hoisting of Horbert:

 

who didn’t end up as high as I expected, considering how hard it was to hold that tree down. 

Then we had hamburgers for supper.

I don’t know if it’s been a long time since we’ve had burgers, or maybe I just worked up a good appetite tragically gardening and tree wrestling, but those were some especially delicious burgers. 

MONDAY
Chili verde on rice; corn

This is a nice recipe that I discovered a little shortcut for this week.

Jump to Recipe

Normally when I make chili verde, I blister the peppers and tomatillos under the broiler, then let them sit and loosen, then pull off the skins and put the insides in the food processor, along with onion, garlic, and cilantro.

This time, I suddenly wondered what would happen if I left the skins on. I also put the onions in the oven, rather than adding them raw to the blender. Time to find out! Exciting! 

I cut the pork shoulder into chunks, seasoned it heavily with salt and pepper, browned it in oil, blended up the vegetables, and then added the resulting green salsa to the pot with the pork, and let it cook slowly on the stovetop all day. 

It turned out thicker than usual and quite a bit spicier than usual, a real sinus clearer. And absolutely delicious. Mayyybe a tiny bit bitter, but not in an unpleasant way. The family polished it off, to my delight. I might add some chicken broth in the future, to make it a little thinner, but I think I will stick with leaving the skins on. It made my life easier, and the flavor was great. If anyone knows of some reason why I should be taking the skins off, speak now! 

I was gonna make corn bread or corn muffins, but a quick poll revealed that nobody actually wants that, so I just cooked up some frozen corn, and made a bunch of white rice, and that was what they wanted. We had lime wedges and sour cream for toppings, and we really needed that sour cream to ease up the spice!

Wish I had had a little more cilantro to top it off. But it was a good meal. Everyone either has, just had, or is about to get a cold, and it’s been damp and foggy out, so this worked nicely. 

On Wednesday I also got a very subtle haircut. Usually I got to Head Whompers and pay $12 to get most of my hair chopped off, but this time I went to a Fancy Place and paid quite a bit more to get little bits here and there removed.

I’m still not sure how I feel about it, but Damien said my head looked fluffier, so I think that’s good. 

TUESDAY
Beef barley soup, pumpkin muffins

Jubilation. This is a highly-anticipated meal (second only to ham-peas-mashed potatoes) that I hold off making until the frost is on the pumpkin or whatever. I forgot to get mushrooms, but it was still very tasty.

Here’s the soup recipe: 

Jump to Recipe

This is the soup I make in my head when I can’t fall asleep. I go through it as slowly and meticulously as possible, paying close attention to each detail, cleaning as I go, and if I don’t actually fall asleep by the end, I usually at least feel less anxious. Thanks, soup!

In real life, it was a soccer day, so I made the soup in the morning, except for the barley, and then put together the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients for the pumpkin muffins

Jump to Recipe

and then combined them when I got home, and quickly baked them right before supper. 

Full disclosure, the muffins were a tiny bit squashy (I mean technically they were 100% squashy, since canned pumpkin is actually squash; but I meant they were somewhat underdone) and the barley was a little bit chompy, because I forgot how long it takes to cook; but it was still a well-received meal. 

Piping hot muffins and a bowl of soup with tender beef, lots of wine and tomatoes, plenty of carrots and onions and pepper. What’s not to love?

Next time I need to make more soup! Some people have come around to soup recently, to my delight.

This is why I stick to my policy of just making food that seems good to me, and offering it over and over and over again. People really do come around eventually, often enough. Or if they don’t, that’s also fine. I just don’t want to fight about food. There’s enough fights. 

WEDNESDAY
Pizza

One cheese, one pepperoni, and one Things Mother Likes. To wit: Black olive, fresh garlic, red onion, fresh basil, ricotta, anchovy.

This absolute cartoon cat got to clean out the anchovy can for recycling

and I got to eat two pieces of this scrumptious pizza

so everybody was happy.

