What’s for Supper? – SIMCHA FISHER

What’s for supper? Vol. 398: Who among us

Happy Friday! In haste! In haste! For today, like every day this week, is stuffed to the gills with appointments, phone calls, and driving. The good news is, I have gotten much better at writing down every last little thing on the calendar (including, as it turned out, some figments), so I knew it was gonna be that kind of week, and I planned the menu accordingly.

(To new readers, welcome! I do a weekly dinner round-up on Fridays, so that’s what this is about.)

Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY
Leftovers and mozzarella sticks

The new Saturday policy of leftovers from the previous week + a pot sweetener is going well. We had leftover hot dogs, leftover ham, leftover pulled pork, and frozen mozzarella sticks.

Maybe you are thinking, dang, that is a heavy meal, but surely Simcha served a vegetable on the side to lighten things up, because she loves her family and cares about their cholesterol and whatnot.

I appreciate the thought, but all I did was take a bag of salad out of the fridge and forget to put it on the table.

SUNDAY
Oven fried chicken, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, roast carrots

Sunday I figured it would be the last day for being home all day, and I got super cook-y and started some chicken soaking in milk and egg in the morning. Here is my recipe for oven fried chicken:

Jump to Recipe

I made a few packages of instant mashed potatoes, even though I totally had time to make the from scratch.

And that’s it. I’ve crossed the line, and I’m now fully an instant mashed potatoes person. For a while I was in the “it’s a surprisingly decent substitute if you’re pressed for time” camp, and I dallied in the realms of “well, for some dishes, for some reason, it actually just hits better” for a while, but I’m fully converted now. I know all about using the right kind of potato and heaping on the butter and putting it all through a ricer. Sure, sure, that makes really good mashed potatoes. But have you considered that instant mashed potatoes make you feel like you’re six years old and just got in from sledding down the big hill all recess and there are hot instant mashed potatoes for lunch?

I also found a half cabbage in the fridge, and made some quick coleslaw (shredded cabbage and a few shredded carrots, and mayo with cider vinegar, a little sugar, and lots of pepper) that nobody ate, and then I tried a new recipe with carrots: This glazed carrot recipe from RecipeTinEats. It was undeniably easy, and I liked how they turned out and so did everybody else; but they definitely did not get that glossy, caramelized glaze like Nagi’s did. They were just roasted and faintly sweet. I dunno. I’ll probably make them again, because we always have carrots in the house, but it didn’t knock my socks off.

Joke’s on them: I was not wearing socks. Because I can’t find them.

For the chicken, I was very heavy handed with the seasoning (I used salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder, and garlic powder) and Damien really liked it, so I’ll probably do it that way from now on. I really love oven fried chicken. It’s dead simple and it turns out great every time, as long as you leave enough time.

So a very tasty meal overall.

While the kitchen was still wrecked up, I started some hunks of pork marinating for Monday’s dinner.

MONDAY
Char siu, rice, sesame broccoli

I again went to RecipeTinEats for her char siu recipe. The meat was marinating in a ziplock bag that looked absolutely ghastly, because I used an entire bottle of red food coloring in the marinade. You cook the meat at a low temp in the oven and save the marinade, add a little more honey and thicken it up a bit

and then use that to baste the meat a few times over the next hour and a half or so.

It was good! Looked great, flavor was perfect. It was, to my dismay, pretty dang dry, though.

(I will admit that I just grabbed some random hunk of pork, and it wasn’t one of the cuts she advised, so maybe that made a difference.) I loved the flavors, though, so I’ll probably make this again, but cover it with tinfoil when I cook it, and maybe fill the roasting pan with water.

I made a pot of rice in the Instant Pot and roasted some broccoli with soy sauce, sesame oil, and pepper

Jump to Recipe

but not sesame seeds, because I can find my sesame seeds, but only when I don’t need them

and it was a tasty meal. If a little dry.

Who among us.

I was thinking I would use the leftover meat in fried rice or something later, but there was no leftover, so it can’t have been that bad.

TUESDAY
Spaghetti with sausage

Tuesday we had three appointments in three different towns at the same time, and only one car still (Damien ordered the parts long ago, but they got lost in New Jersey or something. Who among us), so I cancelled one, and then there was an insurance snafu with the other, and then the third one turned out to be . . . imaginary? I had written “S surgery 11” but this seems to have been a figment of my imagination, and no one actually needed to be surged upon. So the car parts did come, though, and he has been working at drilling out stripped, frozen old screws, and we had spaghetti with jarred sauce and Italian sausages, and that’s-a my story.

I think it was Tuesday that Damien finished fixing my car. Very exciting. I’ve been driving his car, which not only complicates our schedule since we have to take turns leaving the house, but also it is held together with duct tape, the windows don’t open, and you have to park very strategically, because you may randomly find yourself turning the wheels without any mechanical assistance except the power of your flabby little arms, and the car weighs [quickly googles it] ah yes, 7,000 pounds. So it was pretty neat to be back in my nimble, sporty little 2010 Honda Odyssey.

He also changed my oil and reset my radio, because he loves me.

WEDNESDAY
Chicken caprese burgers, vegetables and dip, random bags of snacks

Wednesday, there was another phantom medical appointment on the calendar, which caused some passing consternation. But Corrie started Catechesis of the Good shepherd, and that was real! Such good stuff.

We had frozen chicken burgers on rolls with tomatoes, basil, and some fairly nice mozzarella, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and I cut up a ton of vegetables, and then proceeded to render them invisible to the family by also putting out a bunch of bags of old chips and onion rings and stuff.

I myself did not eat any of the vegetables. I just put them in the picture to show off. I ate vegetables for lunch! Get off my case!

THURSDAY
Pizza

Thursday it would be hard for me to describe, except that Damien handled the big, complex, out-of-town appointment, and I was still so tired by 7:00, I lost a game of tic tac toe to Corrie. She had put two X’s in a line, but I just didn’t see it coming. She also had her second den meeting for Cub Scouts, and when I went to pick her up, the kids were playing hide and seek in the pitch dark with flashlights, and I think it was the most fun I have ever seen six kids have.

I made three pizzas very quickly indeed: One plain, one pepperoni, and one with black olive and leftover tomatoes and basil.

The sauce was leftover from the spaghetti, and I was intending to use the leftover sausages on the pizza, but there weren’t any! They complained about the sausages when I served them, but then they ate them all. I guess that’s better than complimenting them and then not eating them.

FRIDAY
Tuna boats, cheezy weezies

The kids requested tuna sandwiches, but I think Damien may pick up some supermarket sushi for the two of us. We have an absolute action-packed weekend coming up (sleepover, Pumpkin Festival, apple picking, grave visiting, possible reliquary pick-up) and I think fortifying ourselves with cheap sushi is warranted.

Oh, I forgot, after Katie in the comments identified the cookbook I vaguely remembered from my childhood,

I tracked down and ordered a copy, and turned it over to Corrie. Some of the recipes are truly appalling, but a few of them are solid, and it should keep her busy for a while. Remind me to update on that! Something really lovely about kids excited to cook.

I will sign off with this comment that I included in my folder of food photos, not sure why.

Tag yourself! I’m mostly chagrined skeleton, but occasionally cat who has to eat on the bathroom counter because the freaking dog isn’t satisfied with his own food. I would also like to note that I treated myself to a new shower curtain, and I had some reservations because it’s see-through, and I wasn’t sure if some children of a certain tween persuasion mightn’t find that too revealing; but I had forgotten that intense modesty often hits right when you’re also still pretty scared of monsters creeping up on you when you’re taking a shower.

Who among us.

Oven-fried chicken

so much easier than pan frying, and you still get that crisp skin and juicy meat

Ingredients

chicken parts (wings, drumsticks, thighs)
milk (enough to cover the chicken at least halfway up)
eggs (two eggs per cup of milk)
flour
your choice of seasonings (I usually use salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and chili powder)
oil and butter for cooking

Instructions

At least three hours before you start to cook, make an egg and milk mixture and salt it heavily, using two eggs per cup of milk, so there's enough to soak the chicken at least halfway up. Beat the eggs, add the milk, stir in salt, and let the chicken soak in this. This helps to make the chicken moist and tender.
About 40 minutes before dinner, turn the oven to 425, and put a pan with sides into the oven. I use a 15"x21" sheet pan and I put about a cup of oil and one or two sticks of butter. Let the pan and the butter and oil heat up.
While it is heating up, put a lot of flour in a bowl and add all your seasonings. Use more than you think is reasonable! Take the chicken parts out of the milk mixture and roll them around in the flour until they are coated on all sides.
Lay the floured chicken in the hot pan, skin side down. Let it cook for 25 minutes.
Flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes.
Check for doneness and serve immediately. It's also great cold.

Sesame broccoli

Ingredients

broccoli spears
sesame seeds
sesame oil
soy sauce

Instructions

Preheat broiler to high.

Toss broccoli spears with sesame oil.

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

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

What’s for supper? Vol. 396: Season of mists and mellow soupfulness

Happy Friday! I was looking through my camera roll for this week’s food pics, and came across this image:

and smiled quietly to myself. Then I thought if I shared it, I really need to hunt up the source, so I searched for it on Facebook, which helpfully supplied this as the only hit:

I guess Facebook never heard of snitches get stitches.

Alternate joke:
. . .nah, never mind, I was gonna do a thing about misusing substances while shouting “I refute it thus!” and then breaking your foot, but in fact college was just too long ago.

(But actually the source is this funny lady on Instagram.)

Speaking of substance, I have lost six pounds in the last two weeks, by more or less adhering to the eating plan I outlined here. I’ve been up and down enough times to know that things could go south (or north, I guess) at any point, either because I sabotage myself or something outside my control happens; but dammit, I did lose six pounds. Usually I can lose four pounds and it doesn’t mean anything, but six pounds is enough to get my attention.

My secret weapon is neither GLP-1 nor cocaine, but gum. Because my big problem, when I’m trying to lose weight, is not really that I get hungry; it’s that my mouth gets lonely. So I give it some gum, and it works. This is humiliating for me because I’ve spent my entire adult life being absolutely horrible to people for chewing gum in my presence. Oh well. I’m just trying not to be an absolute cow about it, and if anyone wants me to apologize, I will.

Okay, that’s enough of that! Here is how we made our mouths less lonely this week:

SATURDAY
Salmon tacos or mac and cheese

I had already defrosted some salmon filets the previous day, but we had…something else, I don’t even remember.It was not a week worth remembering, as I recall. But I’m trying really hard to waste less food, so I patted the filets dry and sprinkled them with .. . I think salt and cayenne pepper? I don’t remember. Then I heated up a pan super hot with a layer of olive oil, and put them salmon on, skin down. I let it cook for probably four minutes and then flipped it over and cooked it for just another minute or so. Then I squeezed a lime over it. Turned out really nice! Not dry.

I only made four pieces because the kids that were home are not fish lovers.

I made a bowl of guacamole and shredded up some cabbage, which I set out like this and nobody said a thing about it

This is top tier food humor, but my talent is wasted.

So we just had really simple little tacos with the salmon, cabbage, and guac, with more lime

Nice.

SUNDAY
Cinnamon garlic chicken, roast squash and Brussels sprouts, hobbit bread; Rosemary olive oil cake with homemade ice cream

Sunday was Clara’s birthday, and she did the baking at her apartment and then brought it over here to finish. So I made the garlic cinnamon chicken I make at Passover

Jump to Recipe

and a big tray of roast butternut squash and Brussels sprouts. I drizzled them with olive oil and hot honey and sprinkled them with salt and pepper, and broiled them. Dinner ended up quite a bit later than expected, so I ended up scraping them into a pan and keeping them warm under tinfoil, but this wasn’t a bad thing! Just a bit more medey’d than usual.

Clara brought a giant, pneumatic loaf of bread to bake, which turned out lovely, very tender

and she baked the olive oil rosemary cake from Parsley and Icing. She put rosewater in the frosting instead of vanilla, and she decorated it with phlox blossoms.

NOTE: Perennial phlox is edible, but annual phlox is not!!!! Decorate accordingly, depending on whose birthday it is and whether you would like them to have more.

But it was such a lovely cake, and a great texture.

I was very pleased with myself because, a few months ago, I found a KitchenAid stand mixer on FB Marketplace for an amazing price. I believe it’s from the 90’s and works great, and it’s GREEN.

Well-received, as you can see, and obviously she will put it to good use! My own KitchenAid was a wedding present in 1997, and it was refurbished then, and it’s still going strong. A few years ago it needed oiling, and Damien put a new cord on it this year, but other than that, it’s been working away with zero problems. If you are thinking of getting a KitchenAid, I highly recommend a used one.

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to figure out when the decline that everyone is sad about actually happened, and it’s really hard to say. Some people are saying the newer models have a sacrificial gear that’s designed to break, to spare the engine, and it’s actually a cheap fix; but others are saying the whole design got nickeled and dimed and is just not the workhoree it once was. So, that was a paragraph without any actual information in it, sorry. Anyway, at very least, a used one will be way cheaper. My eyes really bugged out when I saw the price tag for a new machine!

Anyway, after dinner and presents, we had such a nice, happy evening, just sitting around yakking. Damien and I kind of sat back and let the kids talk, and it really warmed my heart to listen to them just enjoying each other’s company, talking about movies and candy and whatever. I sure like my kids.

Oh, I forgot about the ice cream! I made both kinds in the morning, which is a bit of a gamble because some ice creams don’t firm up enough in a few hours. They were on the soft side, but still scoopable.

