Tag: pumpkins

What’s for supper? Vol. 489: I don’t work for the diocese anymore

Happy Friday! Might as well open with one of the pumpkins my highly artistic kids made:

I haven’t even looked at the other pumpkins yet. I was lying down and told them to go ahead and do what they want. It’s been kind of a theme this year. 

This is probably a good time to warn you that this post contains probably the filthiest word I have ever put to print. And I had to look up how to spell it. 

SATURDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, oven fries, pickles, grapes

Regular old shopping day. I refrained from buying chips so as to force myself to finally start using the potatoes I grew. There’s nothing wrong with them; they’re just dirty, and a hassle. But they turned out fine. I tossed them with oil and salt, pepper, garlic powder, and chili powder, and roasted them.

Grilled a bunch of sandwiches and broke out the refrigerator pickles. 

Tasty little meal. 

SUNDAY
Varia

After Mass, we stopped at Home Depot for . . . I can’t actually remember what, but we impulse bought a new mailbox post, and a bag of concrete. A few years ago, I had replaced the old mailbox with a new one from Walmart. Here’s a before and after, from 2021:

It looked nice, for a while. But I didn’t bury the post deep enough, and the joint rusted, and the whole thing just got more and more wobbly until even our cheery and upbeat mail carrier started to complain. Somehow, wedging more and more rocks and bags of sand around the post did not help. So we got a new mailbox. 

Then we went apple picking! It was our wedding anniversary, and we were originally planning to go to a museum together, but our weekends keep getting gobbled up, and it was the last possible day to get to an orchard. Not a lot of apples left, but we got a good haul of nice, big Cortlands and a few Macintosh, and the kids did a corn maze while Damien and I sat on a rock and watched a pig relax in the sun. And it was a nice afternoon!

Got home and just rested for a bit, and then Damien and I went out for dinner to the local noodle place. We both had wonderful pork buns, and then I had crispy chicken ramen, and Damien had beef pho. Mine was kind of shockingly bland. Damien really loved the pho, though, which is great because I think it’s his first time. We both had fried matcha ice cream, which honestly was also not very good. Not much flavor, and the ice cream was too hard to cut.

On the way home, we romantically took the long route so I could show Damien the broken block of granite that’s been lying abandoned in the weeds on the off ramp off West Street for years now. I myself feel that absolutely nobody would miss it, and if it was dark enough, nobody would even see us nab it, and it’s a nice piece of granite, very clearly the perfect size to become a top step to our front door, which is currently made of cinderblocks.

But HE said we would get arrested and also get a hernia. And yeah, he’s right on at least one count. So we went home and ate candy and watched TV, and it was a really good day for a couple of very tired people who have been married for 29 years and still like each other. 

MONDAY
Mexican beef bowls

Monday, I sliced up some beef and got it marinating. This is the marinade I use, and it’s nice and piquant. 

Jump to Recipe

I also got some black beans simmering — just one can’s worth, because I’m really the only one who likes beans. And then I was absolutely determined to start work on the mailbox. Then discovered I had forgotten to take the post out of Damien’s car, and he was out of town.

No matter! I could still dig the old one up, and dig a new hole, and then, fortified by the fresh air, rush around finally doing a bunch of other outdoor tasks. This is the old mailbox, I can kind of see the issue. 

I dragged the old corn stalks to the front and tied them onto the entrance, and added in a few pumpkins, and stuffed in a bunch of gladioli stems I had dug up

So fancy. Then I dug up the stupid loser dahlia that refused to even try to blossom until the frost came, and also the lame crummy gladioli that bloomed and withered while I was in the hospital. Next year you will do my will, you bastards. 

Supper was great. I  pan-fried the meat

cooked up a big pot of rice and heated up some corn, and I put out cheese, lime wedges, sour cream, cilantro, scallions, and corn chips, and the black beans

and it was a lovely meal. 

TUESDAY
Roast chicken, french bread, skully caprese salad

Well, for dinner, I had dinner plans that got away from me. I started out making some mozzarella, planning to make skull-shaped cheese for Halloween. It turned out really cool last year

but went awry this year, not sure why. I was using liquid rennet for the first time, rather than the powdered kind that came with my cheese kit. Possibly that’s why? The cheese was just kind of grainy and rubbery.

Also a lot of the basil had gone bad; so sad. I went ahead and made the salad anyway, leaving out the balsamic vinegar and olive oil so people could dress it as they wanted. Very faintly spooky!

Then (in retrospect, probably because I wanted to feel better about my kitchen skills) I decided to make some bread. I’m having to halve more and more of my own recipes, because our family so little bitty these days; but I went ahead and made the full, big batch, which makes four loaves. 

Jump to Recipe

I let the dough rise, then cut and rolled it into loaves, then put it in the fridge. Then, feeling more competent and hopeful, I took a hunk of pork out of the freezer so I could dry brine it that evening, for Wednesday’s meal. 

