Tag: sandwiches

What’s for supper? Vol. 130: Spiedie trial

I don’t know which of you bastards put a hex on me, but nothing I cooked came out well this week. Also my best cow went dry and the tallow kept lumping on me no matter how I boiled it. And I lost my best mob cap. But I did go running every single day this week, seven days in a row! Now I have a . . . strained toe tendon? Or something? This doesn’t mix well with lots and lots of driving. Ow. But still, I ran.

Here’s what we ate, carb counts at the end:

SATURDAY
Chicken strawberry salad with almonds

I seem to remember my husband made this while I . . . did something important. Probably lay down. I think he roasted the chicken in the oven, the served it with mixed greens, sliced strawberries, feta cheese, toasted almonds, and balsamic vinegar. This dark picture doesn’t do justice to how pretty this meal was, even if the almonds did get a little over-toasted:

It was not easy for me to make the transition to seeing fruit as a natural part of savory meals, rather than as dessert, but once you put balsamic vinegar on fresh strawberries, you’ll never go back.

SUNDAY
Spiedies, peppers and hummus

I couldn’t find my excellent spiedie marinade recipe, so I made one up, and it just wasn’t as zippy.

2 tsp red pepper flakes
red wine vinegar 1/2 cup
1.5 c oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
salt and pepper
1.5 tsp mint
1 Tbs minced garlic
2 Tbs sugar

I think I’ve used one with lemon zest in the past. This was good, just not amazing. I cubed a boneless pork loin and set it to marinate early in the day, and then the kids put it on skewers (soaked in water to keep the meat moist) and my husband grilled it in the evening.

We served it on toasted rolls with mayonnaise, and had raw peppers and hummus on the side.

Operation Enough With The Chips All The Time proceeds apace.

MONDAY
Hot Dogs of Many Nations, nacho chips, grilled corn, watermelon

We didn’t want to trivialize the memory of our fallen heroes by grilling hamburgers, so we had hot dogs after the parade, instead.

I put out an assortment of toppings: Ketchup, mustard, relish, sauerkraut, chopped cukes, grape tomatoes, diced onions, pickled pepper rings, blue cheese, celery salt, sliced pickles, buffalo sauce, and chopped scallions, if I remember correctly, which I never do.  Several of the kids had a Chicago hot dog, which is  yellow mustard,  pickle relish, onion, tomato, pickle, peppers, and celery salt.

My favorite: Blue cheese, buffalo sauce, and scallions.

I think it’s actually supposed to be chives, but whatever. It’s yuhm.
We like grilling corn on the cob slowly right in the husks, which makes it immensely sweet and juicy, but I forgot, and had the kids shuck the corn. So Damien grilled it anyway, and we buttered it, then sprinkled it with chili lime powder.

It was supposed to be ice cream pie for dessert (you mash up ice cream with a potato masher until it’s soft and spreadable, then spread it in a graham cracker crust, and dress it up with chocolate sauce, peanut butter, marshmallows, whipped cream, candy, sprinkles, nuts, cherries, whatever, and then freeze for a couple of hours) but we forgot to make it, so we just had ice cream.

TUESDAY
Taco Tuesday

I didn’t take any pictures. I did add the chili lime powder to the meat, and it made it much brighter and more interesting. I was also starving because we had the final high school concert of the year and ate super late. I also added chili lime powder to a can of refried beans I had for lunch the next day. I keep thinking it’s not very good, but then I keep using it, so I guess I like it.

WEDNESDAY
Cobb salad

This is a cute meal. I took my biggest pan and arranged stripes of chopped bacon, sliced avocado, halved hard boiled eggs, grape tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, chopped Romaine lettuce, and diced chicken.

It was okay. I made the chicken in the instant pot and basically just steamed it in lemon juice, which made it kind of damp and lemony, which is not my absolute favorite way to enjoy chicken. Oh well. I left my feet in the picture to prove that I’m not one of those fancy food bloggers who doesn’t have feet.

THURSDAY
Pork ribs, coleslaw, some kind of rice thing

The pork, I seasoned generously with salt and pepper and put it under a hot broiler in a pan with some drainage, and turned it once.

I planned to make biscuits, only my planning didn’t extend to having flour in the house, so I decided to make risotto instead, which doesn’t really go with coleslaw, but it didn’t matter because I was also out of parmesan cheese, so it wasn’t really risotto.

I sauteed two diced Vidalia onions in olive oil with salt and pepper and a tablespoon of minced onion in the Instant Pot, then added four cups of white rice, and stirred it up until the rice was opaque. Then I added eight cups of chicken broth, closed the lid and valve, and set it on high for seven minutes, then did a quick release. Heck, everyone ate it. They kept asking me if it was flavored rice or brown rice, and I kept telling them to shut up.

FRIDAY

It seems we have some kind of effing potluck to go to. We were supposed to have scrambled eggs and hash browns, which is not all that great, but at least we wouldn’t have to talk to anyone or put pants on. Effing potluck. What do you recommend that requires almost no effort on my part and that pairs well with a bad attitude?

And now for the carbs:

SPIEDIES:
roll – 39 or 40

pork: 0

2 tsp red pepper flakes 2g

red wine vinegar 1/2 cup: 8 Tbs
1.5 c oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
salt and pepper
1.5 tsp mint
1 Tbs minced garlic]
2 Tbs sugar: 25.2
——-
2g per Tbs, 2 Tbs per kebab
hummus: 2 Tbs, 4g
1/2 yellow pepper: 6
marinade: 4
l’oven Deli roll: 39
—–
53
dessert:
ice cream 2/3 c rocky road Hannaford: 23
choc sauce1 Tbs: 12
1/3 cup marshmallows: 11.5

3 Reese’s peanut butter mini cups: 15

2 maraschino cherries: 4
_____
65.5
supper and dessert: 118.5

HOT DOGS:

1 hot dogs: 3

1 frankfurter buns: 21
2 Tbs ketchup: 10
mustard: 0
2 Tbs chopped onions: 8
5 grape tomatoes: 1.55
pickles: 0
1/4 cup chopped cucumbers with skin: 4
corn on the cob: 17
chili lime powder: doesn’t want
butter: 0
11 nacho chips: 15
watermelon, 1 cup equivalent: 46

COBB SALAD:

chicken cooked in lemon juice: 0

romaine lettuce: 1
avocado: doesn’t want
5 grape tomatoes: 1.6
bacon: 0
cukes: .5
hard boiled egg: 0
balsamic vinegar, 2 Tbs: 8
11.1 carbs
12 tsp iced tea powder (3 c): 54
total meal: 65.1

PORK, COLE SLAW, RISOTTO:

pork, salt, pepper: 0

cole slaw:

1  head cabbage -72 g
1 cup mayo -1.3 g
1 1/2cup white vinegar -0 g
1/2 cup.lime juice 8.23 g
10 carrots 8 g
1 cup sugar- 200 g
Total carbs: 289.53

risotto:
rice 4 cups uncooked: 576

chicken broth 8 cups: 4

olive oil: 0

2 vidalia onions: 32

garlic minced 1 Tbs: 3 g
salt and pepper: .5 (1/2 tsp pepper)
rice: 615.5 for ten cups of cooked risotto

about 61.55g per cup

What’s for supper? Vol. 128: My love language is pork.

We may be sabbages, but we’re sabbages who eat like kings. Here’s what we had (carb counts at the end): 

SATURDAY
Chicken burgers, tater tots, salad

I have no memory of Saturday. Oh wait, yes I do! I went to pick up the final kid from college. Hooray!

SUNDAY
Oysters, banh mi, grilled peaches with ice cream

Mother’s day! What a wonderful day I had. When we got back from Mass, we did some food prep, and then went for a hike in a nearby gorge. How I love gorges.

Did I mention all the kids are home?

I was showered with thoughtful gifts and attentions all day long. And gin!

For banh mi, we use this Serious Eats recipe, using onions instead of shallots – and, obviously, pork instead of steak this time. If you’ve never made banh mi before, there’s no way I can prepare you for the horrendous smell of the meat marinating in fish sauce. I sealed it up in a ziplock bag as fast as I could, but not before much gagging and groaning. It also stinks when you’re cooking it, so moving this show outdoors was a good plan.

We have always heretofore made banh mi inside in the oven, and I was a little concerned that thin slices of meat would fall through the grate, so I took the pork loin and hasselbacked it, cutting it into thin slices 3/4 of the way through, before marinating it for several hours.

