Tag: tomato sauce

What’s for supper? Vol. 240: If I’m going to eat salad…

This week’s menu was designed with weight loss in mind. All you have to do is completely avoid these seven meals, and the pounds will simply melt away, ho ho ho.

Here’s what we had:

SATUDAY
Monte Cristo sandwiches with honey

I’ve tried croque monsieur sandwiches, which are similar, except they have a cheese sauce on the outside, and I thought they were kind of gross. These are also ham and cheese but dipped in seasoned egg before frying, so they are hearty but not gloppy.

Some people serve these with powdered sugar and I just couldn’t get my brain to accept powdered sugar that close to mustard. But I did drizzle my sandwich with honey, and that bridged the gap between sweet and savory very nicely.

I didn’t invest in gruyere, but just bought a bunch of Swiss. I did buy a nicer ham and some niceish bread. So I spread mustard on one slice and mayo on the other, then cheese, ham, and more cheese, and you dip the whole thing in beaten eggs, then fry in plenty of butter. I thought they were delicious, definitely more of a treat than plain old grilled ham and cheese.

Jump to Recipe

I feel like I must have served a side dish. Maybe an apple? 

SUNDAY
Cheesy pepperoni chicken breast rolls, french bread

Love making keto recipes and then baking four loaves of french bread to go with it. 

The chicken turned out fine. It tasted like exactly what it was: Chicken breasts cut in half, pounded thin, and rolled up around pepperoni and mozzarella, then baked with marinara sauce. I have a very nice picture of it, where you can really see how the pepperoni is peeking out from inside the cheese layer and it’s all wrapped up in chicken breast, but a little bird tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Simcha, that’s not pepperoni chicken. That is yoni chicken.” And the bird was right. So here’s a different picture instead, without so much sacred feminine in it.

As you can see, I secured the chicken with a wooden skewer to keep it in place, and that worked fine. Oh, I guess I sprinkled a bunch of fresh-grated parmesan on top before baking. I covered it with tin foil for most of the baking time, then took it off toward the end. 

It was pretty quick to make, and if I were ever going to attempt to fuel a work crew for hammering out a tunnel through a mountain, and they needed a lot of protein and calories, I would definitely make it again. But not otherwise. It was just too . . . HERE, MEAT.

I don’t know. I like meat, but I don’t need a wall of meat. 

Sophia was interested in learning how to make bread, so I mostly just advised her while she made this easy french bread recipe. 

Jump to Recipe

Turned out great! It’s a wonderful feeling, knowing you can make a decent loaf of bread.

MONDAY
Sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches on bagels

Nothing to report. We were out of butter, so I fried the eggs in oil, which does make the whites bubble up a bit more, and gives them a neat little crust.

Everyone was pretty excited about the orange juice. 

TUESDAY
Hamburgers, veggies and dip

Nothing to report. Ground beef was on sale because of the Super Bowl, so the burgers were Rather Large. I did manage to serve broccoli before it went bad, which is the first time in months. I throw out broccoli like it’s my job.

We also had chips, but I heroically abstained from eating any. Just kidding! I ate them before I took the picture. 

WEDNESDAY
Buffalo chicken quesadillas, guacamole and chips

Something a little different. I bought a few bags of frozen buffalo chicken tenders (also on Super Bowl sale) which I cooked and cut into strips and fried in quesadillas with cheddar cheese. I was going to sprinkle in some crumbled blue cheese, but do you know, it’s really hard to tell if very old blue cheese is too old or not, so I made a few people smell it and then threw it away. 

I also chopped up a bunch of scallions but then randomly got mad and didn’t feel like adding them. I still wanted to get blue cheese in there, so I added some blue cheese dressing to some sour cream, and it was . . . not actually delicious. Maybe I just don’t like blue cheese, I don’t know. 

Anyway, ths quesadillas variation was very tasty and I will definitely make it again.  Look, you can see my pretty new flower-shaped dishes! I found a set of 8 in various sizes at the Salvation Army. Some are white, some are green, and some are yellow. 