And then! It was mailbox time. I dug the hole a little deeper, and then put some gravel in the bottom.

About that.

A couple of years ago, we hired a plumber to see what could possibly be done about our basement, and he indicated to us that the reason nobody else wanted to come work on it was that our basement was disgusting, which it is; and he also had some complaints about our driveway, which has kind of a sharp drop because it keeps eroding, and there is a gap between the dirt and the asphalt road. For some reason, every time they pave this road, they give everyone else a little transitional lip or tab of asphalt, except for us. So this plumber, whose work vehicle is a BMW sedan for some reason, was so annoyed at bumping the bottom of his car that, along with the pipes or whatever, he brought a bag of gravel and dumped it on the end of the driveway, where it promptly got scattered by traffic, which is exactly what we told him would happen.

Anyway, there was some gravel left, so I scooped that up and put it in the bottom of the mailbox hole. Then Damien held the post in place while I screwed some planks onto the bottom, to hold it upright. Well, first I lost the drill bit in the dirt 428 times. I really, really wanted to get one dang project done the right way for once, but my confidence was draining away so fast. 

Then I dumped in the sixty-pound bag of concrete, poured some water on top, and grabbed the first thing I could find to mix it, which happened to be a skeleton leg.

Then I decided that, even for us, that was too ridiculous, so I used a short-handled shovel. I just kind of slopped and chopped it around until it seemed like there wasn’t much dry stuff left. And that was that. 

Yes, we used a level. It’s pretty level. It’s just. . . it’s just a crooked life. I don’t know. It was harder than it looks! 

It didn’t seem like there was enough concrete, so I went to Home Depot for another bag, and those jerks had chrysanthemums for $1 apiece, so I got six. I don’t like chrysanthemums, but I’m not made of stone. Also a light-up axolotl skeleton which was 75% off fell into my cart, and a few bags of soil, because as long as we’re getting a fancy new mailbox, I might as well improve the soil there, which gets full of highway salt and angry plumber gravel and whatnot. 

After I got the kids, I took the bread dough out for a second rise, then baked it

and then quickly roasted some chicken breasts. And it was a decent meal after all, if not overly spooky. 

I was pleased with how puffy the bread turned out. 

Reasonably satisfying way to end a rather stupid day. 

WEDNESDAY
Aldi pizza

Wednesday morning, I discovered the piece of pork still quietly sitting on the counter, where it had been all night. Someone had helpfully put a plate under it, so it could rot on a plate.

I have to admit, it was nice and defrosted.

That’s fine. We can be nimble and make changes. But first, I went to use my ClearBlue monitor so I could dutifully track my ludicrous and nonsensical fertility pattern, and it was like, “new batteries now, bitch, or you’re gonna lose all your data.”

Joke’s on them. I don’t even like my data! But I still have to play this stupid game, so I went to the battery drawer, and it was full of empty battery packages and the most egregiously miscellaneous crap you can imagine people stuffing into the kitchen drawer because they have no respect for their mother.

So I was like, haha, no matter, I will simply organize this drawer. And also organize the other drawers. And actually maybe pull everything out of every drawer in the hutch, because some of the cabinets are overstuffed and don’t close, and we’re constantly whanging our arms against the flapping doors as we pass; and every time I want to use the microwave, I have to scoop up dangling phone chargers and loop them out of the way, and also DO WE REALLY NEED AN ENTIRE CUBBY JUST FOR ICE PACKS AND RUBBER GLOVES. 

Have I mentioned that my head is still ticking? I did call the doctor, and the neurologist, and it seems to be a “rich tapestry of life” situation. 

Anyway, I started to move some stuff from the hutch to the kitchen island, and this is when I acknowledged to myself that the kitchen island, which we bought used about 15 years ago, is not, in fact, A Really Nice Piece of Furniture. It is more of a Loose Amalgamation of Sticky Particle Board. So I pulled out the drawers and dumped them and dragged everything out of the cabinets and took the counter off. 

So then I was really in for it, friends. At this point I was breathing like Hector Salamanca, which means it was too late to stop. 

I spent the next five hours pulling off rotten wood and useless hardware, reinforcing corners with wood scraps from my carving stash, cutting and fitting in a new back wall, and adding in new supports for the drawers (which have had no support for years, and have been flopping and flailing and spilling their guts. MANY SUCH CASES) out of scraps from the treehouse floor, and a new kick plate with wood left over from last year’s wedding anniversary soffit repair. And scrubbing the hell of out everything.

Took a quick break to pick up the kids and some Aldi pizzas. One child wanted to know if I had roasted the pumpkin seeds yet, and then another child asked, “Wouldn’t it make more sense to just get a new island?” and I may have responded, at a somewhat elevated volume, “ARE YOU PAYING FOR IT?”

And then I finished the job. Look!

It has right angles and everything! I cleaned it some more (oops, missed some duct tape), threw out a bunch of horrible kitchen things that I hate, and put the drawers and top back on.

