surgery – SIMCHA FISHER

What’s for supper? Vol. 483: Smooth dinner, smooth brain

Happy Friday! Happy nopioid day to me! Warning: This post has some scar pics in it, plus a lot of complaining, so don’t read if it you hate that!

There have been some freaking UPS AND DOWNS this week, but I am completely off rotten old oxy, and yesterday they took all 41 staples and one super itchy lumbar stitch out, and just now I did the thing where I greeted the dog by pretending to kick him to death (which he likes! He thinks it’s funny!) and I suddenly realized I would not have been able to do that a couple of days ago. My sense of balance is back!

I have never been so cared for in all my life. I remember several years ago taking a baby to the ER for croup or strep throat or something, and the nurse noticed my throat was stitched together (just had a thyroidectomy), and she was like, “. . . are you OKAY?” and I was like, “. . . SURE” because I really didn’t have a choice! That was some year. That was the year we lost our apartment and our car died and my husband’s job was laying people off and I was pregnant and the OB/GYN noticed I had what may or may not be thyroid cancer, but the biopsies were inconclusive and I couldn’t really think about any of that because I had to find a new apartment, and let me tell you, some of that process was a little demoralizing We ended up moving in with my poor old parents, and all I remember about the trip there was that we brought the very last food we owned, which was half a box of Kix, and when I drove away from our old place I had an aquarium full of fish strapped into the front seat, and when we got to our new place, there was only a little water and one fish left, and I never did find the missing ones.

ANYWAY, what I’m trying to say is life sure has changed, and I haven’t done a damn thing for the last two weeks except accept help, listen to music, nap, cry a little bit, and eat peaches. Damien has been stupendous, not only keeping up with everything, but making sure the kids are getting little treats and everything is calm and stable, and telling me repeatedly that every crazy thing I say is normal and understandable. My friend Elisa send a fun package of little crafts I’m doing to keep my hands busy, which helps a lot. My friend Sadie came over, I think my sister Rosie is coming this weekend, my kids’ teacher and principle each sent a yummy dinner, and the dad of one of Corrie’s friends stopped by with a gift card to the local pizzeria. Damien has been making excellent dinners — buffalo chicken wings, roast beef sandwiches, homemade spaghetti sauce, all kind of great stuff. Elijah’s going to come over and make homemade pizza this Sunday.

I myself have been sticking mainly to soup, smoothies, and peaches, because my jaw and mouth muscles took quite a beating. I somehow missed the whole smoothie phenomenon when it first took civilization by storm (some of you probably don’t even remember life before smoothies!), but Damien got me a ton of Greek yogurt and frozen fruit, and so far none of it has been specifically named in a recall, so that’s been working well for me!

Very smooth indeed.

When I was still in the hospital, my poor peach tree split. Damien knows how much I love this tree and how much I’ve been looking forward to the big year B harvest, so before he even told me about it, he got some special tree wax and straps and put it back together. It did lose a lot of branches, but he did such a good job, and I think it’s gonna make it.

Look at this beauty.

I went out yesterday afternoon and gathered up a nice little harvest.

When Clara and her boyfriend were over last week, they gathered up hundreds of fallen peaches, dumped the spoiled ones in the compost heap, and started blanching the salvageable ones. I was able to throw a bunch of peeled peaches in the blender and now I have a little stock of peach puree socked away for winter! It seemed super, super important at the time, and I’m grateful everyone humored me with this important peach work.

My garden is actually doing so well. I picked a ton of basil, coated it in olive oil, and froze that, too. I think the eggplants are beyond saving, and all my lettuce bolted, but there is tons more basil, tons of green tomatoes still marching along, and so much corn just begging to be picked. The pumpkins are still smallish but numerous, and the carrots and potatoes can be dug up any time, I guess. The grapes are also having a crazy good year, and I think maybe we will do some harvesting this weekend and make a little juice. Or just let the birds have them, I don’t know.

One of the mixed flower patches I planted has actually started growing flowers. Not a ton, but maybe there will be more next year. I think it’s mainly annuals coming up, and maybe the perennials will show up later.

The other mixed flower bed I started only has a few flowers, but it does have tomatoes and squash growing because I added plenty of compost, so that’s something! I also–

okay, I am making it sound like I’m up and about and doing projects and getting work done, and truly, I am not. I am mostly just lurking around in bed, and I do like one thing per day just to keep myself from going nuts. Sometimes that one thing is picking flowers.

