Tag: What’s for Supper?

What’s for supper? Vol. 331: Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb

Happy Friday! Are you ready for some PEPPERSSSSSS!!!!!!!

But first, just like old times, there’s a little dust-up going on in my combox, which began when one reader wanted to know how it is that I’m over here eating kale salads and lean protein crumbles, but yet feeding my kids buttered corn dog nuggets and hot salt slop noodle casserole pie. A few readers jumped to my defense, which I appreciate very much, but the real answer is simple: I don’t like my kids. Please address any further questions to my menu planning assistant, who can be contacted here.  

I kid, I kid. I love yez all, more or less. 

The real question of the day is, WHAT DO WE DO WITH ALL THIS RHUBARB? 

Short version, I planted a rhubarb root in early spring, and it didn’t come up at all, but by the time I had given up hope, nobody in town was selling rhubarb anymore. Or so I thought! I stopped by the Cheshire Floral Farm, honestly mainly just to cheer myself up, because it’s so pretty up there. It’s a nursery built on top of a hill, and it’s the cleanest air I’ve ever breathed in my life. Even the birdsong has a special clarity, because the air is so clear. The man who owns it is 74 years old, and he has thousands and thousands of plants which he appears to know intimately, individually, and everything is thriving. He showed me the rows of pots with seedlings he has prepped for next spring. Next spring!

So I mentioned rhubarb, and he started hiking up to the top of the hill, and I panted up after him. There were half a dozen potted rhubarb plants about two feet high, and half a dozen smaller ones. He said, “This rhubarb has a history, you know.” It started as a plant in England that his grandfather grew, and they divided the root and brought it over, and he planted it here in New England, and off it went. I chose a smaller plant, and he knocked the seeds off and told me to dig a deep hole and fill it with manure. Then he kept walking up hill, so I followed, panting. We went through a gate, across a lawn, past a garden, and around a shed, and there, my friends, were three rhubarb plants, each as big as a Volkswagon Bug. He snapped off three stalks and presented them to me. 

So now I have rhubarb! Rhubarb for now, and for tomorrow, and for all my days to come, if I don’t screw it up. Usually I just make strawberry rhubarb pie, because it’s expensive and I only get it once a year, and that’s my favorite treat. But now I have plenty! What else do you like to make? Pickled rhubarb? Rhubarb jam? 

He also said you can chop up the poisonous leaves along with some tobacco leaves, boil them, and make an insecticide, which you use as a spray. I’ll probably leave that one alone, but I love knowing that there’s a use for the leaves besides murder. 

Okay! So here’s what we ate this week. And I apologize in advance, but I added in a lot of medical complaining, because it was that kind of week. 

SATURDAY
Hot dogs

H.O.T. D.O.G.S., and I think fries

SUNDAY
Cuban sandwiches, coleslaw, fruit salad

Sunday I took a big step forward with the patio, finally. I salvaged some pressure treated lumber from various old projects, and shoved them in around the perimeter, and staked them in place with lawn stakes. I rented a vibrating plate compactor and ran it over the soil. Then I roped the kids into trucking the gravel down to the backyard, spread that out, ran over it with a makeshift screed, and ran over it with the compactor several more times.

Then the dog ran over it several times, because of course he did. It’s fine. He’s helping compact everything. The gravel I ended up getting is not exactly what I wanted, but I did want to move forward, and I achieved that! So, hoot hoot. Next is sand, and then finally bricks. 

A few hours in, I remembered “oh, supper,” and I had a boneless pork loin or something, so I threw it in the Instant Pot along with several giant glugs of apple cider vinegar, some water, a lot of cumin and garlic powder and some salt and pepper. I pressure cooked it on high for 22 minutes and it came out non-beautiful but very tender and quite tasty. 

For the sandwiches, I had big pieces of sourdough bread, and I built them in this order: bread, mustard, Swiss cheese, pork, pickles, ham, more Swiss cheese, mustard. Mayo on the outside, fried in butter. 

There is no particular reason this heavy, greasy, carby sandwich appears to be leering at you. You’re just imagining it. 

I made a nice fruit salad with watermelon, mango, strawberries, and blueberries, and a quick coleslaw with cabbage and carrot with a dressing of mayo, cider vinegar, a little olive oil, and freshly ground pepper. 