THURSDAY
Asian meatballs, pork fried rice, pineapple

I made extra rice when I made the chili verde, for the express purpose of having leftovers for fried rice. Wasn’t that smart? I feel like I am waking up out of a fog this week. I’ll probably live to regret saying this, but I stopped taking Propranalol because it wasn’t doing anything for my headaches anyway, and within a few days I felt much more awake and much less pukey; and without changing my diet, I lost three pounds. So. Go to hell, Propranalol. I have a real live appointment with an honest-to-goodness neurologist, and I’m going to insist they stick needles in my cheeks or install a skull steam valve or something. But no more stupid drugs that make me stupid! I’m already stupid enough! 

Anyway, the fried rice was good. I minced some ginger and garlic and threw it in the pan with hot oil for a bit, then added pieces of leftover pork and diced red onion, and then I dumped a bunch of brown sugar on top of that and let it get bubbly and dark.

Then I added scrambled egg (I didn’t think I was up for scrambling the egg directly into the rice today), some bagged broccoli, carrot, and water chestnut, and the leftover rice, and then I dumped on a bunch of oyster sauce, a little fish sauce, and quite a bit of soy sauce, and heated it all up.

Pretty tasty!

I made the meatballs in the morning, and cooked them while I was making the rice. I used a recipe I’ve used before (it’s not letting me put the “jump to recipe” button in, for some reason, but the recipe is at the bottom of the page: Vaguely Asian Meatballs), except instead of ground beef, I used ground turkey, which happened to be $3 a pound. I cooked them at 425 for about 20 minutes before dinner

and served them with a jar of sweet chili sauce, and they were delicious. Light and garlicky and just very pleasant to eat. 

I also cut up a couple of pineapples and sprinkled some more chopped scallions over everything, and it was an easy, successful meal. 

When I make two kinds of Asian-inspired food, my goal is to not use the exact same ingredients in both dishes, and I achieved this by refraining from putting ginger in the meatballs. My breath was still glowing in the dark that night from all the garlic. 

FRIDAY
Quesadillas? 

Yes, I think quesadillas. I have a bunch of spinach in the fridge that I never used, so I think I’ll make spinach quesadillas, which are very nice. 

 It occurs to me that one of those skeletons should be named John, or Chili Verde, or Tomatillo, or something. Well, there’s always next year. 

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Spicy Chili Verde

You can decrease the heat by seeding the peppers, using fewer habañeros, or substituting some milder pepper. It does get less spicy as it cooks, so don't be alarmed if you make the salsa and it's overwhelming!

Ingredients

  • 5 lbs pork shoulder
  • salt and pepper
  • oil for cooking
  • 2 cups chicken broth or beer (optional)

For the salsa verde:

  • 4 Anaheim peppers
  • 2 habañero peppers
  • 4 jalapeño peppers
  • 4 medium onions, quartered
  • 12 tomatillos
  • 1 head garlic, cloves peeled or unpeeled
  • 1 bunch cilantro

For serving:

  • lime wedges
  • sour cream
  • additional cilantro for topping

Instructions

  1. Preheat the broiler.

  2. Pull the husks and stems off the tomatillos and rinse them. Cut the ends off all the peppers. Grease a large pan and put the tomatillos, peppers, and onions on it. Broil five minutes, turn, and broil five minutes more, until they are slightly charred.

  3. When they are cool enough to handle, you can at this point remove the seeds from the peppers to decrease the spiciness, if you want. If you roasted the garlic in its peel, just squeeze the insides out and discard the peels.

  4. Put the tomatillos, peppers, garlic and onions in a food processor or blender with the garlic and cilantro. Purée.

  5. In a heavy pot, heat some oil. Salt and pepper the pork chunks and brown them in the oil. You will need to do it in batches so the pork has enough room and browns, rather than simmering.