Sometimes it’s just heating up soup and eating it in the most repulsive way imaginable because my lips and cheek are still leading a life of mystery and unpredictability. Yesterday was the first day I took only one nap, instead of two or three or four or six.

That being said, I did happen to notice that Marvin, the apple tree, is having an incredible year for some reason. We have never done one single thing to care for this tree, except to name it Marvin, which isn’t much; and it’s always understandably produced a medium harvest of truly terrible apples. But this year, they are tons of them, and they look NICE (relatively). No idea why. So the other day, I got to that typical stage of post craniotomy recovery where you find a free 8 ton hydraulic jack on Facebook marketplace, and you happen to know that your husband could really use one for his ancient SUV, and he’s already out driving around to pick up kids, so you set up a pick-up for the jack because you love him, and also SECRETLY, your plan is to steal his old scissor jack and use it to make a CIDER PRESS.

Basically you just have to built a rough wooden frame with room inside for a bucket, and a little stack of wood the same diameter as the bucket, and the jack on top of that. You fill up the bucket with apples and start cranking the jack, and it compresses the apples, the juice runs out the holes in the bottom of the bucket, and you need some kind of catch basin obviously. It’s possible this is a dumb idea and I should not do it, but I have a few weeks to think about it, anyway! The kids LOVE cider, and goodness knows I have plenty of wood scraps from the treehouse

(which I don’t think Corrie has gone in even one time since I finished it, OH WELL). I also have a giant metal pot with a spigot built into the bottom, which I got on the side of the road and have been using as a rain barrel. I have no idea what it was originally for, but I think it would work great as part of a cider press.

Anyway, I talk big, but I was smart enough to stop myself from contacting the new restaurant down the road to tell them I’m really good at making cheesecake if they want to make a deal; so probably I will be smart enough not to make a cider press. But who can say.

The truth is, now that I am off oxy and my mind is pretty functional again, even though the worst is over, and I’m truly so so glad I don’t have cancer or any real permanent disability, I am now capable of mentally addressing it all, and I am having a wee bit of trouble processing what the hell happened to me. The time in the hospital was really rough, and even though Damien came every day, it was scary and lonely

and the pain there and the first week back home was . . . well. It was something that made me feel slightly but probably permanently different about human experience and our relationship to God.

This next picture is a pretty good illustration of how amazing and optimistic I felt when they finally let me go home, haha:

So I am a little upset, off and on. So, I’ll build a cider press if I want! Do not argue with me about that! Not that you would! You are all very nice.

But really, the pain is just worlds better now, and that is an unspeakable relief. It’s just a medium to bad headache now, and a lot of numbness, plus some rather entertaining sensations as the nerves in my cheek, tongue, lips, and jaw either wake up or regrow, and my whole left side from my neck up is still kind of a mess. And my ear is blocked up and loudly crackling, and they said whatever was in there was probably too deep for a normal cleaning to take care of, but oh well. I still haven’t gotten the pathology report back, but I’m really expecting it to be clean. And my eye works again! I didn’t even realize how bad it had gotten before surgery, because it went haywire gradually, but getting rid of that tumor really fixed it.

I am going to ask someone to take me to Supercuts this weekend so they can give me an identical undercut on my other side, because why the hell not.

The hair in the spot they shaved is growing in white, as you can see here from a pic taken shortly before I got the staples out

so I might as well even that out and have some fun with it.

The swelling is taking its sweet time to go down, and I’m still giving Surgeon General of Beverly Hills vibes

but I am VERY VERY HAPPY TO HAVE THOSE STAPLES GONE. They were starting to make me so angry! And yes, I’m incredibly grateful I’m not doing radiation or chemo right now. As yucky as this has been, it could have been SO so much worse. I was sorta kinda getting ready to maybe die on the surgery table, so I’m just . . . I’m working on stuff.

In a couple of weeks, Damien and I are going to Boston so he can [pause to catch breath from surge of wifely pride] accept his award from The New England First Amendment Coalition. Gosh, I am so happy about this. They only bestow three awards per year, and last year’s winner of the Freedom of Information Award was The Boston Globe. This year, it is my husband.