MONDAY
Lemon pepper chicken, taboon, and muhammara (red pepper walnut dip)

Last week, I asked for more recipes with pomegranate molasses, which I had used so deliciously in the cherry walnut herb salad. Several people suggested muhammara, which is a Turkish red pepper walnut dip.

SEVERAL PEOPLE WERE RIGHT. I followed this recipe from The Mediterranean Dish, and made a triple recipe. It calls for two red bell peppers, but I had four red and two orange. I keep learning and then forgetting again that red and orange (and yellow) bell peppers are just green bell peppers at different stages of ripeness (and therefore sweetness). Red is the sweetest; orange is the medium stage. (Yellow, which I didn’t have, is the first “turning” stage.) But it’s all the same pepper. 

Anyway, I oiled and roasted them peppers, which is something I enjoy.

So pretty. 

These recipes always tell you to cover the roasted peppers with plastic wrap and let them steam themselves, to loosen up the skins; but I have found (by the scientific process of forgetting to do it) that this isn’t necessary. The skins come off just as easily if you just let them sit. 

So I pulled off the skins, which I enjoy, and yanked out the core and scraped off most of the seeds. This is about half the pepper flesh. 

And then you just whiz it up in a food processor along with toasted walnuts, olive oil, raw garlic, tomato paste, bread crumbs, of course pomegranate molasses, sugar, sumac, and salt. Now, this recipe also calls for Aleppo pepper, and says cayenne pepper is optional. I didn’t have either, and suddenly got an attack of the cheaps at the store, so I only bought cayenne.

Since I had so much dip, I divided it and added cayenne pepper (somewhat more than the recipe called for) to only one portion. 

Friends, for something so earthy, it is heavenly. This is one of these profoundly nourishing, joyful foods. It just tastes like it’s feeding your whole being. It’s wonderfully tart but not in an aggressive way. The heat in the peppered one built gradually, and it tasted good with chicken, with vegetables, and with bread. And just by itself. 

I made twelve little taboon breads. Last time I was a little unhappy with how they turned out, rather tough and chewy. Not sure if this is what caused it, but I realized that I forgot to put the pan in the oven to heat up before putting the dough on it to bake. This time I followed that step, and they turned out much more tender and fluffy. I love taboon. 

It’s so easy, and you can start it less than two hours before you want to eat. Fast as a quick bread, but with the texture and heft of a yeast bread. So good. It doesn’t puff up and separate into a pocket like pita, so don’t expect that. It’s more bready, while still being a flatbread, so you could use it for wraps, or for scooping or sopping purposes.

I just made very simple roast chicken breast sprinkled with a lemon pepper seasoning mix and cut up, and spinach, black olives, and cherry tomatoes.

Damien and I ate the muhammara steadily for lunch and snacks for the rest of the week. It was wonderful with those flattened pretzel chip things, and also really nice with baby carrots, and with cucumbers. I am completely sold on muhammara. 

Still happy to hear about more pomegranate molasses recipes, but if this is all I ever use it for in the future, diyenu! 

TUESDAY
Tacos

Tuesday I made a bunch of taco meat, put it in the slow cooker, and then I was like, screw it, I’m going to the ER. Here’s the most exciting part:

Yes, that is my blood pressure. No, I did not eat tacos when I eventually got home, even though they had ruled out heart attack, as well as cancer and pulmonary embolism. But I do not recommend this blood pressure, at all. 

WEDNESDAY
Shawarma

Wednesday I wanted to get back to normal as much as possible, but I had lots of help! Clara made the shawarama marinade, Corrie made the yogurt sauce and Benny cut up the cucumbers and gathered and chopped the mint, and I had bought readymade pita and hummus, so it was just a matter of finishing everything up.

And very good it is, shawarma. 

At this point, I had learned that there was, in fact, nothing wrong with my heart, and all my lab work so far came back showing that I’m actually extremely healthy, except for when my terrible doctor takes me off my medication and makes my blood pressure go nutsy; so yeah, I had a big blob of yogurt sauce. Ugh, I guess I’m self conscious about my food pictures now. Boo. 