Made a ton of guacamole (avocados 49 cents, courtesy of football!)

Jump to Recipe

and everyone was happy. 

THURSDAY
Chicken salad with feta, green apples, red onions, and candied walnuts

The original plan for this meal was a nice salad with chicken, blueberry, feta, red onions, and almonds. I get to the store and they are all out of blueberry. Fine, we decide to have green apples instead. A child earnestly requests croutons, and I agree, because I’m feeling bad about the blueberries. Oh no, all the old bread is moldy! This salad is going to be a salad of sadness! I realized we had tons of walnuts in the house from Christmas treats I never got around to making, so I made candied walnuts.

Jump to Recipe

Very simple recipe — you just stand there stirring walnuts, butter, and sugar in a pot until the butter and sugar melt and coat the nuts, and then you spread it in a pan and break it up so they don’t clump, and that’s it. It turns out this takes KIND OF A LONG TIME if you’re sextupling the recipe. But they turned out great. 

These would be useful for any number of salads, or just for snacking on, and you could fiddle with the seasonings and add chili powder or cinnamon or whatever. 

Look how pretty the salad was! 

I had mine with balsamic vinegar. Very filling. If I’m going to have a salad for dinner, there has to be serious detritus at the bottom of the plate.

FRIDAY
Marcella Hazan’s red sauce with spaghetti

The real reason I wanted to make this is so I could get a second giant can of whole tomatoes and make some stilts for Corrie. Because we need more clomping and falling down, I don’t know. We used to have giant coffee cans in the house all the time, used mainly for stilts, banks, and crayon cans. The smells of crayons and coffee are forever wedded in my head. 

If you haven’t tried this sauce yet, I beg of you. The time has come. It has three, count ’em, THREE ingredients, plus a pinch of salt; it requires no skill, and it tastes like you slaved over it for hours. The recipe says to take out the onion before serving, but we have at least one kid who prefers to keep the onion, for purposes of devouring it whole.

Jump to Recipe

Oh, here’s my post with four recipe ideas for your Super Bowl party which you are having with people who already live in your house! Sausage rolls, potato tornados, a deli meat sandwich bake, and hot wings with blue cheese (if of course you like blue cheese). 

Here’s the recipe cards for the week.

Print

Monte Cristo sandwiches

Ingredients

  • 2 slices sturdy white bread
  • 4 slices cheese (gruyere is traditional, but use what you like)
  • 3 slices ham
  • mayonnaise
  • mustard
  • egg
  • salt and pepper
  • butter for frying
  • honey for serving

Instructions

  1. Beat up the egg and add a little salt and pepper.

  2. Spread one slice of cheese with mayonnaise and one with mustard. Make a sandwich with cheese, then ham, then cheese.

  3. Dip the entire sandwich in the beaten egg.

  4. Fry the sandwich in butter, turning once.

  5. If the cheese isn't completely melted, slide it into the oven for a few minutes.

  6. Drizzle with honey and serve.

Print

French bread

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

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

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Print

White Lady From NH's Guacamole

Ingredients

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

Instructions

  1. Peel avocados. Mash two and dice two. 

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

  3. Cover tightly, as it becomes discolored quickly. 

 

Print

Candied nuts (walnuts or pecans)

Ingredients

  • 6 cups nuts, whole or in large pieces
  • 1-1/2 cups white sugar
  • 6 Tbsp butter

optional:

  • any spices or seasonings, you want: cinnamon, cayenne pepper, etc.

Instructions

  1. Line a large pan with parchment paper.

  2. Put all ingredients in a heavy pot and cook on medium, stirring frequently, until the butter and sugar are melted together and the nuts are all coated. Be careful not to let them burn.

  3. Pour the sugared nuts onto the prepared pan and immediately break them up so they don't clump. Let them sit for several minutes so the sugar coating hardens.