It cooked up so nicely. Damien wrapped it loosely in foil and let it cook for a long time off to the side, not right over the coals, with the cover on and the vent open, until it was cooked all the way through

and then unwrapped it and put it right over the coals, and let it develop that gorgeous glazey finish.

Then it was easy to separate the meat the rest of the way into individual slices for the sandwiches. It was so moist and tender!

While it was cooking, I sliced some baguettes into thirds and toasted it. I had also made some pickled carrots in the morning (slice carrots thin, set to pickle in vinegar with a little sugar mixed it) and sliced up a bunch of cucumbers (I didn’t pickle them, because I wanted something cool in the sandwich) and chopped up a bunch of cilantro, and set out mayonnaise and sriracha sauce. I forgot the jalapenos, but the flavor was sufficiently intense and exciting. Just a wonderful sandwich, a real mouth party.

While we were waiting for the meat to cook, we had ourselves some oysters.

My husband bought enough for the kids to try one and reject it

and then we got to scarf down the rest in peace with tabasco sauce, horseradish, lemon wedges, cocktail sauce, and beer. Look at that blue, blue sky.

And check out the fancy nubbly ice! I picked up a hand-cranked ice crusher at a yard sale last year. I’m basically a Proverbs 31 woman, what with the yard sales and the pickling. Damien also pronounced his new oyster gloves and knife (affiliate link) the best $15 he spent all week.

For dessert, I had my heart set on grilled peaches. It’s truly not peach season, and the selection of peaches reflected this fact, but my husband dutifully hunted some down. I split them in half and dug out the pits, and then set them to macerate in a mixture of melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon. I thought this might help them ripen up or something, I dunno. Then, after dinner, my husband grilled them over the coals

until they were lovely

and we served them with a scoop of vanilla ice cream topped with chopped pecans. Someday, I’ll serve this again, but I’ll make a bourbon caramel sauce, and I’ll candy them pecans. For lady reasons I can’t explain, I had mine with Greek yogurt instead of ice cream.

It was good! The whole day was so good.

MONDAY
Pizza

Two pepperoni, two black olive, 16 inches each. I’m ready to face the fact that, with the college kids home, we’ve graduated into a five-pizza family.

This has nothing to do with food, but here was our morning at the pediatrician’s office.

They are contemplating all the poor sick people that are likely there today.

TUESDAY
Hot dogs, chips

On Tuesday, I gave a speech in the morning, and then we had a concert in the evening. Here’s the grouse I’m still cherishing: I dislike wistful pop songs about the glories of childhood and the misery of being a weary, cynical adult. I despise such songs all to billions of pieces when actual, current children are made to sing several of them in spring concerts. I’m still cranky enough about this to mention that the choir director position in our school is sort of like the drummer position in Spinal Tap, so maybe next year they children can sing songs written for children, rather than for people who spend their lives smoking weed and then wondering why adulthood is so disappointing. Bah!

There was cake after the concert, and I prepared by buying a lovely bakery cupcake for Lucy, so we’d know how many carbs there would be, and she could dose accordingly. Well, the label that looked like 31 carbs in the supermarket turned out to be 81 carbs right before she dosed up. Sheesh. I think that, before a kid gets diabetes, they should have the mom take a test that says, “Can you read? All the time, or just sometimes?” and if the answer is “sometimes,” then the kid should not be allowed to get diabetes.

WEDNESDAY
Southwest chicken salad

I wanted to recreate this excellent salad I got from McDonald’s. I did hear myself say that, and I stand by it.

Mixed greens, grilled chicken, avocado, shredded, spicy cheese, corn, black beans, red and green peppers, cilantro, fresh lime, and toasted tortilla strips, with a spicy ranch dresssing. Hooray, another pretty and delicious salad meal!

I always have a ludicrous backlog of tortillas in the house, so I was happy to take a ton of them and hack them into pieces. I mixed the strips up with a drizzle of olive oil and plenty of salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Then I put them in a single layer in shallow pans and toasted them at 350 for about 25 minutes or more. I think the time has come for me to start buying chili lime powder.

For the corn, I intended to buy a few cans of ¡Mexicorn!, because it makes me giggle, but I came across a bag of frozen “Chipotle corn,” which comes with the beans and peppers and some kind of honey sauce. Easy peasy. I just let it defrost and set it out in a bowl. This meal is definitely going in the rotation. You can make everything ahead of time.

Oh, and I accidentally bought “taco cheese,” which I thought was cheese destined for tacos, but it’s actually seasoned with taco spices. You know what? It tasted good, so I’m going to buy it again, so there.

THURSDAY
Miso soup, brown rice with egg and pork floss, asparagus

So, I had these foods. Kyra sends me foods. I had this miso paste, which I definitely wanted, and then also this pork floss, which . . . I was reserving judgment about.

Pork floss, also known as “meat wool,” is pork that has been transformed into a sort of savory, gritty lint. So I says to myself, I says, you’re never too old to stop learning! Why don’t you look up some authentic recipes and find out how deliciously this gritty meat lint should be prepared in a way that, with a slight tweak of cultural expectations, will open broad new vistas of culinary delight?

Well, most of the recipes were like, “My grandfather used to put a scoop of it in some Wonder Bread and then ball it up, and then he would shout at me if I didn’t eat it in one bite” or “I guess maybe with porridge?”

So I settled for cooking some brown rice, sprinkling it with pork floss, and topping it with a fried egg.

Boy, it did not taste good. It tasted like pork in the same way as I look like my wedding picture: Clearly the same subject, and yet the alterations are undeniable, troubling, and profound.

I did feel a little well of schadenfreude bubble up in my arid soul. Ooh, ooh, Asian cuisine! Ooh, it’s so delicate and exquisite, so what do you know, you great cloddish westerner, with your big chomping face and your gurgling cheeseburger stomach?

Yeah, well, pork floss is Asian, and it’s garbage. It was like in Bonfire of the Vanities (RIP Tom Wolfe, by the way) where they’re so thrilled to discover their intimidatingly flawless nanny is a flaming racist. Phew!

We also had miso soup, which I love, and which you can tart up in all kinds of ways, but it’s really supposed to be simple. Exquisite, if you will. So I boiled some water, added some dulse (I don’t know what dulse is, either), mixed the miso paste with hot water and added that, then threw in some cubed tofu. If it hadn’t been a hot, muggy day, it would have been a great soup. As it was, it was a little bit challenging.

I also had some asparagus, which I steamed and served with lemon wedges. Guess what the kids ate? That’s right, bagels.

FRIDAY
Mac and cheese

Probably gonna use this recipe doubled or tripled and top it with buttered bread crumbs.

And there it is.

***

Here come the carbs:

Banh mi, oysters, and peaches:

pork:0
2/3 cup fish sauce: 74

g 2 tbs minced garlic: 6
8 Tbs sugar: 100
1/2 cup onion: 8
_____
total pork and all sauce: 188, but of course you’re not eating all the sauce.
If she eats 1 tbs, that’s 11.75
bread: 1/3 baguette: 56
pickled carrots: 7
cukes: 1
———-
64
peaches: 7 per half peach
2 Tbs sugar: 25.2
1 Tbs cinnamon: 6
1 stick butter: 0
dash of salt: 0
olive oil: 0
31.2 divided by 12 = 2.6 per sauce on each half peach
pecans: 1/8 cup, 2 carbs
ice cream 1/2 cup, 15 carbs
_____
half sauced peach with 1/2 cup ice cream and 1/8 cup nuts: 26.6
102.35 total meal including dessert
***

pizza:

portland pie pizza dough beer 20 oz: 208
1/2 cup Reggano sauce: 13
3 cups shredded Happy Farmer mozzarella cheese: 12
olives: 0
Pepperoni: 0
—–
Total pizza: 233
1/4 pizza: 58.25

ice cream cone: 39

total meal: 97.25
***

Southwest chicken salad:

1/4 an avocado: 2.15 g
Season’s Choice Chipotle corn blend (corn, black beans, red peppers, poblano peppers in honey butter sauce): 3/4 cup 24 g

tortilla strips with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder, 1 sm tortilla: 19
chicken with olive oil, salt, and pepper: 0
spicy ranch dressing Tuscan Garden: 2 Tbs, 1 g
2 cups green leaf lettuce and baby spinach: 2g
Happy Farms taco style shredded cheese: 1/4 cup, 1g
1/4 lime: 1.75
cilantro: negligible

***

Miso soup meal (amounts are not scaled to serving size, because Lucy didn’t want any of it, so I stopped calculating)

Tbs miso: 5.3g

Maine Coast Sea Vegetables dulse: 1/3 cup, 3 g; whole bag: 24g
scallions:
Nasoya sesame ginger tofu: 8g per 8 oz package
Simply Nature quick cook brown rice: 3 cups uncooked: 408g
fried egg: 0
T&T dried pork floss: 6 Tbs, 11g
asparagus: .6g per spear
lemon: 5g per lemon
***
Mac and cheese:

3 lbs macaroni : 1008
Burman’s hot sauce: 0

6 Tbs butter: 0
3 Tbs mustard: 0
3 c milk: 39
1 lb Happy Farms pre-shredded mild cheddar: 16
24 oz Happy Farms aged New York sharp cheddar: 0
Total without breadcrumbs: 1063

Optional:

Hannaford Italian style bread crumbs: 1 cup, 80 g
butter: 0

Total with breadcrumbs: 1143

What’s for supper? Vol. 125: Tuesday is the new Friday

Sorry for the delay! Last week was a week of great stupitude and everything is late. Here’s what we had. Carb counts at the end.

