Tag: Instant Pot

What’s for supper? Vol. 442: Behold, the steamer cometh

Happy Friday! I don’t remember why, but I even though I was quite busy this week, I planned a menu with some heavy and elaborate meals. A foolish but delicious error, and we have arrived at Friday, safe and sound and full of butter. 
Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY
Kids leftovers; adults pizza

Damien and I have been ships passing in the night lately, so we ditched the kids and spent some time being ships having pizza together. Sausage and mushroom, very good. 

SUNDAY
Hot dogs, fries

Sunday I got a ton of yard work done. I lugged a dozen cinderblocks out from the back (in fact they were from Damien’s Amazing Interchangeable Cinderblock Meat Altar Situation, which he no longer uses because he now has a real smoker and grill) and made a little retaining heap (can’t really call it a wall) for the flower bed in front of the house, which I’m going to fill in with soil and ferns.

Then Damien and I moved the enormous granite post to make a front step. It’s . . . still a work in progress. 

Then I looked at the house and realized if I was gonna plant more in front of it, I need to fix the siding first. The spot where the porch used to be attached looked like this:

Easy peasy, don’t have to get on a ladder or anything, and I had saved a bunch of siding from the porch, so I had matching siding and everything. EASY PEASY, I tell you. An idiot could do this!

Well, and idiot could do something. This is what I did:

This is the kind of job where I say reassuring things out loud to myself in the hearing of my kids, because the mother’s verbalized self-talk becomes their own internal voice as they mature, or something. Anyway, I said loudly several times that I’m good at other things, and it doesn’t really matter that much, because I’m going to find some really tall ferns. 

Then I planted a few more perennials I had gotten on clearance and lost the tags for, so I have no idea what they are, but I wish them well. Then Corrie and I spent some very pleasant time sorting flower seeds I’ve been collecting all summer, and then we split open the pits from our modest peach harvest.

I was very happy that we managed to get intact kernels from some of the really monstrously big peaches. Our technique was to put the pit on its edge on a rock, insert a flat-head screwdriver in the seam, and tap the screwdriver until it split, and then pry it open the rest of the way with the screwdriver. 

Obviously peaches can grow from a pit that hasn’t been opened, but taking the kernel out and just planting that increases the chances it will sprout. This weekend, I’ll plant them in pots in the ground covered with used duck straw, and in the spring, we should have a few seedlings.

Sophia had the day off (she’s commuting to college and working), so she made some yeasted cider donuts stuffed with apple filling. Superb. 

The plan for supper was Chicago-style hot dogs, with all the chopped vegetables and celery salt and whatnot, but it just didn’t seem worth it, especially since most of the family was out helping Moe move to his new apartment. And especially since granite posts are really heavy, you guys. At one point I heaved so hard that that first my back popped and then my ears popped, and the the word “hernia” popped into my head, so I stopped heaving. So we just had regular hot dogs and fries. 

I did make some ice cream: Two batches of strawberry and one of chocolate, using recipes from the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream cookbook, which I highly recommend if you’re thinking of getting into homemade ice cream, which I highly recommend.

It was just supposed to be regular chocolate, but something went funny with the texture, and everyone assumed it was some kind of fancy chocolate chip

and I didn’t say a peep. 

MONDAY
Bacon chicken ranch wraps, chips

Monday was full of exhausting appointments, so I was happy to have an easy and popular dinner plan. I cooked some frozen chicken tenders and a few pounds of bacon, and served that on tortillas with chunkily shredded cheddar cheese, sliced tomatoes, and dressing. 

I had some kind of spicy honey mustard, but I think others chose ranch. It was pronounced “yum dot com.” 

TUESDAY
Oven-fried chicken, mashed potatoes, sorta-glazed carrots

Tuesday, you’ll never guess, we had another appointment. I was able to prep everything in the morning, though, so there wasn’t much left to do by suppertime. I started the chicken soaking in seasoned egg and milk for the oven-fried chicken

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and made some regular mashed potatoes, and put them in the slow cooker to stay warm. Then before supper, while the chicken was finishing up cooking, I made three pounds of glazed carrots in the oven using this recipe from Recipe Tin Eats. 

The chicken honestly looks kind of gross here, but in real life it was scrumptious, with real crackly skin and super-moist meat, full of flavor. I love this recipe. 

I made the carrots using bacon grease, and it did impart a very mild savory flavor, nothing to knock your socks off. These carrots are very popular with a couple people and everyone else thinks they’re okay.

WEDNESDAY
Garlic butter chicken bites, risotto, steamed broccoli

Wednesday I tried a new-to-me recipe from Sip and Feast, which combined four of my favorite words: Butter Garlic Chicken [and] Bites. 

It was a little time consuming, but that’s mainly because I made a triple recipe. It’s really pretty simple. You cut the chicken (boneless, either breasts or thighs) into chunks, season them, and dredge them in flour, and sear them in oil, and set that aside. Then you melt a ton of butter and cook a lot of garlic and red pepper flakes, then add a bunch of white wine and let the sauce reduce. Then you put the chicken back into the pan and heat it up. 

I wish I had seared the chicken a little darker, but wow, it was delicious. I mean how could it not be, with those ingredients. 

Earlier in the day, I made a pot of Instant Pot risotto. 

Jump to Recipe

I use more butter and cheese than the recipe calls for, but it’s good as is. Then right before some supper, I steamed some frozen broccoli. And it was a lovely meal. 

I didn’t count the calories because I’m a Lit major and I can’t count that high. 

THURSDAY
Bibimbap of sorts

Thursday I was very proud of myself for how fast I prepped supper. As soon as I got home from school drop-off, I chopped some vegetables, shredded and pickled some carrots, defrosted and sliced some meat, and set up the Instant Pot with rice, and set out sauces and sesame seeds, sprouts, spinach, and crunchy noodles, all in about eighteen minutes flat. 

I spent the rest of the day editing, and there was a huge amount of driving around doing this and that in the afternoon, but when I got home, all I had to do was press the “rice” button and throw the meat in a pan. When it was mostly cooked, I doused it with a lot of soy sauce and finished cooking it. Is this subtle or authentic or layered in flavor? No. But it was a damn fine meal all together, with lots of wonderful flavors and textures. 

Here’s the recipe for the pickled carrots:

Jump to Recipe

I honestly can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a meal this much. It’s probably because I got a lot of other things done that day, and I was especially relieved about having finished one project that’s been hanging over my head for months, and that added to my satisfaction; but also it’s just a damn fine meal. I like to put a layer of raw baby spinach on top of the rice but under the meat and fried egg, so the spinach wilts. Yum yum. 

It looked like there might be a frost that night, so I covered my basil, eggplant, and cucumbers, and picked the rest of the corn. I wasn’t expecting much (I had already done the main harvest, and these were the secondary ears of corn lower down on the stalk, and the corn from the second harvest that I shoved in the ground on a whim and didn’t bother to de-tassel), and it was indeed not much. 

For my own amusement, I lined them up in order of best to worst:

and then the other way around:

and that’s-a my corn! I read about corn development and I temporarily knew what had caused the various problems you see on the bad end of the corn spectrum, but I have since forgotten.  Maybe I should call in a prisoner that I’ve heard has some skill interpreting these things. (This is a Bible joke, but I’m too sleepy to finish writing it, sorry.)

Anyway, I think I’ll give this corn to the ducks, who have no skills of any kind, but they sure do like corn. 

In the evening, I drove out to pick up a chainsaw someone was giving away! I’m super excited. It’s my first chainsaw. I can tell the rest of the family is excited, too, because I heard one teenager say to the other, “Ho ho ho, now she has a chainsaw.” 

FRIDAY
Regular old spaghetti

ANOTHER appointment this morning, and that’s it for the week, whew. Because it’s Friday, but still. Whew. Damien and I were supposed to go remote camping for two days this weekend, but I think it’s our destiny to stay home and hang out, much to the dismay of the children, who were looking forward to . . .I don’t know what . . . when we go camping.  Poor things, it’s hard for them, because we’re so incredibly lax and undemanding when we’re home, it must be difficult coming up with some way to let it all hang out even further when we leave. I think they just watch MORE tv and eat ADDITIONAL candy. 

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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.

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Instant Pot Risotto

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

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

Ingredients

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

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

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

Instructions

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

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

    Add them to the brine so they are submerged.

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

What’s for supper? Vol. 441: Mama the Hutt

Happy Friday! Boska!

SATURDAY
Leftovers and Aldi pizza

Just a regular Saturday, as far as I can recall. The shopping turn kid is a thrift store fanatic like me, so we ended up adding three stops to the normal run. I got this cake platter which I’m not 100% sure is a cake platter, but it was in the kitchen section. 

I figured if it was actually a plaque and toxic or something, I could just put a piece of parchment paper on it before serving food. You can see it has these invaluable holes for trapping meringue and caramel, which will be important later. 

I also bought a wig (new in package! I like excitement, but not lice excitement) that may or may not come in handy for the Halloween costume I may or may not wear. 

On Saturday, I started making ice cream for a baked Alaska for Clara’s birthday! Actually, I think I started on Friday. Actually, I started last week, because I was confused about what the date was. Long story short, I ended up making ice cream something like seven times before I figured out that someone had set the freezer at the lowest setting and that’s why my ice cream kept going wrong. THAT’S WHY. 

SUNDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips, tomato soup

Damien was planning to start Monday’s birthday meal, but he was feeling terrible, so I took over. It was the Deadspin chicken cutlets, which are so delicious, we always make three times as much as we need, so we can just keeping eating them all week. 

I think I had about nine big fat chicken breasts, and I sliced each one into four thin cutlets, and then I pounded them flat. Wrapped those up and put them in the fridge, and made the sauce, which is olive oil and red pepper flakes, onions, garlic, canned tomatoes and their juice, tomato paste, and a ton of red wine. 

Then I made an orange pound cake (I used a Krusteaz mix and added orange juice and zest), and got back to making ice cream, which I had to interrupt the other day because oops, no corn syrup in the house. 

Nice easy supper, grilled ham and cheese and tomato soup. 

Truly an unbeatable weekend meal. 

So when I asked Clara what she wanted for her birthday, she said “the fanciest ice cream known to mankind,” and it was my idea to make a baked Alaska. The plan I eventually came up with was this:

So all the elements were: 

-Orange pound cake with orange glaze (Krusteaz mix)
–Olive oil saffron ice cream with burnt orange ripple
–Triple chocolate ice cream with hazelnuts
-Fresh strawberry jam (2 lbs strawberries pureed, juice of half a lemon, maybe 3/4 cup sugar)
-Blackberry ice cream 

I can’t seem to find the recipe for the blackberry ice cream, but I wasn’t crazy about it anyway. It left kind of a film on my teeth, and it didn’t get you to sieve out the seeds, so it was seedy. Probably could have anticipated that, but I did not. 

I ended up churning the saffron olive oil ice cream twice (freezing the bowls in between, so this was over the course of several days), and the damn stuff still would not freeze. So I ended up rescuing it this way, thanks to a suggestion on Reddit: I put it in the freezer in the mixing bowl for 25 minutes, and also froze the whisk attachment, and then scraped the sides and whisked it for a few minutes to combine it, then put it back in the freezer for 25 minutes, then took it out and mixed it, etc. I did this about six times, and eventually it turned into actual (if soft) ice cream, WHEW. So that’s good to know! Sometimes ice cream just will not freeze, but it can be saved!

Anyway, here is a picture of the orange caramel:

It didn’t come out as dark as in the recipe, but hooooo boy. Was this ever up my alley. 

I will tell you now that the saffron olive oil ice cream was good, not incredible. It did taste like olive oil and saffron, and it went really well with the orange caramel, and it was incredibly rich and creamy, and turned out a gorgeous intense yellow. Just not something I’m going to rush out and make again. (You should know the recipe is written in a slightly nutty way. For instance, these are the first three ingredients:

So you’re thinking, “ah, she will have you add cornstarch at two different times.” Nope! Just four teaspoons of cornstarch, but confusing. Oh well. 

MONDAY
Chicken cutlets, baked Alaska 

Monday I made the strawberry jam, which is always a lovely way to spend half an hour: 

I got all the elements assembled and into the bowl around 2:00, which. . . should have been soon enough. 

For a more detailed guide on how to assemble a Baked Alaska, I wrote it all out in this post, when I made one for our 25th anniversary. 

Then I put the tomato sauce for the chicken in the slow cooker to stay warm, and got hopping on the chicken! You coat each piece in salted, peppered flour, then in beaten eggs, and then in a mix of half breadcrumbs, half grated parmesan cheese. Then you fry those suckers in olive oil. 

When they are browned on both sides, you lay a basil leaf on each one, top it with a slice of provolone, and lay a scoop of hot sauce over the top.

Beautiful. Magnificent. We generally only have this meal on special occasions, because it’s labor intensive and expensive, buy wow is it good. I was happy Damien was able to enjoy eating it without having labored over it all day, for once!

After we recovered from feasting for a bit, I made a meringue. Last time I made a meringue, the sugar was a little gritty, so I tried a technique from King Arthur Flour where you combine the egg whites and sugar  (I actually hedged my bets and used superfine sugar, which is sugar whirred up in the food processor) with cream of tartar and salt and whisk it over a pot of simmering water until the sugar dissolves. 

and then you beat it in the standing mixer as usual until it’s stiff. Worked great! No gritty sugar.

Then you pull the baked Alaska out of the freezer, flip it and ease it out of the bowl, slap meringue all over it, and either bake or torch it. 