I did one with almond, and I just did the Ben and Jerry’s sweet cream base (2 eggs, 3/4 cup sugar, 2 cups of heavy cream, one cup of milk) and I added a big hit of almond extract; then after it churned for half an hour, I mixed in a bunch of toasted almonds.

For the other one, I followed this recipe for cardamom ice cream with warm ginger drizzle. Sounds complicated, but it was really easy. The ice cream is just milk, sugar, cream, and ground cardamom. Then for the drizzle, you heat up a little syrup of white sugar, brown sugar, and water, and then you add the ginger and boil it for a while. I don’t have a microplaner, so I used the small holes on my cheese grater, and ended up with little nubbins of ginger which were actually really nice.

Both kinds of ice cream turned out great. I wished the ginger drizzle had been thicker, but the taste was fabulous.

I really enjoyed the cardamom ginger one. I might make it again and boil down the ginger syrup until it’s really thick, and swirl it into the ice cream before freezing it.

MONDAY
Aldi pizza

My car has gone crackerdog again, and Damien can fix it but the parts are taking forevvver to come, so we’ve been doing a lot of duck-fox-basket of corn maneuvers every day, with the extra added spice of one kid doing a ton of dental appointments before he loses his insurance, and another kid doing a wisdom tooth consult (where we learned that she has one lone third tooth deep down in her gums! Not a baby tooth or an adult tooth or even a mesiodens, but just a little bonus guy. I like to think that, in tooth society, this is the equivalent of a holy fool, which doesn’t have any obvious specific value, but you gotta think it’s there for a reason, so you just make sure you know where it is). Anyway, we had Aldi pizza.

Also on Monday, I was seized by a sudden urge to clean and reconfigure the refrigerator. I basically switched the vegetables, which were in the bottom drawers, and the condiments, which in theory were in the door but in practice were scattered all over the place, many of them lying on their sides with loose tops, which is the main reason I suddenly got mad and cleaned the fridge.

So here’s the new sich:

You can see that we have replaced the bottom door shelf with a PVC rod and some screws, but the middle door shelf also recently broke and I haven’t fixed it yet. The bottom drawers have been replaced with plastic tubs, and the bottom shelf has been replaced with a wire closet shelf. I’m proud of my ingenuity but furious at the people who design refrigerators.

I also moved the eggs to a low-clearance shelf, so people won’t be able to put heavy things on top of them; and I put the packaged meat and the cheese on separate shelves, so people will stop mixing them up (which leads to nobody being able to find anything, and more food waste).

It’s weird having the veggies on the door, but I am the main person who needs to be able to find and grab them, so it’s a weirdness I can deal with. The things that the rest of the family uses more often are easily accessible. I really think I’ve done it this time! I’ve designed a system so perfect, no one will need to be good. This might actually work, because it’s just a refrigerator.

Anyway, we got to the oral surgeon.

TUESDAY
Pork chops with peach butter, mashed ginger acorn squash, risotto

I got pork chops because they were irresistibly cheap, but I really hate cooking pork chops. It’s a mental block. I’m so afraid they’re going to dry out, and I’m gonna serve the fibrous grey mittens that haunted my childhood, I always end up messing them up even if I have a great recipe. Pork ribs are fine; it’s just the chops I have issues with, even if they’re cut thick.

But Damien took a kid to the appointment that’s like an hour away and I recorded a podcast with A Simple House, which was fun! So I got moving and made a pot of Instant Pot risotto, which everybody likes.

Jump to Recipe

It’s not the same as stovetop risotto, of course, which is magnificent but so much work. But it’s still really good!

And I fetched an acorn squash from the garden, cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, drizzled it with olive oil and sprinkled it with salt, and roasted it. Then I scooped out the flesh and mashed it, and then I added the leftover ginger syrup, and a little cardamom.

I am a golden god and it was the best mashed squash I’ve ever had. The chops, I sprinkled with salt and pepper and lightly roasted them and served them with peach butter.

A very lovely autumnal meal altogether, very mellow fruitfulness. Not a stringy mitten in sight.

WEDNESDAY
Peach-stuffed waffles

Wednesday Damien had promised to take the kids to a concert in Boston, and Elijah was at work, and that meant that the only people home for dinner were me, Irene, Benny, and Corrie. Waffle time!

I broke out the old Mary Gubser cookbook and made a double batch of waffle batter.

The kids requested chocolate chip waffles, which is fine with me; but I myself wanted peach. We had a small jar of peach pie filling I never used, so I buttered the waffle iron, put on a thinnish layer of batter, and then spooned some peach filling on that,

and then a little more batter.

Dang, they were good.

I was very pleased with myself, and just sat there making more and more waffles until I suddenly remembered I had an article due in the morning. I told the kids they could watch three episodes of something, and went off to write, and then reemerged at 10 PM to discover that they had turned the TV off after three episodes, but I hadn’t said anything about going to bed, so they did not do that. I may have shouted, “WHAT ARE YOU, STUPID?” and they may have shouted “YES.” (You can do this every once in a while, for a treat, especially if you’re all full of waffles. I also tell them they’re smart, just to keep them on their toes.)

THURSDAY
Chicken orzo soup, rolls

Thursday I finally faced the oyakodon recipe I have been planning to make for weeks. But the truth is, I had a giant turkey breast in the fridge, which I got because it was 99 cents a pound, and which I had defrosted because I don’t remember why. Oyakodon really needs dark meat, but the breast was already thawed, and I honestly couldn’t remember if people even like it, and I didn’t have dashi, and so on.

BUT, it was a foggy, drizzly day in September, so I made regular old cheater’s soup. I just chunked that whole breast in the Instant Pot with a lot of water, carrots, onion, celery, a little parsley, and some salt and pepper, and pressed the “soup” button. When it was done, I tasted it and hastily added a few tablespoons of chicken bouillon powder. I pulled out the turkey breast and shredded it and put it dumped it back in, added a small box of orzo, and simmered that for a while, and heated up some frozen rolls from Walmart, and man. It was a perfect cozy little meal for a rainy day.

I love orzo in soup. It’s so elegant and comforting at the same time.

Also, Cub Scouts got cancelled because of the rain, to my vast relief. I really loved signing up for Cub Scouts. This whole “going to meetings” nonsense has to stop, though.

FRIDAY
Regular Spaghetti

Regular! Regular! Regular spaghetti, pasta from a box and sauce from a jar. We love it.

A quick update on the comments situation: I didn’t fix it, but I made it slightly better, so you’re far less likely to get follow-up emails from Russians trying to explain arcane things about ferrous metals, or someone crowing, “your piece is highly educative and wonderful. More power to your elbow!” (If all spam were like this I’d let it go, but most of it is boring and gross.) Anyway, that’s where that stands, and I apologize if your inbox has been haunted because of my site!

And that’s-a my story. Middle Aged mom out.

Cinnamon garlic roast chicken

This is the chicken we usually serve at passover, but of course you can make it any time of year. Faintly sweet and nicely cozy, it's popular with kids and tastes good cold.

Ingredients

4-5 lb whole chicken
2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cinnamon
5 cloves garlic, smashed

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 500.
Mix the spices together and rub them all over the outside of the chicken.
Stuff the cavity with the garlic.
Put the chicken breast side down on a rack and roast for 15 minutes.
Reduce heat to 450 and roast for another 15 minutes.
Turn chicken breast side up, baste with pan drippings, reduce heat to 425, and continue cooking for another thirty minutes or until temperature reads 180.
Let chicken stand 20 minutes before carving. Also can be refrigerated and carved later, to be eaten cold.

Instant Pot Risotto

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

Ingredients

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

Instructions

Turn IP on sautee, add oil, and sautee the onion, garlic, salt, and sage until onions are soft.
Add rice and butter and cook for five minutes or more, stirring constantly, until rice is mostly opaque and butter is melted.
Press "cancel," add the broth and wine, and stir.
Close the top, close valve, set to high pressure for 9 minutes.
Release the pressure and carefully stir in the parmesan cheese and pepper. Add salt if necessary.

What’s for supper? Vol. 395: Agrodolce

In haste! In haste! For this has been the week of countless appointments (well, seven: doctor, pediatrician, ob/gyn, neurologist, and three dentist) but only one car, plus Cub Scouts, and the school just called to say that one child forgot her lunch. I thinks she’s just gonna have to develop a sudden liking for school pizza.

But still, happy Friday! Friday is Friday. Here is what we had this week:

SATURDAY
Chicken wraps and chips

This is a meal that started out decent and has slowly devolved, and I think this is about as low as it can go before it turns into absolute bachelor chow. The first iteration was delicious crunchy saucy buffalo chicken tenders, shredded lettuce, blue cheese, and ranch dressing. Then I started getting non-buffalo chicken tenders, which are cheaper, and adding the buffalo sauce, and skipping the blue cheese because not everybody likes it. This time, I got those awful frozen “chicken fries,” sloshed on some ranch dressing, and then didn’t realize the buffalo sauce didn’t have a little hole, and got a buffalo flood.

It was honestly still pretty good, and I’m only pretending I’ll do better in the future. It’s hard when your kids don’t like hot dogs. What are you supposed to do on weekends? Nobody knows. Thow some scallions on there.

SUNDAY
Ragu on pasta, zucchini agrodolce, bread, salad; cheesecake with peaches

Sunday, Clara and her boyfriend came over, so we did make a nice meal. I made zucchini agrodolce (= “sour sweet”) following this recipe from Sip and Feast. It’s a leetle bit time consuming, but so worth it; and it’s good cold, and great the second day, so you can make it ahead of time.

You make a little sauce with red wine vinegar, water, sugar, red pepper flakes, chopped garlic and sliced red onions. Then you fry up the zucchini pieces in olive oil and sprinkle them with kosher salt

and then you mix it together, cool, and chill. Wish I had fried them a little browner, but oh well.

Delicious. I’m not a huge zucchini fan, but I love this dish. You should make it before summer weather is over, because it’s a really great side.

Damien made his amazing ragù using the recipe from Deadspin. He used ground veal and pork, and it was savory and scrumptious as always.

We had a little miscommunication vis-à-vis bread, and I bought some, Damien bought some, and Clara brought some from her new job, which is at a bakery.

FINALLY ONE OF MY KIDS WORKS AT A BAKERY.

Lovely meal. (We also had a green salad, but I don’t think anyone ate it.) She also brought a bunch of bialys, which I haven’t had a bialy in probably thirty years. So nice.

For dessert, we had cheesecake, which I actually started on Friday, kinda.

So, the cheesecake! This is not a fluffy, airy cake; it is a rich, creamy, heavy extravagance. This is a proprietary recipe which I am not at liberty to disclose, and I understand why, because this cheesecake is a truly spectacular beast, and may not be safe to unleash on the general public. But I can give you some of the tips that were shared with me.

-First is that you put your ingredients out the night before you bake them. So in my case, I put them out Friday night, baked it Saturday night, and we ate it Sunday night.

-Do not over-beat the ingredients, because that will introduce air in.
But do scrape the bowl out a few times, including the bottom, as you mix it; or else you can pick it up on and drop it on the counter a few times after adding ingredients, to knock out any air.

-Wrap the pan in two layers of heavy duty foil and bake it in a water bath. Keeping the oven humid will reduce the chance of cracking.

-When it’s done baking, turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake in there until the oven is cool. Don’t peek; temperature changes cause cracks. Then wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it overnight (I leave it in the springform pan overnight).

I was exceedingly frazzled and distracted, so I made some errors, but behold: One little crack (and a few moon craters). Not bad. Last time I made this recipe, I over-baked it, but this time it turned out nice and pale and even. (This is a matter of taste; some people prefer a darker little skin on top.)

Sumbitch held up really well when I took the sides off the pan.

I wanted a peach topping, and I am down to frozen peaches now. Here is where I wish I had take the extra time to put in a little lemon juice or something to preserve the color when I was processing a million fresh peaches; but I didn’t, so we had darker peaches that were honestly a little bit mushy, because I left too much moisture in the bag and froze each batch in one clump, rather than chilling the pieces individually before freezing them longer term.

I more or less followed this recipe (just the peach topping part), which calls for pieces of peaches and also peach puree. I think maybe I made it the night before, so it could chill. Turned out quite good. It is not quite as thick as pie filling, but thicker than — well, a lot of things I make when I think I don’t need a recipe.

All in all, I was pretty proud of this whole project. It wasn’t too sweet, but full of flavor, and the texture was, frankly, immaculate.

Turns out Clara’s boyfriend doesn’t like cheesecake, though! It’s okay, we like him anyway. He brought us some cedar scraps, and I’m seriously thinking of taking up wood carving this winter. Maybe make some picture frames, or weird little ornaments that nobody wants.

MONDAY
Bruschetta with leftover ragu

Monday I knew we were gonna have leftover ragù, so I cut up a few baguettes, drizzled them with olive oil, and sprinkled them with salt, and toasted them in the oven. I heated up the ragù and set out the leftover cheese, and it was delightful.

Long live ragu!

I think Monday was the day my car started making horrible scronching noises.

TUESDAY
Roast chicken and baked potatoes

Monday night I got sick with awful vertigo, nausea, headache, and muscle pain, and I could barely get out of bed on Tuesday, which sucked. Damien did everything, including taking kids to appointments and roasting a chicken and baking some potatoes. I was too sick to eat, but it smelled good. I believe he roasted the chicken with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and a couple of lemon halves stuffed in there.

WEDNESDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, veg and dip

Wednesday I was up again and decided we all needed many more vegetables in our life, so I made a giant tray

and then I made a bunch of grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. I usually use sourdough bread, but the store was out, so I did ciabatta rolls, which I think I prefer. I like knowing exactly where the sandwich ends. I used provolone, and put a little skim of mayo on the outside and fried them in butter

and them put them in a warm oven for ten minutes to make sure the cheese was all melted. I was absolutely starving by dinner time, so this tasted like an olympian feast.

Frickin ham and cheese, can’t beat it sometimes. Especially with pickles.

THURSDAY
Mexican beef bowl

Last week, top round roast was on sale, so I bought an extra for this week. Cut it thin and marinated it for several hours in this tasty little marinade

Jump to Recipe

I made a big pot of rice in the Instant Pot and quickly cooked the meat in a pan on the stove.

Sometimes I go all out with a million toppings for these rice bowls, but this time we just had the rice and meat, some corn and cilantro, sour cream, and corn chips. I think I also put out shredded cheese. Oh, and lime wedges.

A very fine meal.

I always spoon some of the juice from the meat over the rice, and it’s so good. This is a meal you can prep ahead of time and then throw together in fifteen minutes right before dinner time (well, if you have an IP or rice cooker). As I mentioned in my meal planning post, this kind of meal strikes the right balance between effort and convenience, for me. I almost always have more time and energy in the morning, so I do as much as I can then, and then supper is quick and easy, but doesn’t feel crappy.

FRIDAY
Salmon tacos with guacamole

I have some frozen salmon fillets that were super cheap at Aldi, and I sure wish someone would come over my house and cook them, but that seems unlikely. Probably I will just pan fry them with maybe some Tajin or whatever. I have some avocados, but I don’t know what state they’re in (I mean existentially, not geographically), so we’ll see if the guacamole materializes or not. I forgot to buy cabbage. I do have more cilantro and some salsa and sour cream.

People’s expectations are pretty low, and I feel a little bit like I have been put in a bowl and dropped repeatedly, to get all the air bubbles out, but not in the fun way. It’s just been an exhausting and discouraging week, and I’m not even the one has to go lie down in the driveway and look at . . . warped rotor drums, or whatever it is. I am simply too delicate for that sort of thing, and instead practice the womanly art of frying things in mayonnaise.

P.S. If you are my editor and are reading this, I am working on the things. I have been, and I am. I’m gonna sprinkle some cilantro on top and it will be great.

P.P.S. Damien brought in the forgotten lunch, because he’s a much nicer mom than I am.

P.P.P.S. Yes, it finally occurred to me that we might actually have covid. We do mask in medical settings, and the kids mask at work, so there’s that. Welp. Tomorrow will be kinder.

Agrodolce, indeed.

Beef marinade for fajita bowls

enough for 6-7 lbs of beef

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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

What’s for supper? Vol. 394: So peach goes down to grape

Nothing gold can . . . ape.

Happy Friday! Here’s what we had this week:

SATURDAY
Rotisserie chicken, salad, bread

Saturday I did the shopping and got started late, so I decided I would splurge on rotisserie chicken so I could relax and have an easy meal afterward. Got home, started unloading the groceries, realized it’s hard to have a relaxing chicken experience withouten any chicken.

So I went out again in great sadness and bought some chicken, but! they had just put out some freshly baked baguettes, still warm! So it all worked out.

I got a couple of those caesar salad kits from Aldi, and it was a very pleasant little meal, and yes, easy.

Saturday night, I made a batch of streusel using the King Arthur Flour recipe, which is only just barely a recipe. You mix boxed cake mix with melted butter, scrunch it into streusel lumps, and bake it until it’s a little bit crunchy.

Turned out great. I know basic streusel is super easy, but I have mixed success with it anyway, and this method has pretty great possibilities, considering you could use any flavor of cake mix. You can freeze it and have it ready to sprinkle on muffins or cakes or ice cream or cheesecake or whatever. Mein gootness.

SUNDAY
Bacon cheeseburgers, chips

Sunday after Mass, I picked the very last of the peaches.

I don’t know why Corrie stood on a chair to take this picture, but I cannot argue with the flattering angle! Makes me realize that when Damien says I look good, he probably really means it, because this is essentially his viewpoint. I’m all boobs and eyes from up there. And sometimes peaches.

We had freshly ground beef and bacon from Sally Wilkin’s homestead, and I thought that much tastiness deserved to stay together. So Damien fried up the bacon and made burgers on the grill, and OH IT WAS GOOD.

Bad picture, but there’s a reason people pay more for local meat. Mmmm.

I cut up the peaches and left the skins on this time, which was so much faster and easier than blanching and peeling them. I basically followed the peach part of the recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction, but since I wasn’t using a streusel with cinnamon in it, I put some into the filling.

Lovely, lovely.

I had meant to serve this with ice cream, but forgot to put the bowl in the freezer, so I just whipped up the heavy cream instead, with a little sugar and vanilla.

Fabulous. So meltingly sweet and creamy and lovely.

Corrie said there was a frost when she woke up, so that means it was time to pick the grapes! There wasn’t a huge harvest this year. There were plenty of grapes, but they weren’t very big, and they were especially tart this year (even for Concord grapes).

Benny and Corrie and I picked them until we got tired of it

and this time, I smartened up and wore GLOVES for the sorting process.

It only took me three consecutive years of being baffled and amazed to find that grapes make my skin itch and burn! I can learn! Actually this photo shows two lessons learned: Wearing gloves, and having gloves in the house in the first place, because my kids simply cannot abide having natural colored hair, so I finally wised up and started buying gloves in bulk.

It took probably three hours to sort all the grapes. I ended up with I think 32 pounds.

and I really didn’t have space to refrigerate them, so I decided to forge ahead and make the juice that evening. In the past, I’ve made grape jelly, but it turns out nobody really likes it; and grape sorbet, which really only I like. Those kids do like their juice, though.

Making juice is very simple. You sort out all the stems and unripe and rotten grapes, rinse the good grapes, and put them in a stock pot and mash them with a potato masher somewhat, to release the juices.

Then you just heat it up slowly, skins and seeds and all, until it’s simmering, and let it simmer for ten minutes.

You can mash the grapes again while they’re simmering, to make sure they all get juiced.

Then you pour the hot grape mash over cheesecloth (I like to use a few layers of cheesecloth in a colander, just in case anything slips out, because it’s HOT) and let the juice strain through.

And that’s it. You can add sugar at this point, if you want.

This year, I put about two thirds into the huge stock pot and the other third into a smaller pot. THEN I BURNED THE HUGE POT. I tried to convince myself that the burned taste hadn’t permeated the whole batch, but it certainly, certainly had. Then I tried to persuade myself there was something else I could do with a giant batch of hot burned grape mash, but my friends, there wasn’t. So I sadly dumped it in the compost heap.

I did get three quarts of juice from the remaining pot

and GOOD HEAVENS IT IS TART. The kids have been mixing it with sugar, and still only drinking small portions.

So that was a bit of a sad grape story for me this year. But at least they’re not hanging on the vine, begging to be picked while they’re slowly nibbled to death by yellowjackets, and at least I don’t have a giant batch of half-processed grapes slowly fermenting and attracting fruit flies. The only bug around here is me, and I’m used to me.

And I had the fun of taking my annual Judith cosplay photo:

The last thing I did on Sunday was clean off a few dozen peach pits from that final batch, and set them to dry on a rack.

I am following instructions from The Philadelphia Orchard Project.

Yes, I am going to try to grow some more peach trees. A few people have expressed surprise that I would put the words “peach” and “more” in the same sentence, which makes me think I have been misrepresenting my attitude toward peaches. Of course I want more peaches! They are peaches! I don’t know how else to explain it. (But actually if I do manage to grow a dozen baby peach trees, I will probably give them away or sell them. But the main thinking here is: MORE PEACHES. You are talking to a mother of ten; I don’t know what you expected.)

MONDAY
Pizza

Just regular begular no fancy tricks pizza, one plain, one olive, one pepperoni. Oh, actually I put some leftover bacon (WHICH TELLS YOU HOW SMALL OUR FAMILY IS NOW BECAUSE WE HAVE LEFTOVER BACON) on the pepperoni one, and it was, of course, delicious.

TUESDAY
French toast casserole with fried apples, peach butter, grape juice; deviled duck eggs

Tuesday was primary day in NH, so Damien was going to be out; so I made a meal he’s not crazy about. We had tons of leftover hot dog and hamburger buns in the house, and they make great french toast casserole. I don’t really have a recipe for this, but you just mix up eggs and milk and add some sugar and maybe some vanilla, and pour it over some torn-up bread and mix it up. Butter a pan, pour the bread mixture in, and top it with some sugar and cinnamon if you like. Bake at 350 until it’s a little toasted on top, and not too damp inside.

We had a giant backlog of duck eggs. The kids don’t really like duck eggs, partly because they don’t like the ducks, and partly because they don’t like their eggs, which pretty much covers it. But they do very much like deviled eggs, which I hardly ever make, because it’s a hassle. I thought I might lure them into eating duck eggs this way.

Welp, I forgot that, because they are so much bigger than store-bought chicken eggs, you need to boil them longer. So they were really soft boiled eggs. I went ahead and mixed up the yolks with mayo and a little mustard and salt, and even I had to admit they were kind of gross.

It was kind of cool to see a cooked double yolk egg, though.

We get lots of double-yolkers! It’s weird. I looked it up, and these eggs would not necessarily develop into twins born from one egg, because there’s not really enough room in there, so one chick would win. It’s possible both would develop and survive, but it’s rare. Nature, man.

We are planning to incubate some eggs in the spring, though, just for the hell of it. When Corrie was in first grade, her class was incubating eggs, and then she got sick and missed seeing them hatch (she is a covid baby, and you had to stay home for several days if you had basically any symptoms of anything, at the time). Missing this has formed a Core Sadness for her, which is understandable! So we’re gonna try and ameliorate that a bit.

Oh, also, I remain TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE at peeling hard boiled eggs.

I know there are methods where they slip out of their shells perfectly every time, but I do not wish to do them. Science cannot explain this; it’s just how I am. I just enjoy having traumatic flashbacks to the time I was working with the boss at Todafrali’s Deli and we had to peel a few hundred hard boiled eggs for a catering job, and boy, she was so MEAN about this poor lady who wanted a tacky dish like deviled eggs at her wedding. SO mean. Oh, there was so much cocaine in the back room of that kitchen. Mein gootness.

Anyway, I was just gonna serve the french toast casserole with peach butter and maple syrup, because that was a lovely combination with waffles last week, but I noticed we had a bunch of apples that had gone soft and sad while we were busy eating peaches, so I cut them up and fried them in butter with a little brown sugar and cinnamon and a tiny bit of salt.

Absolutely delicious.

Was I proud of myself for serving a meal made with leftover bread and eggs from our ducks, peach butter from our peaches, and grape juice from our grapes? Yes. Insufferable, even. But it was a really good meal! Except for the eggs. And the juice.

WEDNESDAY
Steak quesadillas with peach salsa

When I picked the last of the peaches, I used the ripest ones for the peach crisp, and set aside the others. By Wednesday, they were perfectly ripe, not too soft. I diced them up with the skins on and mixed them up with a diced red bell pepper, about half a red onion minced, some fresh lime juice, chopped cilantro, half a minced jalapeño, and a little salt.

The picture shows garlic, but I don’t actually remember if I put garlic in there or not. I’m leaning toward not, and I think it was hanging around because I had made some marinade for the beef.

It’s a great marinade, always popular. Lime juice, Worcestershire sauce, and garlic, with a few other ingredients. So nice and lively.

Jump to Recipe

I sharpened my knife and cut the roast as thinly as I could,

and let it marinate most of the day. Then I pan fried it and made quesadillas with it.

Served with the peach salsa, sour cream, and tortilla chips.

Dang, that was a tasty meal. I don’t know why I never thought of beef quesadillas before, but I’m happy to welcome into the rotation another meal in that uses relatively small amounts of beef. When beef goes on sale, it’s still pretty expensive, so just a straight up roast isn’t usually an option.

The peach salsa was fantastic. I really liked having the softer peaches along with the crisp red pepper, and the sweet peaches were so nice with the lime juice and a little bit of spice. Just a really playful, zippy salsa that went really well with the meat. It would be great with chicken or shrimp or probably pork, or just plain quesadillas.

Wednesday evening, Corrie and I extracted the seeds from the dried peach pits. (Obviously peaches can grow spontaneously from pits that haven’t been split open by humans, but I assume this gives them an advantage, and makes them more likely to grow.) The directions said you could use a nut cracker, but this didn’t work for me at all, because the pits were so hard.

Corrie developed a screwdriver and sledgehammer technique, but I had better luck using tile nippers. I nipped the seam off until there was an opening, and then pried it apart with the tip of a knife. The peach seeds look like small almonds,

and yes, they contain amygdalin, which, when digested, breaks down into cyanide (same with apricots, cherries, and plums). You can eat a few without hurting yourself, or apparently you can boil them for half an hour and then safely eat them; but life is exciting enough around here without doing any poison experiments on purpose.

We noticed a strong almond smell from the seeds. It turns out they are related to almonds, and in fact almond extract is often made from peach seeds. In fact, it tastes more strongly almond-y than almond extract made from almonds! I have now reached the point where the word “almond” sounds weird and foreign to me, so I guess that’s the end of this paragraph.

THURSDAY
Restes ala purée de pommes de terre

Thursday I got another flat tire.

And I’m glad I compulsively take pictures of everything, because that helped me confirm this is a different tire from the one last week!