They are putting us up in a swanky hotel and it is going to be FUN.

Okay, thank you for listening to all of that! Or skimming, or just clicking and then sighing and closing the tab! I get it! Let’s all go have some soup.

What’s for supper? Vol. 482: Not my problem

Hello! Happy Friday! Happy DEFINITELY RECOVERING NOW day to me!

My brain tumor craniotomy was nine days ago, and it went very well. I’ll share some medical details next, for those who find such things interesting!

They removed a piece of skull, detached as much of the tumor as possible, leaving only “a nubbin” the size of a grain of rice; reattached the skull bit with some titanium discs and hardware, and stapled my head back up with 41 staples. They also put in a lumbar drain to lower spinal fluid pressure during the procedure, and that needed to be stitched up. I had needles throughout my scalp during surgery to monitor brain activity, and I had a complex rig on my arm to track my blood pressure directly from my arteries. The surgery took about four-and-a-half hours, and I either did or did not have a seizure during it (the notes are confusing!), but I’ve been on medication to keep that from happening or happening again. I was in the ICU for three days and then moved to the regular neurology wing for another two days. I am still waiting to hear on the pathology report, but I am expecting confirmation the tumor was benign, and I may not even need radiation for what remains.

I am so, so glad to be home. Recovery has been one step forward, two steps back. The pain level is gradually receding, and so is the amount of time it feels really bad each day; and the nerves on the left side of my face are slowly waking up. My left eye, which wasn’t acting right because of the tumor, is totally functional again. I can’t really chew yet, but luckily I have always been a big fan of soft foods, so I’m having all the gruel, beans, and smoothies I want. I am just feeling a little, little bit more like myself every day, for better or for worse!

I haven’t been accomplishing a single thing. I’m trying to walk around the yard once or twice a day to keep away blood clots and whatnot. My friend Sadie came over when I got home, and she got us set up with a medication schedule and tracking system, and spent the night to make sure we were all okay. One of the kids’ teachers sent home some delicious quiche and salad and bread and butter. The kids have all been pitching in, and Damien took the kids back-to-school shopping and has been getting everyone to school and work on time, keeping me supplied with hot packs and cold packs and endless pillows and drinks, and just basically making sure my body and mind are completely at rest while he takes care of everything. A ton of people sent donations to help us pay for all the gas and meds and to make it possible for Damien to care for me and the kids without getting in too much of a pickle, and we REALLY appreciate that, and all the prayers and words of encouragement.

I feel so incredibly lucky to know so many generous and helpful people. At the hospital, I met a few folks (Jennifer and Paul. Please remember them in your prayers!) who just don’t have anything like this level of support. All of the nurses were nice and caring, and a few of them were really extraordinary. It’s a great hospital, and again, I feel really lucky. And happy to be home. Because even a really good hospital kind of sucks.

There were a couple of times when the pain and fear really overwhelmed me (specifically, in the immediate post-surgery MRI, and one of my first evenings at home), and you know, at a certain point the jokes and lessons and well-expressed thoughts run out, and you’re just up against the wall with suffering, and the only thing to hang onto is the hope Jesus is there somewhere. Some of you guys end up in this spot a lot, and I am just in awe of you.

I also gotta say, I do not see the appeal of oxycodone. I am glad I have it, because it makes the pain manageable, but everything else it does sucks, and I’m really looking forward to getting off it. There’s no joy in it at all; it just tucks normal human experience up on a high shelf where you can’t touch it.

I’m supposed to get my staples and stitches out on September 3, and then I have another MRI in October. In the mean time, I have an actual metal question mark traced out on the side of my head, which just seems fair. I must say, the surgeon did a neat job doing a rather cute undercut, so my hair actually looks pretty normal. I may go to Supercuts and get the them to shave a matching pattern on the other side! Or maybe I will just have some more bean soup.

And that’s my story! Thank you so much to everyone who has reached out. I am praying for you all!

What’s for supper? Vol. 469: Loveseat! That’s where we eat!

Happy Friday! Every year, May takes me by surprise with how incredibly, bounteously, tenderly gorgeous it is, and also! with how many freaking events we have to go to!

Happily, both cars are currently running, so we are able to do that! And it is just swooningly beautiful out there. My peach tree burst into bloom this week, there are daffodils and tulips swaying in the breeze, the birds are hysterical with love, and the skies are the bluiest bluesty blue I’ve ever seen. I thought I saw a little patch of ice in the stream, but it turned out to be just bubbles.