This baked alaska was, like so many of us, beautiful but unstable. Some of the ice cream was softer than I wanted, and the caramel was pretty oozy. So I handed Clara the torch and she did the honors.

 You can see it sliding! Exciting!

Then I slopped a little bit spiced rum on it, and we lit that on fire, too. It never stays lit as long as I expect it to, but it’s pretty. 

When I sliced it, you could see that I . . . well, remember when I was making the brick patio and I really tried to get the layers level, and I really did what I could, but at a certain point I just embraced the wobble? That is basically what happened here, except this time I didn’t hit myself in the face with a shovel. 

Sort of a Jabba the Baked Alaska situation. 

Jabba wah ning chee kosthpa murishani tytung ye wanya yoskah. Hoh hoh hoh hohhhh, and haaaapy birthday. 

Anyway, it was delicious. Will absolutely be making the chocolate hazelnut recipe again (it’s made with dark chocolate, cocoa, and Nutella, plus toasted hazelnuts), and the orange caramel part, if not the olive oil saffron ice cream, and will use that meringue technique going forward, too. Everyone was stuffed with food, and sat around and yakked and laughed, and she liked her presents, and we had a nice time. Yay!

TUESDAY
Leftover chicken cutlets

Tuesday, as planned, we had leftover chicken. I had been planning spaghetti with sauce and cut up chicken, but I was so exhausted by evening, I told everyone to just do whatever they wanted. I myself toasted some bread and made a little sandwich. 

Actually quite a big sandwich! Yummy. 

Then one kid started to flip out at another kid, and I asked kid 2 if she wanted me to intervene, and she said, “Can you do it without escalating the situation?” and I thought about it, and said, “No.” Then I fixed myself a bowl of saffron olive oil ice cream with burnt orange caramel swirl, sat on the couch, wrapped myself in a blanket, and pretended I was alone. 

Alone with my ice cream. 

If you are wondering how my weight loss journey is going, it’s going great. I find that if you fry My Fitness App in olive oil, it comes out a really nice toasty brown. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken burrito bowl

Wednesday I didn’t super duper have a plan, but I had a bunch of chicken legs that were on sale, so I put them in the pressure cooker with some salsa and some water and pressed the “poultry” button. 

When they were done, I pulled the meat off the bone and put it in the slow cooker with the rest of the jar of salsa, and used the pressure cooker again to make a big pot of plain rice. I served the chicken and rice with corn, cilantro, sour cream, shredded pepper jack cheese, lime wedges, and a sophisticated garnish of flaming red Takis.

And a little hot sauce on top. And it was very good! 

THURSDAY
Kielbasa, brussels sprouts, red potatoes

Thursday I suddenly remembered I promised I would take Corrie to some kind of turtle presentation at the library. So I zipped around prepping supper, and left it on the stove with a note on when and how to cook it, but then I forgot to tell anyone to do it, and they texted me, but I guess I had my ringer off? Sorry, busy admiring turtles. 

Look at those pulkies!

The kids smartly figured out to put the food in the oven, and I came home in time to finish cooking it.

Here’s the recipe:

Jump to Recipe

So it cooked halfway, and then I stirred it up and poured the sauce over it and finished it cooking, and then finished it under the broiler to crisp up the brussels sprouts. Oh do I love some crisped-up brussels sprouts.

I actually didn’t have any honey, so I used brown sugar. I ended up needing a lot more than I expected to make it as sweet as honey, and then I ended up using more brown sugar than I meant to, so it turned out quite sweet. Nobody complained, though! This is such a great fall meal. It would have been really good with some beer bread or biscuits, but this was not the day for that. 

Here’s the beer bread recipe anyway.

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and here’s what it looks like. 

I don’t really miss drinking at all, at this point. It’s been over two years! I do miss having beer and wine in the house to cook and bake with, though. (Obviously I go out an buy it if I need it, but it’s a hassle.) Anyway, mmmmm, beer bread. 

FRIDAY
French toast casserole, hash browns

Still trying to figure out how much bread to buy now that the chief sandwichman of the house has moved out, and we have a ton of bread hanging around, so french toast casserole it is.

(For this, you just tear up bread, mix it with milk and egg batter with maybe some vanilla and a little salt, pour it into a buttered casserole dish, dot it with butter, and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top; then bake until the egg is firm.)

Perhaps I will give the children a thrill and put chocolate chips in it. Not that they deserve it, but who among us. 

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

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

Ingredients

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

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

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

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400. 

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

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

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

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

    Serve hot with dressing and parsley for a garnish. 

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Beer bread

A rich, buttery quick bread that tastes more bready and less cake-y than many quick breads. It's so easy (just one bowl!) but you really do want to sift the flour.

This recipe makes two large loaf pan loaves.

Ingredients

  • 6 cups flour, sifted
  • 2 Tbsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 12-oz cans beer, preferably something dark
  • 1 stick butter

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375

  2. Butter two large loaf pans. Melt the stick of butter.

  3. I'm sorry, but you really do want to sift the flour.

  4. In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients, and stir in beer until it's all combined and nice and thick.

  5. Pour the batter into the loaf pans and pour the melted butter over the top.

  6. Bake for about 50 minutes until it's crusty and knobbly on top.

What’s for supper? Vol. 440: Thank you for your attention to this batter.

Happy Friday! We had so much yummy food this week, and I can’t wait to tell you about it! So I won’t! I mean I won’t wait! Here’s what we had: 

SATURDAY
Leftovers and pizza pockets for kids, steak dinner for adults

Saturday Damien and I went tent camping! It wasn’t that far from home, but it was rural enough that there was no cell phone or internet service. So I put my phone in my purse and I didn’t take it out again for twenty hours. (If you felt a disturbance in the universe, that’s probably what it was.) So I have zero pictures, and zero regrets about that. 

It was glorious. It felt like my brain was being bathed in cool, refreshing water. We just slowwwwed down and did very little. Well, I did very little. Damien did all the packing and made all the arrangements and blew up the air mattress and set up the tent, and he also shopped for and cooked a wonderful meal: Good cheese and good bread and fresh berries for starters, and then he cooked two steaks over the fire. We had some good sharp ginger beer along with it. After we ate, we just sat and stared at the fire, and then we walked to the nearby field and looked at the stars for a bit, and then we went to bed. Magnificent.

The only sour note was the way acorns kept falling from the trees. I know that sounds like a very basic bitch thing to complain about (very “scenery is not breathtaking”), but these were the biggest acorns I have ever seen, and they were firing down from the trees like artillery. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I was genuinely afraid of getting hit. The weirdest thing was, I couldn’t figure out which tree they were coming from! We were surrounded by maples and evergreens, but there was still this invisible oak tree trying to kill us all night. It was truly alarming, and it actually woke me up about fifteen times. But even so, the first thing I thought in the morning was, “We have to do this again soon.” I really love sleeping outside, even if I barely sleep. 

Last time we went camping, we brought the coffee machine, but the battery pack turned out not to be strong enough to power it. This time, we brought a little propane camp stove and a French press, and Damien made coffee and toasted some bagels and fried some bacon over the fire, and brought me a lovely breakfast in tent. 

These are campsites that you park at, and there are other sites fairly close by. The guy across the road from us, for instance, was chopping and sawing wood when we arrived, and he continued to chop and saw wood for hours. And hours. He just kept chopping and sawing and stacking wood, chopping and sawing and stacking wood. Sometimes he would take a break for a while, and then we’d hear the saw start up again. So of course every time, we muttered, “He’s at it again!” and “Lass ihn, lass ihn!” but it was just weird. We figured maybe he promised his wife they could absolutely talk about The Thing, definitely, babe, as soon as he got some wood chopped. Just gotta chop some wood first. What, does she want them to freeze? Then she wakes up the next morning and the entire forest has been felled, and he’s still chopping. 

Anyway, we were thinking next time we might go to a more remote spot. They have campsites with platforms and I think maybe even pit toilets, but you have to hike to them — so no backing up to your site and unloading a million supplies onto a picnic table, but you have to carry it on your back. I think we can do it! Probably won’t be bringing fresh blackberries and a french press, but maybe we will. 

SUNDAY

So we went to Mass at a local church, and the kids at home were all sick, so they stayed home. We were both pretty tired when we got back, but Damien did a million jobs anyway — he did some work on some rotten soffits, and I think he worked on someone’s car,  winterized the pool, set some traps, and yes, he chopped some wood. For the wood stove in his office! Just a normal amount of wood. 

I got busy with the pressing task of rearranging my skeletons. I had an ambitious idea of setting them up on one of those see-saw swings, suspended from a tree, but blah blah blah it was harder than I thought; so I ended up just perching three of them together up in a tree, and they do look like they’re having fun. This year’s new skeleton, Mortadella, I arranged on top of one of our defunct cars, with a young skeleton on his shoulders. I’m not completely happy with them right now, so I’ll probably rearrange them. Anyway, Instacart never has trouble finding our house anymore. 

I truly forget what we had for supper. Oh wait, it was chicken quesadillas. I bought a rotisserie chicken for this because I figured we’d want something quick and easy, and I was right! 

MONDAY
Ziti with sausage and Alfredo sauce

Monday I made my very first Alfredo sauce. I can’t understand how it is that I’ve never made it before, but wow, it is delicious and easy. I followed this recipe from Sip and Feast, and all you do is put butter, cheese, and cream in a bowl (the cream makes it not 100% authentic, but oof it was good), dump your cooked pasta on top of it and mix it up with a little reserved hot pasta water. 

I cooked up a bunch of sausages and added those in with the pasta, and it was fantastic. Totally worth grating some cheese fresh while the pasta is cooking. (Those wedges of parmesan from Aldi have changed my life in a minor but undeniable way.)

Note, I was eating outside with a book. I have been trying to prolong the no-phone brain-rinse effect as much as possible. 

The kids were not impressed with the Alfredo sauce, and I anticipated this, so I made a pound of plain pasta and set aside some plain sausages and grated cheese. And all was well. 

Also on Monday, I finally managed to finish cleaning the pot I burned last Saturday making applesauce! I soaked it for the longest time and attacked it with every tool I could get my hands on, but it still looked like this:

so I dumped in a bunch of baking soda and water and dish soap and let that simmer for several hours. I actually forgot about it and it cooked itself dry, so I ended up having to scrub the baked-on soapy baking powder as well as the burned-on applesauce, but I did it. 

Phew. I really liked that pot. I got it on the side of the road, along with two other very big pots. The only thing I don’t like about them is that they’re so big, it’s hard to find a spot for them. WHICH IS NO LONGER A PROBLEM, AS YOU WILL SEE. 

TUESDAY
Pulled pork, tater tots, roast butternut squash rings

Tuesday I got a pork butt cooking in the morning for pulled pork.

Jump to Recipe

Cut it up, heavy salt and pepper, sear it in a pan, and then dump it in the Instant Pot with cider vinegar, apple cider, cumin, ground cloves, jalapeños, red pepper flakes, and a quartered onion. I think I cooked it for 18 minutes on high and then let it just keep warm the rest of the day.

When it was close to suppertime, I pulled the meat out of the liquid and shredded it in the standing mixer

 

and then added back a little bit of that savory broth it was cooking in. 

My knock-off Instant Pot (I think it’s called Potastic or something) is doing great, by the way. And now the silicone ring smells permanently like cumin and onion, so it’s officially mine. 

I made a few bags of tater tots and a pan of butternut squash rings. It being squash season, I will remind you that it’s way way easier to peel and cut butternut squash if you cut off the ends and/or jab it all over with a fork, and throw it in the microwave for three minutes. Comes out way more compliant!

So I cut the peeled squash into circles and rings (I sliced it into rings first, and then  removed the seeds and pulp by pressing them hard with a mason jar ring), laid them on a pan on parchment paper, and drizzled it with honey, olive oil, cumin, cinnamon, and salt. I just roasted it under the broiler, and it came out lovely. 

I also indulged in some incredibly vulgar jarred cheese product to top it all off. So I had a heap of tater tots, shredded pork on top of that, and topped with BBQ sauce and hot cheese sauce, with squash on the side. 

It was so good. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to eat it out of a little cardboard boat with a plastic fork. I did eat it outside, anyway. Getting as much outdoor time as possible as the temperatures drop. 

The squash was great, too! I do love squash, ever since I ate it for the first time in the hospital a few hours after giving birth to Corrie, who also loves squash. 

WEDNESDAY
Nachos

You know it’s gonna be a top notch meal when I defrost The Chub.

You know which one: The one with the opaque wrapper with a photograph of meat on the outside, and a picture of a cow.

I made two trays of what I am recklessly calling “nachos” — one with just tortilla chips, unseasoned ground beef, and shredded cheese on top, and one with chips, seasoned meat (salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, paprika, chili powder), jalapeños, shredded cheese, and the rest of that horrible yellow cheese sauce.

They were magnificent nachos, just like 7/11 used to make. 

I think it was also Wednesday that I suddenly got really mad and cleaned out the refrigerator. It was truly foul, and it’s so unnecessary for it to get that way! I have this wonderful system where all the jars and bottles go in the two tubs in the bottom (I long ago replaced the cracked and shattered original vegetable drawers with plastic bins from Walmart), and all the vegetables and herbs go in the door. IT’S SO EASY. Everything is visible and accessible, and I have one tub for dairy products that come in cartons, two tubs for cheese, and one for deli meat; and I let them put leftovers in ZIPLOCK BAGS. Could not be easier. But they insist on putting tops on halfway and laying things diagonally on top of a bag of spaghetti, so everything drips and drools and oozes downward, and the bottom of the fridge slowly fills up with a sticky, unspeakable sludge. Oh, I was so mad. I’ve been mad about this for almost thirty years, and I’m not done yet! Anyway, I cleaned the fridge. 