I’ve had a slow leak for quite some time, and concerned dads keep coming up to me and apologetically telling me that I probably know this, but my tire is pretty flat, and then I make them feel bad by telling them I do already know. (I think this is related to #metoo, or possibly regional, not sure.) Then I go put air in my tire and pretend that’s a responsible way of dealing with it, because air machines scare me, and if it’s scary, it must be hard, and if it’s hard, it must be responsible.

So actually it was kind of a relief when the tire finally completely crapped out. Sadly, it doesn’t look patchable like the other one, because I’ve been driving around on the sidewall like an idiot, so we’re going to have to take the extreme measure of buying a new used tire.

For supper, I was planning to make chicken drumsticks roasted in butter and Old Bay seasoning, but the chicken had gone bad. The afternoon had already devolved into a series of increasingly pathetic attempts to find non-moldy hay for the ducks (I do have a good lead for this weekend! This shouldn’t be hard! We’re pretty rural!), so by the time it was dinner, I was pretty dead set against going to the store one more time.

So we had whatever. Hot pans of whatever, and cucumbers I didn’t even take out of the bag.

I made up a big bowl of instant potatoes, and everybody had hot food. Yay! It’s probably self care or something. I do like potatoes.

We were supposed to go to Corrie’s first Cub Scout meeting, but she was sick with a bad cold and sore throat, and turning up with that seemed like a bad way to introduce ourselves to a bunch of new families. She asked if she could make up for the disappointment by watching Frasier, and in the name of self care, I said yes.

She really hates the taste of cold medicine, so I suggested she have a shot of grape juice to get the taste out of her mouth, and it worked, but then she needed a cookie to get the taste of grape juice out of her mouth. I tasted it and she was not kidding. That stuff is intense! By which I mean disgusting!

FRIDAY
Regular spaghetti

Regular old begular old spaghetti with sauce from a jar.

But! Clara and her boyfriend are coming over on Sunday, so I did do step one in my Transcendent Cheesecake Recipe, which is to set out the ingredients for 24 hours so they really truly achieve room temperature for real.

Oops, I gotta put out eggs, too. I’m going to bake it tomorrow and then let it ponder life in the fridge overnight, and by Sunday it will be wonderful. I’ve made this recipe before, and it does not mess around.

And what am I going to put on top of this cheesecake?

Do you really need to ask?

I may have picked and cooked the last of the fresh peaches, but maybe you are forgetting that my freezer looks like this:

And I’m gonna plant those peach seeds today.

Peach season is over! Long live peach season!

Beef marinade for fajita bowls

enough for 6-7 lbs of beef

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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

What’s for supper? Vol. 392: I hope you guys like hearing about peaches

Happy Friday! Today’s post will be a good one for people who enjoy color. Especially peach color. And peaches!

Oh yes, peaches. I couldn’t stand it any longer, and finally started picking. And picking, and paying kids to pick, and picking some more. I estimate at least 130 pounds so far, and there are still hundreds of peaches on the tree. Just one little tree! What a champ.

This is also our first week back at school, and so far, I’m not a fan. Much rather sit and home and eat peaches.

SATURDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, strawberry shortcake

Shopping day with Corrie, plus a side quest to SPIRIT HALLOWEEN, which now opens in early August and hasn’t gotten any less silly. Damien made yummy sandwiches while I recovered.

Benny prepped the strawberries with sugar and a little vanilla. I just got pre-made cake shells for dessert, and squirty whipped cream from a can. Not shortcake per se, but who doesn’t like this.

We were planning a little outing on Sunday, so Satuday evening I prepped a bunch of peaches and a streusel topping ahead of time, so I could put it together when I got home. Benny and Corrie helped with blanching the peaches

and we had sort of mixed success peeling them.

I got better at this over the course of the week! My process now is to rinse the peaches, score the bottom in an X, dump them in boiling water for a full two minutes,

and then fish them out and dump them in ice water. Lots of recipes said thirty seconds in boiling water, but the skin just doesn’t slide off like it’s supposed to when I do it that way. Maybe it varies by peach or by ripeness, but that’s what I’ve found.

I also made a batch of vanilla ice cream, and didn’t notice that the dasher got hung up, so it ended up not terribly smooth, oh well.

SUNDAY
Deli sandwiches, peach cobbler

Sunday after Mass, it was the very last day everybody was still on summer vacation, so we went to Trap Falls in Ashby, MA. This is a place we discovered several years ago when the kids were little and I dragged everybody on a yurt camping trip. The lake in the campgrounds was closed because of cyanobacteria or something, so we drove around looking for an alternative, and stumbled across this — not quite paradisal, but extremely lovely spot

We’ve been back several times, and it’s almost always a good trip. When the kids were little, it was glorious. Now it’s just merely pleasant. But I’ll take it!

We brought the dog along, and he enjoyed himself, which he always does, everywhere, in every circumstance, including when he went with Damien to go find oil for my car when it abruptly ran out of oil, but especially including when we stopped for ice cream on the way home.

Got home and ate the deli sandwiches I got at Market Basket, and made the peach cobbler, which turned out . . . juicy.

I really should have drained those peaches! In retrospect, the oven slowly dying was also probably partly to blame, but I didn’t realize it yet. But it was still a delicious dessert, especially topped with ice cream.

I made a huge amount of streusel topping and saved half of it, thinking I would make cobbler (or crisp or whatever) at least a few more times. Then I ate a bunch of it, and I’m not even sorry. Butter, flour, cinnamon, and sugar. I’m a monster and I don’t care.

MONDAY
Mussakhan and taboon

Monday the Catholic high school kid and the college kid started school, and I had a little errand in a different town, and Damien started covering a hearing in Concord; so the driving was . . . extensive.

But I was determined to stick to the rather ambitious menu I had planned, so I made mussakhan (Palestinian roast chicken) and taboon. Here’s the mussakahn recipe from Saveur that I use; and here is the taboon recipe:

Jump to Recipe

The oven breathed its last just as the chicken finished cooking, which was a mercy! Ten minutes earlier and we would have been in trouble.

Sadly, the bread has just started baking, and it does bake quickly, but not quickly enough, so I was in a bit of a pickle with that. Just the bottom heating element broke, though, so I broiled the bread, and it was not amazing, but edible.

It really is a great meal in general, though. The chicken is so juicy, and I adore that sour-bright, earthy sumac flavor. I even splurged on pine nuts, which I don’t always do, and they get toasted up in oil and then sprinkled over the hot chicken. Spectacular.

I had timed things down to the minute, but didn’t factor in an “oh crap, the oven broke” eventuality, so I ended up eating my dinner in the car.

Which is just as well, because this allowed me to shamelessly gnaw on the bones like a neanderthal.

That night, a child who shall remain nameless decided to bleach and dye her hair, which is fine, but it’s less fine to get bleach in your eye, especially when your mother is not home. So I GOT home as fast as I could, and we went to the ER, where they hooked said child up with a kind of contact lens device attached to a tube with a bag of fluids, which flushed the eye out. No eye damage, thank God!

It’s a very damp process, though, especially when you haven’t rinsed the blue out of your hair yet.

The doctor reassured us that far, far worse things had happened to that sheet. And then we got home and collapsed like bunches of broccoli.

TUESDAY
Bagel, egg, cheese, sausage sandwiches

Tuesday was the public high school kid’s first day, and I also promised Corrie I would get her a professional haircut to correct the alleged malicious violence I had done to her hair last month when I gave her the exact haircut she asked for.

Very cute!

Dinner was nice and easy. Tasty, despite the horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you.

The yolk of a duck egg is a powerful thing.

I also bleached and dyed the tips of Benny’s hair. I actually bleached it twice, because the first time I was like, “Aw, I’ve done this a million times, I don’t need to read the directions,” but it turns out I do. So I sent Elijah out for more bleach, and we got it done.

You there, boy! What year is it?
Why it’s 1983, sir!

I paid the girls to pick a bunch of peaches for me, and I blanched about mmm fifty pounds of them.

(If you are wondering, a box that you definitely are going to return to the post office has a tare weight of 1.84 lbs.)

I cut them up and put them in gallon bags and stuffed them in the freezer.

I didn’t add anything. You can add lemon juice to preserve the color, but these will be for baking anyway, so it didn’t really matter. I also didn’t mind if they froze in one big clump, for the same reason; so I didn’t bother doing any individual freezing tricks to keep them separated.

WEDNESDAY
Butter chicken and rice

Wednesday was the first day for the elementary and middle school kids, which were the last batch of kids. They had half days, but not, of course, the same half; so I was kind of mad at myself for again planning a slightly complex meal on a day when I was gonna be in the car all day; but, on the other hand, BUTTER CHICKEN. Can’t be mad when you’re eating butter chicken, or really even when you’re making it, because it’s so pretty. I use this recipe from Recipe Tin Eats.

I started marinating the meat around noon, and then it does come together very fast if you have all the ingredients prepped. I had splurged on a big sack of basmati rice a few months ago, so I started a big batch of that in the Instant Pot (2 cups of water for each cup of rice, and then just press the rice button, and fluff it with a fork when it’s done — turns out great), and cooked up the chicken in the lovely marinade

then added the pureed tomatoes and cream

and let that simmer for about half an hour.

Oh, it smells so good.

While that was cooking, I prepped some pork for Thursday’s dinner. I am so smart! Sometimes I am so smart.

It was really too hot for butter chicken, but at the same time, it’s always a good day for butter chicken.

Just threw a little cilantro on top. I went back for more rice and more sauce. So very cozy and delicious.

THURSDAY
Bo ssam with gochujang peach sauce, rice, cucumber salad, crunchy rice rolls

The replacement heating element for the oven is ordered, but won’t be here until next Wednesday, so I made the bo ssam in the Instant Pot, following the bare bones of this recipe. I really need to remember to do it this way (in the IP) every time, rather than in the oven, because it turns out spectacular. I just hucked the pork into the pot and pressed “meat.” It said “burn” after a while, so I vented it, checked that it wasn’t actually burning, and pressed “meat” again.

Then I made a dipping sauce with — I swear I wrote this down, but now I can’t find it. Well, it was about eight pitted peaches with the skins on, two tablespoons of brown sugar, a heaping tablespoon of gochujang, half a red onion, and a tablespoon of soy sauce, if I remember correctly, which I never do.

Put it all in the blender

and it made a really nice dipping sauce, sweet and fruity (obviously) with just a little kick from the gochujang.

It went very, very well with the salty meat. I probably could have skipped the onion, though. I’m not crazy about raw onion unless it’s minced or diced. Something slightly unpleasant about pureed raw onion. But there wasn’t a ton in there, so it didn’t ruin it.

I also made a cucumber salad with — I dunno what. Rice vinegar, water, red pepper flakes, white sugar. That sounds plausible. Maybe lime juice.

Ten minutes before dinner, I made a paste of brown sugar, cider vinegar, and salt and spread that on the meat, which was absolutely falling apart by this time, and put it under the broiler.

I served it with Boston lettuce to wrap the meat in, and the sauce to dip; plus the cucumber salad, and crunchy rice rolls. And a dish of plums, just to shake things up.

The meat came out SO NICE, and everything complemented each other so well.

Completely excellent meal.

That evening, I headed back to the peach mines and blanched another thirty-plus peaches, and made peach butter.

I followed this recipe, kind of, except I used far less brown sugar than she said, and bumped up the spices a bit. I love that it has cardamom.

You cook the peaches in pieces for a while,

then run it through a blender, then cook it some more. She says to cook it down for 10-15 minutes for the second cook, which I knew was going to be nonsense. I set it to a very low simmer and just let it go, uncovered, for something like three hours, stirring it occasionally.

Then I poured it into jars

and put it in the fridge. I think it’s already all spoken for, so I’ll have to make some more! It’s the consistency of thick applesauce, loose but spreadable. It will be so nice on toast. It would be spectacular on french toast, or hot scones, or bread pudding.

FRIDAY
Tuna noodle

Sophia, who is not back to school because she is taking a gap year to work and save up money, volunteered to make tuna noodle. I’m hoping and praying the dang jury reaches a verdict today so we can see Damien again someday! Maybe we’ll ditch the kids and go out for pizza tonight.

I plan to spend the weekend making as many stovetop or Instant Pot peach recipes as I can find — more peach butter, definitely; and peach salsa sounds tasty, and I am determined to make that peach-tomato-basil -burrata-prosciutto salad, and perhaps I will make more ice cream and grill the peaches. And eventually the oven will work again, and then I’ll — let’s face it, I’ll make more streusel because I will have eaten my stash, and then I’ll make another peach cobbler, and see if I can come up with something a little more solid. Or not. And peach muffins, and peach cheesecake!

I also dropped off bags of peaches with a few people, and called Vincent de Paul to see if they want peaches, Because, I don’t know if you guys realize this, but I have a lot of peaches.

This is the tree right meow, still:

Not suffocating under obscenely heavy clusters of fruit like it was before, but still, plenty of peaches!

And I’m sort of nervously keeping an eye on this situation:

But not yet! It’s not time to worry about that yet.

I . . I did plant another grape vine yesterday. Because what if we run out of fruit? WHAT IF WE RUN OUT OF FRUIT????

Oh, here is a photo of last Friday’s poke bowl, which turned out rather pretty.

Rice, ahi tuna, salt and pepper cashews, pea sprouts, sugar snap peas, and pickled mango on top, and watermelon and some kind of weird wafer cookies from Aldi on the plate. (They were supposed to be coconut wafers with caramel and sesame seeds, if I recall, but they were just sort of neutral wafers with caramel. Not bad, but not quite as exotic as the package promised.)