  4. Eat immediately or store them in an airtight container for several weeks.

 

Print

Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce

We made a quadruple recipe of this for twelve people. 

Keyword Marcella Hazan, pasta, spaghetti, tomatoes

Ingredients

  • 28 oz can crushed tomatoes or whole tomatoes, broken up
  • 1 onion peeled and cut in half
  • salt to taste
  • 5 Tbsp butter

Instructions

  1. Put all ingredients in a heavy pot.

  2. Simmer at least 90 minutes. 

  3. Take out the onions.

  4. I'm freaking serious, that's it!

What’s for supper? Vol. 186: The world is cold, but food is warm.

Everyone is sick and mopey and overworked, and there is frost on the windshield in the morning. And we’ve decided that Corrie is watching far too much TV, so we are doing a little detox there, which is hard on everyone.  So I focused on cozy, unchallenging meals for this week. Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY
Steak, hot bread, salad

Well, London broil. That’s a steak, right? Everyone looked so droopy and sad, I thought we could all use some steak, and it happened to be on sale. Damien seasoned and broiled them, and I bought a few of those pull-apart bread rings and threw them in the oven right before supper. I put out some salad but it remained largely unmolested. 

The pictures are lackluster but the meat was great. Much better than the other way around, as sometimes happens. 

SUNDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips

Sunday we went to Mass and I led my first faith formation class, which went great! Overall. Some of those kids know a lot and some of them know hardly anything, but they are all interested in Jesus! And why not? He is an interesting guy. 

We came home for lunch and some of us were clever enough to fix ourselves steak and cheese sandwiches. 

Then we met my dad and went apple picking at our absolute favorite orchard, Wellwood Orchards in Springfield, Vt. It’s way up in the mountains where the air is so clean and good. You buy your bags and then get into a wagon, and a tractor pulls you wherever you want to go. We wanted mostly Macintosh, Macouns, and Cortlands, although some of the younger and more naive children were swayed by the deceit of that apple that calls itself “delicious.” 

This orchard has a little farm animal petting zoo, with cute little goaties and fancy ridiculous chickens, and the sun shone down, and the air smelled like apples, and it was just a good day. There are a bunch of pictures on my FB page. Here’s my favorite:

We also stopped at the Vermont Country Store and spent more money on candy than I have ever imagined it was possible to spend on candy. Irene bought wax lips with fangs, because Monday is school picture day and she’s not made of stone. 

MONDAY
French toast casserole, sausages, plums, OJ

Continuing the theme of “life is cold; here is some food that is hot.”

I’ll do my best to make a recipe for french toast casserole, but it turns out different every time. It’s definitely a good meal for kids to help you make. Although I would not recommend letting your very contagious four-year-old mix the orange juice in the other room. We ended up making a whole separate batch for those who did not wish to drink plague juice. 

I browned up some frozen breakfast sausages and set out a bowl of sweet little plums, lovely, dusky little plums. 

TUESDAY
Pork and ricotta meatballs on spaghetti with Marcella Hazan’s sauce

Sometimes you see a recipe and you just know. This one, from the NYT, calls for ground pork, ricotta, parmesan, bread crumbs, eggs, and salt and pepper, and that’s it. You bake them, so it’s nice and easy.

They don’t look like much, but they are delightfully fluffy and so full of flavor (although I thought the amount of salt it called for was way too much), with little creamy pockets of cheese. I ended up using three pounds of pork and one pound of ground beef, and more parm than the recipe called for, and panko bread crumbs; so I guess that’s a good enough reason to make up my own recipe card. I had to cook them ahead of time and then heat them up in the sauce, but next time I want to cook them right before we eat them, so they can be as light as possible. They did soak up a lot of the sauce, which was unexpected. Possibly because of the panko bread crumbs.

I made Marcella Hazan’s miraculous three-ingredient sauce in the morning in the crock pot.

Boy, does it not look like it’s going to be delicious. BUT IT IS. 