SATURDAY
Chicken quesadillas, tortilla chips, strawberries

I drizzled a bunch of chicken breasts with olive oil and dusted them thoroughly with salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder, then broiled them, let them cool a bit, and sliced them.

People could choose a combination of cheddar cheese, chicken, jalapeño slices, and chopped scallions for their quesadillas.

Served with sour cream and salsa, strawberries on the side. Lovely.

SUNDAY
Chicken sandwiches with bacon, green apple, and cheddar on sourdough; spicy fries

A very fine sandwich. My husband used olive oil, salt, and pepper and broiled the chicken, then cut it into thick slices. Each sandwich had chicken, a few pieces of crisp bacon, a slice or two of Granny Smith apple, and a thick slice of sharp cheddar, all on thick, toasted sourdough bread with honey mustard dressing. So good.

We had spicy fries, from frozen, on the side.

MONDAY
Ramen with pork and pickled vegetables

In the morning, I set some carrots and baby cucumbers pickling. I sliced the cukes into thin coins, and used a horizontal vegetable peeler to make wide ribbons of the carrots. I put them in a bowl with some white vinegar and a quarter cup or so of sugar. Pickled vegetables add a wonderful crunch and brightness to otherwise dull food.

Before dinner, I dusted some thick pork ribs with salt and pepper and sautéed them in olive oil. While they were cooing, I soft boiled a bunch of eggs, chopped scallions, and started some ramen cooking. Then I sliced the pork thin and served everything in separate bowls, along with sesame seeds, sriracha sesame seeds, wasabi sauce, and soy sauce.

And how delighted I am to be eating dinner while the sun is still up. HOW DELIGHTED.

TUESDAY
Stuffed shells, salad

Benny has been begging for lasagna, and I have a real mental block about making lasagna. I always end up like the Three Stooges in the one where they’re hanging wallpaper. So I made stuffed shells instead.

I cooked two 12-oz boxes of jumbo shells, and stuffed them with this filling:

2 32-oz tubs of ricotta cheese
8 oz. grated parmesan
4 beaten eggs
1 Tbs garlic powder
2 Tbs dried basil
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
3 cups of shredded mozzarella

I put sauce in the casserole dish, then put in the stuffed shells, then added more sauce and topped it with another cup of mozzarella cheese. I covered it and put it in a 350 oven for maybe 40 minutes. I forgot to eat that day, so I almost devoured my own hand in my haste to put stuffed shells inside my face. The kids who weren’t starving also thought they were quite good, too.

WEDNESDAY
Hamburgers, spicy roast cauliflower

I’m trying to serve chips less reflexively, so I tried cauliflower. Because I happen to like cauliflower, and not because I think it’s some kind of magical hylomorphic substance that can be browbeaten into becoming anything your carb-loving heart desires. Yes, I know that’s not what hylomorphic means. Don’t care. I just like cauliflower.

So I broke it into florets and mixed it up with olive oil, salt, pepper, tons of minced garlic, and some hot pepper flakes, and shoved the pan under a hot broiler until the cauliflower was a little charred. It was okay. I thought it would be exciting, but it was just kind of hot. I forgot to take a picture, but you can probably imagine.

THURSDAY
Pizza and birthday cake

A sleepover party with I don’t even know how many little nine-year-olds. Guess what? They were so much better behaved than the three high school kids who slept over the night before. Land.

This party was a pirate party. We’ve thrown a lot of parties, and my greatest tip is: Have a few bucks to spare so you can just run out and buy a bunch of crap right before the party. I spray painted a skull and crossbones on a plastic tablecloth and blew up balloons, and that was decorations.

I cut a watermelon into a pirate ship full of fruit salad, which is honest to goodness not that hard if you stay calm. Look at the little carrot cannons! The girls supplied little clay mermaids to lounge here and there.

You cut the melon in half lengthwise and slice the fruit in the bottom like a grid and scoop it out with a big spoon. Then scoop out the top rind and trim it into a few sail shapes, and put it together with wooden skewers for masts. I had to put some extra shell bits in the bottom to anchor the skewers. I also cut holes in the side for baby carrot cannons, and taped a little flag to the top. In other lifetime, I’ll go nuts with scrolling and scrimshaw and little flags and spars and rope ladders, but not this lifetime.

Then I made a treasure chest cake! Sort of!

It looks a little bit like a clam eating Oreos, but it also looks a little bit like a treasure chest, don’t you think?

I made a double recipe, and used about 1/4 of the batter to make a round base, which I frosted and then sprinkled with crushed graham cracker for sand (pirate sand). Then I poured the rest of the batter into a large loaf pan, to make the chest. When it was cool, I sliced the rounded top off for a lid, and frosted the bottom.

I used gold food grade spray (affiliate link!) to make gold coins out of Oreos. I have no idea why I didn’t use yellow Oreos, but I didn’t. (There were also gluten free cupcakes, and I topped them with GF chocolate chip cookies sprayed gold, to be gold nuggets, I guess.

Piratey! It took two cans of spray to cover all the cookies on both sides.) Then I arranged the coins on the bottom/chest part of the cake with a plastic necklace, put the top “lid” back on, and frosted that.

Then I added the trim.

If I had had more time, I would have mixed different shades of chocolate frosting together to make the chest look like wood, and I would have used chocolate chips for the rivets. Next time! I thought it turned out well, though, and the birthday girl was pleased.

The kids made their own pizzas. This is a great party activity, as it’s both project and meal.

Everyone had a red pirate head scarf ($1 each at Walmart) and an eye patch (which I bought in bulk here – affiliate link!). To make pirate scarves, fold the kerchief into a triangle. Lay it over the head, fold the two side corners in, tucking in the folds that makes, and tie a knot at the nape of the neck. Works best for kids without a cubic yard of curly hair.

They played “walk the plank” down by the stream. I don’t know what that entails, but everyone did come back.

FRIDAY
Blintzes and grits

Yep, that’s what we had. As befitted such a meal, I didn’t take any pictures.

***

So here’s the carb counts, more or less:

Chicken apple sandwiches:

Sourdough bread – 23 carbs per slice – 46 for sandwich
Chicken 0
Bacon 0
Honey Mustard dressing – 6 carb per 2 tablespoons
alternate:
Mustard – 0
Mayonnaise – 0

Spicy fries – 21 carbs per 14 fries
Ketchup – 10 carbs per two tablespoons
***

Chicken quesadillas:

Pueblo Lindo large burrito size tortilla: 34

Chicken with olive oil, cumin, pepper, salt, chili powder: negligible
Cheddar cheese: negligible
jalapenos: doesn’t want

scallions: doesn’t want

Clancy’s restaurant style tortilla chips: 14 chips, 38 carbs

salsa: doesn’t want
sour cream 2 Tbs: 2
4 medium-large strawberries: 4
orange cream bar: 17
___
total: 95
***

Pork ramen:

1 package Top Ramen, chicken flavor: 26
Pork cooked in olive oil and sesame oil: 0

soft boiled egg: 0
one 7″ carrot and 1 mini cuke, pickled in vinegar and sugar: 10
scallions: 1.1 per scallion
(sauteed mushrooms, 4 medium sliced: 2.4)
spinach: 1.1 per cup, raw
sesame seeds: .7 per teaspoon
(soy sauce: .8 per Tbs.)
sriracha sauce:

iced tea: 34 grams per two cups of Lipton lemonade/iced tea mix

***

Stuffed shells:

  • 2 32-oz tubs of ricotta cheese, approx 8 cups: 45 per container, 90 total recipe
  • 8 oz grated Parmesan cheese: 0
  • 4 eggs: 0
  • 1 Tbs garlic powder: 7
  • 2 Tbs dried basil: 4.2
  • 2 tsp salt: 0
    1 tsp pepper: negligible
    4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese: 16
  • Makes about 9 cups cheese filling: 117.2 total
    2 boxes of Jumbo Shells, 12 oz each: 246 per box,
  • carbs in six shells:
    41 g per six pasta shells
    Reggano marinara sauce, 1/2 cup (divided top and bottom): 13
    cheese filling, i cup: 13.02
    _______
    67.2 per six shells
salad made of iceberg, spinach, and greenleaf lettuce: 2 c, about 2 carbs
1 Tbs balsamic vinegar: 2.7
 
TOTAL MEAL: 71.9
***

Pizza and cake:

260 total ball of Portland Pie white dough

1/4 of a pizza:

65 carbs for 1/4 ball pizza dough
1/4 cup Hunts sauce: 5.5
1/2 cup shredded cheese: 2
72.5 for 1 mini pizza
cupcake:
1 of 12 Live GF yellow cake : 37
frosting:20
oreo: 866138.5 total meal
***

Blintz and grits:

blintz 13

grits, 3 Tbs: 29
apple: 15
granola bar: 19
milk, 2 cups: 24
—–
100

What’s for supper? Vol. 122: Why is Walmart garlic powder taking over the world?

The theme this week was “very basic ingredients.” The most exotic seasoning to pass through my hands all week was garlic powder. Part of the New Three Sisters: salt, pepper, and garlic powder. And you know what? We ate really well. We had some snow days, so I even baked!

SATURDAY
Roast beef sandwiches, chips, strawberries

Chuck roast was as cheap as it ever gets around here, so I got a five-pound hunk. Damien coated it with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and browned it in a heavy pot in oil until it was crisp on all sides, then put it in the oven at 350 for about an hour. We like it rare, as you see.

We had it on rolls with horseradish sauce and slices of provolone, and I put mine in the oven to melt dat cheese.


Man. Pork is great, chicken is swell, but there is nothing like a slice of rare beef. It’s just what meat is supposed to taste like.

***

SUNDAY
Salmon burgers, asparagus, fries

I wrestled with my conscience for a while, then graciously conceded and  bought a crap ton of salmon filets that were on sale because it’s “the Lenten holiday.”

Here’s the cooking technique: Dry the filets and salt them lightly. Heat up a pan like crazy, coat the bottom with oil, and lay the filets down, skin side down. Let them cook more than halfway up, then carefully turn them over, and cook for a few more minutes. Serve sizzling hot.

I served them on soft, sweet little brioche rolls, because they too were on sale. A good companion to the tender fish, with pesto mayonnaise (my recipe: put pesto in mayonnaise) and some lettuce.

Veddy good.

MONDAY
Hot dogs, cheezy weezies, broccoli

I forget what happened Monday, but it wasn’t pretty.

TUESDAY
Meatball subs, salad

Birthday! Like fresh meat needs salt, a fourteen-year-old boy needs meatball subs on his birthday. I took seven pounds of ground beef and added seven beaten eggs, about four cups of breadcrumbs, and tons garlic powder, salt, pepper, oregano, and minced onion.

I bake them at 350 for about forty minutes or more on a pan with drainage. See how much fat gets drained away? So easy.

Then I layer them in a glass pan with sauce, cover, and keep them warm for several hours, so the sauce has a chance to soak in a bit. Pass the parmesan.

WEDNESDAY
Roman egg drop soup, roast chicken, salad, challah

We had yet another storm, and for other complicated and boring reasons were homebound all day; so I decided to make challah. I am a terrible baker, but challah is easy, as long as you have lots of time and a warm spot in your house.

Here’s the recipe I used. I doubled it to make two giant loaves:

In a bowl, I mixed together:
6 cups bread flour
1/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp salt

Then I added:
2 beaten eggs
1/2 cup canola oil

In a small bowl, I put
1-1/2 cups warm water
and dissolved into it one envelope of fast-acting yeast.
Then I mixed this into the other ingredients.

I tried kneading it in my Kitchen Aid with the dough hook, but it was just too much dough (remember, I made a double recipe. If you make a single, this method should work fine), so I had to knead it by hand. I hate kneading dough, and always give up too soon. The dough should be smooth, but very thick and not sticky at all. You may have to add more water or more flour. My dough was still kind of knotty when I got tired of kneading.

I put plastic wrap (you can also use a damp cloth) on the bowl of dough and put it in the oven to rise. (I have a cold kitchen, so to let dough rise, I turn the oven on for a few minutes, then turn it off, let it cool a bit with the door open, and then put the dough in.)

I let it rise for maybe an hour, then punched it down and formed the loaves. For each loaf, I divided the dough into four balls which we rolled into long snakes. We braided three of the snakes, pinching the ends together, and then divided the fourth one into three again, braiding those, and laying the smaller braid on top of the larger one.

Then I laid the loaves on a buttered, floured pan (I prefer corn meal to flour, but we were out), covered them again, and let them rise again for another hour or so.

Then I took the loaves out, preheated the oven to 350, and prepared an egg wash with a few egg yolks and a little water beaten up in a cup. We brushed that over the dough.

We were out of poppy seeds, or we would have sprinkled those over the top. And yes, I made Corrie put a shirt on just for the picture.

Then I baked the loaves in the middle of the oven for maybe half an hour, until the top was all golden.

Isn’t it lovely, hmmmm?

The insides were a little dense,

I suppose because I got lazy with kneading; but it was still soft and delicious. Sweet and eggy, and so fragrant. Coziest bread in the world.

The egg drop soup is a new recipe to me. Basically you take chicken broth, add some spinach, and then mix together raw egg and shredded cheese, and then whisk that briskly into the broth. It’s very cheap and simple, so I hoped it would become a miraculous new family favorite.

Instead, I got what looked remarkably like a warm pot o’ vomit.

The eggs are supposed to turn into delicate, wispy shreds when you whisk them into the broth. Mine clumped. Also, I used frozen spinach, which turned out to be in shreds. Then I overheated it, and the egg mixture kind of boiled up to the surface and got clotty.

I don’t know about you, but I prefer my soup non-clotty. Just one of my peculiarities.

It did look better in individual bowls.

The taste was actually pleasant, if not thrilling. It reminded me of quiche, or of my grandmother’s noodle kugel. If anyone has any tips on how to make them eggs shred, I may even make it again. It certainly is fast, easy, and cheap. JUST LIKE ME. Womp.

The chickens, I just slathered with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, pepper, and, you’ll never guess, garlic powder. I cooked them in a 375 oven, breast down, for forty minutes, then flipped them over, seasoned the other side, and kept cooking them until they were done. You get more tasty skin this way.

I hate cooking whole chickens, and I don’t even know why. Oh shucks, the challah got into the picture again! That keeps happening. Hello, lovely! I see you!

THURSDAY
Pork ribs, risotto, Brussels sprouts

Sometimes, it’s nice to just let pork be pork. You put the ribs on a pan with drainage, sprinkle them generously with salt and pepper (but not garlic powder. Let’s not be silly), and slide them under a hot broiler, turning once, until they are sizzling. So good.

The Brussels sprouts were just boiled from frozen, so not the greatest, but on the other hand, vegetable.

I’ve decided 2018 is officially a good year because I can now make Instant Pot risotto without checking the recipe. Here’s how (and this serves about 10. You can halve it):

Press the “sauté” button and add a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add a diced onions and a few teaspoons of minced garlic, plus a bunch of salt, pepper, and sage. Brown the onions.

Add four cups of raw rice, still on “sauté.” Keep stirring the rice with a wooden spoon until it’s all opaque, about five minutes. Then add eight cups of chicken broth, stir it up, put on the lid, close the valve, and set it to “pressure cook” on “high” for seven minutes.

When you suddenly notice it’s been done for a while while you were gooning around on Facebook, do a quick release, and then dump in as much parmesan cheese as your conscience will allow. I find it’s helpful to say to oneself, “This is the last time I will ever eat parmesan cheese. I wonder how much I should add?” and then see what happens.