The pickled mango was a mistake! It was violently salty and spicy and not much else, with big chunks of rind. I was thinking it would be a sweetish chutney, but it was not! Live and learn.

And since I mentioned color at the top, check out this beaut.

I have about a dozen pumpkins growing nicely, but this is the biggest, brightest one. It took me 49 years to figure out what I’m really good at, and that thing is: Growing pumpkins. I’ll take it! I saved seeds from last year’s biggest jack-o’-lantern and planted them in composted soil, and that’s my whole secret.

The rest of it is just good soil. Good, good soil. I can’t take credit for it, but I’m glad.

taboon bread

You can make separate pieces, like pita bread, or you can make one giant slab of taboon. This makes enough to easily stretch over a 15x21" sheet pan.

Ingredients

6 cups bread flour
4 packets yeast
3 cups water
2 Tbsp salt
1/3 cup olive oil

Instructions

Mix the flour, salt, and yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer.
While it is running, add the olive oil. Then gradually add the water until the dough is soft and sticky. You may not need all of it. Let it run for a while to see if the dough will pull together before you need all the water. Knead or run with the dough hook for another few minutes.
Put the dough in a greased bowl, grease the top, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm spot for at least an hour until it has doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 400. Put a greased pan or a baking stone in the oven to heat up.
If you are making separate pieces, divide it now and cover with a damp cloth. If you're making one big taboon, just handle it a bit, then put it back in the bowl and cover it with a damp cloth. Let rest ten minutes.
Using a little flour, roll out the dough into the shape or shapes you want. Poke it all over with your fingertips to give it the characterstic dimpled appearance.
Bake for 10-12 minutes until it's just slightly browned.

What’s for supper? Vol. 390: In which it is still summer

Happy Friday! In haste, in haste, for I have spent the week dashing around trying to get all the summer things done while there’s still time, and have therefore put off doing my actual job, and now it is Friday and, while the wolf is not at the door yet, but it’s only a matter of time before he figures out GPS steered him wrong and we’re just a little ways down the street.

However, the hummingbirds are humming, the peaches are swelling, and it’s still summer, dammit. Sonny’s battle wounds from his little fracas last week are healing up just fine and haven’t slowed him down one tiny bit. My pictures are pretty terrible this week, not really sure why; but we had a couple pretty good meals, plus HOMEMADE ICE CREAM SANDWICHES.

And peaches. You simply cannot fathom the number of peaches.

SATURDAY
Chicken burgers, chips, watermelon

Just a regliar shopping day with a quick, easy meal. After supper, I WD40’d my clippers and attacked the chokecherry tree that’s been suffocating my blueberry bushes for many years, and I hope next year we’ll get more blueberries.

We did try making chokecherry syrup one year, and let me tell you, it tasted exactly like something called “chokecherry syrup.” Bleh. So the blueberries get the nod.

I offered to take the kids to the pond after dinner, and ONLY ONE PERSON WANTED TO GO. We used to spend alll summer at the pond, and the most devastating thing I could say was that it was time to leave. Ah well. Anyway, Benny and I went, and it was a little too nippy to swim, but we heard some loons and saw a gorgeous sunset.

A wonderful, blessed spot.

SUNDAY
Chinese food and McDonald’s

Sunday after Mass, we drove to Alewife and then took the T further into the city and got to Chinatown for the Harvest Moon Festival. A successful trip! We saw some lion dancers and other impressive performances on the street, and everyone got a snack from a bakery.

If I lived near a Chinese bakery, I would be 400 lbs and rising. I chose some kind of matcha cake with red bean filling. I would fight through miles of cake to get to red bean filling.

Then, as is traditional, I got bullied by a Chinese lady while buying tea on the street, and the kids all picked out some authentic tourist tchotchkes, and we got some smoothies with boba pearls, and heard lots of exciting drumming and singing. Good stuff.

We walked through The Boston Common, and Corrie got sopping wet in the fountain, and then we went in search of the Make Way for Ducklings Statues, but instead found “The Embrace.”

Now, this statue got a lot of derision when it was unveiled, and was fairly universally mocked and derided. You may have heard that this piece is an abject conceptual failure, and that there is no angle at which it looks anything other than obscene and grotesque. But now that we’ve been there, and walked all around it and touched it and experienced it first-hand, listen to me when I tell you: it’s so much worse in person.

It this a wienie statue? Is an homage to the idea of a giant bronze turd? It is an incredible work that truly invites the viewer to decide! Anyway, sorry about that, MLK.

Then we got back on the T, and Corrie dried off a bit in front of one of those enormous subway fans, and then we drove homeward, stopping for burgers and then stopping again for ice cream, because, believe it or not, the soft serve machine in the first McDonald’s was out of order. And then we got home and collapsed like bunches of broccoli, respectively.

MONDAY
Oven fried chicken, corn on the cob, lemony string beans

Monday I had promised I would go to Millie’s house and help her deal with her oriental bittersweet, which was taking over her mock orange tree. If you’re not familiar with oriental bittersweet, it’s a truly dreadful invasive vine that grows at a breakneck pace, climbs and twines around everything it touches and strangles it to death, and tunnels underground in several directions at once, so you can pull it up everywhere it sprouts and it still has secret infiltrations in a dozen other spots.

You have to attack it several times a year with clippers and glyphosate for several years to get on top of it, and then you find out your neighbor thought the flowers were pretty (which they are!) and was letting it grow, so you’re right back where you started. BOOOO.

So I got to Millie’s house with my clippers and herbicide feeling a little grim, and guess what? She doesn’t have bittersweet! She has a mock orange tree that has gone crazy with all the rain, and it was sending up tons of shoots that looked suspicious. So that was a happy ending. I weeded her garden and did some odds and ends, and then decided that as long as I had all my killing crap out, I might as well go home and tackle my own bittersweet. So I did that for about three hours, and I got . . . some of it. HORRIBLE STUFF.

But I was so glad that I had started prepping the chicken early in the day, because I was HONGRY by late afternoon. Here’s the recipe for oven fried chicken, which is several orders of magnitude easier than pan fried chicken, and I think it’s just as crispy and tasty.

Jump to Recipe

I had drumsticks and wings, which were on sale. While that was cooking, I boiled some corn on the cob and then quickly sautéed some string beans in butter and then squeezed a few lemons over them.

Not a great picture, but a terrific summer meal.

OH, was I hungry.

TUESDAY
Carnitas, guacamole and chips, fresh corn salad (?)

Tuesday morning, I started some pork cooking for carnitas.

Jump to Recipe

and then started on the guacamole. Some interfamilial fights broke out at this point, but luckily I couldn’t find my garlic press, so I needed someone to smash some garlic for me. Inviting the most upset person to walk away from sister and come smash some garlic is one of my best parenting tips; no charge.

And if the person in question believes a Rainbow Dash figurine to be the best possible tool for the job, then yes it is.

I forgot to buy tomatoes for the guac, but didn’t really miss them, so I may skip them going forward.

We had tons of corn leftover, so I cut it off the cobs and then just started adding likely-looking stuff to the bowl: kidney beans, black beans, canned tomatoes, diced chili peppers, lime juice, cayenne pepper, salt, cumin, and cilantro, if I remember right.

I knew perfectly well that nobody but me was going to eat it, and I was fine with that. I did have it for lunch a few times during the week. I love this kind of dish.

The carnitas turned out great. I seared the meat before putting it in the pot with the soda and oranges and whatnot, and I don’t know if that’s what made the difference or what, but it was so tasty.

Awkward photo, great little meal.

Corrie’s little pal came over and they ran around wrecking up the place for awhile, which is their charism. What a gift it is to see your kid playing with a good friend who’s just right.

We also tried out the little ice cream sandwich making device I got at Aldi for like $6. Benny made chocolate chip cookies and I had made some plain vanilla ice cream the night before, and spread it in a cake pan, rather than putting it in a tub to freeze.

It’s a very simple device: Just basically a cookie cutter with a handle and a plunger. You press it into the ice cream and then push the plunger and pop out a puck of ice cream.

After they made the ice cream sandwiches, they rolled the outside of the filling in mini chocolate chips.

Success!

I did a ton more yard work on Tuesday. The poor, overburdened peach tree is drooping very badly, and the peaches are very close to being ripe, so I decided to wait a few more days before picking them, and instead propped a bunch of wooden beams and ladders and whatnot under the branches.

I also pruned the rose bush (yes, I know it’s the wrong time of year, but this rose bush is like 60 years old and I think it can deal with it) and weeded out a ton of goldenrod and jewelweed and other intruders, and it looks so much better in front of the house now. To me, anyway. I tend to leave the piles of whatever I’ve clipped or weeded lying around for a day or so, just to impress Damien. He doesn’t necessarily notice when something outdoors looks much better, but the upside to this is that he also doesn’t notice when it looks horrible and overgrown! I used to wish we could switch brains temporarily so we could see how each other sees the world, but at this point, I think I would rather just leave it alone. I tell him when I did a good job on something, and point to the giant heap of refuse I created, and he praises and compliments me, and we’re both happy. There’s another fee tip for you.

WEDNESDAY
Sausage and pepper subs

Wednesday Benny had a couple friends over, so Damien handled dinner at home and I took the girls to the pond with some sandwiches and popcorn, fruit and cookies.

Then we got home and roasted marshmallows over the propane fire.

Summer things! Doing all the summer things!

THURSDAY
Lemon garlic shrimp pasta

Thursday, also went back to Millie’s house after Mass to help her with a dead mouse that turned out to be alive, and let me tell you, Millie and I ran around and screamed like cartoon characters, but eventually I had to acknowledge that I was the one in charge of this situation, and, well, if your stream is downstream from our stream and you see a mouse with its head stuck in a trap float by, just mind your business.

On Thursday another kid moved out. We now have only six kids at home, which means I only made two pounds of pasta for dinner.

I truly don’t know if this is an appropriate amount, because (a) I never, ever, ever learned how to judge how much pasta to make for any amount of people, and (b) I was making pasta with shrimp, and most of my kids hate shrimp.

I was a little nervous myself, since the last time I had shrimp, I was violently sick for a week. I don’t even remember why I decided to make it — shrimp was on sale, I guess — but it’s a good, easy recipe, and it turned out fine. And I found out that I am able to eat shrimp without fear and revulsion, but also the sparkle has gone out of it. I only had one little bowl of it and then I was ready to go somewhere else.

I realize this is normal behavior for other people, but shrimp used to be one of my absolute favorite treat foods, and the thing I ordered most often when we go to a restaurant. But now it’s just . . . fine. Ah well. Himmel und Erde müssen vergeh’n.

Aber das Eiscreme, aber das Eiscreme, aber des Eiscreme bleiben besteh’n! Oh yes, I made ice cream, and the kids made more cookies, so we have that going for us. This is now the third time I’ve churned ice cream inside a cooler with an ice pack, and I can definitively say the extra cold makes a difference! Comes out good and thick.

I spread it in a cake pan again, but it was still a little soft by evening, so we let it continue to freeze.

FRIDAY
Aldi pizza

Today after adoration we are going to see Clara in The Importance of Being Earnest, and . . . that appears to be all I wrote on the menu for today. So I guess I am picking up some Aldi pizza!And now they are making more ice cream sandwiches.

And there is still a little summer left. We’re going to Trap Falls this Sunday, most likely, and my eggplant is finally growing. I think my sugar snap peas are done for the year, so I’m probably gonna pull them out and throw some spinach seeds in that spot and get a second crop, which I’m not usually organized enough to do. I have maybe half a dozen lovely giant pumpkins growing, and also various squash ad gourds, and I found some Joe Pye Weed in the yard for the first time, which I’m unreasonably excited about.

And uh I found this at the thrift store:

We’re about to be hip deep in sweet little peaches in about 72 hours, as you can see here, and the throngs have demanded peach cobbler. That can be arranged.

Maybe also a peach burrata salad with prosciutto and balsamic glaze. Maybe grilled peaches with coconut ice cream and praline topping. Maybe peach marmalade. MAYBE JUST PEACHES.

Oven-fried chicken

so much easier than pan frying, and you still get that crisp skin and juicy meat

Ingredients

chicken parts (wings, drumsticks, thighs)
milk (enough to cover the chicken at least halfway up)
eggs (two eggs per cup of milk)
flour
your choice of seasonings (I usually use salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and chili powder)
oil and butter for cooking

Instructions

At least three hours before you start to cook, make an egg and milk mixture and salt it heavily, using two eggs per cup of milk, so there's enough to soak the chicken at least halfway up. Beat the eggs, add the milk, stir in salt, and let the chicken soak in this. This helps to make the chicken moist and tender.
About 40 minutes before dinner, turn the oven to 425, and put a pan with sides into the oven. I use a 15"x21" sheet pan and I put about a cup of oil and one or two sticks of butter. Let the pan and the butter and oil heat up.
While it is heating up, put a lot of flour in a bowl and add all your seasonings. Use more than you think is reasonable! Take the chicken parts out of the milk mixture and roll them around in the flour until they are coated on all sides.
Lay the floured chicken in the hot pan, skin side down. Let it cook for 25 minutes.
Flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes.
Check for doneness and serve immediately. It's also great cold.

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.

What’s for supper? Vol. 387 and 388: Water, water everywhere, and all the Fishers stink

Happy Friday! I didn’t get a WFS done last week because we were still on the road, and then, rather than unpacking, I spent the week personally unravelling. Something to do with kids moving out into their own apartments and me forgetting to refill my prescriptions, and 80% humidity and whatnot.