  6. When all the meat is browned, return it all to the pot and add the puréed ingredients.

  7. Simmer at a low heat for at least three hours until the meat is tender. If you want thinner chili verde, stir in the chicken broth or beer. If you don't want the pork in large chunks, press the meat with the back of a spoon to make it collapse into shreds.

  8. Spoon the chili verde into bowls, squeeze some lime juice over the top, and top with sour cream and fresh cilantro.

 

2 from 1 vote
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Beef barley soup (Instant Pot or stovetop)

Makes about a gallon of lovely soup

Ingredients

  • olive oil
  • 1 medium onion or red onion, diced
  • 1 Tbsp minced garlic
  • 3-4 medium carrots, peeled and diced
  • 2-3 lbs beef, cubed
  • 16 oz mushrooms, trimmed and sliced
  • 6 cups beef bouillon
  • 1 cup merlot or other red wine
  • 29 oz canned diced tomatoes (fire roasted is nice) with juice
  • 1 cup uncooked barley
  • salt and pepper

Instructions

  1. Heat the oil in a heavy pot. If using Instant Pot, choose "saute." Add the minced garlic, diced onion, and diced carrot. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions and carrots are softened. 


  2. Add the cubes of beef and cook until slightly browned.

  3. Add the canned tomatoes with their juice, the beef broth, and the merlot, plus 3 cups of water. Stir and add the mushrooms and barley. 

  4. If cooking on stovetop, cover loosely and let simmer for several hours. If using Instant Pot, close top, close valve, and set to high pressure for 30 minutes. 

  5. Before serving, add pepper to taste. Salt if necessary. 

 

2 from 1 vote
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Pumpkin quick bread or muffins

Makes 2 loaves or 18+ muffins

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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

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

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

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

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

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Vaguely Asian meatballs with dipping sauce

Very simple meatballs with a vaguely Korean flavor. These are mild enough that kids will eat them happily, but if you want to kick up the Korean taste, you can serve them with dipping sauces and pickled vegetables. Serve with rice.

Servings 30 large meatballs

Ingredients

  • 2.5 lbs ground beef
  • 1 sleeve Ritz crackers, crushed finely
  • 1/3 cup soy sauce
  • 1/2 head garlic, minced
  • 1 bunch scallions, chopped (save out a bit for a garnish)
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 Tbsp ground white pepper

For dipping sauce:

  • mirin or rice vinegar
  • soy sauce

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 425.

  2. Mix together the meat and all the meatball ingredients with your hands until they are well combined. Form large balls and lay them on a baking pan with a rim.

  3. Bake for about 15 minutes.

  4. Serve over rice with dipping sauce and a sprinkle of scallions.

 

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. 

Jump to Recipe

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. 

Jump to Recipe

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

Jump to Recipe

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

Jump to Recipe

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."

5 from 1 vote
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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. 313: The eptimistic kitchen

You did it! You made it to Friday! In lieu of a treat, here is a little food post.

SATURDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips

I think people may be well and truly burnt out on grilled ham and cheese, even with the good sourdough bread. We had a good run. I’ll try again in May or so. Or next time I cannot think of literally any other kind of food that people eat for dinner. 

SUNDAY
Aldi pizza 

We were supposed to go apple picking on Saturday, but people were too busy, and then Sunday, but then someone threw up, so, no. 

We did go ahead and make the long-promised giant garbage bag spider. As the name implies, this is made with garbage bags, plus packing tape zip ties. The legs are stuffed with giant weeds, and the body is stuffed with a slightly deflated pool floatie. It looks . . . fine. 

It’s just not what I was hoping. I think if I make a second big round part and make that be the head, and put a lot more eyes on it, and maybe fangs. And maybe give the skeletons some swords, or maybe a fly swatter. I don’t know. It’s just a little lackluster. But I did get it done, and being able to cross “giant garbage bag spider” off your list is not nothing. 