Shortly after I wrote last week’s post, the ducklings started hatching in earnest! Only one had totally emerged by the time Damien and I went to bed,

so we moved the incubator into our room overnight, for fear of the cats. I did fret about them all night, but this is what we saw in the morning:

Totally exhausted, poor things, but very healthy. These are all pekins.

One more, half pekin and half Swedish black, eventually muscled its way out of the shell the next day. Two did not make it, but the remaining four are doing absolutely great. Everyone got to see at least one baby emerging from the egg, which is dramatic and excruciating, thrilling and ridiculous, just like many other births. I posted a few videos on Facebook. This is seven minutes of hatching compressed into one minute of video; this is the poor Swedish black trying to hatch while being repeatedly trampled by its three half siblings; and this is their first living room rodeo.

They grow insanely fast, and they are now living happily under a heat lamp in a tub on top of the dryer, gobbling up their food, thrashing around in their water dish, and wearing themselves out and falling asleep in a fluffy pile.

Sonny is pretty resigned to having these peeping little maniacs dashing around his living room in the evening

but he does clearly feel like it’s one of our dumber life choices. He’s not necessarily wrong! But they are so lovely.

SATURDAY
Shawarma, pita, cream puffs, strawberry ice cream

On Saturday, Lena came over for a belated birthday celebration! It was great to see her. I made chicken shawarma

Jump to Recipe

and yogurt sauce, and also gave people one final shot at the toum. The shawarma turned out great, although I overcooked the meat a tiny bit because the pita too so look to cook. I use this recipe for pita, and I made a double recipe but just make really big breads. It turns out yummy, but I always underestimate how long it will take to cook eight breads for six minutes each, even though my father did sit me down with flash cards in third grade and I did finally learn my multiplication facts. Next time, I will get two pans going.

Anyway, it was worth the wait, and it was all very tasty.

For dessert, I had made strawberry ice cream

Jump to Recipe

and some extremely messy cream puffs.

The cream puffs were actually from a Bridgerton-branded kit that was on clearance at Walmart, and they definitely made me realize that, from now on, I will be making cream puffs from scratch. They’re actually really easy. A choux pastry is very simple to make, and once you know how, you can make all kinds of fancy stuff. I really wish I had made an actual cream filling, instead of the mix stuff from the package, which had a bland, oily taste. At least we had something to stick candles in, though! Nobody complained, and we had a nice evening.

SUNDAY
Leftovers, pizza

I moved leftover day to Sunday, and supplemented it with Aldi pizza.

Those empanadas make great leftovers! It’s crazy to me that the rest of the family isn’t in love with everything pie-like. To me, that is just the standard, baseline desire of humanity: To want to be eating some form of pie.

MONDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, potato puffs, steamed broccoli

On Monday, I made the first inquiry into my compost heap. I don’t do any of the perpetual turning or sprinkling or layering you’re supposed to do for compost; I just dump organic stuff in one spot and let nature take its course, and then in the spring, I see what I’ve got. It works well enough for my purposes! I dug up four wheelbarrows full of dark, rich soil and dumped it on top of the new garden bed I made in front of Damien’s office.

The idea is to give it couple of weeks to get rained on, and think about what it’s done; and then by the end of May, which is when it’s safe to plant in this zone, it should be ready for seeds. I saved tons of seeds from that one gargantuan pumpkin last year, and that’s what this bed will be for.

Then I made one final offensive push against the blackberries, and dumped them in the pool so they could think about what they’d done. The liner is torn, so right now it’s just a big drying area, and you have to dry out wild blackberry canes before you dispose of them, or else they’ll just start over again.

Supper was grilled ham and cheese, tater tots (or possibly potato puffs. These are separate things, but I don’t know which is which), and steamed broccoli.

Corrie thought this was a hilarious combination of foods, for some reason. I forget she is still young enough that everything we do (for instance, eating chips and raw vegetables with grilled ham and cheese) gets registered as The Way It’s Done, and any other way looks absurd.