And then the water stopped working. Damien tried replacing the well pump switch, and that didn’t work. The guys are still down in the basement as I begin to write, getting dripped on and battling hanging insulation out of their faces.

At one point they asked me where the actual well was, and I, who have lived here for fifteen years, suddenly did not know. There are two wells on the property. One is defunct, and they’re both completely overgrown by briars because we wanted to discourage the kids from playing on them and turning into a tragic headline. So I led the repair guys to the briar patch I thought was more likely, and this involved me tripping over a canoe and then also tripping over some shit-smeared duck eggs that were lying around on the ground because our ducks are even worse housekeepers than I am.

Here they are, trying to eat a shoe.

Anyway, we still have no water, but the good news is, I don’t know what the good news is. Tra la la, it’s just money. It comes, it goes. Even money you don’t have goes! At least we have some duck eggs. And a shoe.

Anyway, we WERE on vacation on Peak’s Island off the coast of Portland, Maine, and it was VERY NICE.

I’ll just do a super quick run down of what we ate there, because it may interest you to know how a large family eats away from home without a big budget. The main thing to know is that we were staying on an island that is accessible only by ferry, and there is only one food market on the island, and that market charges . . .

$12.39 for a little jar of mayonnaise!

I didn’t even want mayonnaise that much, but really! There was also no grill outside, because this grassy, breezy little island is understandably finicky about not having fires started on it.

So I packed a lot of food! Sandwiches, pizzas, chicken drumsticks, a hunk of beef, ground beef, and hot dogs, fruit and frozen vegetables, ice pops, coffee and ice tea mix, and a bunch of cereal and crackers and snacks, milk, and two watermelons, and also two giant sacks of candy from the “je ne sais expiration dates pas” discount store.

Next time, I will remember to bring Fisher-sized cooking pots and pans, and at least a few decent knives, and a pizza cutter. I did bring heavy duty paper plates, and ziplock bags and trash bags, and I packed all the food in laundry baskets, which were useful for other stuff during the week.

SATURDAY:

We ate Market Basket pre-made subs while waiting for the ferry. And then we got on the ferry!

and got to the house and settled in.

I’m feeling super overwhelmed with photos, so this is lame, but I guess just please feel free to check out my Facebook page, where I posted all about our adventures all week. We climbed around on rocks, used a rope as a rappel line to get down to a little hidden beach, kayaked around the cove, went fishing, explored a dark and abandoned military fort, built cairns, found sea glass and pretty shells, visited the Umbrella Cover Museum, checked out a Civil War-era cemetery, and spent a day on the mainland and visited the Portland Museum of Art, and probably more that I’m forgetting!

Damien and I also decided at one point to take a “shortcut” around the perimeter of the island, rather than climbing up onto the road, and it turns out there’s a reason they built a road. Nice to know we still have the knack of goading each other into completely unnecessary stupid stunts. It was actually super fun and we giggled our heads off while almost plummeting to our deaths, and ended up emerging through the hedges into someone’s private garden party, oops.

And that was Peak’s Island!

So here’s what we ate:

SUNDAY:

Aldi pizza (you can stuff four of those extra-large pizzas into one of those soft insulated Aldi coolers)

MONDAY: Oven-fried chicken, mashed potatoes, watermelon.
For reference, here is my usual recipe for oven fried chicken:

Jump to Recipe

But here is what I made, based on things that were in the beach house and things I could bear to buy at Marché de Priceless Mayo:
I made a thin batter of eggs, milk, cornstarch, salt, pepper, and cumin, and then rolled in crushed corn flakes and baked in a hot oven in melted margarine (cheap) and olive oil (at the house). Corrie helped with this meal:

and it turned out okay, not amazing, but fine.

The mashed potatoes were instant from a box. I made lots and lots of chicken, and the kids had it for lunch, along with leftover pizza, for the next few days.

TUESDAY: Beef “stir fry” and rice. I made a somewhat dubious marinade of soy sauce, white sugar, fresh lime juice, and pepper, and cut the beef into strips to marinate. Then I microwaved the frozen veg I brought, and kept them warm on top of the pot of rice while I cooked up the meat.

Not ideal, but we were hungry and it was fine.

WEDNESDAY: Restaurant food, yay! We took the Ferry into Portland and went to the Portland Museum of Art, then ate at some restaurant by the water, I forget what. I had a sandwich stuffed with fried clams that the kids insisted I buy because they had a funny name.

Tittyleg Shorties or Bognipples or something like that. I don’t know why all clams have ridiculous names, but I’m not complaining.

Anyway, it was delicious food and the staff was super friendly.

THURSDAY: Hamburgers, more chips, and the other watermelon. I have no regrets about bringing two watermelons in the car.

FRIDAY: we spent the morning cleaning the house and packing, hopped on the ferry at the last possible moment, gassed up and loaded up on snacks at a 7-11, and started the drive home. My AC broke at the beginning of the trip, so it was kind of a long drive with the windows down and no radio (because it was too loud), but the kids were good sports.

We stopped and spent several hours at Hampton Beach, because I realized too late that most of the kids were really hoping for lots of sand and big waves on the same beach, which the island, for all its charms, simply doesn’t have. You either get huge, crashing waves on the windward side, which is rocky and dramatic and covered with wild roses and flailing mats of seaweed, or you have the leeward side, which is sandy when the tide goes out, but the water just laps mildly against you and it’s mostly pebbles. Also, it’s Maine, so your legs go numb in the water. Sorry, kids! Next time, we’ll go south instead of north.

Anyway, we got our Relatively Big Beach time in,

and I actually fell asleep on the beach, which I’ve never done before. Then everybody got giant slabs of fried dough, which tided us over until we got closer to home. Then I got lost, and my phone died, and the charger was in Damien’s car, and I had to rely on the kindness of strangers in Burger King, and then I realized I could just buy a new charger, and relied on the kindness of the gas station guy who helped me figure out which one to get. I thought I was having a fairly dramatic time getting home, but it turns out Damien had to stop several times and put more oil in his car, and then as soon as we got home, he had to fix a cracked oil something or other, so I guess he wins.

Anyway, it was lovely to be home, and the dog went absolutely apeshit. The cat, however, was furious, and has only just started talking to us again.

And that brings us up to this week!

SATURDAY
Well-travelled hot dogs

Yeah, we cooked and ate the hot dogs I brought to Maine and back. They were the nice, expensive kind of hot dogs, and I kept them cold the whole time, so there.

I took Benny and Corrie out to a local street fair thing, which we thought we had missed this year, but we didn’t. Good thing we went, because it turns out Warner Bros legal department is not cool with you making a Harry Potter-themed street fair, even if you euphemistically call it “Wizarding Week.” So they got a cease and desist and I guess that’s the end of that! It was really just a vendorpalooza plus some light satanism anyway, and the sorting hat put Benny in Slytherin, so the heck with them. We got our chocolate frogs and our 3D printed dragons and the kids were happy.

SUNDAY
Hamburgers again, grilled corn on the cob, chips

I did a little shopping, just to get us back in toilet paper and stuff, but I was sooo tired and confused and didn’t really know what day it was, so I only got a few day’s worth of food. I got pre-made hamburger patties and Damien cooked them on the grill, and he also grilled a bunch of corn on the cob, right in the husk.

I did shuck it before I ate it. It really turns out nice that way, very juicy and sweet.

MONDAY
Spaghetti carbonara, bread

People were feeling a little gloomy, so I cheered things up with duck egg carbonara

Here’s the carbonara recipe:

Jump to Recipe

If you look close, you can see that I didn’t stir it up fast enough, and the eggs went right ahead and scrambled themselves onto the pasta. Oh well! Still good!

TUESDAY
Terrible tacos

Just miserable tacos. I couldn’t find any of my seasonings, and I still hadn’t unpacked, and it was insanely humid, and things just went poorly all day. Oh well.

WEDNESDAY
Chicken shawarma and stuffed grape leaves

On Wednesday, I bullied myself into imitating a functioning adult, and started some chicken thighs marinating in the morning, and then spent the rest of the day dashing around from one seemingly urgent task to another — buying paint, trying to install a new overhead light fixture, loading up on half-dead plants on clearance at Home Depot, ordering a paper marbling kit and and new bathroom exhaust fan, looking up how to make fresh mozzarella — until Damien asked if I was okay. I stopped to think, and it turns out, not really! It turns out the drugs I take to keep myself on an even keel were actually working, and when I skip several weeks, things become less even! Why didn’t someone say something?

Anyway, the shawarma was very tasty,

Here that recipe:

Jump to Recipe

and I made some yogurt sauce

Jump to Recipe

and cut up a bunch of tomatoes and cucumbers, and gathered feta cheese, store-bought pita and various olives.

Then I sent the kids out to pick some grape leaves, because I got it into my head that we needed stuffed grape leaves. This inspiration didn’t propel me far enough to find the actual recipe I use, though, and I just chucked a bunch of stuff in rice (tons of fresh mint, salt and pepper, chicken broth, olive oil, and some green za’atar) and I also didn’t blanch the grape leaves.

Corrie said she knew how to roll grape leaves, and that was good enough for me.

Then I just shoveled them into the Instant Pot with some water, and squeezed a few lemons into it, and set it to cook for ten minutes.

Does it turn out good this way? NOT REALLY. I mean they were good in their way, but this is not really a recipe, and I can’t really recommend it.

HOWEVER, it was a great meal together, and I felt a little more like myself, having cooked something.

Then, right before bed, the water went out.

You said it, Hayao.

THURSDAY
One-pan kielbasa, potato, and broccoli

That was the plan, anyway, but I called the well people and they tramped all over the property and informed me that the thing that I have always thought was the well is actually the sewer, and they couldn’t find the well, even with . . . some kind of device which I’m sure isn’t a dowsing rod, but which is designed to find your well.

Anyway, it didn’t work, and it wasn’t until about 45 minutes after they left that I got mad enough to find it myself. So that cost $300, and then I called them back to say I found it, and they said they’d be back tomorrow to do the rest, which is going to be about $3,000, or maybe $5,000, who can say. I called my homeowner’s insurance agent, and apparently we don’t have an entropy rider, so that’s-a no good.

At least we have duck eggs. Which I would wash, if I had some water. But it could be worse! The well is apparently from 1982, and sometimes well heads from that era were buried, for some reason. So at least we haven’t had to use our fake money that we don’t have to hire an excavator to find the well! Yay!

Damien used the sump pump to fill the bathtub full of stream water, and showed the kids how to dip up a bucket of it and dump it into the toilet to make it flush. Then, and it is not clear how, exactly, but somehow, in a very police-involved shooting kind of voice, the toilet got broken. Only on the top part, though, so it’s not like we’re having a bad time here.

Oh, anyway we decided to have Aldi pizza, because you can eat them directly off cardboard.

FRIDAY
Grilled cheese

The well guys are here and so far, they have spent forty minutes weed whacking, and then they knocked on the door and said, “Okay, so WHERE is the well?” So I showed them. The ducks are absolutely amazed. We’re all amazed. Corrie is siting next to me on the couch, watching me write and telling me where I should have added a comma. So I’ve got that going for me, as well.

The kid who moved out likes her new apartment, the kid who moved into the newly-free room is delighted with her new room, and we found the gorilla mask that Irene bought to wear to her first dance. See, water isn’t everything.

And that’s my story! It’s not a good story, but I wasn’t sure I would ever get to the end of this post, but I did. If you’re here, too, congratulations. Excelsior.

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Oven-fried chicken so much easier than pan frying, and you still get that crisp skin and juicy meat – chicken parts (wings, drumsticks, thighs) – milk (enough to cover the chicken at least halfway up) – eggs (two eggs per cup of milk) – flour – your choice of seasonings (I usually use salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and chili powder) – oil and butter for cooking 1) At least three hours before you start to cook, make an egg and milk mixture and salt it heavily, using two eggs per cup of milk, so there’s enough to soak the chicken at least halfway up. Beat the eggs, add the milk, stir in salt, and let the chicken soak in this. This helps to make the chicken moist and tender. 2) About 40 minutes before dinner, turn the oven to 425, and put a pan with sides into the oven. I use a 15″x21″ sheet pan and I put about a cup of oil and one or two sticks of butter. Let the pan and the butter and oil heat up. 3) While it is heating up, put a lot of flour in a bowl and add all your seasonings. Use more than you think is reasonable! Take the chicken parts out of the milk mixture and roll them around in the flour until they are coated on all sides. 4) Lay the floured chicken in the hot pan, skin side down. Let it cook for 25 minutes. 5) Flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes. 6) Check for doneness and serve immediately. It’s also great cold.

Oven-fried chicken

so much easier than pan frying, and you still get that crisp skin and juicy meat

Ingredients

chicken parts (wings, drumsticks, thighs)
milk (enough to cover the chicken at least halfway up)
eggs (two eggs per cup of milk)
flour
your choice of seasonings (I usually use salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and chili powder)
oil and butter for cooking

Instructions

At least three hours before you start to cook, make an egg and milk mixture and salt it heavily, using two eggs per cup of milk, so there's enough to soak the chicken at least halfway up. Beat the eggs, add the milk, stir in salt, and let the chicken soak in this. This helps to make the chicken moist and tender.
About 40 minutes before dinner, turn the oven to 425, and put a pan with sides into the oven. I use a 15"x21" sheet pan and I put about a cup of oil and one or two sticks of butter. Let the pan and the butter and oil heat up.
While it is heating up, put a lot of flour in a bowl and add all your seasonings. Use more than you think is reasonable! Take the chicken parts out of the milk mixture and roll them around in the flour until they are coated on all sides.
Lay the floured chicken in the hot pan, skin side down. Let it cook for 25 minutes.
Flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes.
Check for doneness and serve immediately. It's also great cold.