THURSDAY
Aldi pizza

Thursday I drove up to the pulmonologist in Lebanon and they did all the breathing tests. I stopped to check on my parents’ grave (they are still dead, whew), and the lilac tree and rose bushes I planted made it through the winter, so that was nice! I said a decade and went on my way. Damien bought and served Aldi pizza, and Moe came by and helped with the driving. 

FRIDAY
Spinach chickpea stew

Friday morning I found out that my lungs are very healthy, capable, and working fine! Which is great, except . . . you know, I still can’t breathe, and my chest still hurts, and my lungs still make a sound like bacon frying at night. Like, other people can hear it, so I can’t be making it up. I don’t know! I don’t know. I’m getting an echocardiogram at the end of July, and I’m going to look into chronic anemia and sleep apnea, because I don’t know what else it might be. It’s not the smoke from the wildfires, because this has been going on since November. Albuterol doesn’t help at all. Maybe I’m just making bacon in my lungs. If anyone could, I would.

ANYWAY, today we are having this lovely lemon chickpea spinach stew

the recipe for which you can find here at Saveur. This weekend I’m going to work on my patio without worrying it’s going to be my last act on earth, so that will be nice. 

Anyway, rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb. Allegedly that’s what crowds of extras on movie sets are supposed to say, in order to convincingly sound like they are having a conversation in the background. Someone smarter than me can write an essay about turning food into the logos. Imma go lie down.

Print

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

  1. Mix the flour, salt, and yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. Preheat the oven to 400. Put a greased pan or a baking stone in the oven to heat up.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. Bake for 10-12 minutes until it's just slightly browned.

 

Print

Chicken shawarma

Ingredients

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

Instructions

  1. Mix marinade ingredients together, then add chicken. Put in ziplock bag and let marinate several hours or overnight.

  2. Preheat the oven to 425.

  3. Grease a shallow pan. Take the chicken out of the marinade and spread it in a single layer on the pan, and top with the onions (sliced or quartered). If you kept the garlic in larger pieces, fish those out of the marinade and strew them over the chicken. Cook for 45 minutes or more. 

  4. Chop up the chicken a bit, if you like, and finish cooking it so it crisps up a bit more.

  5. Serve chicken and onions with pita bread triangles, cucumbers, tomatoes, assorted olives, feta cheese, fresh parsley, pomegranates or grapes, fried eggplant, and yogurt sauce.

 

Print

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

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

What’s for supper? Vol. 328: A human doing and a human bebimbapping

Happy Friday! This week I seem to have broken away from recipes, and just free-wheeled a lot of stuff. I think everything turned out okay, but it’s possible I was just so busy that I was ravenous by supper time every day, and would have eaten anything. 

SATURDAY
Nachos

Yea verily, I don’t remember Saturday. Somehow the week went by extremely quickly, and yet last Saturday was a million years ago. I remember people complaining that we just had nachos, and I said no, we just had tacos; this is different. It’s spelled different and everything. 

My spice mix for tacos (or nachos, which is spelled different) is: Garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, chili powder, paprika, red pepper flakes, and salt. It tastes about the same as any packets you can buy and it’s not really easier to open packets than it is to sprinkle from a bunch of jars, so I stopped buying the packets. I don’t really miss the violent orange color. 

Speaking of spices, this week I did buy a bunch of empty spice jars in an effort to Do Something About My Spices, which previously looked like this:

(My kitchen island is not always this wrecked up, but, sometimes it is, so there you go.) Well, after filling and labelling several jars, I admitted to myself that I had bought the wrong size. Too small. So I cussed a little bit and then went out and bought some mason jars, and got most of the contents of the rest of the bags and packets jarred up. It’s still cluttered and chaotic, and my kitchen is still wrecked up because I have had QUITE A WEEK, and I probably just need to bite the bullet and put in a new shelf. If it ever looks like anything, I’ll take a picture and show you! 

SUNDAY
Italian sandwiches, grapes, strawberry rhubarb pie

Mother’s day! I spent the morning clamping my jaw through a migraine at Mass because I forgot my medication, so then I got home and took it and then took a nap for a while, and then I spent the rest of the day working on my patio, and only feeling slightly guilty that I wasn’t flying a kite or going on a hike, which is what the younger kids wanted to do. I will do those things! Just some other day. 