MONDAY
Beef barley soup, pumpkin empanadas 

Nobody was throwing up, so we thought maybe possibly we’d go apple picking on Monday, because nobody had school, except a few people did, and then also oops, I had therapy, but we could still go after that, but then it rained. It was also only about 50 degrees and windy, and driving an hour and half in the afternoon to pick wet apples in the cold wind and then driving home in the dark honestly just did not sound like a lot of fun, even by our standards, even if we stopped to plant crocus bulbs on my parents’ grave, which, yes, was part of my fun-fun plan. So we didn’t do any of that, and instead I stayed home and made soup and empanadas, and that was actually quite nice. 

First beef barley soup of the season. Pretty popular meal in a family that is fairly soup skeptical. It’s just so full of tasty things, and it’s so cozy and colorful. Plenty of carrots and onions and garlic, beef and mushrooms, tomatoes and barley, and the broth is made with red wine. Super easy and if give it plenty of time to cook, the beef gets wonderfully tender. 

This recipe has instructions for stovetop and Instant Pot. 
Jump to Recipe

I got some empanada dough discs at the supermarket, after the NYT comments section clued me in that Goya frozen dough was just as good as homemade, and it’s like $2 for a package of ten.  The Goya dough discs are very easy to work with. They go from totally frozen to workable within about twenty minutes, and they stretch well and don’t tear easily. You can bake or fry them.

For the filling, I sorta followed this recipe, which is just canned pumpkin, vanilla, brown sugar, and pumpkin spice. (I think I used cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.) I decreased the amount of sugar by about 25% and it was still a bit sweeter than I thought was necessary. You just cook it in a pot for a few minutes, then spoon a heaping spoonful onto the discs, seal them up with a fork, brush them with egg wash, and bake them on parchment paper.

I was a little concerned that the empanadas wouldn’t hold together, because the filling was the consistency of thick homemade applesauce. I briefly considered adding egg or flour, but it didn’t seem like a good day for winging anything, and in the end they didn’t leak. I do think something more solid would have been a bit more appealing, though. Here’s the inside:

This isn’t a flaw of the recipe, it just wasn’t exactly what I wanted (even though it was exactly what I made, duh). They certainly were easy to put together, and they came out of the oven glossy and cheery. This particular dough is flavored with annatto, which gives it a very mild peppery taste and a pleasant ruddy color. 

Corrie has been having homemade empanadas for breakfast and packing them in her lunch all week, which I am telling myself offsets the fact that it took me three days to notice her lunchbox is moldy.

Someone said something about pineapple empanadas, and this intrigues me! And I did, in fact, buy another several packs of empanada discs to keep in the freezer for next time. Maybe pineapple empanadas next time we have chili verde, or tacos al pastor. Maybe apple empanadas next time we go apple picking. Which we’re going to do if it kills us. 

TUESDAY
Ham, peas, mashed potatoes

We are contractually obligated to have this exact meal at least three times a year. I know it’s because they like to make little sculptures with it, and I don’t care, because it’s a damn tasty meal. Ham, peas, and mashed potatoes. 

Also, last time I made mashed potatoes, they came gross, because  I left the skins on and then slightly undercooked and undermashed them, so this was my chance to redeem myself. 

I also redeemed myself by having leftover soup for lunch.

This is a very specific kind of redemption, redemption soup. Limited in its way, but also very tasty, and full of carrots. All I ever have, / redemption soup.

WEDNESDAY
Pork gyros

Yes. Yes. Gyro time. In the morning, I cut up a big, cheap pork shoulder into thin strips and marinated it. I made the marinade with honey, wine vinegar, olive oil, fresh garlic, red onions, fresh rosemary and oregano (the very last from the garden), and then some dried oregano, too, just to be on the safe side. This is a pleasantly mild, somewhat sweet, herby-tasting marinade, and it makes the meat nicely tender. 