To clarify: I do clean it more frequently than every thirty years. You know what, let’s move along. 

I also picked the last of the peaches. They were so ripe that I didn’t have to blanch them to pull the skins off. I cut the flesh into chunks, threw it in the blender, and then simmered the pulp. Oh, what a color!

Then I realized I’m really big on burning things these days, so I transferred it to the slow cooker and set it to keep warm, and let it cook the rest of the day.  This will be for today’s dinner.

And that’s the end of peach season! It’s definitely a B year for my peach tree. Next year I expect to have a whole lot more fruit. 

Oh, I also cut up the second pork butt I bought (I forget the exact number, but it was a heck of a sale) and started it marinating for Thursday. 

THURSDAY
Banh mi

Thursday morning, I was like, “Okay, stupid, it’s time to put away that wood that’s been sitting on the dining room table all week. You had your chance to finish building those shelves, and you’re clearly not gonna do it, so just put the freaking wood away.” But then I was like, “But, let’s just see.”

And it turns out I finished building the shelves! Hooray! 

This looks very grimy and broken-in because I used wood we already had lying around. That’s right, I DIDN’T GO TO HOME DEPOT. I made some clownishly scalloped edges and absurdly crooked screws, but! this is a space that was once just a musty, greasy void, where springform pans and sifters went to die, and now it’s a three-layer built-in shelf that goes all the way back

so it’s not gonna fill up with irretrievable measuring spoons and onion skins and candy thermometers. And I finished it in time to pick up the kids who had a half day. So I feel pretty great about it all. 

The top shelf is very narrow because it’s just for pizza pans and cutting boards, which tend to get lost; and the bottom shelf is very tall because it’s just for my beloved giganto stock pots. Hope springs eternal! I also attached the bottom shelf with just a few screws, so we can take it out if there’s a leak or something, and we need to get in there. Eventually I will line the shelves with linoleum or something, and I’m gonna sand and stain the wood. In theory. Why rush? Maybe I’ll just think about it for thirty years. 

So the day before, as I said, I had made the marinade and sliced up the pork for banh mi.

You can see that I double bagged it, because it has a lot of garlic, onion, and fish sauce in it. I was actually a little short on fish sauce, so I supplemented with soy sauce, but didn’t notice any difference.  Still plenty stinky. 

Here’s the recipe for that: 

Jump to Recipe

In the afternoon, I made a big batch of quick-pickled carrots

Jump to Recipe

chopped up a bunch of cucumbers and cilantro, and sliced a bunch of baguettes. I took the meat out of the marinade and spread it on a pan on parchment paper, and shoved it right up under a hot broiler. It doesn’t take long to cook, because it’s cut thin and I had marinated it over night. 

Oof, it was so tender and so savory. I put out jalapeños and mayonnaise with the carrots, cukes, and cilantro, and toasted the buns in the last few minutes as the meat finished cooking, and hoooo boy. What a sandwich. 

I probably won’t be making this again for quite a while, because some family members really truly do not like the smell, and we all gotta live here. But I enjoyed that sandwich. 

FRIDAY
Peach waffles, eggs, OJ

Today, we’ll be having homemade waffles, which — dang, I thought I had made a recipe card, but I guess not. Well, it’s basically this

and for anyone who wants it, I will make peach-filled waffles. I mean anyone who lives here, sorry.

You grease the waffle iron, put a thin layer of batter on, then add the filling

then top it with a little more waffle batter and close the iron. This is a picture from  last year, made with what was basically peach pie filling;

This time, I just have the cooked-down peaches, and I didn’t add anything, because they’re so sweet. Sweet and fleet! That’s peaches. 

I bought a huge amount of eggs, and I can’t remember why, so I guess I’ll make a big batch of scrambled eggs for supper, and orange juice. 

Speaking of eggs, one of our newbie duckies has started laying! Did I already tell you that? I’m not sure if it’s Shaq or Tulip, but we got three eggs in one day, and there are only two adult females (Annie and Ray), so there you go. See if you can guess which egg was laid by the beginner. 

Ducks so crazy. 

Well, I also have some very cool news to tell you about, but it’s not 100% official yet, so I’ll hold off! But you know what, God is being really sweet to me this week. There have been at least three separate things that I’ve been like, “Ughhhhh, I have to do this hard thing. Okay. Okay. I can do it. I’m gonna do it, in a minute. But it’s harrrrd!” and then suddenly I get a little help, something that makes me want to do the thing. Amazing! 

And now, Damien’s covering adoration for me so I can get caught up on writing. So that is what I’m gonna do! Smell ya later. 

Print

Clovey pulled pork

Ingredients

  • fatty hunk of pork
  • salt and pepper
  • oil for browning
  • 1 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 2/3 cup apple juice
  • 3 jalapeños with tops removed, seeds and membranes intact
  • 1 onion, quartered
  • 2 Tbsp cumin
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 2 tsp ground cloves

Instructions

  1. Cut pork into hunks. Season heavily with salt and pepper.

  2. Heat oil in heavy pot and brown pork on all sides.

  3. Move browned pork into Instant Pot or slow cooker or dutch oven. Add all the other ingredients. Cover and cook slowly for at least six hours.

  4. When pork is tender, shred.

 

Print

Pork banh mi

Ingredients

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

Veggies and dressing

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

Instructions

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

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

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

  4. Toast a sliced baguette or other crusty bread. 

Print

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

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

Ingredients

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

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

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

Instructions

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

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

    Add them to the brine so they are submerged.

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

 

 

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 437: The Supper of Theseus

Hello! Happy Friday! It is upside-downy day. I slept later than I meant and then spent the whooooooole rest of the day writing until it was time for dinner. Made some spaghetti, THEN did yoga, then cleaned the kitchen because Lucy wasn’t feeling well, then cleaned the dining room because I suddenly couldn’t stand it anymore. And now I am finally writing my food post, which I usually do first thing after yoga on Fridays. 

So! Here is what we had: 

SATURDAY
Leftovers and Aldi pizza

I absolutely trapped myself into going to confession while we were out shopping, and that was a relief. (No murders or anything; it’s just been a while.) I don’t remember much else about Saturday, except that hardly anyone was home. I think Damien was helping Moe with something. Oh yes, and he took Corrie along for the ride. Sadly, the hedgehog shop below Moe’s apartment (yes) was closed for the day, but they had a nice day anyway. 

SUNDAY
Beach food!

Sunday we finally got to the ocean, on the very last day of summer vacation. Poor Damien hurt his back and couldn’t go, and the older kids all went together in a separate car with friends to belatedly celebrate Lucy’s birthday. So that left me, Benny, and Corrie. We were pretty far away from the hurricane, but the ocean was still feeling it. 

Bunch more pictures here.

 

Since it was just the three of us, we hit the arcade and then picked a beachside restaurant. Corrie got her very first footlong hotdog

and Benny got a burger and I got some ridiculous cheesy bacon fries. We don’t have a lot of outings with just the three of us these days, and it was fun! We got home purty late, showered the sand off, and fell into bed. 

MONDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips, fruit salad

First day of school! The younger kids just had half days (not the same half, of course), so we were pretty much driving all day. A fine day for ham and cheese. 

I cut up a watermelon and a bunch of strawberries and threw in some grapes and called it good. 

TUESDAY
Chicken genovese, bread

This past weekend I got fed up with my cinnamon basil, which I bought accidentally, and which has been flourishing like nothing else I’ve ever planted. I don’t really like cinnamon basil, though. But I kept telling myself I was going to make something with it, so I kept watering it and picking the blossoms off every few days, and getting madder and madder as it got bigger and bigger. Anyway, I finally dug it up, chunked it in holes in the front of the house, and declared it flowering plants. I used the open garden space, plus the space where the potatoes were, to plant some cucumber seeds. I don’t know if I’ll really get a harvest before the frost comes, but I might!

Then on Tuesday, I picked a ton of regular basil and made pesto, more or less following this recipe. 

Good stuff. 

I ran out of pine nuts, so I toasted a bunch of almonds and then forgot to put them in. OH WELL. Pesto still turned out great, if a bit pale. 

The recipe is actually for chicken genovese, which is chicken roasted with pesto on and under the skin. It was whole chickens that were on sale, and it turns out most of the kids don’t like pesto (THEY DON’T LIKE PESTO), so I just roasted one with basic seasonings (salt, pepper, garlic powder, I think maybe paprika) and olive oil, and one with the pesto. One of the kids came in when I was shoving pesto under the skin and got permanently creeped out, and I have to admit, it was a little creepy!

Delicious, though. I honestly can’t tell if this looks yummy or grisly, but it was, in fact, yummy. 

When I cut it open, the layer of interior pesto looked so fancy. 

Again, not really sure if this looks gross! I’m tired, and just can’t tell!

I just cut up a bunch of baguettes and dumped a bag of fresh spinach into a bowl, and it was a nice meal. Something different. 

WEDESDAY
Weird tacos, tortilla chips

Wednesday I made some really terrible tacos. I couldn’t find the garlic powder, so I used garlic salt, forgetting that I had already added quite a bit of salt. Then I was out of cumin, so I decided to put a whole extra lot of chili powder, which doesn’t even make sense. I guess I was kind of distracted. Anyway, we had tacos. 

THURSDAY
Salmon, risotto, roast butternut squash

Thursday I was planning to try my new-to-me air fryer, and a few people told me salmon was a great thing to make it in. So I bought some frozen salmon at Walmart, and then for some reason at the last minute I decided to try a slightly more complex recipe than just, you know, salt and pepper and lemon juice. This calls for cutting the salmon into chunks, rolling it in a mixture of spices and brown sugar, and then air frying. Which isn’t that hard, except that I could not get the air fryer to heat up, at all. The light went on, the timer ticked and binged, but no heat, no matter how I set it. UNFORTUNATE. 

So I pan fried the salmon in hot oil, and they turned out pretty okayish. 

Salmon is already on the sweet side, so I think next time I’ll stick with a simpler recipe next time, with no sugar. I guess I was hoping maybe the kids would eat it if it had sugar on it. Don’t tell that shaved ape who runs the health department.

I also cut up a couple of butternut squashes and roasted them on a pan with honey, olive oil, uhhhhh salt, cinnamon, and chili powder, I think. 

That, too, turned out okay. 

The last part was risotto, and I made it in my new-to-me pressure cooker. My Instant Pot kicked the bucket, and what I really wanted was another 8-quart Instant Pot, but those are hard to find (it’s mostly 6-quart ones); so I settled for an 8-quart Instant Pot knockoff. I got it on the day we went to see the petroglyphs. And immediately realized it was, in fact, 6-quart Instant Pot knockoff, and kind of smelled like cigarettes. 

NO MATTER. I wiped it down and there was juuuust room in it to make a triple recipe of risotto. I followed this recipe, except without the sage and squash, and also I shoved a stick of butter in there before adding the cheese. And I doubled the cheese. And I used regular rice instead of arborio. Well, I guess I didn’t really follow the recipe. But it was good!

A good meal altogether, if a bit Ship of Theseusish. 

FRIDAY
Regular spaghetti

I already told you about Friday. What I didn’t tell you is doing yoga after eating a hearty bowl of spaghetti is not highly recommended. But you probably didn’t need me to tell you that. 

So tomorrow, my SISTER is coming, and she and some of her kids are going to spend TWO NIGHTS here! (Okay, yes, that is why I cleaned the dining room. But really, it was out of control anyway.) I am very excited. Thinking about trying out our new-to-me rotisserie thing, since we’ve had so much success lately with new-to-me appliances. I think I’m gonna finally pick my first round of corn, too. 

Okay, that’s it! Happy Friday!

What’s for supper? Vol. 425: Two pies for Millie

Happy Friday! Before we get to the food, I want to acknowledge the passing of my beautiful friend Millie, age 90.

She had a rough couple of last months, but rallied so much at the end, everyone thought she was getting better. She visited her grandchildren and ate a lobster, and then she died in the night. 

I really loved her, and she loved me. I don’t know if you could say we knew each other deeply, but we felt strangely sympatico and enjoyed each other a lot. Please pray for Millie and her family! 

Okay, Millie would totally agree it’s time to talk about food now. Here’s what we had: 

SATURDAY
Leftovers and pizza pockets

We had tons of leftover chicken because two of my brothers and two of my nephews had been over on Thursday. In fact they came back in the evening after dinner on Saturday, so we had them a total of three nights! I haven’t seen my brother Jake or his kids in years, and it was pretty great. Sonny has literally never been happier. I don’t know what it was, but he feel hysterically in love with Jacob and stayed dialed up to eleven the whole time he was here. They were incredibly good sports about it. 

The cat was not. I guess he felt left out, and sulked in the bathroom much of the time, and only started gracing us with his presence again a few days ago. It’s so funny. When I was growing up, cats were mainly decorative creatures that you didn’t interact with much. I was not prepared to even be aware of this much of the emotional life of animals! 

SUNDAY
Pork spiedies, fries, berry crumble

Sunday of course we all went to Mass, and then after we had some final donuts and the fellers started their long drive home, I got some pork marinating for supper,

Jump to Recipe

then roped the kids into moving some rocks around for me, and I started rearranging the garden in front of the house. This involved excavating and moving a giant granite post and digging up many dozens of day lilies, and I don’t really have a clear plan yet, but I certainly did dig up a lot of day lilies. 