Damien made tasty Italian sandwiches (I had prosciutto, a few kinds of salami, provolone, tomatoes, basil, and olive oil and vinegar)

and Clara made me some gorgeous strawberry rhubarb pies

and the kids showered me with flowers and plants and snacks and thoughtful gifts. It was a lovely day!

MONDAY
Chicken berry salad

I roasted up some chicken breasts, sliced it, and served it over salad greens with strawberries and blueberries, toasted almonds, and crumbled feta cheese.

A fine spring salad. Diced red onion would have been good, but we were out. Don’t forget, you can easily toast nuts in the microwave, and you don’t risk burning them unless you try really hard. Two minutes should do it. 

TUESDAY
Meatball subs

I had five pounds of ground beef and dumped in a few grated onions, a ton of grated parmesan cheese, five eggs, two or three cups of panko breadcrumbs, and I don’t really remember what seasonings, but more than looked reasonable. Probably just salt, garlic powder, and oregano. The grated onion is a hassle but it really makes a difference in taste and texture.

I cooked the meatballs on a broiler pan in a hot oven for about 25 minutes and then moved them into the crock pot with some jarred sauce for the rest of the day. And that’s-a my meatball story. 

WEDNESDAY
Bibimbap, pineapple

This was my favorite meal all week. I had a big pork shoulder or something, which I sliced into bite-sized slices and marinated in the basic magic: soy sauce, brown sugar, maybe three inches of fresh ginger, minced, and several cloves of fresh garlic, minced. I let it marinate all day.

When it was almost time to eat, I sautéed the meat along with all the marinade, because I wanted lots of sauce to go with this dish. 

While it was cooking, I made a big pot of rice, and I chopped up a bunch of sugar snap peas and shredded some red cabbage, and just before supper I fried up a bunch of eggs in hot oil.  And I stuffed a little bit of spinach into the bowl to wilt under the hot rice. LOOK HOW PRETTY. 

I drizzled mine with a little of that Polynesian hot sauce from last week’s poke bowls and ladled some of the sweet marinade over it. I like to fry the eggs so they’re crispy on the bottom but still a little runny in the yolk. 

Hot damn, it was delicious. I also put out some crunchy Chinese noodles and some fresh pineapple chunks, and it was such a good meal. 

THURSDAY
Chicken nuggets, chips, cucumbers

All week was busy, but Thursday was an especially crazy-go-nuts day. I can’t even remember what-all happened, but I was just running around like a duck all day, until finally I did the final pick-up of the day after dinner, and I was so tired, I just pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine, and fell asleep in the car. BUT!!! The dog still had plenty of energy, and there was some kind of fluke accident where he got startled, and jerked on his lead so hard that it flew out of the wall of the shed, and the end of it hit the pool and split the seam, and water started gushing out. Sooooo it was time to wake up and have a little unscheduled dip, because the pool holds 9,000 gallons of water, and when there is a hole, you have to patch it from the inside as well as the outside.

We did have some Flex Tape in the house, but not enough, so Lena went to Walmart for more, and I got it more or less patched up. And you know what, we had a frost the other day, and it’s been in the 30’s at night, so that water was somewhat less than hospitable. The whole thing was so dumb, I couldn’t even bring myself to blame the dog for it. Very high levels of dumbness.

So what, it’s still spring. We have a Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal coming to our feeder (the dude stands on the fence and stares irately at the world while his wife has a snack) plus lots of purple finches and yellow finches, and I think I spotted a bluebird, so I hope there will be more, because they come in gangs. And hummingbirds! And my Karl Lagenfield peony that I planted a few years ago has some buds for the first time this year, and the lupines seeds I planted over a year ago finally decided it was safe to come up, which cheered up both me and my neighbor Millie, whose seeds they were.

I scavenged a bunch of felled aspen trees, and I’m going to use them as posts to hang strings of lights from, if I ever get my patio done. I’m so close to being done digging, and this weekend I’ll level it and order some gravel and sand, and then I can start laying brick! Very excited. 

Do keep Millie in your prayers. She fell last weekend, and has been needing more help than she wants, so I’ve been driving her around a bit. I love spending time with her, but it’s frustrating for her. She just wants to be out raking and weeding, and instead she has to be at the doctor constantly. She is about 140 years old and starting to slow down a little. 