The cabinet doors are long gone, and a few years ago I replaced them with a sort of curtain, which I threw in the wash and still have to put back up. And I still have to sort through this trash bag full of cookie cutters and whatnot. 

But overall, wow, I feel so much better. The kids all remarked that it feels bigger in the kitchen now. This is because there is something about a room that features a squat, hulking bundle of rotting planks, that sways and groans whenever you lean on it, that makes the space feel, I don’t know, crowded, somehow. And now we have right angles! So fancy. 

And then we had pizza for supper. Which I burned, but hey. 

THURSDAY
Zuppa toscana, pumpkin muffins, garlic bread

Thursday I took the braces off the mailbox and decided that we didn’t need more concrete in the hole after all, because I didn’t want to. So I filled it with soil, crammed some tulip and daffodil bulbs in there, stuffed some $1 chrysanthemums on top, and fled. 

Oh wait, first I had a whole dire struggle with trying to attach the actual mailbox to the new post. This was a simple operation, took three days, and ended up involving three adults, a reciprocating saw, a gas torch, zip ties, shears, and just a soupçon emotional distress, and I ended up taping some pieces of moisture-resistant cake board into the bottom inside, so we wouldn’t keep cutting ourselves on the jagged edge I accidentally made with the reciprocating saw, which I hate.

But we didn’t go to Home Depot!  And now we have a mailbox again.  

Just in time to get a final cascade of election mailers. Gosh, I hate everybody. 

Then it was time to make the 48 Halloween brownies I had signed up to make last week, back when I was young and still thought life was worth living.

I had the brilliant idea to bake web designs right into the brownies

which anyone with the good sense God gave a cat could tell you is not going to work. And it did not work! The webs disappeared. 

So I let the brownies cool and grimly sat down with the icing again, and added webs back on to each piece, and then stuck a spider ring on each one.

Damien told me they looked amazing, but I had my doubts. 

Me: Are middle school boys gonna be gross about this? Because, you know, the white splats.
Damien: Middle school boys are gonna be gross about everything, but they’ll be stuffing their fat faces with brownies as they do it.
Me: Okay, that makes me feel better. Do you want a brownie?
Damien: Yes:
Me: Here you go.
Damien: Simmy.
Me: What?
Damien: This one has some splooge on it.

So that’s how I knew my work was done! Maybe I’ll finally join the parent council. I’ll get a letter of recommendation from our mailman, or the plumber. 

I also made a big batch of pumpkin muffins, again opting to make a full recipe, even though that’s a lot of food (in this case, 18 muffins). 

Jump to Recipe

They turned out really good! This is a reliable recipe, and never turns out bad, but sometimes the muffins are just excellent. Moist and gingery, with a wonderful knobbly top. 

I also made a big pot of Zuppa Toscana, which only Damien and I like. The muffins were to sweeten the deal, but unfortunately, only Corrie really gets excited about pumpkin muffins. So I also made some garlic bread with the leftover french bread, and that actually worked, and now they all love me. 

Or possibly have been cowed into silence by my decrepit but still menacing cartel breathing style. 

The soup was absolutely delicious, rich and savory. It has hot Italian sausage, red potatoes, garlic and onion, lots of pepper, and lots of kale, and it comes together quickly. Here’s the recipe:

Jump to Recipe

and I even used more garden potatoes, so there. 

On the way home from school, a kid who is dressing as King Arthur had disclosed that she still needed gloves and a sword for Friday, so we stopped at, SIGH, three stores, and found gloves but not a sword. So I said I would make one.

I was actually secretly happy about that, because I haven’t been called upon to make one single bit of a Halloween costume this year! This is the first time that has happened since 1999, when Lena was a little bee. Now she is older than I was when I made that costume. And I have to admit, this was a good year for a big task to get taken off my plate. But also, you know. Now I am needed no longer, said the little red lighthouse. Bah. Sad. 

But no! We needed a sword. I got out some more wood scraps and made an absurdly crooked but quite sturdy sword. 

The tape is just to diminish splinters, because I didn’t feel like sanding it. She spray painted it silver, I believe. I haven’t seen the finished product, but she is happy!

Gosh, I really really like making stuff out of wood. I would like to take a basic carpentry class, because I know there are some things I’m doing wrong, but the work itself just feels great. 

FRIDAY
Mac and cheese

I just checked the word count on this post, and, whew. Sorry about that. I hope you liked my brownie story, anyway. 

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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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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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Zuppa Toscana

Ingredients

  • 1.25 lbs. sweet Italian sausages
  • 1 large red onion(s), diced
  • 4 medium red potatoes, sliced thin with skin on
  • 8 oz mushrooms, sliced (optional)
  • 3-5 cups kale, chopped
  • 31/2 cups half and half
  • 8 cups chicken broth
  • 4-5 cloves garlic, minced
  • olive oil for cooking
  • pepper
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • instant mashed potato (optional!)