The plan is to make the path diagonal to the door, rather than perpendicular to the house. I thinnnnnk I’m going to build a sort of permanent stone wall/planter under the double windows on the right, and then fill everything in with shade perennials. We do have a lot of rocks. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this.

Supper was spiedies. The pork is cut into chunks and marinated — and if you do this recipe, do try to get fresh mint, because it really makes a difference! — and then you roast or grill that along with a bunch of pepper and onion chunks. 

Actually I made two pans, and roasted the meat in one and the veg in the other, and then combined them. I mention this so you don’t think it’s okay to crowd the pan. 

Then you toast some rolls and spread them with mayo, and pile on the meat and vegetables. 

Ohhh. So good. 

It was ice cream sundaes for dessert, and I got a little offended at how much they wanted for a little bottle of caramel sauce, so I tried that Instant Pot recipe for caramel sauce. You take the labels and tops off the cans of caramel, cover the tops with tinfoil, put them on a trivet, and add water around the cans, halfway up. Then you close the lid and pressure cook for 40 minutes. You’re supposed to do a quick release, but I forgot I was making caramel, so it did a natural release. 

So, the important thing to know here is that one of these cans turned out to be fat free sweetened condensed milk. God alone knows what that could possibly be made of, but I certainly didn’t buy it on purpose. But when I read that you were supposed to take the labels off anyway, I surrendered to my fate and just cooked them both. 

When I took the tinfoil off, it was pretty obvious which was which. 

Or, it was pretty obvious that they were two different kinds of condensed milk. Hmm. 

Anyway, you let them cool for a bit, then add some vanilla and beat it up until it’s smooth. One was a little lumpier than the other and wasn’t getting smooth fast enough with fork beating, so I threw them both in the Kitchen Aid and whisked them together. 

And that was the most delicious caramel I’ve ever eaten. It tasted like Werther’s. I guess probably I’ll be just buying regular sweetened condensed milk, but I’ll definitely make this again. 

Note: When it cools, it gets a little blobby, so if you want caramel that oozes, you should warm it up. 

MONDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, vegetables and dip

Monday I sat myself down and sternly reminded myself that, harsh and unjust as it may sound, someone who wishes to call herself a writer, and in fact who wishes be paid for writing, must actually write something at some point. So I wiggled and whined and complained and got up to clean a bunch of stuff, but eventually ground out a couple of essays. 

It was Memorial Day and the kids were home, and there was lots of fresh whipped cream left over from the sundaes, so I figured I might as well make dessert with all the berries I got because they were on sale. I can’t find the recipe I used, but I seem to remember I fudged it anyway, and then I got confused with the struesel topping and didn’t use enough flour, and by the time I figured that out, it had already gone pasty, and was not going to be streuselly at all. 

However, you can’t really go wrong with blueberries and strawberries with something sweet baked onto the top. 

It turned out just about every person living in that house had been helping themselves to the big bowl of whipped cream in the fridge, which I can’t complain about because I didn’t tell them not to, and also because I ate about half of it myself, so there was only a little bit of fairly deflated cream left, and it was actually the perfect companion to my hot berry splat

It was splatty and DELICIOUS. Man, I love berry season. 

TUESDAY
Fish tacos, guacamole and chips

Tuesday we had a meeting, and it turned out that Damien and I were not actually needed, so we ended up just chilling in a waiting room for an hour, and it was actually lovely. 

Got home and made some quick guacamole 

Jump to Recipe

and we had fish tacos with batter-fried fish from frozen, sour cream, salsa, guacamole, cilantro, lime wedges, and — not shredded cabbage, because they didn’t have cabbage (#aldistyle), so instead I put out one of those bags of chopped Asian salads, which is mostly cabbage. 

We haven’t had fish tacos for a while, and they were great. 

Didn’t even notice the rogue carrot shreds. 

And yes, I wrote another essay. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken pie with bacon 

Wednesday was the day I found out Millie had died. I had been meaning and meaning and meaning to go see her, but I wasn’t even sure if she was home or at the nursing home, so I called her house and no one answered, so I called the nursing home, and they put me through to her room, but no one picked up. So I figured I would just go. But I didn’t want to come empty handed, so I made a couple of mini pies for her, hoping she’d be well enough to eat them. She loves chicken pie. 

Here’s my chicken pie recipe. It really outrageously savory and tasty. It has bacon, leeks, potatoes, and chicken. (I’ll put my recipe for pie crust below the chicken pie filling recipe.)

Jump to Recipe

I cut out little feathers for the top of the crust, brushed them with duck egg yolk, and baked them up. Very pretty. 

Then I went to the nursing home and they were like, yes, she’s here, no, we can’t find her name, no, she’s not here, we’re sorry, we don’t know. And I got a pretty bad feeling, so I called Millie’s daughter, and that’s when I got the news. She was so apologetic that they hadn’t called, if you can imagine — I’m just the neighbor! — but I think they actually did, and I didn’t pick up because I didn’t recognize the number. 

So, well, I pulled over to the shoulder of the highway and bawled for a while. Then I went to the chapel and said a decade for Millie. I still had time before I had to get the kids, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I mooched around a thrift store and found a Lady and the Unicorn tapestry pillow which I was pretty sure Clara needed, and I was right about that. 

It turned out she was still at work, so I traded her the pillow for a bunch of fresh baguettes, a day-old sourdough loaf, and some pastries. She went with me on the school run and I was pretty glad to have some company. Then we all went home and, well, ate bread steadily until it was supper time. Like it says in the Bible, when you are sad, eat bread, and then pie. I think it’s in Proverbs. 

The pie was gorgeous. 

The potatoes were a tiny bit underdone, though, so I put it back in the oven and finished it up. Man. Really nice crust, too – thin and flaky. 

It didn’t exactly hold together as a solid, but I don’t know if that’s what you want in chicken pie anyway. 

That evening, I was potting some flowers and some of Millie’s children came over with some beautiful handmade items from her house — a quilt, some sets of placemats, and two quilted bags. Lovely. They invited me to come in and pick out anything else I might want. So I went over and it turns out she had an entire room I didn’t know about, and it was absolutely stuffed with every conceivable kind of fabric. I had to laugh because she always talked about how cluttered her house was, and I always said it didn’t seem that cluttered to me; but I guess the whole time, even if she didn’t go in there, she could FEEL that other room. I know she had plans for all of that fabric, too. Quilts, bags, clothes for her grandkids, clothes for her grandkids’ dolls, and so on and so on. I have never met a more hardworking person in my life. 

Really wish I had gone to see her one day sooner. I really do. If there is someone you have been meaning to visit, please go ahead and do it now!

THURSDAY
Bo ssam, rice, steamed broccoli, pickled carrots and radishes

On Wednesday, I got a hunk of pork brining for bo ssam. On Thursday morning, I took a look at the schedule and realized it was going to be a DOOZY, so I started the pork cooking in the Instant Pot, rather than in a low oven. I also threw a bunch of carrots and radishes in the food processor and started them quick pickling. 

Then I duct taped myself to my computer and wrote another essay. Also got the kids to Mass (Ascension Thursday is still on Thursday in our diocese!), took a kid to a meeting at the school she’s transferring to, got cash for a field trip, went back to Millie’s house and got a dresser, and picked up the kids, and we had a schedule complication where a kid had to be at a place and she was okay with being early but not THAT early, so we launched Operation Kill Time Without Spending Money, and lurked about at the park for a while. I did lose Corrie, because of course I did, but then we found her, and got home. 

My friends, that house smelled of FEET. Very bad feet, like malevolent. Feet that want you dead and damned. I was kind of baffled, because the windows are open and yes, we have teenagers, but we also had teenagers yesterday and it didn’t smell like this yesterday. So I did some sniff-sleuthing, and figured it out. 

It was the pickled radishes. 

I have made pickled radishes before! They just smelled like vinegar! I have no idea what happened here, but BLURGH. 

I mean, yes, I ate them. In the car, on the way to the art gallery, because goodness knows it didn’t already smell bad enough in my car already. 

Also I had two hampers full of canned goods from Millie’s pantry, because I am gonna bring them to Vincent de Paul, but first I have to make sure they’re not eleven years old. 

Oh, so the bossam was actually not that great. It came out of the IP kinda dry and tough, and I was a little low on brown sugar, so when I put the last little topping on and put it in the oven to glaze up, it was a little lackluster

and I mean that literally. It usually comes out of the oven absolutely GLEAMING. And I forgot to get lettuce to wrap the meat and wrice in. But it was fine. 

Oh, I forgot to link to the recipe. Here it is. I don’t usually make the extra sauce; I just do the salt and sugar brining, and then the brown sugar-cider vinegar-salt thing for the top. And usually it turns out great! 

Poor Damien has been driving around all week and went straight from Concord to the court house in Keene to the art show. Anyway, Lucy’s work was extremely cool, as usual. 

 

Blessedly, Sophia took the other kids to see the art show after they ate, and stayed to bring Lucy home afterward, because Damien and I were just about deconstructed with exhaustion. Damien’s been doing a million extra things this week — getting the pool into shape, performing minor surgery on one of the ducks, fixing the lawn mower, and so on. And just cheerfully agreed to figure out how to move the hose spigot to the outside of the house, so I don’t have to go in the scary basement. 

The baby ducks have been spending their whole day outdoors this week, and only coming inside for the night. They get along great with the big ducks! Coin immediately recognized them as Guys He Is In Charge Of, and busily herded them toward the pen where the food is. So I have no worries that they’ll do fine when they start spending their nights in the duck house. They need to grow some more grownup feathers, so they stay warm and dry enough. 

They still pile themselves on top of each other all the time, which cracks me up. They have NO concept of personal space, and basically live on top of each other as often as they can, despite having an acre of land to roam around on; but they are also apparently completely oblivious of each other. 

I am so very fond of these dumb, dumb creatures. We don’t know yet if they’re girls or boys, though. If there is one boy, that will be fine, in proportion to the number of females we have — but if there are two or more boys, we’re gonna have to figure some things out! 

Right now, Shaq and Tulip (the pekins) are still yeeping, and only Zippy has learned how to quack. Hilarious. 

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

Today, I’m gonna go back to Millie’s house and get her bed, which feels A LITTLE WEIRD, but it’s a beautiful little carved wooden bed, painted white, and Corrie really needs a bed. Millie would be so absolutely delighted to know that she’s getting it. 

And we shall have spaghetti for supper. One of the kids mentioned that we are having spaghetti a lot lately. And she is right! We are. 

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. 

5 from 1 vote
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pork spiedies (can use marinade for shish kebob)

Ingredients

  • 1 cup veg or olive oil
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup red or white wine vinegar
  • 4 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 2 Tbsp sugar
  • 1 cup fresh mint, chopped
  • 8-10 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 4-5 lbs boneless pork, cubed
  • peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, cut into chunks

Instructions

  1. Mix together all marinade ingredients. 

    Mix up with cubed pork, cover, and marinate for several hours or overnight. 

    Best cooked over hot coals on the grill on skewers with vegetables. Can also spread in a shallow pan with veg and broil under a hot broiler.

    Serve in sandwiches or with rice. 

 

5 from 1 vote
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Rebecca's chicken bacon pie

Ingredients

  • double recipe of pie crust
  • 1 pound bacon, diced
  • 4 ribs celery, diced OR one big bunch of leeks, diced
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 1 bunch thyme, finely chopped
  • 3 chicken breasts, diced
  • 2-3 potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 6 Tbsp butter
  • 6 Tbsp flour
  • 3 cups concentrated chicken broth (I use almost double the amount of bouillon to make this)
  • 2 Tbsp pepper
  • egg yolk for brushing on top crust

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 425.

  2. In a large pan, cook the bacon pieces until they are browned. Take the cooked bacon out and pour off most of the grease.

  3. Add the onion and celery to the remaining bacon grease and cook, stirring, until soft. Return the bacon to the pan.

  4. Add the thyme, pepper, and butter and cook until butter is melted. Add the flour and whisk, cooking for another few minutes.

  5. Whisk in the chicken broth and continue cooking for a few more minutes until it thickens up. Stir in the chicken and potato and keep warm, stirring occasionally, until you're ready to use it.

  6. Pour filling into bottom crust, cover with top crust, brush with beaten egg. Bake, uncovered, for about an hour. If it is browning too quickly, cover loosely with tin foil.

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

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

Ingredients

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

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

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

Instructions

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

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

    Add them to the brine so they are submerged.

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

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 413: Erasmus B. Dragon

Happy Friday! Sorry for the interruption with the website last week, and thanks a lot, OBAMA. 

We have been on February vacation all week, and there has not been one single day when I’ve been sure what day it is, except I knew for sure that the month was almost over and I had cleverly arranged for all my writing deadlines to cluster together in one giant, unfortunate . . . cluster.

But, food! I’ll just do a few quick highlights from the previous week, because I tried a few new recipes. 

One day we had
Bacon potato soup and french bread.

The french bread is, of course, not a new recipe

Jump to Recipe

but I got cute and made sixteen little personal loaves, rather than four big ones. 

Because it’s such a simple recipe, I ventured outside my comfort zone and just added flour until the dough looked right, rather than meticulously measuring it. I’m trying to give myself credit for knowing how to do things I’ve done a thousand times before.

Turned out great! At least with bread.  

The soup was more or less following this recipe from Sugar Spun Run, and maybe it’s the My Fitness Pal talking, but I had a really hard time feeling like a recipe that includes bacon, all the bacon grease, milk, heavy cream, sour cream, butter, AND CHEESE (and additional cheese, bacon, and sour cream for the top!!!!!) really truly needed as much butter as this recipe called for. So I used a little less butter. I turn sideways, people question where I went. 