This was a popular meal, and we have been snacking on meatballs all week. In fact, the other day, I was working and thinking about meatballs and asked Benny to snag me a couple. This is what she brought me:

WEDNESDAY
Hot dogs, beans, fries

This meal was just a gift to myself. I actually asked Benny and Corrie to make it for me, and they somehow didn’t do a very good job, but still. 

THURSDAY
Nachos

Again, no culinary adventures, but everyone was happy. I spread tortilla chips in a pan, spread cooked, seasoned ground beef over that, and sprinkled it heavily with shredded cheddar, and then topped it with chopped scallions. The scallions were third gen, if anyone cares. 

I had mine with salsa and sour cream. And very good they are, nachos. 

FRIDAY
Fish tacos

I splurged on batter-fried frozen fish instead of the breaded kind. We have tortillas, shredded cabbage, cute li’l cherry tomatoes, lime wedges, sour cream, and ooops, I forgot to buy avocados. 

Here’s the recipe cards!

 

5 from 1 vote
Print

French toast casserole

An easy, kid-pleasing meal, pleasant and cozy for breakfast, brunch, or brinner. Use any kinds of bread you have in the house. You can also add raisins, slices of apple, or whatever sounds good. 

I'm not putting measurements in, because you can make this so many different ways, so it's more pastry-like or more custardy. Use the same proportions you'd use to make regular french toast and it will be good. 

Ingredients

  • bread, torn up
  • eggs
  • milk
  • dash of salt
  • white or brown sugar
  • cinnamon
  • vanilla

Instructions

  1. Grease a casserole dish or cake pan. Preheat the oven to 350.

  2. Tear the bread up into chunks and spread them in the buttered pans.

  3. Mix together the eggs, milk, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and vanilla, and pour the batter over the bread. Stir up the bread so all of it is wet. 

  4. If you like, you can let the casserole sit for a few hours to let the egg soak in, but it's not essential.  

  5. Sprinkle the top with more sugar and cinnamon, if you like. Bake for 40 minutes or so, until the egg is all cooked and it's a little toasted on top. Serve in wedges and drizzle with syrup, sprinkle with powdered sugar, or serve with jam or fruit toppings. 

Print

Pork and ricotta meatballs

Adapted from a NYT recipe, found here.  Very easy to put together, and the extra creamy, fluffy, cheesiness make these remarkable. 

Ingredients

  • 1 lbs ground pork
  • 1 lb ground beef or turkey
  • 2+ cups panko bread crumbs
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 32 oz ricotta
  • 8 oz grated parmesan cheese
  • 4 tsp freshly ground pepper
  • 4 tsp kosher salt

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 425.

  2. Lightly mix together all ingredients in a bowl. The ricotta doesn't need to be completely incorporated. Form into balls. This makes about 75 walnut-sized meatballs. 

  3. Grease a rimmed baking sheet and arrange the meatballs on it. 

  4. Bake for about half an hour, until the meatballs are slightly browned. 

Print

Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce

We made a quadruple recipe of this for twelve people. 

Keyword Marcella Hazan, pasta, spaghetti, tomatoes

Ingredients

  • 28 oz can crushed tomatoes or whole tomatoes, broken up
  • 1 onion peeled and cut in half
  • salt to taste
  • 5 Tbsp butter

Instructions

  1. Put all ingredients in a heavy pot.

  2. Simmer at least 90 minutes. 

  3. Take out the onions.

  4. I'm freaking serious, that's it!

What’s for supper? Vol. 158: And there it is.

In this space, I will skip the part where I complain about how tired I am and what a long week it is and how busy we all are. Food is good! Here is food:

SATURDAY
Hamburgers, chips

Nothing to report. Actually Damien tried frying some of the burgers up in an iron frying pan in butter, rather than broiling them in the oven on a slotted pan like we usually do. It was good, I didn’t think it made that much difference. I asked him if he just likes me fat and he said yes.