Spaghetti carbonara

An easy, delicious meal.

Ingredients

3 lbs bacon
3 lbs spaghetti
1 to 1-1/2 sticks butter
6 eggs, beaten
lots of pepper
6-8 oz grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

Fry the bacon until it is crisp. Drain and break it into pieces.
Boil the spaghetti in salted water until al dente. If you like, add some bacon grease to the boiling water.
Drain the spaghetti and return it to the pot. Add the butter, pieces of bacon, parmesan cheese, and pepper and mix it up until the butter is melted.
Add the raw beaten egg and mix it quickly until the spaghetti is coated. Serve immediately.

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
1 tsp cinnamon
1 entire head garlic, crushed

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). 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.

Yogurt sauce

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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

What’s for supper? Vol. 384: One caprese summer (relics notwithstanding)

Happy Friday! I had a week that was just plain weird.

Let me tell you about it, and also what we ate.

SATURDAY
Nachos

Saturday I was still in the grips of whatever it was that made food into my mortal enemy last week. I went grocery shopping verrrrry slowly and cautiously, and then came home and made nachos, but did not take a photo, because I can buy food and make food, and even eat a little bit of food, but apparently pointing a camera at it is a bridge too far.

My nachos are not terribly inspiring anyway. I just cook and season some ground beef and sprinkle it over tortilla chips, throw some jalapeños over that, and cover it with shredded cheese, then heat it up, and serve it with sour cream and salsa. It’s one of those dishes I don’t really want to start making better, because then people will expect it, and I need to preserve some quick and brainless meal preps for myself.

In the afternoon, I rested for a bit and then to the flower farm up at the top of the hill, because the rabbits gobbled my beloved poppies up, and I was just feeling tragic about my garden and its stubs. It had been murderously hot and and humid for several days, but it suddenly turned cloudy and breezy, and flower son stood gazing at the horizon, and said, “. . . In about five minutes.” And then it started to sprinkle.

So I scurried around grabbing what I came for (perennial dianthus, tickweed, and some eggplants), but not fast enough. SUCH A DOWNPOUR. I briefly turned into Fielding Mellish

But I got my flars!

SUNDAY
Grab whatever

Sunday was a little rough. I ended up having to leave Mass early and go sit in the car because I was feeling so blehhhhh. Not too bleh to take a selfie because my hair was having a nice day, though.

Clara and Damien went to a Bonny Light Horsemen concert, and a bunch of the other kids were doing this and that, so I couldn’t work up the enthusiasm to cook anything for the small group that was left. I may have had a bagel, but I truly don’t remember.

MONDAY
Steak and peach salad

Monday I was feeling quite a bit better, and agreed to take the kids to the library. Then on the way home, I remembered we needed duck food; and then the exit from the feed store is a weird traffic spot where it’s hard to turn left, so I decided to go right and take the long way home, and as long as we were on that road, I asked the kids if they wanted to hit the Salvation Army.

And that is how I found the first class relics of Saint Peter, Apostle, and St. Helena, Empress.

I am not kidding. They were in the jewelry case for $3 each and I was like, “oh, um, could I see those little round pieces, please?” and then I was like, “um, oh, I will take them, please.” I zipped them into my Vera Bradley wallet, because I didn’t know what else to do. And that is where they still are, actually.

I didn’t have my reading glasses onat the store, so I couldn’t read the little labels until I got home. It just felt too insane to take in, and still does.

But I carefully unscrewed the backs

and saw this:

I talked to Sean Pilcher of Sacra Relics and sent some photos, and he said they are “doubtlessly authentic,” and that the wax seal inside is the seal of Giuseppe Nicolini, the bishop of Assisi who founded the Assisi Network that saved hundreds of Jews during World War II.

So.

I have relics. Most likely.

I still have to pack them up and send them over to be cleaned and repaired, and I hope they can be documented. Pilcher said one of the major misconceptions about relics is that Catholics expect you to accept on blind faith that they are what we say they are; but actually it’s a pretty rigorous process of authentication that draws on expertise from several different fields. So we shall see!

In the mean time, it sure looks like our household picked up a couple of amazing new friends. I’m working on writing a long piece about it, and just trying to understand what it could possibly mean that I’m temporarily sharing a bedroom with some nearly 2000-year-old bone fragments of a man who was chosen by Jesus to be the rock on which the Church is built, and the woman who found the true cross. I’m open to ideas! I’m open to all kinds of things.

My sister and her husband are making a reliquary for them, for as long as they will be in our house, and I’m waiting to hear back from my pastor about whether our parish wants and can accommodate them, and I talked further with Sean Pilcher and left some messages with Fr. Carlos Martins who hosts Treasures of the Church. My first goal is to have them as local as possible, with as much access for the faithful as possible.

I just. I don’t know. At first I was frightened and distressed, but now I am growing attached.

Told you I was having a weird week! And yes, I did go back to the Salvation Army to see if there was . . . anything else. Which there was not, except for a silly nicknack from Target or something that looks exactly like a monstrance, except with a mirror in the middle. I talked to the manager about what I had found, and she said that, if someone drops off relics again, they will call a priest. (I was like, “So, for future reference, these are human remains. . . ” and she was like, “We can’t know everything!” and I was like “OH, I KNOW.”)

But! Relics none the less, I still needed to make supper. And this is still a food blog. So.

London broil was on sale, so I got four nice cuts. I seasoned them with salt and pepper, heated a skillet up screamingly hot and melted some butter on it, and then seared each steak for three or four minutes per side.

Very nice.

Some of it was a little underdone, even for us, so I threw those pieces back in the pan and finished them up while I cut up a bunch of peaches. So we had mixed greens, beef strips, peaches, crumbled goat cheese, and a sweet vinaigrette.

Superb. I was feeling extremely depleted in general, so some lovely rare beef really hit the spot.

TUESDAY
Corn dogs and chips

Tuesday I was feeling very much better, and RELICS NONETHELESS, I scurried around getting caught up on weeding and mulching and yard work. The grass was pretty high, and that is how I mowed right over an aerosol can of bug spray, which exploded with a bang and a cloud. No biggie, I have St. Peter and St. Helen in charge of the house now. I can run over whatever I want!

I’m just talking. I don’t know what is going on, for real.

WEDNESDAY
Caprese pasta

Wednesday was our long-anticipated annual dumpstravaganza, relics howbeit. The kids cheerfully and willingly, just kidding, helped me drag a year’s worth of clutter and horrible crap from the yard into the driveway

and then I ruthlessly cleared off the porch, and four trips to the dump later, it looks like human beings live here.

You know you’re having a wonderful day when the dump guy asks if you’re okay. I was okay! I was just hot and exhausted and deep in “WE HAVE TO THROW EVERYTHING OUT AND WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THESE PEOPLE AND WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THIS HOUSE” mode. You’d think a dump guy would be familiar with that look, honestly.

Got home and decided to tear down the vines that I had spent the last five or six years cultivating to grow over the porch to disguise its shabbiness. I had ordered Concord grape vines, which arrived as bare roots. I dutifully watered and fertilized and trained them, and was so excited that they finally started putting out fruit last year! And that is when I discovered that I may have ordered grape vines, but what they sent me were actually porcelain berry, which is poisonous and invasive. LE SIGH. So we’re starting over.

Around 5:00, I saw to my dismay that I had scheduled myself to make a brand new recipe, which wasn’t ideal for how hot and pissed off I already was, but I didn’t want to waste the tomatoes and basil I had bought. So I made this caprese pasta from Sip and Feast.

Tiny little bit of prep work

but it came together very fast, and I thought it was delicious.

Tasted exactly like what it was, of course (you can’t see it, but there are hunks of half-melted fresh mozzarella in there, and a good amount of red pepper flakes), which is a good thing. Lovely summer dish.

And now the last three times I made pasta, I did not overcook it! I can learn.

THURSDAY
Pizza

On Thursday (relics regardlessly) I finally finally finally got back to working on the deck. In my old age, I have gained enough wisdom to realize that nobody who is feeling weak and shaky needs to be messing with a Sawzall, so I kept putting it off and putting it off.

But Thursday I was ready, and I got so much done. I took out the bad joist and put in a new joist with different hardware (and it fit, and *ahem* I rejoist) and cut and installed some floor planks, to close up the gap between the original structure and the new platform

Before:

and after:

Then I added a post on one corner and reinforced it with a sort of sheath of two long boards; and then I put a bottom sort of kickboard thingy (I don’t know what you call anything) and a top railing on.

So today, all I need to do is buy some spindles or something, to fill in the railing, and then paint or stain it all, and it will be DONE.

I really wanted stairs for it, but that will be next year’s project. It has a ladder on one end and a climbing wall on the other, so it’s easy enough to get up and down. I know this, because I did it approximately 927 times yesterday, because I am constitutionally incapable of thinking about what tools I will need before I climb up a ladder.

I am so pleased with how it’s turning out. I know it still looks very much like something that most people would be finally getting around to getting rid of; but it’s quite stable and strong, and the kids like hanging out of it. Once it’s had a little sanding and it’s all one color, I think it will look a lot more reputable. I have a vision, I tell you! And my secret is being too dumb to stop even when I realize I don’t know what I’m doing.

Clara kindly made pizza for us. One pepperoni, one cheese, and one with leftover goat cheese, leftover basil, and red onion, which was fantastic. I forgot to eat all day, so believe me when I tell you. That was some good pizza. Relics notwithstanding.

FRIDAY
Fish tacos

Just tortillas, frozen breaded fish, avocados, salsa, and sour cream. I just this moment realized this is supposed to have shredded cabbage on it, which I forgot to buy. Maybe I will chop up some collard greens, which are coming in nicely and desperately need thinning.

Oh, and fish tacos are supposed to have cilantro and limes. WELL, maybe I will go to the store. Maybe I’ll go to Aldi and find the Ark of the Covenant, who knows?

Also, in relics notwithstanding news, I think I can say for certain that the weight loss I experienced when I was in full on NO FOOD NO HOW mode was not “just water weight.” I lost nine pounds when I was super sick, but I’ve been back to eating normal food for several days now, and, deliberately riding the wave of encouragement from having lost nine pounds, I lost another three pounds, meaning I’m back under The Terrible Number once again.

My only regret is that I’m still revolted by even the idea of shrimp. Shrimp used to be my all-time favorite luxury treat, and now it feel like more of a threat. But you know, when I was about six, I had some Crackerjacks and then threw up out the window of my grandfather’s Toyota on the New Jersey Turnpike, and it was years and years before I could even think of Crackerjacks again. But now I can! Crackerjacks, crackerjacks. See? I’m fine. So I’m sure someday I’ll live to shrimp again.

And that was my week! Headed to adoration in a bit, and I will ask St. Peter and St. Helena to watch over all of you, and make your collards grow or your power tools behave or your fat melt or your kids be helpful or whatever it is that you need. It’s on the house, especially if you’re too dumb to stop when you realize you don’t know what you’re doing. What a world.

What’s for supper? Vol. 383: In which I finally take portion control seriously

Happy Friday! I just had a cup of coffee! For the first time since last Friday.

And I am now in the awkward position of trying to write a food post after a week of almost comically violent food poisoning, in which I not only didn’t eat supper, I didn’t eat anything for three days, and for the rest of the week, just bananas, rice, applesauce, toast, Gatorade, and Coke Zero, and literally not one other thing. Well, except for one ill-advised bowl of oatmeal, but that hardly counts, because its stay with me was so brief.

But I had coffee today! It was a little scary, and it hurt a little bit, but I drank the whole thing. Amazing.

SO, here’s what some of us ate this week:

SATURDAY
Saturday I think Damien made burgers. I got sick Friday evening and by Saturday I was absolutely zonked and could barely think over the sound of my teeth chattering.

SUNDAY
Sunday I don’t know what they had. Very focused on trying to persuade my stomach that water was nothing to be afraid of, but no dice. Had to use labor and delivery breathing to get through the night, and I was starting to wonder if I should go to the hospital, because I was starting to be alarmed at the sheer ferocity of the way my body was behaving. Crazy.

MONDAY
I think pizza rolls? I don’t know. On Monday I could focus my eyes and shuffle around a little, which was exciting. I think it was Monday that I suddenly remembered Imodium exists, and started the BRAT diet.

TUESDAY
Tuesday they had hot dogs, and I was most definitely feeling better. I slowly and laboriously put together an Instacart order for the rest of the week, ate some toast and chewed it forty thousand times per bite, and then went back to bed.

WEDNESDAY
Wednesday I felt quite a bit better and even went outside for a bit. Tried not to weep over the state of my garden and especially my poor peach tree, which I had started culling and didn’t finish, and now I’m very afraid it’s going to split under the weight of all those peaches.

Damien did a whole bunch of culling for me, and I hope that will save the tree! I did a little weeding.

I ordered a few Southwest chopped salad kits and two bags of frozen chicken strips, and served that with spinach and some kind of orange dressing. I had rice and a banana.

THURSDAY
Thursday I felt significantly better, and spent the day resting up for the evening, so we could go to the NH Press Association awards dinner. Damien won FOUR awards. Four!

He had chicken piccata, butternut squash ravioli, rolls, and cake. I had a bottle of water and two rolls. The kids at home had deli sandwiches and sweet peppers.

FRIDAY
The kids asked for ravioli, even though I warned them it was going to be hot. Maybe they will eat frozen ravioli. They used to eat frozen peas and mixed veggies when they were little. I myself intend to stay with BRAT at least through today! Maybe I’ll have frozen BRAT for a little treat. But I am feeling so much better. And I had coffee!