Stir in the cheese carefully and serve immediately. Then, if your rotten, no-good son ever gets around to sending you the picture you took with his phone, you can post a picture of it.

EDIT: Oh, what a good boy.

About the risotto: Someone asked if I use regular rice instead of arborio. I do! Just plain old white rice. It doesn’t turn out as good as arborio rice, but it’s still very, very good. And food you actually make always tastes better than food you can’t afford to buy.

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

Done-zo.

What’s for supper? Vol. 118: Everyday Gras

You will become fatter just reading this post.

SATURDAY
Grilled chicken with cranberry salad

Quick quick, gobble gobble.

I doused some chicken with olive oil, salt and pepper, and plenty of garlic powder, and broiled it, turning once, then cut it into slices. Bag o’ mixed greens, a few pouches of dried cranberries, some crumbled feta cheese, and a bag of chopped walnuts, toasted for a few minutes while the chicken was finishing up. I could eat this every day. As long as you plan ahead, it takes maybe twenty minutes to put together.

SUNDAY
Hot dogs, hot wings, terrible Russian pickles, chips, ice cream sundaes

Food fit for a superb owl.

Damien made these hot wings from Deadspin . We agreed they could have been cooked a tiny bit longer before they got sauced, to make them a little more crisp, but they were still extremely tasty. He made a big bowl of sauce with sour cream and blue cheese, which I ate with the wings, with the celery, with the hot dogs, and with anything else I could fit in my paw, one little dippy dab at a time, for the rest of the week.

We happened to stop into the Siberian Food Mart and Damien told me to pick out something nice for myself, so I chose this imposing jar of giant pickles.

Well, it took three people and a knife to get the lid off, and they tasted mostly of ammonia. Boo! We also spotted one of our kids casually hanging around on the label of a box of cocoa or something.

MONDAY
Meatloaf, baked potato, salad

Guess what tastes great on baked potatoes? BLUE CHEESE SAUCE.

My basic meatloaf recipe:
Mix together with your hands:
Five pounds of ground beef, two pounds of ground turkey
About four cups of bread crumbs
Seven beaten eggs
Maybe a cup and a half of milk.
Tons of minced garlic, salt, and pepper and whatever.

Form into two tapered loaves on a pan with some drainage. Drizzle the outside with ketchup, you with your filthy eastern ways. Put them in a 400 oven for about two hours, until it’s done all the way through.

I actually had to put it back in the oven for 25 minutes or so after I took this pic.

You can add all kinds of things to the meat mixture, of course. Minced onions, worcestershire sauce. Actually that’s all I can think of. I don’t know, maybe horseradish. You can use oatmeal instead of bread crumbs, too.

Oh, check out this potato. Check out this frickin’ potato.

This is why you support independent Catholic journalism. Who else will show you frickin’ potatoes like that? No one named Leila, that’s who.

TUESDAY
Sausage and spinach risotto; roasted balsamic vegetables

The NYT had a recipe for sausage risotto, but instead of reading it, I wung it.

In the morning, I squeezed the meat out of a few pounds of sweet Italian sausages and browned it and drained it. Then, closer to dinner time, I made a big batch of basic risotto in the Instant Pot. Here is the recipe, adapted from Good Housekeeping. I tripled the recipe, but here’s the amounts for about four servings:

1.Put some olive oil or butter into the IP, enough to coat the bottom. Add whatever spices you like, plus diced onions if you like. Use the “sauté” setting until whatever you chose is browned up and smelling nice.
2.Add two cups of uncooked rice, and keep it moving with a wooden spoon for about four minutes (longer if you use more rice, obviously), until the rice starts turning opaque. Don’t let it brown. Press “cancel.”
3.Add four cups of chicken broth or other broth, and stir the rice so it’s all submerged.
4.Lock the lid, close the valve, and set it on high pressure for six minutes.
5.When it’s done, do a quick release, then dump in so much parmesan cheese. Add pepper, and more salt if needed.

For this meal, I put the cooked, drained sausage in with the broth and let the risotto cook that way. Then, after adding the parmesan, I stirred in a few handfuls of raw baby spinach, letting the heat wilt it.

For the vegetables, I combined a pound of whole baby Brussels sprouts, one head of cauliflower florets, one cubed butternut squash, and a pound of quartered mushrooms. I spread them in a shallow pan in a single layer, then drizzled them with honey, olive oil, and red wine vinegar, rustled it up a bit, and sprinkled salt and pepper on top. Then I slid it right under a hot broiler until it was a little bit charred.

For the record, this was a completely magnificent meal. The risotto was creamy and savory; the vegetables were toothsome and sweet. I was the only one in my house who thought so. Corn flakes and frozen pizza were consumed. Too bad for them.

I also ate kind of a lot of pretzels dipped in blue cheese sauce while waiting for the Instant Pot to stop venting.

WEDNESDAY
Pulled pork sandwiches; fries

Wednesday was a snow day, and since we are having guests on the weekend, I made the kids do a lot of cleaning. One cleaned out the refrigerator. She found a small bowl of some lumpy, white substance, and she . . . threw it out. Thus was broken the thrall of blue cheese sauce over my heart.

For the pulled pork, I just chunked the meat into two slow cookers with some Narragansett beer, a lot of salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and the remains of some jars of sweet pepper rings and jalapeno peppers with the juice, and put it on low for six hours.

This meal never tastes quite as good as it smells, but it smells like a meat god has descended on your kitchen and it will be your last day on earth, so I guess a step or two down from that is okay. I served the meat with sub rolls, bottled BBQ sauce, and red onions.

I brought up the possibility of broccoli, but everyone just flapped their hands at me dismally, so I saved myself the effort.

THURSDAY
Ham and egg English muffin sandwiches

With a side of No-Choice Broccoli.

FRIDAY

Oh, wait till I tell you. A friendly priest is passing through the area, and arranged for this to be delivered:

and this:

So, I’m gonna get some beer and some French bread and make some green salad and potato salad and rice, and I believe we’re going to have a Vendredi Gras (?).

And what about you, ma fren? Do you have plans for Mardi Gras?

What’s for supper? Vol. 109: When bad things happen to good pots

After years of training, self-discipline, and habit of forcing my will do to things that make no sense, are utterly uncalled-for, and should be shot in the face, I went shopping for more food on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Then I cooked it. But I didn’t like it!

Little did I know, the post-Thanksgiving malaise was a mere nothing compared to the stark onslaught of tragedy ahead. [The following post contains images that may be disturbing to some viewers.]

Here’s what happened:

SATURDAY
Pepperoncini beef sandwiches and chips

A delicious meal, and so fast. If you are on the fence about buying an Instant Pot for Christmas, listen to this:

I got home from shopping at 5:00. About seven minutes later, I had chopped a four-pound round roast in half, put it in the pot, and dumped in a jar of pepperoncini with the juice, and set it to cook. By 6:28, the meat was tender and ready to shred with forks.

I served it on crusty rolls with sliced provolone and horseradish sauce. No dishes except the one pot. Didn’t turn on the oven or the stove. Pressed some buttons and went to lie down until supper was ready. Everyone liked it. I was practically wriggling in delight to be using my IP again! It had been out of commission for a few weeks because I lost the steam release handle, and the replacement took forever to come. But it finally came!

Little did I know how quickly that spicy beef would turn bittersweet in my memories. Or something. You see, my friends, I didn’t put my Instant Pot away. I left it, in fact, on the stovetop. The child who cleaned the stove somehow bumped the stove dial. It turned on. We all wondered what that burning smell was. We thought maybe it was the lamp in the living room.

It was not.

Yep, that’s the base of my beloved Instant Pot. I know it’s real life, but I haven’t processed it yet. Meat cooks quickly, but grief comes slow.

But I know you’re not gonna say, “That’s why you should never leave appliances on the stove top.” I know you’re not gonna say it.

***

SUNDAY
Hamburgers and chips

Damien made the burgers. They were good.

***

MONDAY
Mismatched chicken salad

Without my Instant Pot, I was forced to roast the chicken in the oven like a brute cave-dweller. I had some pomegranates I forgot to serve at Thanksgiving, so I thought they’d make a nice salad topping, along with the leftover walnuts I’d been hoarding. But then I got some overripe tomatoes involved, so I don’t know what kind of salad this was.

We had cucumbers and some kind of raspberry vinaigrette dressing, which gave me a mild allergic reaction, much to the kid’s amusement. Well, I guess they were partly laughing at me for going ahead and finishing the salad anyway. There were walnuts at the bottom!