Jump to Recipe

At dinner time, I just spread it in a shallow pan and roasted it with the marinade, stirring it up a bit halfway through to keep it from burning

while cooking some french fries in a second pan. I sliced up some more red onions, then cut up some tomatoes and cucumbers, and made a big dish of garlicky lemony yogurt sauce, and gathered up plenty of big pieces of fresh wild mint.

AND THEN WE FEASTED.

I skipped the french fries in mine and just went for plenty of yogurt and hot sauce. A perfectly satisfying meal, the tender juicy meat and hot sauce and the cool, garlicky yogurt all playing so nicely with the crunchy fresh vegetables. Just couldn’t be better.  The fresh mint leaves really put it over the top. 

THURSDAY
Meatball subs, veg and dig

I often make the meatballs in the oven, but this time I felt like frying them, which really does make them better. I just browned them in a pan in batches

with the help of a supervisor

and then let them finish cooking in the oven, went to pick up the kids, and then moved the meatballs to a pot of red sauce to continue heating up until supper. 

Nothing extraordinary, but good for a rainy fall day. 

FRIDAY
Shrimp lo mein

For some reason, the price of frozen shrimp has remained the same while everything else has expanded to … the opposite of shrimp-like, in price size.

That reminds me, Corrie is very interested in opposites lately. She wanted to know the opposite of optimistic, and when I told her, she informed me that Sonny is optimistic, but the cat is pessimistic. Which is true.

Then the next day, she forgot the word “pessimistic” and referred to something as “eptimistic,” and was embarrassed; so we decided that eptimistic was a perfectly good word that must mean the opposite of being inept. Like if you know how to cook, you’re pretty eptimistic in the kitchen. Let’s make this happen, everybody. Let’s eptimistically whip up a quick little lo mein sauce, and make a surprisingly simple, tasty dinner

Jump to Recipe

with a couple pounds of store brand fettuccine and maybe some chopped up zucchini and yellow bell pepper. Won’t that be pretty? I’m feeling fairly optimistic about it. 

And we are going to go apple picking this weekend if it kills us. And it will! 

2 from 1 vote
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Beef barley soup (Instant Pot or stovetop)

Makes about a gallon of lovely soup

Ingredients

  • olive oil
  • 1 medium onion or red onion, diced
  • 1 Tbsp minced garlic
  • 3-4 medium carrots, peeled and diced
  • 2-3 lbs beef, cubed
  • 16 oz mushrooms, trimmed and sliced
  • 6 cups beef bouillon
  • 1 cup merlot or other red wine
  • 29 oz canned diced tomatoes (fire roasted is nice) with juice
  • 1 cup uncooked barley
  • salt and pepper

Instructions

  1. Heat the oil in a heavy pot. If using Instant Pot, choose "saute." Add the minced garlic, diced onion, and diced carrot. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions and carrots are softened. 


  2. Add the cubes of beef and cook until slightly browned.

  3. Add the canned tomatoes with their juice, the beef broth, and the merlot, plus 3 cups of water. Stir and add the mushrooms and barley. 

  4. If cooking on stovetop, cover loosely and let simmer for several hours. If using Instant Pot, close top, close valve, and set to high pressure for 30 minutes. 

  5. Before serving, add pepper to taste. Salt if necessary. 

 

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honey garlic marinade for gyros

Marinate thin strips of pork for several hours, then grill or broil. This is a mild, somewhat sweet marinade that makes the meat quite tender.

Ingredients

  • 4-5 lbs pork shoulder or butt, sliced into thin strips
  • 6-8 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 red onion, diced
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • small bunch fresh rosemary, chopped
  • small bunch fresh oregano, chopped
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Meatballs for a crowd

Make about 100 golf ball-sized meatballs. 

Ingredients

  • 5 lbs ground meat (I like to use mostly beef with some ground chicken or turkey or pork)
  • 6 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups panko bread crumbs
  • 8 oz grated parmesan cheese (about 2 cups)
  • salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400.