Amadeus There GIF from Amadeus GIFs

SUNDAY
Caprese salad, garlic bread, pork roast, strawberry almond cream cake

Damien and Clara made supper. Or, more accurately, they made three suppers, but we ate it all in one night. And oh, what a three meals it was!

He made a red sauce from this Deadspin recipe, and the pork roast after a NYT recipe. I’ll make a recipe card for the end, because I think it’s behind a paywall, and he just picks the fattiest pork he can find, and we can never find fennel fronds, so that makes it a brand new recipe! Look how scrumptious.

You make a kind of paste out fennel seed, rosemary, sage, crushed garlic, lemon zest, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and olive oil and rub it in good. Damien made it the night before and I don’t know if it was the long marinating time or what, but it absolutely fell off the bone. So insanely juicy and tender, and the fat crisped up into this wonderful crust that would have been a meal in itself. Man.

The pasta sauce was also wonderful. It’s unexpectedly spicy and sweet.  You really should try it.

Clara based the cake on a recipe from An Unexpected Cookbook: The Unofficial Book of Hobbit Cookery. Lena also made a heart-shaped chocolate cake with Benny and Corrie, apparently because she’s vying for sainthood. I didn’t get any dessert pictures, but I did catch this in medias pasta picture that captures the scene nicely.

Yep, we still have Christmas lights up outside. They are on a timer. It’s cold and icy out there. I do believe we’re just going to get used to them.

MONDAY
Split pea soup, hot pretzels

We’ve read Owl at Home many times and we’ve watched A Christmas Carol many times, and yet at least half the kids have never shuffled themselves backward into a wingback chair with a bowl of hot split pea soup in their laps. So I made some. Most of them didn’t eat it, because, well, you know. It tastes great, but it sure looks like it has already made the acquaintance of someone’s digestive tract and then retraced its steps right back into the bowl.

Tasted good, though! I didn’t have leftover ham and couldn’t find a ham hock, so I just bought a big ham steak, chopped it up, and chucked it in. Damien and I both thought it would have been even better with bacon instead of ham. So let it be written! Recipe card at the end.

TUESDAY
Egg and sausage sandwiches on bagels, hot chocolate

I had a sudden need to be loved, so I made a big pot of hot chocolate. My basic recipe per cup: One Tablespoon of cocoa powder, two tablespoons of sugar, heated and stirred into syrup with a little water. Then add milk and finish heating. We also happened to have moshmeddows in the house.

WEDNESDAY
Oven-roasted pork ribs, honeyed Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes

Corrie and I prepped the veg and potatoes in the morning so we could have a tea party with a clear conscience. She is a big help as long as you are not in any kind of hurry.

Such a simple, satisfying meal. We made the mashed potatoes in the morning and then heated them up in the microwave at dinner time.
The Brussels sprouts, I trimmed and halved, spread in a pan, and drizzled with olive oil, honey, and wine vinegar, salt and pepper, and roasted until they were a little charred; then I moved the pan to the bottom of the oven so they could finish cooking while the pork took a turn under the broiler.

I understand that some people don’t have a broiler in their oven. I am so sorry.

THURSDAY
Roast beef sandwiches, tater tots, sweet peppers and onion dip

All week, I was planning to make ropa vieja, a beef stew with peppers, which is the national dish of Cuba. This led to a long, frustrating conversation about what Cuba is. Corrie is three. She has a lot of questions.

Anyway, I somehow forgot to buy both pimientos and roasted red peppers, and I had my doubts about this meal anyway. I would definitely eat it, but for everyone else, it looked like a big pot of disappointment with olives, smoked paprika or no. So at the last minute, I decided to just make sandwiches, which everyone likes.

I crusted the chuck roasts heavily with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and browned them on all sides in a heavy pot in very hot olive oil. Then I put the roasts in a pan in the oven at 350 for half an hour or so. I let them sit for a bit, then sliced them up and spread the meat in the pan and slid it back in the oven for a few minutes to bring it from way too rare/quite rare to medium-rare.