It’s one of those soups where you cook it for a while, then put half of it in a blender and puree it, and then add that back into the soup. I’ve only recently become familiar with this technique of soup made out of itself, and it’s pretty good. Quite a rich, thick soup. 

I did add a bit of cheese to the top, along with a little chili powder and chopped scallions, but mostly to add color, since it was quite beige.

I’m not gonna lie, this is a ridiculously delicious soup. The kids did NOT like it, though. They really resent when I serve bacon in any other form besides, you know, baconform. Which I understand! But also, sometimes I want to make things that I like.

We also had, let’s see, meatball subs, tacos, cuban sandwiches with beans and rice, and another new recipe: Ginger chicken from a site I haven’t used before, The Woks of Life. He gives very specific instructions for each ingredient, and it was pretty easy to follow, although I fudged a few things (mirin instead of Shaoxing wine, one kind of soy sauce instead of two, and onions instead of shallots), and my sauce didn’t come out as dark as his. Most likely I rushed it, which is the story of my life. 

But YOU GUYS, it was still SO GOOD. 

Tons of flavor, tender and gingery, wonderful comfort food. I think just about everybody liked it, which almost never happens. Corrie even requested it for her birthday meal (although she later recanted that in favor of . . . well, you’ll see). 

I also made some quick sesame broccoli, which is just broccoli sprinkled with sesame oil, soy sauce, salt, pepper, ground ginger and garlic, and sesame seeds, and then roasted. Very easy and popular. 

We spent part of the week getting ready for Corrie’s party (I have now decluttered every single room downstairs, and one room upstairs!). I made a paper mache pinata in the shape of a dragon egg (which, if you’re not familiar, is the same shape as a balloon) and some kind of half-hearted decorations (a “mystical cave entrance” in the living room doorway largely made of brown shipping paper twisted into vines and tacked onto the wall, with some green and purple foil easter grass thrown in).

The big thing was the DRAGON CAKE. I’m proud of this one. 

First I baked the cake layers. I almost always use box cake mix for younger kids’ birthdays, because they care a lot more about the look of the cake than the flavor, and their parties include so much candy and snacking that, by the time we get to cake, no one’s palate is especially fine tuned. 

So then I made a batch of rice krispie treats, and smooshed it together as compactly as I could, and formed it into a dragon-ish shape. I was very proud of remembering to form it on top of the pan I had baked the top tier of the cake in, so I knew it would fit onto the finished cake. 

It would have been smart to put a layer of parchment paper under it to keep it from sticking, but I didn’t think of that! It did stick a bit, but not disastrously. 

I made the dragon on Thursday for a party on Saturday, so it would have plenty of time to dry and get stiff. I also put a cup under his chin to prop it up while it dried, because it was droopy.

On Friday, I attached edible gold foil to the belly, chest, nose horn, and tip of the tail with frosting, and then I used hardening cookie frosting (comes in a pouch at Walmart) to attach a row of spikes from the top of his head to the end of his tail. The spikes are black candy melts cut into triangles. I made a feeble attempt to put them on in size order, but mostly just shoved them in there.

Then I made the wings! I had the bright idea to use fruit rolls. I cut up some plastic straws, laid them out, stretched the fruit rolls over one side and then flipped them over and stretched another layer on the other side, and trimmed each wing into scallops; and then I used a kitchen torch to seal the edges up so they wouldn’t come apart.

I put a wooden skewer inside the long straw, to make it more rigid, and to make it easier to anchor in the dragon’s body. These also got laid out overnight to stiffen and dry out, so they wouldn’t droop. 

I tried several different ways of covering the dragon’s body, with frosting, scales, etc., and finally reluctantly settled on fondant, which I haven’t used much before. This was nerve-wracking, because at first it looked like he was just wearing a big red sweater.

and truly, I say unto you, it took KIND OF A WHILE to get him all covered and smoothed. But I kept going, and when I molded it a bit and added claws and some details with black icing, it looked okay!

I iced the cake with black and grey frosting, carefully set the dragon on top, and added more gold foil, gold coins, and gold chocolate eggs, and also a bunch of vanilla Oreo cookies that I had sprayed with gold spray.

AND HERE HE IS.

Five guests were able to make it, the pinata worked perfectly (didn’t fall apart too soon, but wasn’t completely impenetrable) and she had a wonderful time. 

Phew! We had Walmart pizza for supper and then collapsed like bunches of broccoli, respectively. 

Sunday, I had a profound desire to not go shopping, so we had our customary leftover buffet, plus a charcuterie board of whatever I could find in the fridge, which included some fancy things we got for Christmas, that I recently rediscovered when I cleaned my room. I sliced up the leftover french bread, drizzled it with olive oil, sprinkled it with flaked kosher salt, and toasted it

and it was a damn fine meal.

For reasons I can’t explain, I decided to make cake balls for dessert. I have never made or eaten cake balls before, and I found the process slightly gross (you bake a cake, let it cool, crumble it up, and scrunch it into dough with big gobs of frosting. Then make balls, chill them, and dip them in candy melt), but they did turn out looking cute and cheery.

I had one and was underwhelmed; but to be fair, I may have underbaked the cake, so maybe the whole thing was a little more damp than necessary. WHO AMONG US. Anyway, the kids liked them okay. 

MONDAY I finally went shopping, and we had
Buffalo chicken salad

Salad, buffalo chicken from frozen, shredded pepper jack cheese, crunchy fried onions from a can, grape tomatoes, and blue cheese dressing. I’m being tiresome about calories, so I skipped the dressing on mine.

That night, Corrie made ice cream pies for her CALENDAR birthday, which, according to Fisher Rigamarole, is a distinct holiday from your birthday PARTY. 

She requested graham cracker crust, black raspberry ice cream, mini marshmallows, skittles, and gummy worms. She didn’t want any whipped cream or cool whip or cherries or anything. 

Tuesday
Market Basket subs, Doritos, bloomin’ onion, ice cream pies

On Tuesday we went to get her EARS PIERCED. Which was not fun, but she’s been wanting it done forever, and she’s very happy with the results. Then we went to get Market Basket subs. 

Are Market Basket subs especially good? Not especially! But we often get them when we’re going to the beach or on a day trip, so I guess they spell T-R-E-A-T. I have to admit, they’re cheap. They taste like Subway subs and cost what Subway subs should cost.

So we had that and chips and then I guess I felt weird not cooking anything, so I made some bloomin’ onions. You can use a knife to cut an onion into a blossom shape, but it’s way easier if you have an onion cutting device, WHICH I DO.

I made an attempt to take a soulful, romantic photo with one of my beautiful onion lotus blossoms, but I just ended up looking exhausted, which, by strange coincidence, I was.

I lost the recipe booklet that came with my onion machine, so I followed this recipe, which includes a nice zippy recipe for dipping sauce. 

Turned out pretty okay! I crowded the pan and was a little short on oil, but hey, the onion, she blooms.

Corrie had yet another wonderful day with most of her siblings over and lots of presents, including these incredible Bender fingerless mittens made by Lucy

And that was that! Whew!

WEDNESDAY
Instant Pot pork ribs, glazed carrots, cole slaw

Thursday I tried another new recipe: This Amy + Jacky Instant Pot recipe. Easy peasy. You mix up apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, brown sugar, and a few spices, and marinate the pork ribs in that for a while. Then you throw them in the IP and cook it on high pressure for 15 minutes, then let it natural release for ten minutes. Mine sat for somewhat longer than that because I was driving around (not to and from school, though! It’s vacation, so I was driving them to and from their friends’ houses), so they turned out a little unsightly

but I was excited, because I could tell how tender and juicy they were. You slather BBQ sauce on top and broil it up for a bit, and there it is.

I had made cole slaw in the morning (cabbage and carrots, mayo, cider vinegar, sugar, and pepper) and prepped some carrots to cook, so I put the carrots in the oven just before the meat went in, and it all came out at the same time.

The carrot recipe I used was this simple one from Recipe Tin Eats. This is a rare RTE recipe that does not turn out exactly as she describes, and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. Hers are shiny and sticky, and mine are just kinda toasty. They’re easy and popular, though, so it’s worth making them even though they’re not spectacular. I wish I had remembered a sprinkle of cardamom, though. 

Anyway, I thought it was a great meal. 

and the ribs really were juicy and ready to fall apart with a slight nudge from the fork. 

For sure making this recipe again, at least until it gets warm enough for Damien to use the smoker again. 

THURSDAY
Beef barley soup, pumpkin muffins

Thursday the older kids had their own plans, so I took Benny and Corrie out for an outing of our own. We hit a thrift store, a local place that does giant baskets of fries, the pet store, and a fancy candy store, and when I say my dogs were barking, I really mean it! I still had to make supper, and it was so late already, I figured I might as well forge ahead and make the meal I had planned, which was beef barley soup and pumpkin muffins. 

Yes, this is a weird combination, but I made it one time and certain people decided it was 100% ideal, so we’re locked in for a while. 

Here is my beef barley soup recipe:

Jump to Recipe

which I threw together in record time. I was kind of puzzled as to why it looked wrong, but when you’re FORGING AHEAD, you simply don’t have time to fret over these things!

Anyway, it was tomatoes. I forgot the tomatoes. They’re more important than I realized, and the soup was a little sad without them! Oh well. 

When the soup was simmering, I started pumpkin muffins,

Jump to Recipe

and discovered I had used all the oil for frying the bloomin’ onions, so I used melted butter. They turned out with a nice, more textured top

but the inside had a slightly waxy feel that I wasn’t crazy about. So now I know.

(I took that picture because, as I was pulling the twenty-four muffins out of the pan, I reminded myself that there would be a grand total of four people at home for dinner, and WHAT IF THERE’S NOT ENOUGH FOOD. Waste! Fraud! Abuse! Somebody alert Department Of Gnawing Everything so they can come over and fix things by clogging up the toilets and shooting the dog.) 

FRIDAY
Poke bowls

Today I am facing a rash promise I made to take the kids ice skating this week, which you may or may not have noticed is almost over, and yet we have not gone ice skating yet. There are two ice rinks around here (one ten minutes away, one forty), and neither one seems especially interested in . . . letting people ice skate on them? So we are aiming for the 7-9:00 spot, forty minutes away. Yes, in the EVENING. Maybe the world will come to an end before that happens. Of course I was counting on that to rescue me from having to do the FAFSA, and that didn’t work out, so probably we will have to go ice skating.

Anyway, first we will be eating something approximating poke bowls. Gonna cook up a bunch of rice and probably sear some Walmart tuna steaks, and I have chili lime cashews from Aldi, mangoes, some kind of green sprouts, and various pink and yellow and brown sauces. 

Saturday will be a regular day, and then Sunday we are going to a museum and will be getting back very late on the night before the first day back at school! Which is a great idea! It was my idea! Hooray! Somebody call the department of paste, frog, and caboose! I have a fever and the only cure is more measles!

I actually think I do have a fever, so. We’ll see who’s ice skating whom. 

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French bread

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

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

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5 from 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. 

5 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. 

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 411: You can’t fufu all the people all the time

Happy Friday! The star of my week was MY NEW FRYING PAN. I love this thing. I wish it had two “helper handles” rather than one long one and one helper, but other than that, it’s everything I wanted. Tons of frying space, even heat transmission, high walls, and you can just scrub it clean with no rigamarole. Always Avoid Rigamarole, Guys; that’s my motto. AARG. 

I’ve also been enjoying the paring knife I ordered to bump up my purchase to get free shipping. Feeling very fancy in the kitchen these days. 

Here’s what we ate this week. Well, starting with last week, because it got a li’l weird:

FRIDAY
Seared lemon basil scallops on coconut rice, spicy fried eggplant, and stuffed clams 

One of my earliest memories is going to a potluck in kindergarten and barely being able to see over the top of the table, and being absolutely bewildered and overwhelmed by the array of unfamiliar foods. I vaguely felt that I wasn’t allowed to take anything that I didn’t normally eat (I didn’t even recognize some of the utensils. SALAD TONGS, what??), so I got some baked beans and brought them back to my seat. I was actually fine with this, because I knew what beans were and I liked them! But a mom came over and clucked at me for just getting beans, and loaded up my plate with a bunch of other stuff. I don’t remember what, but the important thing was that someone else was in charge. 

 Anyway, now I am fifty years old, and when I am in charge, I tend to make a bewildering array of unfamiliar foods myself. I enjoy this, but I would also enjoy a plate full of beans. 

So I seared the scallops sort of casting one eyeball at this recipe, and they turned out nice, only I used too much oil 

They do cook up fast, though, so if you happen to have some scallops, this is a very decent choice of preparation. Before I did that, I put some frozen stuffed clams in the oven, and also I fried a bunch of eggplant. 

Here’s my recipe for fried eggplant

Jump to Recipe

It’s good to start at least an hour before dinner, because you need to salt the eggplant to draw out the moisture, then dredge them in batter and fry them, and you don’t want to crowd the pan.

They’re SO GOOD, though. Totally worth it. The batter includes baking powder, so you get those crisp, knobbly, bubbles on the outside when they fry, and the inside is just melty tender. I wish I had made some yogurt sauce or maybe some kind of spicy tomato thing, but there were no complaints.

I heated up the coconut rice from last week’s Thai meal and served it with the scallops, rather than saving it for Leftover Day on Saturday, because I knew the kids weren’t crazy about it, and I was. 