FRIDAY
Seafood lo mein, steamed dumplings

Today, my brother is coming over, and also Moe and his girlfriend! All people who are either okay with the house and yard being a complete wreck, or else they aren’t gonna say anything about it. 

I’m going to make a big batch of seafood lo mein, and steam some dumplings I got at the Keene International Market. Maybe I will get some more sugar snap peas or something. Or just, yanno, not.

Print

basic lo mein

Ingredients

for the sauce

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

for the rest

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

Instructions

  1. Mix together the sauce ingredients and set aside.

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

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

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

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

What’s for supper? Vol. 327: Yay, poke!

First, a word from Fay, Ray, EJ, and Coin: Peep! Peep-peep! Peep-peep-peepWONKpeep-peep-peep.” Yes, they have begun to quack. Just a bit, and it’s mostly Coin and EJ, and it’s more muttering than quacking, but it’s hilarious. They’re very good ducks, and I think you should get some. Or you can just check out my Facebook page which has been overrun with ducks. 

And here’s what we ate this week!

SATURDAY
Sushi, etc. 

On Saturday, Lena graduated from college! We are SO proud of her. 

 

Most of the kids had various frozen foods for dinner, and Damien and Lena and I went and checked out the newish Japanese restaurant in town, Kurama Omakase. I had a salmon skin salad and tried some of Lena’s takoyaki, which is some kind of breaded balls of I-don’t-know-what with bits of octopus inside, deep fried and topped with some other I-don’t-know-what. Terrible pictures (dark restaurant) but the takoyaki was STUPENDOUS. 

I also ordered the “Trust the Chef Lite” sushi and sashimi assortment, and it was lllovely.

Very nice place. The only other customers was some kind of gathering of a dozen or more men who didn’t already know each other, but were in the same business. Maybe car salesmen? After their meal they took a picture of all of their watches. After they left, I heard the waitress tell the bartender, “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” DO  tip your waitress!

SUNDAY
Maybe burgers? 

Sunday was fun! After a week of rain, the weather finally cleared, so I worked on digging up the ground for my patio, and Damien worked on the duck house. I paid kids to shake soil out of the sods for my new raised gardens, and there were plenty of worms for everyone

The dog had the greatest day of his life, AGAIN. 

Damien grilled burgers, if I remember correctly. 

MONDAY
Normal tacos

I didn’t shop on the weekend, because of the graduation, and did only a partial shop on Monday, because I didn’t feel like it, and came home with a wretched frozen log of beef that needed to be constantly scraped and flipped while it cooked. 

I tried to tell myself it was sort of like when they have a leg of lamb on a spit and they’re shaving bits of meat off for shawarma, but no dice. 

(I know there are various ways of defrosting meat, but honestly they’re only slightly less laborious than standing there scrabbling at the frozen wad as it fries, so you might as well suffer.)

TUESDAY
Bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwiches; OJ

Tuesday I went shopping again, for real this time. Destiny! Destiny! No escaping that for me!

Maybe by the end of the summer, we’ll have duck eggs! Or not. We don’t even know if we have girl or boy ducks yet. We definitely have ducks. Boy do we have ducks. 

WEDNESDAY
Bo ssam, rice, pickled radishes

Pork shoulders were 99 cents a pound, and I had got a big, giant one, and started it with the salt and sugar rub on Tuesday night. I put it in the oven around 10:30 on Wednesday morning, and then right before dinner, I poured the extra little cider vinegar brown sugar sauce on:

and let it finish up. Truly a grisly yet magnificent beast basking proudly in the setting sun. 

Everything the light touches belongs to you, bo ssam.

I also pickled some radishes and made a pot of rice, and cut up some romaine lettuce for wrapping. The meat shredded at the mere sight of a fork, the skin was intense and caramelized to the hilt, and it was a pretty good meal. 

And only pretty good. This is the first time bo ssam hasn’t absolutely rocked my world, and I don’t know what happened. The pickled radishes were only so-so, too. Annnnd just now writing this, it occurred to me that I’m probably sick, and the food actually tasted fine, and it’s me. Crap. OH WELL. 