TUESDAY
Tacos al pastor

It was Cinqo de Mayo, which, as I understand it, is Mexican Arbor Day or something? So obviously we had tacos al pastor, to honor our Lebanese ancestry, which is the best we can do since we don’t drink anymore. I cut the pork up thinly and sorta kinda followed this recipe for the marinade. Then I cut up a couple of pineapples, chopped up some cilantro, and sliced up a few red onions and set those to pickling. I believe I used cider vinegar, pineapple juice, salt, sugar, and hot pepper flakes.

Then I turned my attention to . . . other things.

I don’t know if I’ve ever favored you with the Sad Tale of the Wrong Loveseat. We had this loveseat that fit our tiny living room perfectly, and even though the room is small and kind of shabby, I was really happy with how cozy and harmonious it was. But then a child accidentally saturated it, down to its bones, with a smelly lotion which gives me migraines. So we threw it out, and I’d been hunting for a replacement on Marketplace.

We did find one, and the kids loved it, because it was so spacious and comfy and plushy.

IT WAS TOO SPACIOUS. It was about eight inches longer than the people said it would be. But I pride myself on being able to tetris furniture into compliance, so we can make room for whatever we need to make room for (hence the ten children). WELL, I could not, could not figure out how to make this dang loveseat fit. And also, it was grey, and the rest of the room is warm colors.

Also, it’s not really a loveseat, but actually just the orphaned short end of a sectional.

So I started looking for another loveseat again, and I finally I found one! and this one is the right size, and it was free! It’s not, like, an amazing piece of furniture?

But it fits, and it’s brown, and I was able to put the room back the way I like it. I’m very happy. And very grateful that Damien goes along with my dumb furniture struggles.

So, but now we have the old loveseat on its end in the dining room. We couldn’t put it out on the side of the road because it kept raining. But in the meantime, the cats discovered that it’s the greatest spot in the world to fulfill their true destiny: Being High Up.

SO, I didn’t want to take that away from them. But I also didn’t feel like we needed a sideways couch in the middle of the living room. So I started looking at cat trees so I could throw out the loveseat, and I looked at a few, and I was like, HECK, I COULD MAKE THAT. So I did!

I found a dry tree in our little woods, and cut it up, and screwed the ends to a piece of wood I’ve been saving for just such a purpose. Then I used leftover pool deck spindles to make supports for the tree parts. Then I added some wooden rounds left over from some craft projects, and made little platforms; and then I used a broken drawer piece for the top platform. And it was not bad!

Level and sturdy. Then I cut a bunch of fabric off old loveseat #1 and stapled it on to the little platforms. Then we kind of forcefully placed a cat on it, and Behold: A cat tree.

Of course we still haven’t dragged loveseat #2 out of the house yet. So now the dining room looks like this:

and I think it goes really well with the ducklings in the laundry room.

But anyway, by late afternoon, I had this wonderful marinated meat to cook. I decided to broil it in the oven while cooking the pineapple on the stovetop. I just heated up some olive oil and then sauteed the pineapple until the edges browned up a bit.

Cooked pineapple is SO sweet and wonderful, and amazing with cilantro and spicy meat. So we had tortillas with sour cream, cilantro, pineapple, pickled onion, meat, and hot pineapple, with lime wedges.

Oh my gosh, you guys. This was the most delicious thing ever. I was definitely hungry from my cat tree project, but also it was just amazing food. Definitely returning to this recipe, and definitely adding pickled onions to more things!

WEDNESDAY
Hamburgers, chips, veggies and dip

Wednesday began rather whimsically with our very first fairy egg.

It’s not a true egg; sometimes a duck’s plumbing gets irritated and then it’s like, oh, I guess we’re making an egg! and builds a shell around the irritant. Because a duck’s insides are not any smarter than its outsides.

I haven’t cracked this fairy egg yet, but it is probably all egg white inside; but there may be a tiny yolk. I am going to try to blow the insides out so I can save it to decorate.

I don’t even remember what we did all day, but we had hamburgers with the last of the mysteriously cheap ground beef I stocked up on a few weeks ago. Gobbled up my burger, did not take a picture.

Oh wait, I did take a picture of my veggie platter.

Food styling is my passion.

Oh, I had leftover pickled onions on my burger, and it was YUMMO.

Wednesday night, I made pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting for staff appreciation day. We’ve been sending our kids to this school for . . . I don’t even know how many years. Ten kids’ worth, anyway, and I DO appreciate the staff, so very much, but I’ve never had my act together enough to make muffins. Until this year!