Instructions

  1. Squeeze the sausage out of the casings. Sauté it up in a heavy pot, breaking it into pieces as it cooks. When it's almost done, add the minced garlic, diced onion, and sliced potatoes, adding in some olive oil if necessary to keep it from sticking. Lower the heat a bit and continue cooking, stirring frequently, until the onions and potatoes are soft.

  2. Add flour, stir to coat, and cook for another five minutes. 

  3. Add chicken broth and half and half. Let soup simmer for at least thirty minutes, or keep warm in slow cooker or Instant Pot. 

  4. Before serving, add chopped kale (and sliced mushrooms, optional) and cook for another ten minutes (or set Instant Pot for three minutes) until kale and mushrooms are soft. Add pepper. Add salt if necessary, but the sausage and broth contribute salt already. 

  5. This makes a creamy soup. If you want it thicker, you can add a flour or cornstarch roux or a few tablespoons of instant mashed potato at the end and cook a little longer. 

 

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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. 486: Grill, baby, grill!

Happy Friday! Come along with me and I will tell you about an incredible new invention I have made, which will revolutionize baking forever. 

But first, a little background. I think I’ve told this story before, but I’m still perversely proud of how stupid it is. It was several years ago, and I was probably pregnant, and definitely sleep-deprived. I had to leave the house, but suddenly realized I had forgotten to eat. I thought I would grab some toast, because that’s portable. Then I thought, no, I need something with more protein. What has protein? Um. . . nuts! Yes, peanuts. Perfect. But I wish there were some way I could affix them to the toast, so I could carry it with me. Perhaps if there were some way to crush the nuts onto the bread . . . 

So yeah [looks down modestly] I invented peanut butter.

I honestly thought this was going to be the peak achievement of my life, and truly, it would have been enough! But in fact peanut butter was only a foothill in comparison with the immense heights I summited last night. And I thank you for being here with me as I reveal my latest achievement.

Friends, last night I invented . . . THE OVEN. 

I’ll explain in a bit. First, here’s what else we ate this week!

SATURDAY
Leftovers and something

I have very little memory of Saturday, except that Damien spent his afternoon driving me around to various stores so I could do my own grocery shopping for the week. I had attempted driving a few days before, when I was still taking Keppra, and he wasn’t crazy about, for instance, the way I hit Sophia’s car. What a fussy man. Anyway, I was tapering off Keppra at this point, and it made me extremely dizzy, so it’s a good thing I wasn’t driving! I think I went home and napped for the rest of the day.

SUNDAY
Chicken enchiladas, beans and rice

I DID get to Mass on Sunday, then ate banana bread that Corrie baked, drank cappuccino that Damien made, and then did some more advanced-level napping. 

There was lots of leftover chicken from Thursday’s Ina Garten roast chicken, so when I got up, I shredded that and made a bunch of enchiladas. First I slowly fried a bunch of chopped onions, then I added in the shredded chicken with a bunch of cumin, salt, pepper, and chili powder. I heated up some enchilada sauce, dipped tortillas in the sauce, and rolled them up with the chicken and onion mixture and some diced tomatoes and shredded cheese. Then I put them in a baking dish on top of a layer of sauce, topped them with more sauce, more cheese, and more chili powder; then baked them until they were bubbly. 

Is this the authentic way to make enchiladas? Nah. But they were freaking delicious. I made a pot of beans and rice, and had my enchilada with a scoop of sour cream. 

Yum. 

MONDAY
Harvest chicken salad

On Monday, I assessed last week’s timid foray back into the world of lettuce, and I decided it was probably fine or whatever, mainly because I really miss salad. So I roasted a bunch of chicken breasts with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and served it sliced on mixed greens with an assortment of  vaguely Octoborish stuff from Aldi: Dried cranberries, “pumpkin spice almonds,” green apples (cut up ahead of time and tossed with lemon juice to keep them from browning), cucumbers, and parmesan crisps.

I also made a batch of croutons using old hamburger buns, cubed and tossed with lots of butter, salt, pepper and garlic powder, toasted slowly in the oven. 

My original plan was to finally get around to digging up some potatoes from the garden and making baked potatoes, but I ran out of energy; and luckily, it was a hearty enough salad on its own. 

I had mine with Italian dressing. It wasn’t fabulous, but it was nice enough, and filling. I do like a really big salad. 

And Monday was my very last dose of Keppra! The doctor said it would take 24-48 hours to get out of my system, and she was right.

TUESDAY
Ham, cheese, and onion omelettes, hash browns, salad, OJ

Tuesday, I was still feeling pretty dizzy, but the forecast said there would be a frost that night, so I picked the last of the tomatoes, decided I didn’t care about the rest of the basil, because I had already frozen a bunch, and went to check on the pumpkins. There are about a dozen, and they didn’t get very big, but I figured there was plenty of time for them to grow. 