So it was a bit of a weird meal, but undeniably tasty. 

The other kids were eating pizza at the library (which is what inspired me to make a Grownup Meal), but Corrie was home, and didn’t want any of the foods I cooked, so I took the leftover eggplant batter and made a fried Corrie.

And I do believe this is what she ate for dinner. 

SATURDAY
Leftover Buffet, french bread pizza

A little spaghetti carbonara, a little Thai chicken, and this and that. 

I forgot to tell the kids to save the leftover leftover ham, though. Oops. 

SUNDAY
Italian sandwiches, fries

Sunday after Mass, I did something I’ve been hyping myself up to do for weeks: I cleared off the landing. For a while, it was the bedroom of a kid who would rather sleep on the landing than share a room with siblings; and then, predictably, it became a dumping area.

Corrie and I set to work (she owes me money for a book order, and she doesn’t mind being a runner for cleaning projects, as long as someone else is in charge), and three hours and six trash bags later, it looked like this:

Instagram-worthy, no. Much much much much better, definitely. A spot for the Barbie Dream House, plus Corrie’s typewriter and sewing machine. 

I bought a bunch of cleaning products and I’ve been tackling various areas of the house one at a time, lately. Because it turns out that when I feel powerless and overwhelmed for . . . . reasons . . . . it helps an awful lot to clean something! You peek your head over the tabletop, see the news headlines, and are overwhelmed by the incomprehensible and unfamiliar chaos, and you think, “Well, I know one thing I can fix.” It helps! And it’s cheaper than heroin.

I knew I was going to be working on this cleaning project all day, so I planned sandwiches for supper. Looks like we had salami, capicola, prosciutto, provolone, basil, and oil and vinegar. I had bought some tomatoes, but the kids forgot to bring them in from the car, and they froze, so that was out, bleh. 

I did buy a jar of those pickled vegetables, giardiniera? and threw them in the food processor along with a can of black olives, a little olive oil, and some red wine vinegar, and made it into I guess a sandwich spread. I don’t know if there is a name for this, but I liked it. 

We also had fries. Always a popular meal.

Also on Sunday, I discovered that the part of the oven door that I thought was permanently black because the enamel had been burnt off, was actually just coated with burnt-on grease. So I’ve been scrubbing away at that. I just … want things clean. Cleaner. 

MONDAY
Omelettes, roast squash sticks(?), spinach

Monday I tackled the laundry room. I didn’t take a “before” picture, but it was a “there’s a floor here somewhere” situation. Another few bags of trash, and here is the “after.”

You can’t really see it, but I labelled all the shelves. But I did it in CHALK, which you can erase, because there are few things more depressing than tackling a chaotic mess and uncovering permanent but irrelevant labels you put on last time you organized it, back when you were young and still full of hope. Now I am old and full of chalk. But at least I know where my sheets are. 

Also on Monday I got a little bit mad about egg prices and decided we weren’t gonna get pushed around, so I made omelettes. Look, this is a food blog, not a “life choices that make perfect sense” blog. This is the meal I meant to save the ham for, but it got tossed (because the kids were following the rules I had made; can’t complain).

The kids tried to persuade me that deli turkey and raw onion is a normal thing to put in omelettes. IT’S NOT. That’s weird. But I was making omelettes to order, so that’s what they had. 

I myself had cheddar and spinach, which is a DELIGHT. 

As is my new pan! Have I mentioned my new pan? I really like it. 

Then I had a couple of butternut squashes which I cut into thin pieces and roasted, with olive oil, cardamom, brown sugar, and cayenne pepper. This didn’t actually work very well.

The flavor was good, but I think if you are going to cut squash into such thin pieces, it would need to be deep fried to make it crisp; and if you are going to oven roast it, you should cut it into chunks. Also it took FOREVER to cut the squash into such small pieces. 

Don’t get me wrong, I gobbled it up. It was just a little peculiar. I actually mixed it up with some leftover shredded spinach and it was pretty tasty. 

TUESDAY
Hamburgers, chips

I’m a little nervous about the future of ground beef in this country, so I decided we might as well have burgers while we can. A couple of the big kids were over, and we just had burgers and chips, easy peasy. Simple pimple. Pretend I didn’t say that. 

Tuesday I also tackled the infamous White Cabinet and Environs, which looked like this:

I remember buying this cabinet NEW, which was an incredibly splurgy purchase at the time. It was going to change my life and make everything orderly and pristine. And it did, for about eleven days. Then the shelves started falling out, and the frame got all crooked so you couldn’t put the shelves back in, and this is more or less how it’s looked ever since. It looks like it has shelves, but they randomly tip forward and disgorge their contents onto the floor, and then people stack random things on top of that. Which is not my FAVORITE. 

So on Wednesday, I got a saw and a drill and this plank of wood that’s been hanging around in the kitchen, sawed that up, and built a sort of interior frame under each shelf. Then I sorted everything and threw out three more bags of trash, and now it looks like this:

THE DOORS CLOSE. Obviously haven’t gotten up to the “and environs” part yet, and my floor looks how floors look in New Hampshire in February, so I’m not even gonna apologize for that. 

But look! Over three days later, and it hasn’t fallen apart inside yet. 

The kids are pretending to be enthusiastic about having a place for everything, and that’s good enough for me. And I found eleven pairs of scissors (not a made up number).

WEDNESDAY
Chinese pork, pineapple, crunchy rice rolls

Wednesday the plan was char siu, but I was fooling myself about being home at the right time of day to baste a roast pork. So I made a marinade and put it in the Instant Pot with the pork and set it for 22 minutes. 

I have actually done something similar, with pleasant results, on days when I have enough time to take the cooked pork out of the Instant Pot, cut it, and then simmer it on the stovetop with the sauce for half an hour or so, to give the sauce a chance to thicken up and coat the meat. 

Jump to Recipe

But it being Wednesday, I didn’t have time for that, so I just cut up the meat and served it with pineapple and crunchy rice rolls.  

Tasted fine. It did have that nice char siu flavor, even if it wasn’t all glossy and sticky and lovely. 

On Wednesday morning, I realized I had kind of painted myself into a corner with the menu. My original plan was to make injera on Thursday, and you are supposed to start that fermenting at least four days ahead of time. Obviously I didn’t do that. So what I did was prep all the stuff for Thursday’s dinner on Wednesday morning. I’m just basically riding some kind of wave of nervous energy here. I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but I’m trying to put it to good use while it does.

I’ve also been doing some more wood carving in the evening. I like to listen to the wonderful show Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin in the evening and use that time to whittle. Here’s a couple of works in progress:

The first one is a hair ornament, and I think I just need to sand it a bit and stain it. The leaf, I don’t know what it is. It’s a thing that helps me sleep at night. 

Makes me remember it’s almost time to tap the trees, though!  I was telling the kids how, last fall, I went around identifying all the maple trees while they still had foliage, and tying orange cloth on them so I could find them in early spring. So Irene goes, “ohhhh, so I shouldn’t have been pulling those off all winter?” 

She was kidding. Pretty sure. I somehow ended up with ten kids who are constantly kidding. I am not sure how that happened. 

THURSDAY
Kuku paka, fufu, basmati rice, ube pudding

Thursday was a snow day, so I was delighted to realize I (a) had all the time in the world to cook and (b) had already done a lot of the hard part the day before. Behold, my mise en placing:

Clockwise, that’s onion; coriander, cumin, turmeric, and cayenne pepper; and ginger and garlic. 

Here is the recipe I was following, from my new best friend Recipe Tin Eats. 

You salt and pepper your chicken thighs and drumsticks and then brown them in oil. In your NEW PAN, if possible. 

Then you take the chicken out and fry up your onion, then ginger and garlic, then the spices, then add pureed tomatoes, coconut milk, and some kosher salt. Then you put the chicken back in and let it simmer. 

I let it simmer for about an hour, and then I moved it to the slow cooker for the rest of the day. 

My dears, it smelled incredible. As Nagi points out, this could easily be an Indian dish, but it is actually North African. So I thought it would be a great time to try  that Fufu mix I bought quite some time ago. 

I have never had fufu and struggled a bit to explain it to the kids. As far as I can tell, it’s a staple in Nigeria and Ghana (which I realize is West Africa. Look, I went to public school), and it’s good for filling you up when you don’t have a huge amount of meat, and it’s also good for sopping up sauce or juices. It’s made from starchy vegetables like cassava, yams, or plantains that you boil and then pound the hell out of in a giant mortar. Or, if you are me, it’s made out this white powder from a box:

I watched a few videos and concluded that nobody in this house has had fufu before, so I could basically do whatever I wanted. So I boiled a kettle of water and slowly added it to the powder while beating it viciously with a wooden spoon, until it became a very thick dough.

Then I added more water to the pot and let it cook for a little bit, and then I took the dough and formed it into balls. This was not easy, because for some reason, when I took it out of the boiling water, it was pretty hot. But somehow I managed. 

Fufu is supposed to be super smooth and free of lumps. OH WELL.  
I decided it would be wise to also make a big pot of rice! I made basmati rice (I rinsed the rice and put it in the pot with 1.5 cups of water for every cup of rice, brought it to a boil, then let it simmer for I think 18 minutes, and then turned off the heat, fluffed it, and let it sit for another ten minutes. Turned out great.)

So here’s the chicken curry after cooking in the slow cooker all day:

Dang, you guys. The meat was incredibly tender, and the sauce was MAGNIFICENT. So savory and warming and friendly and rich, but not too spicy. (I did cut the cayenne pepper in half, which Nagi suggested might be wise.) 

I had a thigh and a drumstick and it was such a filling meal, I didn’t even eat all of it, which is kind of. . . not how I usually act. 

The kids all tried the fufu, and nobody was crazy about it, which is understandable. I thought it was super good when you pull off pieces and roll it around in the sauce.

Probably not gonna make fufu again, but it was a fun experiment. I do want to order it in a restaurant at some point, to see how it’s supposed to taste! I will most definitely make this curry again, though. Damien and I really loved it. 

While I was hunting in the cabinets for the fufu mix, I found another little international impulse purchase, and it seemed like a reasonable time to use it. 

This is just basically instant pudding. You just add hot water, stir, and pour it into molds and let it set in the fridge for a few hours. 

We opted for PURPLE HEARTS OF UBE. 

I liked it! Tasted yammy. Again, no one else was crazy about it, but at least now we know. 

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

The last few days were a bit challenging for the kids, so I decided to relent and serve Regular Old Spaghetti today, and they are glad. 

Oh, it turns out the plank of wood that was in the kitchen, that I sawed up to fix the white cabinet? That was a piece of Benny’s door frame that fell off. 

Look. One thing at a time. All one can do is try. 

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Fried eggplant

You can salt the eggplant slices many hours ahead of time, even overnight, to dry them before frying.

Ingredients

  • 3 medium eggplants
  • salt for drying out the eggplant

veg oil for frying

3 cups flour

  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 Tbsp cumin
  • 1 Tbsp paprika
  • 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
  • 2-1/2 cups water
  • 1 Tbsp veg oil
  • optional: kosher salt for sprinkling

Instructions

  1. Cut the ends off the eggplant and slice it into one-inch slices.
    Salt them thoroughly on both sides and lay on paper towels on a tray (layering if necessary). Let sit for half an hour (or as long as overnight) to draw out some of the moisture. 

  2. Mix flour and seasonings in a bowl, add the water and teaspoon of oil, and beat into a batter. Preheat oven for warming. 

  3. Put oil in heavy pan and heat until it's hot but not smoking. Prepare a tray with paper towels.

  4. Dredge the eggplant slices through the batter on both sides, scraping off excess if necessary, and carefully lay them in the hot oil, and fry until crisp, turning once. Fry in batches, giving them plenty of room to fry.

  5. Remove eggplant slices to tray with paper towels and sprinkle with kosher salt if you like. You can keep them warm in the oven for a short time.  

  6. Serve with yogurt sauce or marinara sauce.

 

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Quick Chinese "Roast" Pork Strips

If you have a hankering for those intensely flavorful strips of sweet, sticky Chinese roast pork but you don't want to use the oven for some reason, this works well, and you can have it in about an hour and a half, start to finish. You will need to use a pressure cooker and then finish it on the stovetop.

Ingredients

  • 4+ lbs pork roast

For sauce:

  • 3/4 cup soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup oyster sauce
  • 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
  • 1/4 cup mirin
  • 3/4 cup honey
  • 1 tsp white pepper
  • 2 tsp Chinese five spice

Instructions

  1. Blend all sauce ingredients together. Put the pork in the Instant Pot, pour the sauce over it, close the lid, close the valve, and set to high pressure for 22 minutes.

  2. When pork is done, vent. Remove pork and cut into strips, saving the sauce.

  3. Put the pork in a large sauté pan with the sauce and heat on medium high, stirring frequently, for half an hour or more, until sauce reduces and becomes thick and glossy and coats the meat.

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

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

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

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

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

Here is what we ate this week:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SUNDAY
Marry Me Chicken, french bread

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

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

Jump to Recipe

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

Started like this:

and an hour later we had this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

then cream

then baby spinach

and then freshly-grated cheese

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

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

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

MONDAY
Mexican beef bowls, black beans

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

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

Jump to Recipe

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

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

Jump to Recipe

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

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

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

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

TUESDAY
Buffalo chicken wraps, veg and dip, cheez balls

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WEDNESDAY
Pizza

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

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

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

I guess this new one is better?