***

TUESDAY
Bagel, egg, and sausage sandwiches

Always a crowd pleaser. Fried eggs, round sausages, everything bagels, and cheese if you can find it. I didn’t burn the bagels, either, which means that Cardinal Burke was right.

***

WEDNESDAY
Filipino pork adobo on rice; roasted balsamic Brussels sprouts and carrots

Two new recipes on Wednesday; two!! One was a bit of a disappointment, one was a pleasant surprise. The punch line is, even if they had both turned out well, they didn’t belong in the same meal together. Oh, well.

I tried this Filipino pork adobo recipe from Salu Salo. It was certainly easy, fast, and cheap, but the sauce turned out gray and soupy, rather than a rich, glossy chestnut, like in the picture; and the flavor was a mite harsh. I might actually make it again, but maybe adding vegetables in to mitigate the strong flavor of the sauce. I ended up cooking the meat in the slow cooker at the end, it was quite tender.

Oh, I happened to grab some sriracha-flavored toasted sesame seeds (I’m just linking because I’m an Amazon hound. I did not pay $11.99 for 3.5 oz. of sesame seeds!) so I sprinkled those on top of the meat and rice. I’m not crazy about sriracha in general, but these little crunchy kicks of heat were a nice addition to the meal, and would do a lot to perk up, say, plain steamed broccoli.

My post-Thanksgiving funk prevented me from planning a suitable side dish. Brussels sprouts were on sale, and we had a lot of baby carrots which I keep buying so I will eat them instead of fruit snacks. So I did a quick ingredient search and found this recipe from Damn Delicious. It was so good! Sweet, with tons of flavor. I didn’t have cranberries, but I may buy some to make this recipe again. It would definitely make a better side dish for something not southeast asian.

Not a ravishing photo, but you get the idea. Sweet, charred veggies with a little crunch left in them. Mmwah.

***

THURSDAY
Pizza

And we had to cut it with scissors. Everybody’s against me.

***

FRIDAY
I guess pasta. 

Now tell me something good.

What’s for supper? Vol. 107: I’m chicken my privilege

This week, I managed to use leftovers from a previous meal in every single new meal. Some of this was planned, some was felicitous. Some was just scallions.

Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY
Fancy hot dogs, chips, salad

It’s amazing how a few toppings can transform a hot dog meal from shameful to splendid. I got cheapo hot dogs for the kids and Nathan’s for them as appreciate Nathan’s, and I set out ketchup and mustard, of course, and also diced cucumbers, thin-sliced pickles, diced tomatoes, pickled peppers, diced onions, and celery salt for Chicago-style hot dogs, and crumbled blue cheese, hot sauce, and chopped scallions (left over from last week) for Buffalo dogs. Yum yum.

***

SUNDAY
Chicken enchiladas, beans and rice

#1 son has been asking for this dish for a while, and not just so we can quote Dr. Marvin Rubdown.

I use Pioneer Woman’s recipe. I cooked six giant, recklessly seasoned chicken breasts in olive oil

and, after shredding them, set aside the meat from two of them for later. I had thirty-two large tortillas, and, because the gods are cruel, enough fillings for thirty-one enchiladas.

In my neverending but alwaysfutile quest to have more than enough onions for the enchiladas, I diced and sautéed seven onions. I rushed them a bit, so they didn’t really caramelize, but they were still luscious. You cook them up in the chickeny oil, using the same pan.

I shredded up about two pounds of cheddar cheese, which wasn’t quite enough. The enchiladas were a little skinny, to be honest; but also to be honest, I actually like eating up the slightly soggy folded ends of tortillas.

We went through two large cans of green enchilada sauce and two large cans of red. Some tomatoes, sour cream, and cilantro on the top. Or maybe it was scallions, I forget.

Lackluster photo, completely delicious food. I had other plans for Sunday, but the all-devouring enchiladas ended up taking all day to make. Next time, I may try stacked enchiladas, where you use the same ingredients, but just layer them in a pan, rather than rolling them. I want enchiladas, but I want my life back, too.

We had leftover rice from last week, so I mixed it up with a can of Ro-Tel tomatoes with chiles and some of the juice, a can of drained black beans, some jarred, sliced jalapeños, and bunch of cumin, chili powder, and salt. I feel like there must have been other ingredients, but I sure can’t remember them now. It was tasty, and I was proud of not just throwing down a bag of chips.

***

MONDAY
Ham, baked potatoes, peas

Monday is our crazy-go-nuts day, and so we had a meal than involved taking things out of the bag and making them hot. No complaints.

Oh, and we had some yogurt sauce left over from last week’s turmerific chickepea chicken. It smelled okay, so I daringly slathered it on my baked potato with some scallions, and holy cow, it was so good. It was Greek yogurt with lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

***

TUESDAY
Chicken tortilla soup, leftover enchiladas

Feeling like a genius, I took the leftover chicken out of the fridge and vaulted straight through to the quick and easy part of this recipe from Pioneer Woman. I didn’t have any masa or cornmeal, so I just decreased how much water I added, and it was plenty thick. Only one child refused to eat it because it turned out the tortilla strips weren’t noodles. Avocado on soup is a revelation.

There were, as I expected, still some enchiladas left, so we had those instead of the rice or corn bread I’d usually make as a side dish. It was a lot of the same flavors as the soup. Not a problem.

***

WEDNESDAY
Grilled pizza sandwiches with olives and pepperoni

Sometimes these turn out delicious, and sometimes they’re kind of bleh. This time the gods ordained that we should have bleh. I used sourdough bread, but I think a softer bread, like potato, would have worked better.

You brush the outside of the sandwich with butter mixed with garlic powder and oregano or basil, and then the inside of the sandwich is sauce on both slices of bread, with cheese and toppings (well, fillings) in the middle. I think I was just yelling so much on Wednesday that nothing was going to taste good. Anyway, I made supper.

For very thick grilled sandwiches, I like to grill them until they look right on the outside, then slide them into the oven for a while so the cheese melts all the way and everything’s hot enough.

***

THURSDAY
Fancy ramen

Yep, I planned a weekly menu that included both “fancy hot dogs” and “fancy ramen.” We’re just that fancy!

I’m always amazed at how popular this dinner is, how cheap, and how fast. It took less than half an hour from stepping into the kitchen to saying grace.

I had a few pounds of boneless pork ribs, and I just browned them in olive oil, then sliced them in thin squares. Then I soft-boiled a dozen eggs and heated up some frozen stir fry vegetables. Then I cooked up a bunch of chicken ramen, just using the little flavor packets, and set the ramen out with all the other stuff in separate bowls, plus some leftover chopped scallions. Tasty and satisfying.

This is a photo from previous ramen. I forgot to get the pics of current ramen off my son’s phone.

Sometimes we add soy sauce, hot sauce, sriracha sauce, sesame seeds, red pepper flakes, or crunchy chow mein noodles, or stir in some spinach. You can make all kinds of fancy sauces and add extra seasonings for the pork, but simple is also great.

This kind of choose-your-own-adventure meal is a great way of compromising with kids. You prepare all kinds of wonderful foods, but set them out separately, and let the kids choose what they like. That way, you don’t have to cook a separate meal for picky people, but you don’t have any horrible battles over “just try one bite.” I generally offer what I consider food every single time, and the picky kids gradually, casually decide on their own to start trying it, even if only because they don’t like feeling left out.

***

FRIDAY
French toast?

I’m sort of pre-resting on the laurels I’ll win next week for Thanksgiving, so I don’t care what’s for supper today.

I will probably skip What’s For Supper? next Friday, because everyone is eating more or less the same thing, right? Here’s the planned menu so far:

Turkey with stuffing and gravy
Cheesy mashed potatoes
Sweet potatoes stuffed with dates, blue cheese, and walnuts
Cranberry walnut bread
Parker house rolls
Cranberry sauce in the shape of a can
Olives and pickles
Apple pie, pumpkin pie, maybe salted bourbon pecan pie, and chocolate cream pie with ice cream and fresh whipped cream
Wine and apple cider
And don’t forget! Pie crust is a million times easier and better when you freeze the butter and shred it before incorporating it into the flour.

What’s for supper? Vol. 104: I put the fannie in Fannie Farmer

The theme for the week is YOUR FRIEND BUTTER. Butter is your friend. Don’t listen to your doctor. Your doctor is DOO-DOO. You need more butter!