OR WAS THERE.

Look at that! Every single pumpkin looked like this. Some gnawing little bastard beat me to the pumpkin patch. OH WELL. My poor garden just wasn’t having its best year this year. I do not have a great feeling about my potatoes, which are the absolute last things I haven’t harvested yet. But maybe I’ll be surprised. 

Speaking of surprises, Tuesday is also the day the oven exploded. I was standing there happily making some messy omelettes with ham, onions, and cheddar cheese, and warming up a bunch of frozen hash browns in the oven

when suddenly there was a deafening buzzing sound and a roaring, the overhead lights flickered off and on several times, and the oven was filled with flames! Which is not my normal recipe!

So I turned the oven off and — okay, look, I’m not exactly proud of this, but I pulled the hash browns out and served them. They looked fine. The bottom of the oven where the heating element plugs in had a little blackened hole blown in it, but the hash browns looked fine! The kids were really excited about hash browns, and they’ve been through a lot lately, so I went ahead and — okay, I’m not exactly proud of this, either, but I also continued using the stovetop to finish making omelettes, and it was a lovely meal. With orange juice, and salad!

The salad was really good, too. I’m not on trial here. 

So, Damien is really good at watching YouTube videos and figuring out how to fix all kinds of stuff, but this one looked like it included both electrical work and welding, and this oven is so old, I don’t even remember when we got it. I remember when one burner decided it would only do “high” from now on, and I remember when the glass door broke, and I remember replacing the door handle with a growing wad of duct tape and then eventually pvc pipe. So I guess we fed Mr. Frigidaire one last meal of hash browns garnished with a subtle dusting of combustion residue, and now it can go in peace. So long, venerable oven, and thanks for all the cheesecake. 

WEDNESDAY
Hamburgers, chips, steamed broccoli

On Wednesday, as you may recall, we had no oven, so Damien cooked the burgers on his grill. I steamed some broccoli, and we had the burgers with tomatoes from the garden, and the second jar of refrigerator pickles. 

You can see I got some pickled dill and garlic on my burger along with the pickles, and I wasn’t mad about that! 

Oh, Wednesday was also the day I tried driving again! I went to pick up the kids after school and Lucy after work, with Damien in the passenger seat, and this time it went much better. I did almost hit someone, but it was on the way out of the church parking lot where we pick up high schoolers, and it’s just generally accepted that people are going to hit each other. 

THURSDAY
Homemade meatballs and sauce and bread

Thursday I ended up sleeping really late because I had been up most of the night with TONGUE ZAPS. I’m sorry I keep complaining. I really am healing steadily, if not gracefully! Complaining is just an essential part of my healing process.

Anyway, when I finally got up, I wanted to take a shower, but I thought about how I hadn’t cleaned the bathroom since before surgery, and I reeeally wanted to clean it, and it makes more sense to shower after you clean. And then I thought, well, if I haven’t showered yet, I might as well make supper first, and then I can shower away food smells, too. The plan was some kind of Korean meatballs with an apricot glaze, plus rice and maybe some roasted delicata squash.

But! Then I remembered, again, that we didn’t have an oven. So I figured I could still make meatballs, but just pan fry them rather than making them in the oven like I usually do. And as long as I was gonna go to the trouble of pan fying them, I might as well make them nice meatballs, with olive oil, and minced garlic and diced onion.

And they were nice! I made probably eighty meatballs, because I had bought a bunch of ground beef on sale, but forgotten to freeze it, so it was now or never. 

Then I discovered we didn’t have any more jarred sauce. Which was fine, because they were such nice meatballs, they deserved a homemade sauce. More onion, more garlic, some freezer basil, some tomato paste, a bunch of chopped-up tomatoes from the garden, a little sugar, some salt and pepper, and I let that simmer in the olive oil left over from browning the meatballs. Mmmm. 

Then I was like, gee, this is such a nice meal, it deserves some freshly-baked bread! So I made some dough, let it rise, and rolled eight little loaves of french bread, and set them for a second rise. 

And then. AND ONLY THEN. Did I remember again that we

do

not

have

an oven. 

I thought about the microwave. No, obviously not. Thought about the air fryer, which, maybe, but it’s a very small air fryer, and I’d have to cook each loaf individually. Do not want. I thought about the Instant Pot and the slow cooker, but again, the size they are, I’d have to re-form the loaves into a single loaf, and it would almost certainly turn out damp and rubbery. Also, I had already put the meatballs and sauce into the slow cooker and washed all the pots and pans, and the idea of transferring all that food into another receptacle just made me . . . I don’t know, it was like putting a golden seal of stupidity on the whole enterprise. And I didn’t want to do that!

So I put a a double layer of tinfoil on one compartment of Damien’s grill, and he cranked up the compartment next to it. I waited about ten minutes, and then I put those poor loaves in, and put the top down. 