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

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

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

 

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basic lo mein

Ingredients

for the sauce

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

for the rest

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

Instructions

  1. Mix together the sauce ingredients and set aside.

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

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

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

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

What were you for Halloween?

Finally October, and that means no one can stop me from talking about Halloween costumes!

This year, my wish is finally coming true: Benny is going to be Sarah from Sarah & Duck for Halloween, and Corrie is going to be Duck. Rarely have costumes been matched so well to personalities. I had to sweeten the deal by promising to be Yarn Lady, and I don’t really see that that’s especially apt, but the kids think it’s pretty funny. 

Halloween costumes have certainly changed from my youth. When I was growing up, most of the class turned up in those brittle, blurry plastic masks with tiny nostril holes and eyes and a slitty mouth, and you would clothe yourself in a slithery plastic smock with a picture of yourself on the chest, and that was magical enough.

In my family, though, some combination of being poor and weird compelled us to make our own costumes. My mother absolutely hated this kind of project. She would suffer torments for us, die for us, but making Halloween costumes was a bridge too far; so we were mostly left to our own devices, with mixed results.

First grade: My older sister was an angel, and I was a devil. One of my teenage sisters sewed these costumes, which were pretty spectacular. I remember yards and yards of gold wiggly ric-rac, and my big sister spreading the white fabric for the angel costume out on the floor and saying in mock gruff tones, “Put yer neck right here” so she could measure it. I remember when it was my turn to lie on the devil-red fabric on the floor, and hearing and feeling the scissors slowly biting through the cloth, closer and closer to my head. The thrill! 

I totally should have won the class costume contest for my devil suit, but instead, Amy who was dressed like a nurse won, just because they thought she was cute. Inexcusable. But when we went trick-or-treating, somebody thought I was so cute, she gave me an entire full-sized bag of potato chips! Imagine walking home in the dark on your stubby little devil legs hauling an enormous bag of chips, all for yourself, based solely on your cuteness. Vindicated! That triumph has never been equalled to this day.

Second grade: We were ladybugs, my sister and I both. My mother got a library book possibly this one, by Frieda Gates

that told you how to make easy costumes out of “oak tag,” which is what my mother called what is now called “poster board.”  (My mother also called ground beef “chopmeat” and jeans “dungarees,” I assumed for the sole purpose of humiliating me in front of my friends.) Many of the costumes were two pieces of poster board connected with string to hang over your shoulders, like a sandwich board sign. The lady bug costume was red poster board with big black dots, and there must have been some kind of headpiece, or maybe just a black hat. Everyone was pleased and relieved that we could wear our winter jackets under the costumes without doing violence to the aesthetic, which was always a point of contention.  We could even integrate those fluorescent orange reflective dot stickers the fire station used to give out, to discourage cars from running little children down. 

Correction! The book we had was this one: Easy Costumes You Don’t Have to Sew by Goldie Chernoff

Here’s my sister as a tombstone, using the “two pieces of oaktag” method.

This style of costume also forces you to walk in a sedate, ladylike manner, or else it flaps something awful. 

This may have been the year my sister and I wandered out so late and so long, deciding to try for one more house and one more house, that we looked up and realized we were far, far past any neighborhood we recognized, next to some kind of strange tire junk yard with a broken down fence, and it was well and truly black sky dark out, not just dusk, and our hands were freezing cold and our bags were heavy and our legs were stiff and exhausted. Whether or not we made it back home, I don’t remember. 

Third grade: A tree. This was certainly my own idea, and it was not a good one. It took a very long time to trace all those separate maple leaves out of construction paper, draw the little veins on, and cut them out, but the really hard part was holding my arms up the whole time. Yes, I designed this costumes so that it only looked like a tree if I held my arms up in the air, treelike. If I ever rested my arms, I just looked like a wad of construction paper. Oaktag, if you will. I believe this is the year my sister was a gravestone, or possibly an ear of corn (which also flapped a lot).

I HAVE A PHOTO.