I’m actually embarrassed at how many sexy pictures of roast beef I took. If I went blind, I bet I would lose fifty pounds.

Boy, I’m glad I didn’t make ropa vieja. We had the slices of hot beef on long boys with horseradish sauce and provolone, toasted up a bit in the oven, with tater tots and sweet peppers with french onion dip. Look at these peppers!

Hashtag no filter! Take that, January evening with wet ice falling out of the sky!

FRIDAY
Pasta, garlic knots

Usually I put butter, salt, garlic powder, and parmesan on the dough before baking, but Staša suggested I bake them first, then toss them up with herbed, garlicky butter.

I melted butter and olive oil together and added garlic (powder; couldn’t find the garlic press for fresh), salt, and chopped-up basil and let that sizzle up a bit. I liked it? Not sure if it was better than the other way, but definitely a good way to do it. I mean, I ate three of them, whatever.

And that’s a week! Whadja have? Anything good? I need to start all over again.

Print

Pork Roast

Ingredients

  • 6-8 lb fatty hunk of pork
  • 1/4 cup rosemary, chopped
  • 2 tsp chopped sage leaves
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1 lemon, zest thereof
  • 1-1/5 Tbsp kosher salt
  • 1 tsp fennel seed
  • 3/4 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 1/4 cup olive oil

Instructions

  1. Score pork all over. 

    In a food processor, blend all the rest of the ingredients together, adding oil in last. 

    Rub paste all over pork. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least six hours, preferably overnight. 

    Bring pork out of refrigerator an hour or two before cooking. Preheat oven to 450.

    Put pork in shallow, rimmed pan and cook for 35 minutes. 

    Reduce heat to 325 and cook another 3 to 4 hours. (Boneless roasts will cook faster.)

 

Print

Split Pea Soup

Looks terrible. Tastes perfect. 

Ingredients

  • 1/4 butter
  • 1 onion diced
  • 2 carrots diced
  • 3 stalks celery, diced
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 1 Tbsp garlic, minced
  • 1 pound dried split peas, rinsed and sorted
  • 1 ham hock (can get away with skipping)
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 6 cups chicken broth (+ 2 cups water)
  • 1 cup diced ham OR 1/2 lb bacon, fried crisp and broken into bits

Instructions

  1. In the pot, (using sauté button if using Instant pot) melt the butter and sauté the carrots, onion, and celery until soft.

    Add the minced garlic and cook for another minute.

    Add bay leaf, thyme, split peas, and ham bone and stir.

    Add the broth. If using stovetop, bring to a boil, turn to low, cover loosely, and simmer for an hour until peas are soft and soup is thickened. Add diced ham in last fifteen minutes of cooking.

    If using IP, cover, close valve, press "cancel" and then press "soup/broth." Cook, do natural release, open lid, add diced ham, and press "slow cook." Let cook for 15 minutes.

    Remove ham bone, if you used one. Stir in plenty of pepper. Leave the bay leaf in because whoever finds it gets good luck or whatever. 



What’s for supper? Vol. 138: Notes from Bism

Trying something new this week. I’ll blab about my cooking as usual, then put recipe cards at the end, so you can save them if you like. Just for the things that turn out good, mind you. Do let me know if this is useful or not.

SATURDAY
Spaghetti and Sausage with What Can Only Rightly Be Called Awesomesauce

Damien says he wants to try some kind of new tomato sauce, and I’m all: silly husband, there is no such thing as “new tomato sauce.” But when the man wants to cook, the woman lets him cook. So he made this ridiculous recipe by the apparently famous Marcella Hazan. (recipe card below)

You put canned tomatoes in a pot. You put a bunch of butter in the pot. You peel a couple of onions and put them in the pot. You cook the pot things for a while. You take out the onions. And that’s freaking it.

He says he kept wanting to add, you know, tomato sauce things. Bay leaf, garlic, oregano, something.  Nopey, just the three things. Okay, salt if you’re fancy. It was so good. I don’t know why! It tasted like a whole meal in itself! It tasted like meat and wine! So savory, so interesting! Crazy, man. I couldn’t get enough of it.