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

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

THURSDAY
Chinese(?) soup, rice, potstickers

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

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

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

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

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

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

FRIDAY
Grilled cheese, tomato soup, pickles and chips

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

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

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

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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.

 

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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."

What’s for supper? Vol. 384: What Washoe wants

Happy Friday! I spent most of the week prepping for the big Independence Day family party, which will be Sunday. We had to move it because Saturday looks like wall-t0-wall thunderstorms, and now not everyone can come, but I think it’s going to be lovely anyway. It’s almost always lovely, just like me.

Today’s post has a certain amount of complaining, an unreasonably large and expensive cabbage, pictures of my reasonably chimpy deck, and a few good meals. If that sounds readable to you, then here we go! 

SATURDAY
Chicken quesadillas

We had an action-packed day, I forget why, and I got home quite late from shopping. So I did something I’ve never done before: I bought chicken that was not only pre-cooked, it was pre-shredded. 

It was fine. Not bad, even.

I made chicken quesadillas for everybody, but by the time I was done frying them up, I had already experienced enough chicken and oil through my other senses that I didn’t want to eat a chicken quesadilla, so I had a little girl dinner instead.

And very good it was, girl dinner. You’ll notice I still had room for cheese. Alert viewers will also note that I ate it in bed.

SUNDAY
Aquarium!

Our first day trip of the summer! Last summer, we went to the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, CT, and it was cheaper to get a membership than to buy individual tickets, so even though it’s two-and-a-half hours away, we decided to make the trip again to get a second visit in before the membership ran out. 

The day before, I stopped at Market Basket and got six footlong subs, which are crazy cheap (like $5.50 each) and quite good. (And that makes exactly one good thing about Market Basket.) We cut them in half and there was way more than enough for lunch on the road.

This was the very first time in 26 years that I didn’t obsessively check the weather forecast and insist that everybody bring at least a light jacket. Which of course caused it to pour rain the whole time we were there, interspersed with violent thunderstorms, so we had to shelter in place. BUT, lots of people got scared away by the storms, so when it went back to just plain raining, it wasn’t too crowded!

It’s a good aquarium. The sea lion show is very loud and cheesy, but still lots of fun. We didn’t get to feed the rays this time, because of the rain, but the sharks and turtles and light-up jellyfish were still excellent. They have several belugas, and one of them spends so much time just hanging out upright, they have to rub Coppertone sunblock on her head so she doesn’t get a burn.

Complete doofus. She periodically did this weird head-shaking thing as she hung out, and the top of her head wobbled around like a blanc mange. 

I had Benny and Corrie in my car, and we stopped at Domino’s on the way home, and then again at Wendy’s for Frosties. I had the triple berry one, which tasted exactly like you’d imagine (fine).

For a trip this long, I okay’d the DVD player, and we watched Moana on the way up and the second Harry Potter on the way back. Wow, Moana really holds up. Captivating even if you’re only listening while you drive. I still think the coconut demon part could have been cut, and I still cry when it gets to the part where all the brute force and all the magic in the world is no use, and Moana uses her feminine genius to conquer Ta Fe by reminding her who she really is.

I told this guy they had stolen the heart from inside him, but this does not define him, and he was like, I know, but this is who I truly am.

Fair enough. 

MONDAY
Korean beef bowl, rice, roast broccoli 

Monday was very much back to the summer grind, which is highly preferable to the non-summer grind, but still, fairly grindy. I got so confused, I had to write it down on actual paper

and I’m happy to report that, since this day, one kid who previously needed a ride now owns her own car!  The whole rest of the week was like this, too, but for some reason I was especially confused by Monday. 

So in between, I got a bunch of yard work done while Corrie cooled off, and was cool, on behalf of everybody

Got a big pot of rice going in the Instant Pot, made some quick Korean Beef Bowl (I had fresh garlic and ginger, which is great, but we were out of brown sugar, which was boo, so I used honey, which wasn’t the same. 

Still a yummy, satisfying, and EASY dish.

Jump to Recipe

I was gonna make sesame broccoli,

Jump to Recipe

but I couldn’t find the sesame oil OR the sesame seeds, so I just cut up the broccoli and dumped on some garlic powder, a little salt, and a bunch of soy sauce, and roasted it under the broiler. Not bad at all. 

I forgot to add any kind of oil, and I may actually make it that way going forward. 

TUESDAY
Not-caesar chicken salad

Tuesday I spent most of the day working on the deck. I undid a few inadvisable parts and starting on the railing, doing my best impression of a chimpanzee learning how to work power tools, and frequently reminding my simian self that it doesn’t have to look professional; it just has to not be a death trap. And I achieved that!

Then I dragged my knuckles inside to do something about supper. It was supposed to be chicken caesar salad,

Jump to Recipe

but it turned out I forgot to buy anchovies for the dressing, but that’s okay. Oh, I also forgot to buy a wedge of parmesan cheese. Still okay, I guess. But then I discovered we didn’t have any lemons OR bottled lemon juice. I discovered this after I had already started making the dressing.

So, knowing it was terribly wrong, I put lime juice in. 

So, fine, it was disgusting, whatever. Who cares. We had romaine lettuce and roast chicken and I think cucumbers. Also the dog stole one of the chicken breasts, so there wasn’t even that much chicken. What you want from poor old Washoe? Washoe tired. 

WEDNESDAY
Shepherd’s pie

Wednesday it was murderously hot and humid, so of course I spent all day trudging around Home Depot and working on the rest of the deck railing, and then I topped the day off with an extremely heavy and dense casserole. Sometimes you look at your plans, realize they are terrible, and forge ahead anyway, because following through feels better than anything else possibly could. At least that’s what you tell yourself. 

I installed the last of the balusters and topped the whole (well, almost the whole) railing with a PVC gutter, because I just need to protect little hands from the screws that are poking out all over the place. It’s FINE. It’s fine! 

I didn’t even argue with the Home Depot guy when I bought the gutter. I told him what I wanted (a handrail cover, or, failing that, something that would function like a handrail cover; for instance, maybe some PVC gutter) and he told me, “Oh, no, that’s not what you want.” Which is what Home Depot ALWAYS says to me. They either say “Oh no, that’s not what you want” or else they say “That would be a special order” even though I know exactly what I want and they clearly HAVE it, because I can SEE IT, RIGHT THERE; but they insist they don’t have any. Or one time, they installed a water heater for us, and there was a carbon monoxide leak, and I had to throw and absolute FIT to get them to admit that this is a problem. I haven’t forgotten that. 

Anyway, I thanked him for his help and then went over and bought a PVC gutter, and I attached it to the rail with a staple gun, so there. 

I also opened up the pool-facing part of the original platform. It used to look like this:

because it was originally a play structure, not a lifeguard stand. So you had to duck your head to get into the pool 

But now it looks like this:

Wooo, wide open! Go right in! I was pretty nervous about removing half the frame, because I was afraid it would somehow destabilize the whole thing. But it still seems perfectly solid. 

So here is my oddly-shaped but indisputably actual deck:

I also trimmed off a few protruding parts, added a grabbing handle to the ladder at the end, and did miscellaneous fussing, and put one of my finer pallets underneath it, so we have a spot for our hay and straw collection

And there it is. Still needs to be sanded and painted or stained, but I don’t think I can get that done this week.

I wondered if it was really, truly done. I thought long and hard and then went back to Home Depot, looking for a transitional piece to ease the 1-inch drop between the triangular floor section and the long section. But as soon as I got there, I remembered having the same fruitless search when I was redoing the dining room floor, which had its own weird threshold situation. 

So I’m gazing at long pieces of wood and a guy in an orange apron greets me in a booming and friendly voice, and asks how I’m doing. 

I say, “Oh, good, but do you have a moment? I have a question about wood.”

He says, “I just have to get back to this customer, but what do you need to know?”

So I explain what I’m looking for, and he suggests looking in the flooring section. I say I already did that, and then I explain a bit more about what I need. 

So he says he’s going to go help the first customer, but he’ll send someone else over to help me. I thank him. So cordial, so helpful. Home Depot’s not so bad after all!

I start walking to the flooring section, just to take another look, but I’m keeping an eye out for the guy, so he doesn’t have to search for me. And I pass by an aisle, where I hear a booming and friendly voice saying, “Yeah, this lady needs some help, she has some transitional bullshi–”

and then he sees me. The “t” never falls from his lips.

You know what, fair. He wasn’t wrong. It was an hour before close, it’s customer service, and I DID have some transitional bullshit. I’m not even mad. So the other guy (who turned out to be the “oh, no, you don’t want a gutter” guy, haha) walks with me to flooring and we look over our options, which are, as I expected, additional bullshit, which is even worse than transitional bullshit. I can put a stair nosing over the transitional part, which will not help in any way, and is $20, and I would need two.

So I went home! Thanks for nothing, Home Depot. I hate you so much. 

I also bought some flowers, which is what I do when someone hurts my feelings. So I guess I was a little mad, actually. And I also got some fresh sand for the sandbox, and some Killz in a spray can, which I didn’t realize was a thing. The bathroom ceiling is about to find out it’s a thing!

Oh, so the shepherd’s pie was fine. Instant mashed potatoes continue to delight. 

Quite tasty, even if it did slump a bit

Who among us. And did you notice the Fiddler on the Roof? A present from Moe. 

THURSDAY
Vietnamese chicken salad, potstickers

Thursday was, of course, the Fourth of July. I got up relatively early and cleaned out the fridge, which was MONSTROUS, and then prepped supper, because I knew I was gonna be running around all day.

I had been waffling all week on what to do with this chicken. I know it sounds like I’m going to make pun about chicken and waffles, but I’ve never even been tempted to make chicken and waffles. That’s just weird and I don’t want to understand.

What I wanted was to make the Milk Street Radio Goi Gà, but I always get lost in a maze of Milk Street logins; so I decided instead to make this Chinese chicken salad from Recipe Tin Eats, a site which has yielded some great recipes. 

This recipe calls for both red cabbage and Napa cabbage, but when I got to the store, they had plenty of red, but only one Napa cabbage, and it was massive. But I was like, haha, it’s one cabbage, Michael, how much could it possibly cost? 

That mofo was $14!!!!!! But it was already our fourth stop and it was already after 5 PM, so I didn’t have it in me to call the manager over to void a cabbage. 

So I had this freaking cabbage the size of a hassock, and then, I don’t even remember why — possibly because there has some kind of giant locust in the house all week, and I have absolutely torn the living room apart and vacuumed everything I can find but I CANNOT FIND THE BUG, and it just sits there screaming all day long! Which can be a little wearing! — but I switched recipes again. I went with a different Vietnamese chicken salad recipe that I cannot even find now. Good heavens. And I ran out of fish sauce, and guess what? I forged ahead, and IT WAS DELICIOUS. 

Basically you have some cooked chicken (I cooked it in the Instant Pot and then shredded it in the standing mixer), a bunch of shredded cabbage (if you can’t find Napa cabbage, just shred some $20 bills), and this garlickly-limey-fish saucy-spicy dressing, and I didn’t have peanuts so I put some cashews in a bag and bashed them with a rolling pin, and I made a big bowl of pickled red onions, and found some crunchy Chinese noodles, and it was so, so good. 

It’s supposed to have cilantro, which I forgot to buy, and fresh mint, which I didn’t use enough of. Still, just about everybody liked at least some part of it, and it made a really pleasant summer meal — filling, but not too heavy, and a real festival of flavors. And pretty! And if you use an Instant Pot, you don’t even have to heat up the kitchen. 

By the end of the day, my hands and feet were all swollen up and I was full of wood splinters and fish sauce and bad opinions about life, and simply could not face the thought of taking the kids to a fireworks show. So Damien, who had been dealing with a Napa cabbage-sized heap of nonsense himself all day, and all week, cheerfully brought them. And they had a nice time. I stayed home and took a shower and lay in front of a fan, and I also had a nice time. 

FRIDAY
Pizza

We just had pizza several times, but we’re having more pizza. Fight me. Topped the garden basil, so I believe we’ll have basil pizza. 

I got some pretty great mail today: Some bins that I was planning to store duck and dog food in, but it turns out they are too small (even though I measure and measured and did tons of research and comparison shopping and even worked out how to covert gallons to pounds), which is a bummer, but then I also got a framed alla prima painting of a skull by Matthew Good. I ordered it kind of on a whim with some money that fell into my lap for a ridiculous reason, so I exchanged it for ONE ART, and I feel wonderful about that. 

When we die, we are not gonna leave our kids any money, because we ate it all, but we are gonna be able to leave them some original art. 

Anyway, this is our current pet food storage system:

and this is what I have now.

Not big enough, but it cannot fail to be an improvement. In some way. Surely. 

I just took a quick break to give Sophia her very first driving lesson, and she did great. Corrie got some sunblock in her eye, and then the other eye, and then the first one again, but we all survived. I planted the grapevines. I moved the eggplants. I weeded around the patio. I staked up the peas. I put the stairs on the bog bridge. I mulched around St. Joseph. I ziptied the flowerpot to the stand so it stops falling down. I trimmed the hydrangeas so the stella d’oro lilies can see the sky. I thinned the collards. I deadheaded absolutely everything. I found a high spot for the flowers the bunnies keep eating. And for the third time this summer, I replaced the sunflowers that the bunnies also keep eating, and this time I smartened up and sprinkled red pepper all over them. And I cleaned up the hundreds of bits and pieces of wood that somehow got thrown all over the yard by some maniac. 

And now I’m ready to have a party! Basically! I just need to go shopping. 

Washoe out!