Here’s the muffin recipe

Jump to Recipe

and I used this simple recipe for the frosting: Just 8 oz. of cream cheese, 1/3 cup of sugar, and 1/2 tsp vanilla. I made a triple batch of frosting, which was more than enough, so I, uh, ate the rest. (In my defense, it was over the course of three days.)

They turned out great, and for once in my life I thought to buy disposable trays to carry them in.

I was also immensely pleased and gratified to have a separate little fridge to keep them in overnight. This is one of my great satisfactions in middle age: I have my very own mini fridge which is exclusively for baked goods I don’t want anyone to touch.

THURSDAY
Pork rice bowls

Thursday I had some cheesecake orders for Mother’s Day, and LET ME TELL YOU. I did nothing but make mistakes all day. Not even just with the cheesecakes, but with every little thing, just one dumb thing after another. I ended up having to make the cheesecakes twice, because I lowered the temperature in the oven too dramatically, for no reason, and they all cracked.

Just for fun, I did make one extra one, which turned out pretty cute:

This is about 6.5 inches in diameter and actually has a secret chocolate center. Which reminds me, I need to put up an ad and see if someone wants to buy it!

Anyway, the plan was pork quesadillas, but I forgot to buy cheese, so I just made kind of spicy pulled pork. I cut the pork into chunks and browned them in oil with salt and pepper. Then I put it in the Instant Pot with the last of the pineapple juice, some jarred jalapeños and their juice, some garlic powder, a bunch of cumin, and bunch of that Valentina’s salsa picante. I let that cook all day, and then before supper I made a truly terrible pot of rice. How do you mess up rice? I don’t know, but it was that kind of day.

But actually it was a decent meal, considering it was forged in sheer panic. I had mine with sour cream, cilantro, and lime.

Not bad at all. I may start keeping pineapple juice in the house! Very handy.

Damien has had to be out of town covering various hearings and whatnot this week, and then Benny had a fundraising event in the evening, and when I got home, I still had to remake those cheesecakes, so I switched kitchen clean-ups with Irene, made the cheesecakes, cleaned the kitchen, Damien picked up Benny, and then I fell asleep on the couch, phew.

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

I just remembered that, when I went shopping for cream cheese, they had everbearing strawberry plants for $3 each, so I bought six. Yay! I forgot about that. My strawberry bed got all eaten up by varmints over the winter, so it will be nice to stock it up again. Maybe I will go back for another six plants. I’m solidifying my vegetable garden plans for the year, and have pretty much settled on corn, pumpkins, potatoes, basil, and eggplant. Might do butternut squash on an arbor this year, if I can get around to rigging it up.

I slept in this morning while Damien got the kids to school and brought one to an appointment, and then some of them had a half day, and then he’s going to cover adoration while I get one kid to her new art class, and then pick up the rest. And then we shall have spaghetti! And maybe drag the loveseat out of the dining room. Because it is chilly as heck today, but it is NOT raining. And guess what, the surgeon just called and I have a surgery date. August 20, which is absolutely perfect. We’ll have a nice summer, I’ll get my head fixed, and we’ll all be in good shape by Christmas.

For dessert, it just so happens we have a bunch of cracked cheesecakes in the house. Mom in a heart, indeed.

Chicken shawarma

Ingredients

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

Instructions

Mix marinade ingredients together, then add chicken. Put in ziplock bag and let marinate several hours or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 425.
Grease a shallow pan. Take the chicken out of the marinade and spread it in a single layer on the pan, and top with the onions (sliced or quartered). If you kept the garlic in larger pieces, fish those out of the marinade and strew them over the chicken. Cook for 45 minutes or more.
Chop up the chicken a bit, if you like, and finish cooking it so it crisps up a bit more.
Serve chicken and onions with pita bread triangles, cucumbers, tomatoes, assorted olives, feta cheese, fresh parsley, pomegranates or grapes, fried eggplant, and yogurt sauce.

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

Preheat oven to 350. Butter two loaf pans or butter or line 18 muffin tins.
In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients except for sugar.
In a separate bowl, mix together wet ingredients and sugar. Stir wet mixture into dry mixture and mix just to blend.
Optional: add toppings or stir-ins of your choice.
Spoon batter into pans or tins. Bake about 25 minutes for muffins, about 40 minutes for loaves.