And you also need my pal Fannie Farmer. This week, what with the cold and the colored leaves and the swirling mists and the ennui, I found myself turning again and again to this cookbook I’ve been using for over twenty years now. Good old Fannie taught me how to roast pork ribs, how to make pie crust and pie filling, how to wait for the onions in onion soup, and so much more.

Fun fact: The author, Marion Cunningham, was briefly married to a then-unknown Thurgood Marshall when they were both teenagers. The couple broke up within days of the wedding, apparently after a bitter all-night dispute over rigatoni.

That’s . . . that’s not true. I’m sorry.

Short version of what we had this week: Butter.
Long version:

SATURDAY
Chicken burgers, chips, carrots and hummus

I have no memory of Saturday.

***

SUNDAY
Chicken pecan salad; apple pie

They keep asking for this dish, so I keep making it.

Coat chicken breasts in oil, salt, and pepper, and roast them in the oven, then cube the meat. Serve over greens with dried cranberries, toasted pecans (or almonds or walnuts), crumbled blue cheese or feta cheese, diced red onions, and some kind of sweet vinaigrette. This time we had pomegranate. I burned the nuts, but they were still good.

I finally got around to making a pie, long after we ate up all the apples we picked at the orchard. I used the Fannie Farmer pie crust, but used butter instead of shortening. I also did the trick of freezing the sticks of butter for half an hour and then shredding them with a cheese grater. This does 90% of the work of incorporating the fat into the flour without overworking it, and this crust turned out light and supple without sacrificing taste. It won’t work on Thanksgiving, though. It only works if I make a pie for no particular reason. On Thanksgiving, my pie crust will be doo-doo.

I rolled out the dough for the top crust and turned it over to the kids, who used Halloween cookie cutters to make a pie of great spooooookiness.

They used kind of a lot of them, so it has sort of an indeterminate “well of souls” look, I guess.  I wet the crust a bit and sprinkled sugar on the top, also spooky. You could also brush on a little beaten egg white to give it some gloss, if you’re into that.

***

MONDAY
Oven roasted pork ribs, rice, mashed butternut squash, apple pie

A very fine autumn meal

and still the best way to prepare pork ribs indoors. Just plenty of salt and pepper and a very hot oven and turn the ribs once, until they are browned. So juicy and easy. Be a meat hero!

For the squash, I cut them in half, scooped out the pulp and seeds, and just cooked them as-is in a medium oven until they were soft, maybe 30 minutes or so. Peeled off the skin and mashed the squash up with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Cozy.

The kids were by far most excited by the rice, which I cooked in beef broth instead of water. This is their idea of Ultimate Fanciness.

We had an entire leftover pie from Sunday! I don’t understand what is happening to our family. “Leftover pie.” Clarification?

***

TUESDAY
Taco Tuesday! and corn chips

I learned from previous weeks that too much cumin can make your taco meat taste like angry dirt, so I eased up on the cumin and added plenty of salt, pepper, chili powder, and garlic powder.

The iceberg lettuce I was saving turned out to be cabbage. So I shredded that, and it was fine. Our fridge has a trick of freezing everything in back, and it turns out sour cream does not recover from being frozen. It gets separated and mealy, bleh. But we did have tomatoes and plenty of cheese, plus jarred jalapeno rings. Good enough for the likes of us.

***

WEDNESDAY
Onion soup, Italian sausages, beer bread

Just sausages! I really wanted onion soup, but a significant faction in the family needs to have meat. A few pounds of sweet Italian sausages in the pan, and there it was: Supper.

I absolutely love this simple onion soup recipe. I used about 6-7 pounds of yellow onions and just acres and acres of butter. I used beef broth instead of water (skip the salt if you use broth), and tons of pepper and Parmesan cheese at the end. Nothing to it, and it doesn’t look like much, but it’s so good.

Beer bread is another recipe I won’t shut up about. It’s so easy, a . . . a . . . I don’t know, a naked toddler could make it.

You don’t need quite as much butter as the recipe says (and it’s not strictly necessary to bathe in the flour, either), but as long as you don’t be a big lazy baby and you take the time to sift, this bread comes up fluffy and golden and moist every time, with a gorgeous cobbled crust.

It’s much less crumbly and cake-like and more chewy and bread-like than most quick breads. And you can make it all in one bowl. Mix up the dry, add the beer, stir it up and chunk it in the pan. It says to bake an hour, but start checking at 40 minutes or so. It has an earthy, slightly honeyed taste. (This varies with the beer, of course. I used Narragansett.)

***

THURSDAY
Grilled cheese with ham and apple

Extremely popular here. They didn’t even ask if there were chips coming. (There were not.)

I put a layer of cheddar cheese top and bottom, with the ham and apples in the middle, and then put the sandwiches in the oven for a bit after grilling, to make sure it’s all melted. I have been using this wonderful sourdough bread from Aldi lately. It’s perfect for grilled sandwiches.

We make our grilled sandwiches with a thin layer of mayo on the outside. It doesn’t give it a mayonnaise taste, but it adds a sort of thin, crunchy crust to the entire sandwich. (Yes, you still use butter on the pan after spreading mayo on the bread. Yes, this is why we’re fat. WORTH IT.)

I really wanted some leftover onion soup, but the sandwich was completely filling, and I had to admit, I was truly stuffed. So I just ate the sandwiches the kids didn’t eat. Whatever, I went running this morning. Whatever!

***

FRIDAY
Giant pancake with chocolate chips, scrambled eggs

I felt guilty about something last week, I forget what, so I bought a bag of chocolate chips.

Giant pancake, if you don’t know, is this: You take an entire box of pancake mix and add enough water to make thick batter. Butter a pan, spread the batter in, and bake at 350 for ten minutes or so. Serve in wedges and go lie down. Bring a stick of butter with you, just in case.

What’s for supper? Vol. 103: Kitten pie, Mr. Tweedy

Sad story, short version: I was sitting in the bathroom, half-watching Corrie paddle around in the tub, half-writing something or other. Enter the kitten, who strolls in placidly, sniffs at my feet, checks out a little toothpaste smear on the cabinet, and then propels himself into my lap with the force of a rocket and anchors himself to my thigh with his claws. I jumped up, knocked over my seltzer, and killed my laptop dead dead dead.

I tried putting it in rice for 48 hours. No dice. Maybe I should have put it in dice.

Here is the kitten, by the way. I KNOW. He’s very cute.

“Please, please, master, don’t make me into pie! I’ll be ever so good!”
We’ll see, cat. We’ll see.

We’re working on getting a replacement computer. We have probably fourteen internet-enabled devices in this house, but I can’t get any of them to work well with WordPress or uploading images, and the hilarious podcast we recorded, using a new program on my husband’s notebook? It turned out it wasn’t recording. I’m setting up as much as I can on the weekend, and hoping it won’t be long before I get a replacement.

But food still fooded! Here is what we ate last week:

FRIDAY
Birthday party!

I think we probably had pizza. This was so, so long ago. I made my first and last gorgon cake

and magically transformed the dining room into ancient Macedonia by . . . tacking some leaves up.

Look, it was short notice. It definitely looked different from how it usually looks.

***

SATURDAY
Fish tacos

I forgot to buy limes, and I did buy cilantro, but I forgot to serve it. Oh well. Batter fried fish fillets on flour tortillas with salsa, sour cream, shredded cabbage, and sliced avocado. Still quite good.

***

SUNDAY
Italian Food in the Middle of October Day!

Suppli, pork ragù with fettucine, bruschetta with basil, tomatoes, and provolone, and many kinds of olives; garlic bread, pears with prosciutto, and cannoli with shaved chocolate and cherries, and lemon ices.

We briefly considered salad, but only briefly.

My husband used the fabulous Deadspin recipe for pork ragù.

This has milk in it, not tons of tomato, surprising carrots, and a kind of meaty fluffiness that you really have to experience to understand.

Here is my suppli recipe, which I have updated to include information on how many suppli you will actually end up with. I made thirty suppli the size of goose eggs, and we froze a dozen of them.

If our family keeps shrinking like this, we won’t even be able to drain an entire lake dry by each taking one little lap of water with our little pink tongues. Mew mew!

Well, they turned out quite lovely. I didn’t crowd them in the pot or rush to take them out, so they held their shape. Refrigerating the risotto is vital.

Nice and melty on the inside? This is why they’re sometimes called “suppli al telefono”: because the cheese looks like telephone wires.

I have been to Italy, and their telephone wires look very much like that.