SO, WHAT DID I LEARN? Because there always has to be a lesson.

Number one, people with chronic illnesses are my heroes. It was just so demoralizing to be in so much pain and to not be able to do anything I wanted to do, and to have to constantly argue with myself that I really am sick and really cannot just get it together and get some stuff done. And I knew it was just a temporary thing, and I would get better! I am just in awe of people who suffer every day and still manage to talk about something else sometimes.

Number one, ever since Ozempic and all those type drugs started making the headlines, I’ve had this little voice in my head like, ,. . . . maybe. . . . maybe . . . But it has completely shut up. I’m genuinely so glad for people who need those drugs, and for whom they work well, but that is not me. Newp.

Number three, I forget what three is for. Oh, I need to chew better.

Sorry, this was a completely unedifying and disgusting post, but I truly have nothing else going on right now. I have so much catching up to do, and I’m so tired! But very grateful to my family, especially Damien, who not only took care of everything and everybody, but constantly reassured me that I wasn’t exaggerating or just trying to get attention, and that I should just rest and recover.

Oh wait, number four is I lost nine pounds. I know, blah blah blah all that matters is your health and so on, but I’ll tell you what, I really try not to squander golden tickets. I’ve got a full week of portion control, zero snacking, and prudent and careful food choices under my belt, and I am gonna do my best to maintain that while gradually reintroducing actual food.

And that’s-a my story!

What’s for supper? Vol. 382: All hands on deck

IS it Friday? Apparently it is Friday! Happy Friday. Today, the last kid has her last day of school (the other schools let out last month, last week, and earlier this week, respectively).

We’ve had hot, sunny weather all week, and countless numbers of ceremonies and little parties and I don’t even know what else, and I’ve been spending every spare minute working on the pool deck, and it just this minute started raining. Which is good, because I have been neglecting my garden in favor of working on the deck.

We had some quick but delicious meals this week, with a real summery feel to them. Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY

Saturday was Sophia’s graduation! Little Baby New Year, all done with high school.

Our first kid to graduate from Catholic high school. And that’s six out of ten kids done with high school!

After graduation she went to a friend’s party, and then we went out to eat, to the restaurant of her choice. Which was CHILI’S, because we have raised her right. Then we got ice cream, and I picked ginger ice cream, which is now on my list of things to make this summer. So refreshing. I want to make ginger ice cream with coconut, and mango ice cream with pecans, or some combination like that.

SUNDAY
Roast beef sandwiches with swiss and chimichurri

Sunday after Mass I made some chimichurri

Jump to Recipe

and got started on the deck, and Damien cooked the roast beef. I attached three legs with carriage bolts on one side and screwed a big X, to reinforce it.

I didn’t bother trying to make the legs even because the ground is so uneven. Just literally leaning into that whole situation.

I’m using all salvaged wood, so a lot of the work is removing old nails and screws and extra bits of wood, and also I’m determined to do as much by myself as possible, so everything took a million billion years, and I truly don’t know what I’m doing, andI disturbed an awful lot of angry ants, so by the time it was dinner, boy oh boy, did that sandwich taste good.

Damien cooked the meat by seasoning it very heavily, like absolutely crusty, with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and then he sears it in hot oil with a bunch of whole garlic cloves. Then he roasts it at 350 for about 45 minutes, and begins checking it for doneness. We like it quite rare, and it turned out juicy and tender and perfect.

The chimichurri was also excellent.

Jump to Recipe

It’s like the flavor equivalent of if a toddler who just took a bath and escapes from his mother and goes and rolls around in the newly-mowed grass, and it’s the best thing that ever happened to him.

MONDAY
Scrambled duck eggs with sausage on homemade biscuits

I prepped the biscuit dough in the morning, mixing the dry ingredients in one bowl, and the eggs and milk in another, and I shredded the butter on a box grater and then froze it. (If I’m going to make the dough right away, I freeze the butter first, and then grate it directly into the dry ingredients.)

Jump to Recipe

Spent some more time on the deck, drilling out the holes for the leg bolts. I couldn’t put the legs on yet, because the deck still needed to be flipped, and I didn’t want it to be too heavy. I also worked on leveling out the ground to seat the post bases, close enough so you can jump off the deck into the pool, but not so close that it damages the pool.

As I dug and measured and dug again and measured again and cussed and dug, I started having some massive flashbacks of the neverending pool prep we did a few years ago, when we kept digging and digging, trying to find some magical, mystical strata of ground that was not rocky (so it wouldn’t ruin the pool floor) but level (so the pool wouldn’t tip over), and every time we removed a rock, it turned out to be a GIANT ENORMOUS BOULDER, and when we got it out, ope, look at that, the ground wasn’t level anymore. And we DID truck in sand to level it off, but somehow it wasn’t that simple, and I remember it taking something like seventeen years to finish. So that’s why I want to do the deck myself! Because if I’m gonna suffer, at least I’ll only have one person mad at me (myself).

So about half an hour before dinner I rushed in started sausages cooking, and threw the biscuit dough together, and baked twelve enormous biscuits. They turned out with a wonderful texture, just pillowy soft inside with a thin, crackly, buttery shell on the outside

but they tasted like straight baking soda. I have no idea what happened. Same recipe I always use. Is it because I broke up the assembly process? Is it because the butter was frozen? No idea. But I scrambled up a bunch of eggs and had the kids make orange juice, and it was a good enough meal.

After dinner I did get the kids to help me flip the deck over into the bases, and then while they held it, I attached the other three legs.

Not! Quite! Straight! But pretty close. And, unlike me, more stable than it looks.

TUESDAY
Tacos

Totally Unremarkable Tacos.

I took this picture of my taco resting on the arm of the living room chair, and you can see the piles of projects the kids brought home and boxes of miscellaneous stuff cleared out of the laundry room so Damien could work on the dryer and the living room not having been cleaned because I have been working on my deck and not yelling at people to clean more, and just THINGS AND STUFF EVERYWHERE. It’s fine. All manner of things shall be fine. But as you can see, it seemed like too much work to put salsa on. Startin to get a little tired.

WEDNESDAY
Italian sandwiches, chips, watermelon, birthday cake

Tuesday, Dora and her friend came over to belatedly celebrate her birthday. I scurried around getting the sharpest wood scraps out of the yard, and made a bunch of meat and cheese platters

and we had nice sandwiches

and Clara made a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. Sadly, she ran out of time and wasn’t able to complete her plan, which was to recreate the Carvel cake that Kelsey Grammar and Jenna order to pull the misspelled cake refund con. So the cake just said FRAJER and we all had to just sort of sit with our choices in life.

I heard it was delicious, though, unsurprisingly. Clara’s very good.
And if I may toot my own horn for a mo, I’m sometimes pretty good at buying birthday presents

It was a book from her childhood, which we have been trying to remember the name of for years and years and years.

It’s about an alligator, and whenever I described it, everyone always thought I was talking about Lyle Lyle Crocodile. No! Not Lyle! I know I sound like the guy who is convinced there is a little mouse with a big hat, and he goes very fast, but no, NOT Speedy Gonzales. He’s a mouse! Anyway, she liked her present. Phew.

I also did some laughably bad work on the deck, reinforcing the legs on the other long end

It was just one of those “all it has to do is not fall down” moments, and I think I arrived. The X I made on the first side has one plank on the inside of the legs crossing over the plank on the outside , but this second side of the deck is too close to the pool wall, so it had to — you know what, never mind. I’m the one who has to live with this; why should you get involved? It’s fine.

THURSDAY
Poke bowls, potstickers

Thursday I attached a ladder to the short end of the deck

and reinforced the legs a bit more, replaced a few planks on top, annnnd started removing the side of the existing lifeguard station thingy on the other short end, with the intent of making it all into one big deck. Which wasn’t the original plan, but what is, these days?

This may or may not work out. But it may! I added a fairly chimpy joist to join the two platforms, and now I need to buy some hardware to reinforce that, and then I can start adding to the floor, and putting up a railing.

I haven’t yet decided what to do with the one long end that you see when you look straight at the pool. I have some pallets I could just attach to it, to make it more finished, kinda like this, but two of them

Or I could just attach some kind of other wood. I’m really trying to use just salvaged wood and only buy hardware, so I dunno. I may just save it for another year. My plan is to build steps to replace the ladder next year, and I’m going to stain it when I’m done building this year.

Dinner was blessedly simple. I had remembered to take the ahi tuna out of the freezer in the morning, and although the cat did find it and start nefariously dragging it across the house like an absolute cartoon character, it was double bagged, so it survived. I started some good rice in the instant pot, got Clara to cut up a bunch of mangos, chopped up some sugar snap peas, and diced up some ahi tuna. So we had rice, tuna, mango, pea sprouts, sugar snap peas, and those spicy chili lime cashews from Aldi, and also the hot sweet Polynesian sauce from Aldi.

It was SO spicy, but incredibly tasty. What an entertaining treat this meal is. 100% mouth party time.

I wasn’t sure there would be enough food, so I grabbed a couple of bags of frozen potstickers from Alid and just boiled ’em. Everyone was pleased.

FRIDAY
Not actually sure

Last Friday (after I shared last week’s food post), I made lemon garlic shrimp on pasta, and it turned out spectacular.

I used this Sip and Feast recipe and I’m probably gonna make this exact thing again this Friday, because this time the other store had a sale on shrimp and I’m not made of stone. The recipe has a couple more steps than I would do if I were just throwing it together on intuition, but it’s totally worth it. Every flavor just popped right out, and the texture of the shrimp was absolutely perfect.

Sophia is talking about celebrating the honest-to-goodness start of summer by taking the other kids out for pizza, and if that doesn’t pan out, there is tuna in the house, so there will be something for every palate.

Oh, last Friday was also the feast of the Sacred Heart, so I also made something I’ve had my eye on for a while: Coeur à la Crème, following this recipe from Mon Petit Four. It was really quite easy, and I think I will make it every year for the solemnity. I need to work on the presentation, but I did achieve that Catholic What-The-Hell-Am-I-Actually-Eating feel.

and everybody thought it tasted good. I thought it would be like cheesecake, dense and heavy, with a light garnish of fruit, but it was actually kind of reversed: A thick, intense fruit compote on top of an airy, not-too-sweet creamy heart. Very pleasant.

I didn’t have blackberries the recipe called for, so instead I made a compote with about a pound of strawberries and a pint of blueberries, to which I added two or three tablespoons of sugar and two tablespoons of water.

I simmered it for a bit and mashed it from time to time, and then mixed in a good slug of lilac jelly; and then I spooned out some of the liquid and mixed it with a few tablespoons of cornstarch, and added that back into the sauce, cooked it for a bit longer, and then took it off the heat and let it cool until dessert time.

I don’t think I mentioned what the lilac syrup tastes like! It’s lovely. It does taste floral, but different from rosewater (which I don’t really like). It is sweet, of course, and a little bit citrusy, but not cloyingly sweet, and it just has a bright, lively but not too intense flavor, faintly like blueberry but brighter. I really like it, although it never completely gelled and is more like a very thick syrup than jelly. I think next year, I will put some of the lilac petals into the food processor and put them into the jelly, to give it a little more body.

Oh, so I made a double recipe of the cream part, and one was in a large silicone heart mold, lined with cheesecloth as the recipe suggested. The rest, I made in small heart molds sprayed with cooking spray, and they did not come out at all. We had to spoon them out. Lesson learned!

I also learned you can help your cream cheese achieve room temperature by not going shopping until the very last minute, and panicking a bit on the ride home

But like I said, it was hot and sunny!

And now, like I said, it is raining, so I can’t work on the deck, but can only sit here and think happily about not having to water my poor, neglected garden. I think I put 500 miles on the car this week, just to-and-fro-and-to-and-fro, and I’m so happy about today finally being the last day of school, you cannot imagine. I bought Corrie a wooden crow call for some reason, so we have that going for us.

While I have been doing my completely voluntary deck and bridge projects, Damien has been incredibly busy with far less glamorous projects: The dryer, of course, and his car, and my car, and Moe’s car, and Lena’s car, and now today the dishwasher, and I’m almost certainly forgetting some stuff. The things that man has taught himself how to do just blows my mind. Somebody should make him some shrimp, at the very least.

Chimichurri

Dipping sauce, marinade, you name it

Ingredients

2 cups curly parsley
1 cup Italian parsley
1/4 cup dried oregano (or fresh if you have it)
1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
2 Tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 cup olive oil

Instructions

Put all ingredients except olive oil in food processor. Whir until it's blended but a little chunky.
Slowly pour olive oil in while continuing to blend.

moron biscuits

Because I've been trying all my life to make nice biscuits and I was too much of a moron, until I discovered this recipe. It has egg and cream of tartar, which is weird, but they come out great every time. Flaky little crust, lovely, lofty insides, rich, buttery taste.

Ingredients

6 cups flour
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
8 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cream of tartar
1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, chilled
2 eggs
2 cups milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450.
In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and cream of tartar.
Grate the chilled butter with a box grater into the dry ingredients.
Stir in the milk and egg and mix until just combined. Don't overwork it. It's fine to see little bits of butter.
On a floured surface, knead the dough 10-15 times. If it's very sticky, add a little flour.
With your hands, press the dough out until it's about an inch thick. Cut biscuits. Depending on the size, you can probably get 20 medium-sized biscuits with this recipe.
Grease a pan and bake for 10-15 minutes or until tops are golden brown.

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