Then I went to bed and felt sorry for myself for a while. Why? I don’t even know. I was just really sad about how terrible the bread was going to turn out, and how dumb I was, and how I couldn’t even blame it on the drugs, because I’m not on drugs anymore, and somebody ate my pumpkins, and my tongue is weird, and my head itches but I can’t scratch it because it’s still numb, and probably my potatoes are going to bad potatoes, and so on.

Eventually I realized about 40 minutes had gone by, and it was going to be time to exhume whatever wretched, inedible parody of bread I would find inside the grill.

So I slogged outside, gingerly opened the top, and . . .  

IT WAS BREAD. 

Actual bread, baked kind of perfectly! 

Absolutely could not believe my eyes. HOW could anyone have predicted that heating up an enclosed metal box, placing unbaked dough inside, and then waiting a while while it continued to stay hot, could have resulted in BAKED BREAD? THIS IS LIFE-CHANGING. 

Told you. I invented the oven.

Well, that’s just what I’m calling it now, until I come up with a snazzier name, like “Hotsybox” or “Transform-a-bread.” Or heck, can you really beat “Funcooker?” 

 

So now we have a mechanism for producing baked bread, and you’re welcome. We have a method for making protein adhere to that bread, and you’re welcome again. But I’m not done! My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives, and I think I will focus next on a new technique for transforming common fruit into some sort of spreadable yet palatable material, and I don’t mean to outpace myself here, but I think  . . . the three elements may just go together. I think — and this is only if it works out, which is a big if! — I will call it “JBP.” Or maybe “BPJ.” I don’t know. Let me know what you think. 

Har, har, okay, I got that joke out of my system. But seriously, this bread was so nice. It had a faint smoky flavor on the outside, and it was soft and lightly chewy inside. 

Piled on the saucy meatballs, which were extremely tasty. 

And everyone liked it! So, I stopped feeling sorry for myself! Potential potatoes be damned. 

Oh, also, I DID clean the bathroom. Did a very thorough job, and then I had a very nice, very hot shower, compliments of Damien, who fixed the water heater. 

Also on Thursday Moe moved into his new apartment, which is nice for him, and nice for Damien, who gets his office back! Happily, Moe is not too far away, so I hope we still see him a lot. Once he’s settled in, he’s going to pick up Maggie. She has been with us for just over a year, and God bless her, she never compromised on her steadfast hatred of this house, this family, and most of all, this freaking dog. 

FRIDAY
Tuna noodle? 

Or tuna noodon’t. Damien is not a fan of tuna noodle casserole, but I planned it thinking he was going to be away at dinner, but now I’m not sure. And also, uhhhh we

don’t have an oven. We are ordering one tonight! Damien is actually, at this moment, at an awards ceremony where he just won an award for his journalism AGAIN, and this one comes with cash, of all things! I’m so proud of him. He writes award winning stories while also constantly doing things like fixing the water heater, driving everybody everywhere, and rescuing me from corners I painted myself into for no reason at all. 

In the mean time, we’ll just keep grillin’. For tonight, though, I think perhaps we will just have tuna sandwiches and chips. Or maybe I’ll treat everyone to a good old fashioned BPJ.

 
 

What’s for supper? Vol. 316: All Fall

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

SATURDAY
Vermonter sandwiches

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and once I made those mummy hot dogs

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

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

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

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

MONDAY
Chicken nuggets; candy

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

Benny and Corrie were Sarah and Duck

and I assisted them as Scarf Lady 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I made about 20 apples. 

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

WEDNESDAY
Chicken and salad; soul cakes

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

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

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

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

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

And then I took a picture, so there. 

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

Jump to Recipe

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

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

THURSDAY
Mexican beef bowls and beans

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

Jump to Recipe

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

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

Jump to Recipe

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

Jump to Recipe

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

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

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

FRIDAY
Quesadillas

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

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

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Soul cakes

Servings 18 flat cakes the size of large biscuits

Ingredients

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

optional:

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

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350

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

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

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

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

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

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

  8. Sprinkle with powdered sugar while they are warm

 

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Beef marinade for fajita bowls

enough for 6-7 lbs of beef

Ingredients

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

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

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

 

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Instant Pot black beans

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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

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

5 from 1 vote
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White Lady From NH's Guacamole

Ingredients

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

Instructions

  1. Peel avocados. Mash two and dice two. 

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

  3. Cover tightly, as it becomes discolored quickly. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 313: The eptimistic kitchen

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

SATURDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips

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

SUNDAY
Aldi pizza 

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

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

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

MONDAY
Beef barley soup, pumpkin empanadas 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TUESDAY
Ham, peas, mashed potatoes

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

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

I also redeemed myself by having leftover soup for lunch.

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

WEDNESDAY
Pork gyros

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

Jump to Recipe

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

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

AND THEN WE FEASTED.

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

THURSDAY
Meatball subs, veg and dig

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

with the help of a supervisor

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

Nothing extraordinary, but good for a rainy fall day. 