He also made about a roomful of garlic bread, which I ate as if it were the only way to save the world.

SUNDAY
Hamburgers, brats, chips, dip

He built this gargantuan grill for himself out of cinder blocks in the backyard

and he cooked supper on it. And sent me gifs of the fire while I was lying down. I still have more calculating to do, but I think I got a good deal.

MONDAY
Chicken sorta caprese sandwiches; cucumber salad; cherry pie with whipped cream

These sandwiches were so good last week, I made them again. This time, I used ciabatta bread instead of kaiser rolls and provolone instead of mozzarella. Grilled chicken, prosciutto, provolone, fresh basil, sliced tomatoes, olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Yuhm.

For some reason I dug in my heels about buying frozen fries this week, so I made a cucumber salad instead. I mostly-peeled about four cucumbers (I like to leave some festive stripes of green peel like Chef Pat always did. It makes me think of the early 90’s, Squeeze, things like that) into half circles and mixed them with a red onion sliced very thin. Then I mixed together some white wine vinegar and water and some sugar tossed it together.

I wish I had had some fresh dill. It wasn’t fabulous, but it was refreshing, and fine for a summery side. Would have gone well with fries.

The cherry pies, I had actually made Sunday night, but Lucy’s pancreas was having some kind of fit, so we saved the pie for Monday. I was in a rush, so I just made the cherry filling and poured it into pre-made pie shells and baked them that way, no lattice topor anything. I served it with whipped, unsweetened cream, and that was the right choice because the pie was so very sweet.

It was a bit of a mess when I cut it, but oh, cherries. So wonderful.

Also, so dramatic as they sat there macerating in the sun, like the juiceable gemstones from Bism.

TUESDAY
Mac and cheese with chicken and broccoli

My friend Maureen’s sister once made me a cheesy chicken casserole after I had a baby, and it was the best damn thing I ever ate in my life. I’ve been trying to replicate it ever since, even though I know perfectly well the missing ingredient is “just had a baby.” Once I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that was the best damn sandwich I ever had, right after I had a baby. Really, it brought tears to my eyes. Such jelly! Such peanut butter! Gevalt.

Anyway, this was not terrible, unlike the picture I took but can’t find.

I made mac and cheese in the Instant Pot (using farfalle instead of macaroni) based off this recipe from Copy Kat, only I realized for the first time that her recipe calls for one pound of one kind of cheese, and one cup of another kind. What the hell kind of recipe is that? I also ran across a recipe that called for ten teaspoons of something. Ten teaspoons. Honest to goodness, I’m the only adult on the internet.

So then (okay, first I burned the noodles because I’m too stupid to push a button without burning something) I steamed some cut-up broccoli spears and some chicken that I had I guess cooked in the Instant Pot previously. Okay, this is also a terrible recipe. I’m sorry.

Upshot: It was fine. I guess I put it in a buttered pan and put it in the oven until it melted together a bit. It would have been better if I had just had a baby, but I don’t think you can do that in the Instant Pot.

WEDNESDAY
Tacos with lime crema; tortilla chips with more lime crema

Just regular old tacos, but!!!!! I got this easy recipe for lime crema from Budget Bytes, and now I realize how brave I’ve been to have gotten through 43 years without lime crema. SO BRAVE.

I zested and juiced a couple of limes and then thought, “Oh, let’s not be stingy!” and zested and juiced one more. I added the zest and juice to a 16-oz tub of sour cream, glopped in a few tablespoons of minced garlic, and stirred it all in with a little salt.

I did get some help cutting up the tomatoes from a . . . blue fairy of some sort.