THURSDAY
Poke bowls

As is our habit, we were talking about other food while we were at the restaurant, and we got to talking about poke bowls, which Damien and I have never had before. It certainly sounded like something we’d be into. Aldi carries ahi tuna steaks that are frozen at sea, so I bought a few packages of those (I think six little steaks in total), and also a pouch of raw shrimp that happened to be on sale. They also had some kind of Polynesian sweet hot sauce that looked likely, plus some chili lime cashews. I also got five ripe mangoes and two packages of sugar snap peas at Aldi.

Then at the other supermarket (when you shop at Aldi, there’s always going to be a second supermarket, and you must just accept this), I got pea sprouts and rice (Aldi rice cooks weird). 

So I just basically chopped everything up, cooked up a big pot of rice, and cut the fish into half-inch cubes. I sautéed the shrimp with some minced garlic in chili oil, and then squeezed a lime over it. 

(The glass with the root in it isn’t some exotic tincture; I’m just trying to keep a rose cutting alive after the plow knocked one of my flower beds all out of whack, and I haven’t gotten around to replanting it yet.)

I was planning to make sushi-style rice, but I didn’t have any rice vinegar, so I left it plain. I put out a jar of mango chutney and some red pepper flakes.

Here was my bowl:

Wow, it was delicious. Sweet mild fish and greens and rice, syrupy mango, and then the hot jangly sauce and nuts. Very satisfying and entertaining, kind of like the dinner version of an ice cream sundae — not in taste, of course, but in the experience. I threw some shrimp in there, too, just because I’m not gonna say no to shrimp.

I was surprised at how many of the kids liked the raw tuna! Everyone found something they wanted, even if it was just rice and mango, and I’ll definitely be making this again. Yay, poke! 

Now tell me about your poke bowls. I understand there are countless variations. What are your favorite combinations?

FRIDAY
Pizza

Today has turned into a stupidly complicated day because a bad light came on in my car, but the mechanic can’t look at it until next week, and lots of people still have to be in lots of places, and Lucy needs to be trained on her new insulin pump system at the doctor which is an hour away, and I bought tickets to Peter and the Wolf which is also an hour away, but you’ll have to take my word for it that it all just doesn’t quite work out. But I’m gonna try! But I’m gonna make those pizzas right meow. 

Ugh, I didn’t put any recipe cards. Do you want recipe cards? Tell me if you want some and I’ll put them. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 326: Wads for supper

All week long, the kids have been asking me why it is raining. I don’t know why they’re asking me. It’s not like they think I know anything. The truth is, I made it happen, partially because I like to suffer, and partly so I could make soup one more time before summer. But I didn’t tell them that; I just made the soup, so we could all suffer. (It was delicious soup!)

SATURDAY
Fried chicken caprese sandwiches, Aldi Cheetos

I bought one of those enormous sacks of miscellaneous chicken breasts suspended in frozen wads of broth, with the intention of doling them out over three meals. It actually worked, to my surprise (I was expecting doom and disaster, as usual). This chicken is actually okay, as long as you’re using it as a sort of raw material, like tofu or polymer clay, rather than as a centerpiece. 

Saturday we had chicken caprese sandwiches. If I have actual fresh chicken breasts, I will roast them with oil, salt, and pepper, but I thought these chicken wads needed more help than that. So I dredged them in eggs and milk and then seasoned panko crumbs, pan fried them, and then put them in the oven for a while to make sure they were done all the way through. 

I served them on ciabatta rolls with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and of course mozzarella, tomatoes and basil. Not spectacular, but fine. 

I haven’t really started my garden yet (we can’t plant anything but the heartiest things until May), but I’m already feeling the freedom of knowing I have decided not to grow tomatoes this summer. Homegrown tomatoes bring me nothing but grief, and hardly any tomatoes. I’m just going to excuse myself this time, and grow mostly flowers, plus a bunch of vegetables that don’t have all this weird cultural “oh yeahhhh, this here is the good life” baggage. I’m planning rhubarb and asparagus and strawberries and maybe some eggplant, probably various squashes and pumpkins, and I think some Brussels sprouts made it through the winter. And flowers! 

SUNDAY
Spicy pulled pork on tater tots with cheese

First I started some focaccia dough for Tuesday. I saw all those beautiful focaccia loaves people made over the pandemic, with little garden scenes picked out in vegetables, but I never got around to trying it. But Sip and Feast promised an easy, no-knead recipe that is best if you start it fermenting several days in advance, so that’s what I made. 