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Korean Beef Bowl

A very quick and satisfying meal with lots of flavor and only a few ingredients. Serve over rice, with sesame seeds and chopped scallions on the top if you like. You can use garlic powder and powdered ginger, but fresh is better. The proportions are flexible, and you can easily add more of any sauce ingredient at the end of cooking to adjust to your taste.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup brown sugar (or less if you're not crazy about sweetness)
  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
  • 3-4 inches fresh ginger, minced
  • 6-8 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3-4 lb2 ground beef
  • scallions, chopped, for garnish
  • sesame seeds for garnish

Instructions

  1. In a large skillet, cook ground beef, breaking it into bits, until the meat is nearly browned. Drain most of the fat and add the fresh ginger and garlic. Continue cooking until the meat is all cooked.

  2. Add the soy sauce, brown sugar, and red pepper flakes the ground beef and stir to combine. Cook a little longer until everything is hot and saucy.

  3. Serve over rice and garnish with scallions and sesame seeds. 

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Sesame broccoli

Ingredients

  • broccoli spears
  • sesame seeds
  • sesame oil
  • soy sauce

Instructions

  1. Preheat broiler to high.

    Toss broccoli spears with sesame oil. 

    Spread in shallow pan. Drizzle with soy sauce and sprinkle with sesame seeds

    Broil for six minutes or longer, until broccoli is slightly charred. 

 

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caesar salad dressing

Ingredients

  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 6 cloves garlic, minced
  • 12 anchovy fillets, chopped
  • 1 Tbsp kosher salt
  • 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (about two large lemons' worth)
  • 1 Tbsp mustard
  • 4 raw egg yolks, beaten
  • 3/4 cup finely grated parmesan

Instructions

  1. Just mix it all together, you coward.

5 from 1 vote
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Leftover lamb shepherd's pie

This recipe uses lots of shortcuts and it is delicious.

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350.

  2. Prepare the mashed potatoes and set aside.

  3. Heat and drain the corn. (I heated mine up in beef broth for extra flavor.)

  4. In a saucepan, melt the butter and saute the onion and garlic until soft. Stir in pepper.

  5. Add the flour gradually, stirring with a fork, until it becomes a thick paste. Add in the cream and continue stirring until it is blended. Add in the cooked meat and stir in the Worcestershire sauce.

  6. Add enough broth until the meat mixture is the consistency you want.

  7. Grease a casserole dish and spread the meat mixture on the bottom. Spread the corn over the meat. Top with the mashed potatoes and spread it out to cover the corn. Use a fork to add texture to mashed potatoes, so they brown nicely.

  8. Cook for about forty minutes, until the top is lightly browned and the meat mixture is bubbly. (Finish browning under broiler if necessary.)

What’s for supper? Vol. 377: In which we make it through the week in one piece

Happy Friday! I truly don’t know what I did this week. It felt dramatic and exhausting, and yet I don’t have very much to show for it. Unlike the natural world, which is putting on a completely spectacular show this spring. Every last little thing is absolutely laden with blossoms. We’re still not quite safe to plant most things outside, here, but I’ve been starting all the seeds I can get my hands on indoors. When I finally move everything into the garden, the house is going to feel huge and empty! 

Someone was asking me WHERE I put all these open pots of soil, and the answer is: On windowsills, on countertops, on chairs,

and on shelves that I’ve cleared off and stuffed all the former occupants in bags. Of. But the real answer is, I don’t have babies or toddlers. That turns out to be the solution to a lot of things! Simply have ten children, rest up for nine years, and then you can start some seeds.

The other answer is that I’ve been using the cold sowing technique indoors, as well as outdoors, meaning I use juice bottles and milk jugs and salad and  strawberry cartons, add drainage holes if necessary, cut the top 2/3 off but leaving a hinge, fill the bottom with soil and plant some seeds, water it, and then tape it shut. This not only makes it harder to spill if someone knocks it over (we do have an extremely naughty cat, who doesn’t mind walking on toothpicks), but if you’re bad at remembering to water seedlings, this is the method for you.

It’s basically a little terrarium, and you do need to water it occasionally when you notice no droplets condensing on the top, but none of this “keep soil evenly moist” nonsense. 

Anyway, this year I have started: Marigolds, sunflowers, zinnias, creeping veronica, cosmos, and morning glories; basil, garlic, pumpkins, butternut squash, and eggplants; and I just put some gladioli and clematis in the ground, plus a Sarah Bernhardt peony root.  I have sugar snap peas and glass gem corn that will probably do better if I sow it directly outside. May 30 is the magic day! But this weekend, I will take the straw covering off my strawberries and asparagus. And the rhubarb is visibly growing day to day. The Brussels sprouts survived the winter, but I think I’ll pull them out, because I’m a little tired of them. Definitely doing more collard greens this year. I am also going to direct sow more sunflowers, marigolds, and cosmos with the rest of the seeds I saved from last year. I know some people do ten times this much every year, but this is by far my most elaborate planting effort, and I’m pretty excited!

Anyway, five paragraphs in, let’s talk about food. Here is what we ate this week: 

SATURDAY
Chicken salad with blueberries and almonds

Saturday, shopping day. Nothing spectacular, but a pleasant salad of roast chicken breast on greens with almonds and blueberries. This salad is better with feta cheese or goat cheese, diced red onion, and some buttery croutons, but I made up for that by eating it outside, which is the butteriest crouton of them all

in a certain sense. 

I need to figure out what’s going into the St. Joseph garden once the tulips and daffodils pass by. It’s shaded about half the day by the peach tree, and I’d love some suggestions for a bright perennial or two I can plant on top of/alongside bulbs!

SUNDAY
Chicken shawarma, pita

Sunday was Cinco de Mayo, but I hadn’t planned anything spectacular, and Clara is home for the summer and Moe was over to learn how to change oil, so I changed it to Shawarma de Mayo.

Same old yummy shawarma recipe

Jump to Recipe

except maybe I bumped up the hot pepper flakes a little, because it did taste a little peppier than usual. No complaints! Boneless, skinless chicken thighs is the best kind of chicken for this dish.

I also decided to make pita, and I’m not really happy with the recipes I’ve tried in the past, so I tried a new one, because I was enthralled by the sheer puffiness of the photo in this recipe. This one had you fry the pita for thirty seconds on one side, then thirty seconds on the other, then brush it with oil and fry another five minutes, flipping it frequently. I thought six minutes sounded excessive, but I’m trying to swear off going straight from “why does my food never turn out like the picture” to “she’s crazy, I’m not doing that” to “why does my food never turn out etc etc,” so I did it by the timer. 
GUESS WHAT? The pita burned. 

This doesn’t look too burned, because I wised up about halfway through and decreased the time and temperature, but I’m telling you. I have some kind of middle eastern curse on me, and my pita just never turns out, no matter what I do. I mean everybody ate it and said nice things about it, but I was a little sad. 

Can’t be too sad when you’re eating shawarma with tomatoes and cucumbers and olives and feta cheese and parsley and garlicky yogurt sauce, though. 

Simply can’t! 

MONDAY
Shepherd’s pie

Speaking of Cinco de Mayo, the local supermarkets seem to have noticed that there’s some trickiness around an overwhelmingly white population suddenly making a lot of tacos and margaritas on May 5 because it’s the Fourth of July or something; so they hedge their bets by putting ground beef on sale and suggesting some chili recipes, but not saying why. 

It’s possible I’m overthinking this, but I do spend a lot of time looking at supermarket flyers, and I know I’m right. The upshot is that I bought quite a bit of ground beef, and for Cuatro de Mayo I made shepherd’s pie. 

I remembered that I had written a wonderful recipe for this

Jump to Recipe

so I checked it out, and discovered that you guys are very polite, and never mention how terrible my recipes are. I didn’t, for instance, feel the need to write down ANY MEASUREMENTS. The recipe is basically, “Hey, remember how good shepherd’s pie is? You should make that! With corn.”

Sorry about that. Anyway, I did make that.

But for some reason I can’t remember, I put tin foil on the top and then left the house. I texted one of the kids to remove the tinfoil toward the end, and when I got home, I turned on the broiler to brown it up. This gave the potato top a nice crisp top, but unfortunately the inside had kind of steamed inside the foil, so it was just so gloppy when I served it up. 

Or maybe I made the white sauce for the meat too thin because I hadn’t written down any proportions, who can say. It tasted great. Just kinda gloppy. 

Also on Monday, I suddenly faced a truth I had been avoiding: The wooden ramps I was planning to make into the bog bridge has some very rotten spots on it.

So I dragged out the reciprocating saw, which is a truly terrible tool. It seems designed, in a way that other power saws aren’t, to turn on you and carve you up. So I was talking out loud to myself, as you will not be surprised to learn that I do, and I said, “Oh, I hate this machine. I’m always afraid I’m going to hurt myself” and then immediately whacked myself in the eyeball with the end of the power cord. 

This minor injury apparently propitiated the power tool gods, and I didn’t lose any limbs or even digits. I did cut off a bunch of rotten wood, which was satisfying

and then got out the drill, which doesn’t scare me as much, and screwed on a long beam to replace the part I had removed. Got that on nice and tight.

Then I noticed that the new beam also had a rotten part.

Then I said some other things out loud to myself, and went inside. 

TUESDAY
Burgers, party mix, corn, birthday cake

Tuesday was Moe’s birthday, and he requested burgers. That’s a can do. 

He asked for a chocolate cake and to be surprised with the decoration, even knowing what . . . mixed . . . results this can sometimes yield. But I had a brain wave and remembered that he used to be absolutely crazy about One Piece. I remember some rides home from school where it was nothing but him shouting “AND THEN THE MONKEY WHO HAS BILLIARD BALLS FOR HANDS ATE THE MAGIC TOOTSI FRUITSI BEAN AND HE GOT THE POWER TO MAKE PEOPLE THINK HE WAS A POTTED PLANT EVEN THOUGH HE WASN’T ACTUALLY AND THAT’S HOW HE DEFEATED THE SEWING MACHINE CLAN THAT LIVES ON THE ISLAND OF PICKLE JUICE” while I just focused on not driving off a bridge. Apparently it’s actually a fairly tragic story, but that part eluded me, because of all the shouting. 

The thing I do know about One Piece is that is has a logo that is mostly made of circles. So I says to myself, I says, this is a job for fondant. I haven’t really used fondant before, and it turns out they are not kidding when they say you should wash your hands a lot. Which I did, but it was still one of my smudgier cakes. But he liked it!

I liked working with fondant. Gum paste is good for molding 3D figures, but the fondant was super easy to roll and cut flat shapes. I was rushing, so I didn’t make it as smooth or even as I might have, but I know how to if I have time next time!

And I, perhaps alone in the world, like the taste of fondant. So there. 

Oh, it was just a box cake, but for the chocolate frosting, I used this King Arthur recipe, which turned out well. 

WEDESDAY
Tacos and beans

For Seis de Mayo, we had tacos. (For those keeping track, this is ground beef incident #3 for the week.) I seasoned the meat with garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder. I also made a pot of black beans in the Instant Pot

Jump to Recipe

and they looked so good to me, I just had beans on tortilla chips. 

Thinking about those beans. 

Also on Wednesday, I faced the fact that I really truly need to put some kind of waterproof stain on the bog bridge, if I don’t want it to go right back to being rotten, or more rotten, or rotten fixed with things that also turn out to be rotten. Truth be told, I’m feeling a little bit down about stuff in general! Ah well. 

So I bought some stain and got the kids to move them into an upright position for me, and that is as far as that’s gotten. 

THURSDAY
Pizza

Nothing to report, except that I wanted to use up some sandwich pepperoni, so I cut that into fourths and put it on the pizza, and then filled in the gaps with normal small, round pepperoni. The result was something that struck me as slightly rad, somehow. 

Doesn’t this look like an early 90’s pizza? Like a Rugrats pizza or something? I don’t know. I’m disabled, I got attacked by a reciprocating saw and I’ve never been the same. 

FRIDAY

Mac and cheese, I suppose. We have to go see the endocrinologist so the doctor can say the kid’s numbers are good, and I can pretend that’s somehow due to my attentive maintenance, rather than sheer luck. And then there is a family dance party this evening that Corrie desperately wants to go to, and she is planning to wear her dress with the mushroom print and her green cloak. I love that she goes to a school where this is FINE. People will say “cool cloak!” and that is all. 

I think the last time I danced was . . . yes, at my own wedding. Maybe I’ll wear a cloak, too. 

5 from 2 votes
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Chicken shawarma

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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

  2. Preheat the oven to 425.

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

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

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

 

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Yogurt sauce

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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

 

5 from 1 vote
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Leftover lamb shepherd's pie

This recipe uses lots of shortcuts and it is delicious.

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350.

  2. Prepare the mashed potatoes and set aside.

  3. Heat and drain the corn. (I heated mine up in beef broth for extra flavor.)

  4. In a saucepan, melt the butter and saute the onion and garlic until soft. Stir in pepper.

  5. Add the flour gradually, stirring with a fork, until it becomes a thick paste. Add in the cream and continue stirring until it is blended. Add in the cooked meat and stir in the Worcestershire sauce.

  6. Add enough broth until the meat mixture is the consistency you want.

  7. Grease a casserole dish and spread the meat mixture on the bottom. Spread the corn over the meat. Top with the mashed potatoes and spread it out to cover the corn. Use a fork to add texture to mashed potatoes, so they brown nicely.

  8. Cook for about forty minutes, until the top is lightly browned and the meat mixture is bubbly. (Finish browning under broiler if necessary.)

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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."