See? We finally redid the floor, just like we said we would this summer! Shut up! It’s still August! *sob*

We had some lettuce, but no fairies appeared to cut it up for me, and I discovered plenty of leftover pea shoots from the fancy ramen last week. I thought it would be weird, but it was great! Spicy meat, fresh tomatoes, springy pea shoots, and plenty of that wonderful lime crema. You don’t have to tell your abuela that this is what we call tacos, but we’re not going to stop.

THURSDAY
Chicken quesadillas

I saw to my dismay that there was yet more chicken in the fridge, so I slumped over to the Instant Pot and snarled, “You know what to do.” I threw a bunch of chili lime powder in there with the chicken and a cup or so of water and set it for 7 minutes high pressure, but it came out tasting like just water anyway. I let the chicken cool, but not enough, and skinned, boned, and shredded it. Ow, still hot.

Some people had cheddar, some had pepper jack, some had jalapenos from a jar. I always regret letting people order special combinations, but then again, some people are easy to please.

 

Yes, we had potato chips with quesadillas. Don’t tell abuela.

FRIDAY
Eggs and harsh browns

And that’s it! It’s the end of the week! Ha! I win again!

And here are my nearly professional recipe cards. Lemme know what you think.

Print

Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce

We made a quadruple recipe of this for twelve people. 

Keyword Marcella Hazan, pasta, spaghetti, tomatoes

Ingredients

  • 28 oz can crushed tomatoes or whole tomatoes, broken up
  • 1 onion peeled and cut in half
  • salt to taste
  • 5 Tbsp butter

Instructions

  1. Put all ingredients in a heavy pot.

  2. Simmer at least 90 minutes. 

  3. Take out the onions.

  4. I'm freaking serious, that's it!

 

Print

Cherry pie filling for TWO pies

Keyword cherries, cherry pie, desserts, fruit desserts, pie

Ingredients

  • 7 cups cherries pitted
  • 2-2/2 cups white sugar
  • 2 tsp almond extract
  • 1/2 cup cornstarch
  • 3 Tbsp butter

Instructions

To pit cherries:

  1. Pull the stem off the cherry and place it, stem-side down, in a bottle with a narrow neck, like a beer bottle. Drive the blunt end of a chopstick down through the cherry, forcing the pit out into the bottle.

To make the filling:

  1. Mix together the pitted cherries, sugar, and cornstarch in a bowl and let it sit for ten minutes or so until they get juicy. 

  2. Stir the almond extract into the cherry mixture and heat in a heavy pot over medium heat. Bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer over medium heat, stirring constantly, for several minutes. Stir in the butter.

  3. Let the mixture cool a bit, then pour into pie shells. 

Recipe Notes

This would also be fine over ice cream. 

 

Print

Lime Crema

Keyword Budget Bytes, crema, lime, lime crema, sour cream, tacos

Ingredients

  • 16 oz sour cream
  • 3 limes zested and juiced
  • 2 Tbsp minced garlic
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together. 

Recipe Notes

So good on tacos and tortilla chips Looking forward to having it on tortilla soup, enchiladas, MAYBE BAKED POTATOES, I DON'T EVEN KNOW.

 

Print

Chicken Caprese Sandwiches

Keyword basil, chicken, mozzarella, prosciutto, provolone, sandwiches, tomatoes

Ingredients

  • Ciabatta rolls, Italian bread, or any nice bread
  • Sliced grilled, seasoned chicken
  • Sliced tomatoes
  • Fresh basil leaves
  • Sliced prosciutto
  • Sliced mozzarella or provolone
  • olive oil
  • balsamic vinegar
  • salt and pepper
  • Optional: Pesto mayonnaise

Instructions

  1. Preheat broiler. Drizzle chicken breasts with olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, whatever. Put chicken on shallow pan with drainage, and shove under broiler, turning once, until chicken is browned on both sides. Let cool and slice thickly, you animal. 

  2. Toast bread if you like. Spread pesto mayo on roll if you like. Slice tomatoes. 

  3. Pile chicken, tomatoes, basil, cheese, and a slice or two of prosciutto, sprinkling with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper a few times as you layer.