Still smiling;  hadn’t yet realized about the arms. 

Fourth grade: I don’t remember. I do recall I spent a lot of time drawing and painting pictures of people raking leaves, the leaves rendered with bits of sponge dipped in paint and dabbed delicately on the paper; and I spent an awful lot of time drawing skeletons. This lasted throughout the whole year and into the next. Just never got tired of drawing skeletons, and they are still often on my mind. I did enter a Halloween window painting contest; maybe that was fourth grade. Skeletons were a major part of it, as well as some bats. The purple paint from the clouds dripped down over the bats, and me and my friend Lori decided to pretend we had done it on purpose, because the bats were so spooky, even their blood was purple! And we won second place, but the Eagle Times reported that we had won third, and my mother didn’t let me call in a correction, which is total chopmeat. 

Wow, I just suddenly remembered that I had a Halloween party at my house instead of trick-or treating one year! That must have been fourth grade. My father, who was the librarian at the local state college, borrowed a skeleton from the science class, and we set that up in the doorway to greet people. We had an old, rather shabby victorian house, which helped to sell the whole vibe. We did the classic “dead man’s remains” party game, turning off the lights and passing around various foods, solemnly explaining which body parts they were. Peeled grapes for eyeballs, oiled spaghetti for brains, perhaps some Jell-o for some other organ. My father must have organized this. He used to be a children’s librarian, and he loved doing group activities with songs and games. He used to do this thing where you drew little bits of a map as you told a story, and when the story was done, it turned out you had been drawing a duck the whole time. For the Halloween party, I’m guessing he employed his 

Fifth grade: I was Sleeping Beauty. By this time, we had acquired some kind of princess dress made with maroon velveteen and brocade from a yard sale or something. It had ballooning, floral patterned sleeves with long ribbons at the shoulders, you could lace up your arms in a criss-cross pattern, very romantic. So I wore that and made a spinning wheel out of cardboard. I seem to remember a gold crown made out of . . . something uncrownlike, that hurt my scalp a lot. It couldn’t have been barbed wire, but that’s how I remember it. I do remember a freckled girl named Pam being picked up by her mom, staring at my dress with great envy, and savagely remarking, “Must be nice to have someone make homemade costumes for you!” and her mom looking sad. This essay, like all essays, seems to be about moms.

Sixth grade: A flower? I think I made a mask out of a paper plate with painted paper plate petals, and then made a center out of hot pink synthetic fur. This would have been about 1986, so it was pretty easy to get your hands on some synthetic hot pink fur. This was right about the age you were supposed to stop caring about dressing up for Halloween, so you had to start veering into ironic or upsetting or sexy if you wanted to wear a costume. I may have been an idiot in sixth grade, but even I could tell I wasn’t sexy, no matter how many jelly bracelets I managed to cram on my arms; and in my house, my mother scathingly referred to Madonna as “Madoona,” because she didn’t deserve to have the same name as the Blessed Mother; so there wasn’t any way I was going to get away with that kind of costume anyway) so I guess I went with upsetting. I remember sort of looming at people, and refusing to speak, and feeling that I must be an alien flower from some other galaxy. (Really I was just a regular flower.)

And then I don’t think I dressed up again until college, when we were supposed to wear costumes based on the things we were reading in Humanities. 

One year I was, sorry, Aristotle’s Incontinent Man, and that was when I found out how expensive adult diapers are (too expensive for a joke costume, it turns out). I guess I wore dark clothes with a sheet wrapped around my loins, and then I wore makeup to make my eyebrows look indecisive. When it was my turn to present my costume, I asked Maria for a cigarette, and then as soon as I lit it, I change my mind and stamped it out, which made Maria pretty mad. Ha ha, get it, because he’s incontinent. Boy, I miss smoking. 

And that is all I remember. If someone out there went to college with me and has photos of me in blackface or something, please have mercy and keep it to yourself! I’ve changed! I’m Yarn Lady now.