Ben and Jerry's Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

For the strawberries

1 pint fresh strawberries
1/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

For the ice cream base

2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy or whipping cream
1 cup milk

Instructions

Hull and slice the strawberries. Mix them with the sugar and lemon juice, cover, and refrigerate for an hour.

Make the ice cream base:

In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs for two minutes until fluffy.
Add in the sugar gradually and whisk another minute.
Pour in the milk and cream and continue whisking to blend.

Put it together:

Mash the strawberries well, or puree them in a food processor. Stir into the ice cream base.
Add to your ice cream maker and follow the directions. (I use a Cuisinart ICE-20P1 and churn it for 30 minutes, then transfer the ice cream to a container, cover it, and put it in the freezer.)

What’s for supper? Vol. 405: Where I been

Happy Friday! It has been AGES since I’ve done a What’s For Supper. Sorry! First it was the day after Thanksgiving, and I just couldn’t bear to talk about food; then the next Friday I had hernia surgery so I wrote myself a doctor’s note to skip it; and then it was a week after surgery, and I hadn’t cooked anything, so didn’t have anything to say; and now it is two weeks after, and I have been so successful at allowing myself to rest and recover, I have sadly forgotten how to do that wording thing. The writing. Not to mention the cooking.

HOWEVER, it is Friday! Happy Friday from behind a pile of Amazon and Etsy boxes. I ordered almost everything online this year (frequently reminding the children that, as they open their presents, they should keep in mind that, while their mother was shopping, she went through a whole bottle of opioids). Last night, Damien and I unboxed everything and checked it against my list.

Result: I only seem to have ordered one present twice, and accidentally thrown away a different one. This is pretty good, considering the volume! So I reordered the lost one with priority shipping and a pleading note to the seller, and Damien is going out this afternoon and filling in the gaps (because once we saw everything all piled up, it became evident that — oh, you know. We needed to rectify certain inequities. He is also buying presents for the dog and the cat, who will absolutely notice and be very hurt if they don’t get presents. And yes, he ordered special Christmas treat worms for the turtle, who will not notice if he doesn’t get a treat, but we still feel that the Incarnation is for turtles, too, in some way. Anyway, he’s getting worms.

Sophia put up the Christmas lights inside and out, Elijah did the grocery shopping, and the older kids took turns picking kids up from school, and everyone has been cooking and cleaning and keeping the household ticking along very nicely while I just lolled. And truly, just as important and doing all the huge amount of work he did, Damien has also been tirelessly reminding me that I have to rest and I’m not being lazy or making a big deal out of nothing, and that nobody is mad at me for recuperating. I only needed to hear it 46,000 times. Maybe a couple more.

So I mostly just lurked about and showed up for meals that other people made. One such meal was Benny’s birthday, and she requested Damien’s magnificent lasagna from the Deadspin recipe

and a “dirt and worms” dessert, which she made herself, for her actual birthday. Then next week we had her party with friends, which featured a fire and hot chocolate bar outside, lots of giggling, and a parakeet cake.

I did look up tutorials on how to make parakeets out of gum paste, and then Benny and I made some very serviceable parakeet shapes, with their beady little eyes and weird little lumpy beaks and puffy necks and everything. Then we started decorating them with melted candy melts, and this is where things went a little off the rails.

Still clearly parakeets, but with a little dash of “you poor dear, what happened?”

I also decided it would be fun and easy to do one of those moves where you melt chocolate and use a piping bag to swirl it around on an acetate cake collar, and then just wrap it around the cake and peel the collar away, and voila, you have

look, first you downgrade your mental image from an airy filigreed bird cage encircling the two birds, to a just sort of fancy maybe sort of bramble-like backdrop design. Then you walk away for a little bit, take some deep breaths, face reality, and get to work salvaging all the bits that broke off, and sticking them into the cake randomly so it looks like a couple of parakeets are . . . I don’t know what they’re doing. They’re being on a cake, with things sticking out. Benny made a bunch of green hearts and added sprinkles and she was happy, which is what matters. We had fun making weird birds together.

The next day was my birthday, my FIFTIETH, when it turned out my heart’s desire was for Damien to bring home McDonald’s. Most of the adult kids came over, and Clara made some lovely key lime pies, and it was absolutely swell.