FRIDAY
Shrimp lo mein

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

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

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

Jump to Recipe

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

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

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Beef barley soup (Instant Pot or stovetop)

Makes about a gallon of lovely soup

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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


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

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

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

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

 

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honey garlic marinade for gyros

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

Ingredients

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

Make about 100 golf ball-sized meatballs. 

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs ground meat (I like to use mostly beef with some ground chicken or turkey or pork)
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups panko bread crumbs
  • 4 oz grated parmesan cheese (about 1 cup)
  • 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400.

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

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

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

 

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basic lo mein

Ingredients

for the sauce

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

for the rest

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

Instructions

  1. Mix together the sauce ingredients and set aside.

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

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

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

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

Halloween roundup! Samhain, witch burning, pumpkin carving, werewolf movies, and SPOOKY MISC.

I’ve made my annual pilgrimage to Walmart to get more hot glue sticks while wearing embarrassing pajamas, so I guess I’m just about ready for Halloween. Last night I made progress on an Athena costume (helmet, spear, and aegis) for Corrie, and Clara saved the day by sewing a pirate skirt for Benny. I did my part by buying bootlaces that don’t perpetually untie themselves, and honestly, that may have saved Halloween, too. 

I’ve been saving up a few interesting bits of reading to share, more or less Halloween related:

Is Halloween ackshully pagan? 

Samhain photo by Robin Canfield on Unsplash 

Short answer: No. Long answer: No, it’s Catholic, always has been, you absolute shoehorning no-history-knowing nits. So says Tim O’Neill of History for Atheists, and he has the goods. The idea that religious people stole Samhain or some other pre-christian tradition from pagans is popular but completely without historical merit. A longish and fascinating read from a guy who can’t be accused of having a religious agenda.

Sorta related: Who burned the witches? This is an older article by Salon co-founder Laura Miller published in 2005, challenging the idea that, when we say “witch burning,” we mean some concerted effort by the big bad church to quash rebellious wise women who knew too much about how to gather healing herbs and whatnot.

Photo by Evgeniy Kletsov on Unsplash 

Nobody really comes out looking especially awesome in the witch trial era, but it really seems to have been mostly a case of people being like people be, which is horrible enough in itself:

The mass of detail can be numbing, but what it reveals is important: not a sweeping, coordinated effort to exert control by a major historical player, but something more like what Hannah Arendt called the “banality of evil.” Witch hunts were a collaboration between lower-level authorities and commonfolk succumbing to garden-variety pettiness, vindictiveness, superstition and hysteria. Seen that way, it’s a pattern that recurs over and over again in various forms throughout human history, whether or not an evil international church or a ruthless patriarchy is involved, in places as different as Seattle and Rwanda.

This is, in fact, more or less how it was taught to us in public school when I was growing up. I appreciate the attempt to bring some balance to the conversation, which, if anything, has gotten dumber since this article came out. And I wish people would be willing to consider this less conspiratorial, more mundane explanation more often for . . . everything. When we can explain everything bad with a conspiracy, that’s thrilling and satisfying, and lets us imagine that there are clear cut bad guys who aren’t us; but it’s far more likely that people everywhere are petty and vengeful and prone to letting their bad impulses get out of control. Nobody wants to hear it, because it means it’s something we’re all susceptible to. 
 
What else? Pumpkins! Just a few more days until we get our dining room table back. 
 
 
If I put the pumpkins outside now, they’ll be freezing cold when we bring them in to scoop them out. And I also haven’t super duper found spots for all the frost-damaged plants I brought in, yet. So this is how we live. At least the cookie is happy. Somewhere in there is a spool of wire I bought to make the snakes for Athena’s aegis, but I can’t find it, so I got more in my pajamas.
 
I finally got my anxious paws on those pumpkins yesterday, after searching no fewer than seven stores and coming up empty and getting more and more nervous about having to carve, like, cauliflowers for Halloween this year. I told the Home Depot lady that probably Covid made people sad, which made them want to decorate more, which made them buy extra pumpkins, and she said that sounded exactly right, but even I could tell it was stupid. In real life, I blame the Masons, or possibly the Jews. Anyway, now we have ten lovely fat pumpkins to carve. I got a Dremel for Christmas last year, and I’ve barely used it, so I think I will make something splendid this year.  Check out #11. Okay, realistically speaking, I will make a sloppy attempt at it, and my family will be really supportive and nice about it. I can live with this. 
 
 
And finally, a Halloween family watching suggestion, not a new one but a solid choice: Over the Garden Wall. 
 

I’m still amazed it got broadcast, because it’s so weird and beautiful and thoughtful. It’s an animated miniseries of 12 short episodes, and every one is gorgeous, creepy, funny, and strangely moving, with crazy, memorable music.

Two half-brothers find themselves lost in the woods on Halloween, and as they try to make their way home, they become entangled in some terrifying otherworldly business. It’s loosely inspired by The Divine Comedy, but I wouldn’t push that too far. 