I didn’t even try to find empty cannoli shells this year. I got some of those anise pizzelle waffle cookies and topped them with cheese filling, then shaved chocolate and a maraschino cherry. I used about 32 oz. of whole fat ricotta cheese, maybe 3/4 cup of powdered sugar, and a tablespoon or more of vanilla extract. You don’t want it too sweet.

Well, the food was fantastic. As you may have noticed, the photos get worse as the food gets better. So we’ll close with a day-after shot of the cat eating the cannoli my husband was saving for later.

And that’s how it goes.

***

MONDAY
Hot dogs? I think?

I think I put blue cheese and buffalo sauce on mine. I can never decide if it’s pretentious to write “bleu cheese” instead of “blue cheese,” so I alternate.

***

TUESDAY
Meatloaf, roast red potatoes, salad

I used dear old Fannie Farmer’s meatloaf recipe, and then vandalized the loaves with a lot of ketchup. Nobody wants to admit that they like eating chewy, hot ketchup varnish, but they do, they do.

I put things in the potatoes. Come on, you know how to make potatoes. Oil and spices, hot. Kinda burnt, oh well.

***

WEDNESDAY
Cuban sandwiches, cheez puffs

They lost the valve to my Instant Pot again, so I was reduced to cooking the pork in the oven like an animal. I forgot to get some of that nice Mojo marinade, too, so I just put some frickin spices on it and put in a shallow pan, fat up, at 425 for maybe 35 minutes.

Then I ate all the fat. You think this is disgusting, and I’m not saying it wasn’t, but it was also crisp, golden, savory, and sizzling, and some people’s destinies look like that.

I had some amazing sourdough bread from Aldi, and made ten enormous sandwiches with mustard, Swiss cheese top and bottom, sliced pork (I cooked it in the morning, then sliced and heated it in the microwave in the evening), sliced ham, and sliced pickles.This is one of those sandwiches that you lean into while cooking it, as well as while eating it. I put them in the oven for a bit to make sure the cheese was all melted.

It was. 

***

THURSDAY
Spicy pork with vegetables and rice

I had a little gochujang in the house, so I mixed it up with the other stuff I happened to have, which was a little soy sauce, a little sugar, and a lot of maple syrup. And garlic, of course. I will let myself run out of arms and legs before I run out of garlic.

I cut the pork into little nuggets and let it marinate all day, then cooked it up in a shallow pan with the sauce. I heated up frozen veg in the microwave and added that to the meat, and served it over rice. I don’t know why I’m explaining all this. You cook the thing. You eat the thing. It was fine.

***

FRIDAY
Penne with jarred sauce

My husband came home late and lightly sauteed the cooked penne in a pan with olive oil and minced garlic, and added just a tiny bit of sauce, and it looked fantastic. Gonna try it that way next time.

***

SO ANYWAY, now I have to give this computer back to my husband, who selfishly wants to take it to work with him, the swine. If you were a little bit on the fence about maybe you should or shouldn’t make a pledge to support my site, this would be a great time to YES YOU SHOULD. Or you could use my Amazon links! Or you could come over and kidnap this cat before he gets made into pie.

What’s for supper? Vol. 91: In which Aldi dreams of me

No, literally. The cashier at Aldi had a dream about me. (I turn up there three times a week, each time with a different child, and I fill two carts on Saturdays.) This is what happens when you come to Represent Something to strangers. I told her I would try to behave myself next time I haunted her subconscious, and then I gathered up my cut rate hummus and sauntered away. Then I came back to get my quarter.

SATURDAY
Muffaletta sandwiches, fries

Muffaletta sandwiches are something I’ve wanted to try forever. And very good they were, muffaletta sandwiches! I guess this sandwich originates from the Italian quarter of New Orleans or something (how many quarters does that place have, anyway), and “muffaletta” can refer either to the special bread, or to the sandwich itself.

Our version was made of ciabatta rolls with olive salad, sweet capicola, prosciutto, ham, and provolone. The olive salad was made of a jar each of green and black olives, about a quarter of a cup of capers, and a jar of giardiniera salad (pickled carrots, hot peppers, cauliflower, and little onions), drained and chopped up together.

I wish I had gotten a pic of just the olive salad, because it was awfully festive-looking.

You’re supposed to toast the bread, or wrap the sandwich in foil and bake the whole thing, but we were starving, so we just wolfed it down.

It was a little pricey because I went to an Actual Deli for the meat, but a nice treat. I also think recipe pages are a little bit insane when they show how much meat goes on a sandwich. It’s always, like, seven-and-a-half solid inches of ham, and then you start in with the cheese. I like sandwiches, but I like having the use of my legs after dinner, too.

***

SUNDAY
Lasagna, garlic bread, salad, ice cream cake

Birthday! Our newest ten-year-old requested meatless lasagna.  Lasagna is my least favorite thing to make. It’s just such a pain in the neck, and I burn my fingers and wreck the whole kitchen. But it was good, if sloppy and soupy. I just used the basic recipe on the side of the noodle box.

I added basil from the garden to the ricotta for the very first harvest this year. Our growing season is so ridiculously short, and it’s been a very cool summer, so there’s not much to show. Also, string beans don’t scream and hang onto my pants legs, so I tend to forget I have a garden.

Not that you asked, but we have tomatoes, basil, cabbage, jalapeno, eggplant, string beans, rainbow carrots, pumpkins, and broccoli. And a lot of weeds. And not enough watering. Thank goodness for rain.

My window boxes turned out a little scruffy this year, too.

That hemp liner looks like I feel. Aieeee!

But check out these weird tomatoes! They’re supposed to be dark like that.

They’re less blurry in real life. Anyway, no varmints have been eating the garden this year, except for bugs. I made a fence out of an upside-down trampoline frame (we had an extra, okay? I don’t want to talk about it), chicken wire, and some zip ties. Woodchucks are supposed to be able to dig under fences, but I guess ours isn’t that ambitious.

***

MONDAY
English muffin pizzas

Wherever I was, I wasn’t home for supper. One of the kids made pizzas. There were two (as in two halves) left over when I got back, so I inhaled them, and then I ate all the leftover ice cream. And justice was restored to the world.

***

TUESDAY
Pulled pork, risotto, peas

It was murderously hot and humid, so I set the slow cooker to work making pulled pork in the steambath kitchen, and brought the Instant Pot (affiliate link) into the air conditioned dining room to make the risotto. The peas, we just ate frozen, which my kids prefer.

The pulled pork had a good flavor, but I started it too late, so it was kind of tough. I put a half pork loin into the pot with a can of beer, plenty of salt, pepper, and chili powder, about six sliced garlic cloves, and a quartered onion. It tasted as good as it smelled, which is not always a given!

I used this recipe for the risotto, minus the squash. I tripled it and lost track of how many cups of broth, so it was a little dry, but still tasty. Not a meal worth taking a picture of, though.

***

WEDNESDAY
Roasted kielbasa, cabbage, and potato with mustard vinaigrette 

A very fine summer meal, great with cheap beer, magnificent after going for a run in the evening, swimming in the pond in the rain with your husband, and then eating a late dinner while watching TV. It’s like Platonic ideal of a hot dog with sauerkraut and fries. I used three packages of kielbasa (I think they are 14 oz. each), about six pounds of small potatoes, and a large cabbage, and I made a quadruple recipe of the dressing.

The color’s off in this picture. It’s prettier in real life, and looks less like an illustration from a cheap textbook covering the post-war years of Cabbagopolis.

Here’s the recipe from Budget Bytes. Again I say unto you: measure your oven and buy yourself the biggest pans that will fit. (I got two 15×21″ aluminum pans like these [affiliate link], and they make my life better several times a week. You’ll be amazed at how much easier it is to cook for a crowd when you can just lay it all out there.)

Look, garlic bread for twelve on a single pan:

Or, as I see it, almost enough garlic bread for me.

***

THURSDAY
Chicken burgers, chips

I had string beans, but they went bad. Soon, soon, we will have string beans from the garden! Well, in a few weeks. Stupid slow garden.

 

***

FRIDAY
Day trip! We’re headed out and will probably grab pizza somewhere.

Oh, Amazon announcement! I now have Amazon Associate accounts that will work for Canada and the UK!
For Canada: Amazon.ca
and for the UK: Amazon.co.uk.
I’d be so grateful if you’d bookmark these pages and use them anytime you shop on Amazon. This makes up a significant part of our income. Thank you!