The last couple of days, I have been actually hoisting myself out of bed in the morning, and even cooking a bit. Yesterday we had pork spiedies

which were a little bland, but fine. While I was hacking up pork, I went ahead and made a second dinner: Carnitas and beans and rice. Looks promising.

I wrapped that up and we’ll have it on Saturday, which promises to be a bustling busy day, so it will be nice to have dinner squared away. I absolutely loathe cleaning raw meat off cutting boards and knives, so only having to do it once for two meals was irresistible.

Today I’m going to make sabanekh bil hummus (spinach and chickpea stew) from this Saveur recipe, and serve it with store-bought pita.

It’s easy and so savory and tasty. Damien likes it, too, and he’s not generally a big chickpea fan.

I have not done one single speck of Christmas baking, except for a bake sale back in November. I might get ingredients for buckeyes, which are no-bake treats (it’s just basically peanut butter, butter, and powdered sugar mushed into dough and then rolled into little balls, then dipped in melted chocolate). Most definitely something the kids can do basically on their own, as you can see from this pic from a few years ago

and maybe some more sugar cookies to decorate, because after school today the kids will finally be on vacation. Here is my recipe for dough that you don’t have to chill, and that keeps its shape when you bake it.

Jump to Recipe

We have a set of star cookie cutters in graduated sizes, which you can double up (I mean make two of each size), ice them, and then stack them to make a tree, IF YOU WANT.

If you want to pose like this for every single photo, there is not much I can do about that, apparently.

I don’t honestly have a lot of Christmas baking specialties — just pretty standard stuff. On Christmas morning, we have cinnamon buns, bacon, OJ, egg nog, and fruit, and on Christmas evening, we get Chinese takeout (except for one kid whose relationship with Chinese food was permanently tainted by a stomach bug, so she gets a sandwich from Jersey Mike’s).

I think I settled on Alton Brown’s recipe for cinnamon rolls, because they’re meant to be made the night before and then baked in the morning. But I’m not locked in, if anyone has a suggestion for a better recipe!

And then Hanukkah starts on Christmas evening! So at some point I will probably make potato latkes, maybe sufganiyot, maybe rugelach!

If I don’t manage to post anything in time, I wish you all, every last one of you, even the mean Russian bots, but especially people who need someone to care for them, and people who have been wearing themselves out caring for other people, a warm and good and holy last days of Advent, and a Christmas day of peace and joy with our favorite baby boy. I love yez all.

pork spiedies (can use marinade for shish kebob)

Ingredients

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

Instructions

Mix together all marinade ingredients.

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

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

Serve in sandwiches or with rice.

5 from 1 vote

Carnitas (very slightly altered from John Herreid's recipe)

Ingredients

large hunk pork (butt or shoulder, but can get away with loin)
2 oranges, quartered
2-3 cinnamon sticks
4-5 bay leaves
salt, pepper, oregano
1 cup oil
1 can Coke

Instructions

Cut the pork into chunks and season them heavily with salt, pepper, and oregano.
Put them in a heavy pot with the cup of oil, the Coke, the quartered orange, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves
Simmer, uncovered, for at least two hours
Remove the orange peels, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves
Turn up the heat and continue cooking the meat until it darkens and becomes very tender and crisp on the outside
Remove the meat and shred it. Serve on tortillas.

No-fail no-chill sugar cookies

Basic "blank canvas"sugar cookies that hold their shape for cutting and decorating. No refrigeration necessary. They don't puff up when you bake them, and they stay soft under the icing. You can ice them with a very basic icing of confectioner's sugar and milk. Let decorated cookies dry for several hours, and they will be firm enough to stack.

Servings 24 large cookies

Ingredients

1 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1-2 tsp vanilla and/or almond extract. (You could also make these into lemon cookies)
1 egg
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups flour

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350.
Cream together butter and sugar in mixer until smooth.
Add egg and extracts.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar and mix until smooth.
Roll the dough out on a floured surface to about 1/4 inch. Cut cookies.
Bake on ungreased baking sheets for 6-8 minutes. Don't let them brown. They may look slightly underbaked, but they firm up after you take them out of the oven, so let them sit in the pan for a bit before transferring to a cooling rack.
Let them cool completely before decorating!