Each episode is about 11 minutes, so you can watch the entire series in about two hours. We split it into two nights. Here’s the first episode, which is pretty representative:

It’s rated PG, but some of the characters and situations are extremely creepy, so while we did let our six-year-old watch it, she has a very high tolerance for scary stuff, and some kids under the age of eight or nine could find it too scary. (Here’s a specific list of creepy stuff.) There is a lot of very silly and hilarious stuff that fixes you right up when you get creeped out. No gore, graphic violence, or sex. There is a persistent melancholy tone, but all the relationships in the show get worked out very satisfactorily, and familial love is the true theme of the miniseries, and all is restored in the end. 

This show also contains one of the most realistic depictions of a goofy little boy we’ve ever seen. We’ve come to burgle your turts! Lots of quotes and songs have become part of our family culture.

Here’s a beast costume

a Wirt costume

and a Wirt and Greg cake:

The whole thing is crowded with allusions and suggestions and portents, and you can either pursue them or just enjoy them. It originally ran on Cartoon Network in 2014. It doesn’t appear to be streaming for free anywhere right now. We bought it to stream on Amazon.

We haven’t settled on a scary movie to watch on Halloween night. We’ve seen Young Frankenstein too recently. We’ve seen Army of Darkness a million times. I may push for renting Silver Bullet (1985), which is the only good werewolf movie ever made. FIGHT ME. Here’s where you can watch it (nowhere for free right now, that I can see.)
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1dClCykQys
 
And I guess that’s it. We have never managed to do anything for All Saint’s Day, but if you do, here’s my list of costumes that will do double duty, and work for saints and their spookier counterparts as well. I should update it to add Matt Swaim’s suggestion:
 

And if you’re really ahead of the game, here is my All Soul’s Day cheat sheet: A recipe for eggs in purgatory, a recipe for soul cakes, and a quick prayer for the dead. Donezo. 

Even you can make this Thanksgiving centerpiece

The other day, because I was overwhelmed by the way we hadn’t put away sandals and sneakers but we had taken out boots, and the way we hadn’t put away light jackets but had taken out snow pants, and by how all of these things were on the dining room floor and everyone was stepping on them with their muddy feet while eating corn flakes, and also there was a broken washing machine in the dining room, I got out my hot glue gun.

Here, I should warn you that this craft post is just a craft post. I have no larger point about life and failure and beauty and self-knowledge. Sometimes a glue gun is just a glue gun.

We had a leftover pumpkin that nobody carved on Halloween, so I started doodling flowers and leaves on it with hot glue.

When I ran out of ideas, I Googled “quilling flower patterns,” because quilling designs are made with strips of paper, so I figured that would translate well into hot glue lines.

Then I filled in the gaps with squiggles, spirals, leaves, and little chains of circles.

I had the idea that if I spray painted it gold, it would would look like A Thing. And I wasn’t wrong!

I am a huge sucker for anything spray painted gold, and I thought it was pretty like this.

BUT THEN, I realized I could peel the hot glue off, and it would have a sort of batik effect. AND I WASN’T WRONG.

 

I can’t be the only one who’s discovered you can do this, but I’m still very proud of myself.

Plus, it was tons of fun to pull off the hot glue shapes. They held together surprisingly well, and stayed intact.

 

I was afraid the paint on the pumpkin would chip or get scratched as I picked the glue off, but it did not, so I let Corrie help peel.

 

I used Rust-oleum American Accents 2x Extra Cover metallic bright gold, but I have no idea if that’s the only kind of paint you can use on pumpkins or what. Also, I let it dry for three days before I had time to bring it back inside, so I would say “let dry thoroughly” — both the glue and the paint, before you try to peel anything.

Also, I now have these excellent flexible gold shapes to play with. Maybe I will put them on the Advent wreath or something.

So, here it is: My attempt at a fancy centerpiece.

So you could put this in the middle of a wreath, in a basket, on a platter, or whatever, and put greenery or little pumpkins or candles or whatever shit you have lying around. I just grabbed the wool blanket for the contrast, but a smaller cloth in green or purple or brown would look swell.

You can see that I actually had little, centerpiece-size pumpkins lying around, too. If I had actually planned this project out, rather than goofing around to put off work, I would have used them but I still like it. No doubt the kids will have carved “PEE FART” into it before the day is up, but at least my camera beat the little creeps. They haven’t eaten all my flowers yet, so that’s something.

 

You could also write “LIVE LAUGH LOVE” on it, instead of flowers and leaves, what do I care. Write “HAPPY THANKSGIVING.” You could have a series of mini pumpkins laid out across your mantelpiece spelling out “T-H-A-T-S-E-N-O-U-G-H -P-I-E- A-U-N-T -B-R-E-N-D-A.” Be bold and fierce with chevrons; no one’s stopping you.