So much olive oil, goodness! I made a double recipe. 

So I put that away in the fridge, rested on my laurels for a minute, feeling domestic goddess-y and accomplished thinking about how Tuesday’s dinner was already halfway done, until I suddenly realized we also needed to eat something today. Boo.

But, pulled pork is easy. It was a bit of a strange combination in the slow cooker, but here is what I did: First I cut the pork into hunks, seasoned it heavily with salt and pepper, and browned it in oil. Then I put it in the Instant Pot with a can of Cherry Coke Zero, three clementines cut in half and squeezed, a few big dark reg, glossy guajillo peppers, a handful of little orange arbol peppers, a heaping tablespoon of cumin, and a bunch of oregano. I left all the seeds in the peppers, and just tore the tops off.

Then I pressed “meat,” which just makes me laugh. Do it! Go be meat! Away! and left it alone to think about life for the rest of the day. 

When it was almost time to eat, I pulled out most of the clementine rinds and about half the peppers, and shredded the meat.

I drained the liquid, but ended up adding some back into keep the meat moist while it was heating back up while I cooked some tater tots and shredded some cheese and sliced some onions.

I had my pile of food in this order: Tater tots, then shredded cheddar cheese, then hot pork to melt the cheese; then cool onions and sauce on top of that.

It was really good. Not a delicate or sophisticated dinner, but REALLY GOOD. I did a bunch of digging and heavy yard work on Sunday, and this was a fine reward. 

MONDAY
Cobb salad

On Monday I drove an hour and a quarter to a super Newhampshirey-ish place to pick up a free load of bricks, and let me tell you, it was a lot of bricks! A! Lot! 

I haven’t figured out exactly how many I will need for my patio, but if the answer turns out to be “quite a few,” I may have arrived. I did start digging, and I’m gonna do a lot more digging this weekend, when it stops raining. 

For supper: Chicken wads, day 2! I broiled them with oil, salt, and pepper and served them in slices with salad greens, chopped bacon, hard boiled eggs, red onions, leftover croutons from last week, shredded cheese, and those crunchy fried onions that come in a pouch.

Nice little salad, much protein. I had mine with ranch dressing. This isn’t strictly speaking a Cobb salad, which is supposed to be laid out in cute little stripes and is supposed to have avocados, tomatoes, and I forget what else — I think chives, and probably some other kind of dressing. Get off my back, man! Cobb salad  sounds better than “wadd salad!” 

TUESDAY
Sausage and kale soup, focaccia bread

Tuesday it was time to take the dough out of the fridge, that had been lurking there since Sunday afternoon. It needed 3-4 hours to rise, and then you just spread it in a pan, let it rest a little bit and then re-spread it, and then let it rise a little more, and then you can decorate it and bake it. 

I was rushing a bit and hadn’t really made a plan for how to decorate it, so I just grabbed what I could find, which was grape tomatoes, radishes, scallions, some garlic scrapes, red onions, and kale.

I thought the design turned out pretty (well, one did. The other one was kind of lame), but I didn’t know how well it would hold up in the oven. 

I actually baked it for slightly less time than it recommended, but one pan was still slightly burned, and the other was right on the verge. 

Still pretty, though! The dough is very stable as it bakes, so the design stays where you put it. I call it a success. 

Although the truth is, if you ever want me to do anything, anything at all, just offer me hot tomatoes baked into fresh bread. I will walk off a cliff with my eyes wide open, if I think there’s hot tomatoes baked into fresh bread at the bottom. 

It had a thin crust and was quite chewy, and the inside had very large air holes

(which I imagine was the result of letting it ferment for three days). I’m not a big focaccia expert, but I think this is how it’s supposed to come out. 

Guess what? Most of the kids wouldn’t even try it, because it had kale on it. Honest to goodness. Kale isn’t even that big of a deal. I feel like it’s like Sriracha sauce or Mondays or the word moist: NOT EVEN THAT BIG OF A DEAL. It’s just that people keep talking and talking about it, until everyone’s like, “oh my gosh, KALE, what is it even for, it’s garbage, only insane aliens would be in the same room with it!” Like, it’s a leafy green, it has a mildly sweet taste, and you can put it in salads or soups or whatever you want. It’s kind of dense, but who the fuck isn’t. People need to settle down about kale. 

Anyway, then I made some soup, also from Sip and Feast, with sausage, potato, cannellini beans, and kale. Very simple, easy li’l soup, tastes nice. I took a bunch of extremely blurry pictures for some reason. 

I grated some parmesan and set that out with the soup and the piping hot focaccia

and everyone stared at it and went to get some ramen or frosted flakes. I’m actually only pretending to be mad. I ate most of both loaves of focaccia myself. Can’t be mad. Too full of focaccia, here at the bottom of my cliff. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken fried rice, steamed pork and mushroom dumplings

On Wednesday, Elijah made supper, hooray! He took a cooking class last year and has a few recipes he likes. 

It was tasty if basic,with rice, onions and garlic, some frozen veg, chunks of chicken, scrambled eggs, and soy sauce. 

But nothing can beat that wonderful flavor of someone else making dinner, let me tell you. And we also got a lot of mileage out of “you telling me ELIJAH fried this” etc etc.

I stopped at the Keene International Market and picked up some frozen pork and mushroom dumplings, which I steamed in my nice little bamboo steamer,

and I served them in one of the dozens of dishes Clara brought home from pottery class. 

I’ll tell you, one minute you’re wiping bottoms, pouring juice all day long, and begging them to stop eating crayons, and then next minute you’re eating the dinner they cooked you off the pottery they made by hand. And looking the other way while they eat crayons, because you know everyone is on a journey. 

But seriously, Clara brought home some amazing pottery. 

 

and we don’t even have crayons in this house. 

THURSDAY
Koftas, yogurt sauce, Jerusalem salad, pita

Thursday I made what probably can’t really be called koftas, because they’re round instead of sausage-shaped, and broiled in the oven rather than grilled or roasted on a spit, and not on sticks. They were, however, juicy and delicious and to me they tasted middle eastern. 

I mixed about five pounds of ground beef, five eggs, and then just started slamming in anything that smelled like it belonged in a hot tent: sumac, coriander, paprika, cinnamon, onion powder, garam masala, za’atar, and salt, and a big handful of fresh mint from the yard. Then I discovered I had used up all my breadcrumbs on the chicken on Sunday, so I made about six pieces of toast, and then microwaved them to really blitz the moisture out, and then ran them through the food processor. 

When it was almost time to eat, I cooked the meatballs on pans on racks in a 450 oven for about 25 minutes.

I also made a bunch of yogurt sauce with fresh garlic and fresh lemon juice and kosher salt, and I made a nice Jerusalem salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, fresh mint, fresh flat-leaf parsley, a little red onion, fresh lemon juice, and salt. And that was it! A simple but nicely balanced meal. 

I briefly considered making pita or maybe making taboon bread, but we still had leftover focaccia, so I just stopped at the store and bought some pita. 

FRIDAY
I think we are having quesadillas. Truly, I hated this week. Everyone was fighty and bighty, especially me, and it rained a lot, and I forgot about a bunch of forms I was supposed to fill out, and even though the sack of chicken wads worked out, it made me mad all week. The more I think about it, the more it was clearly the chicken’s fault. 

However, the ducks are growing nicely. EJ has started quacking, not just peeping, and Corrie has been great with them. They’re huge! Almost ready to live outside.

And I think the sun is going to come out this weekend. Literally, I mean, and also maybe figuratively; who can say? And I do have a lot of bricks. And ducks. Oh, and I fixed the What’s for supper volume numbering. Well, I didn’t fix it, but I got back on track. It went: 323, 324, 325, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 242, 242, 243, 244, 245, 11. But now we’re back on track. Quack! 

What’s for supper? Vol. 11. Vol. 11!

It has come to my attention that I have been numbering these posts wrong. I haven’t been able to bring myself to sit down and figure out how long this has been going on, but somewhere along the line, I think months ago, I jumped the track and slipped back into the 200’s, when I should actually be halfway through the 300’s. I think. I don’t know, I don’t know! I just keep cooking food and they just keep eating it, and then I keep taking pictures of it, and they keep making fun of me, and I keep saying, “But people like it! Well, some people, anyway.”

For example:

SATURDAY
Hot dogs grilled outside

Don’t remember much about Saturday, ‘deed I don’t. 

SUNDAY
Turkey bacon wraps

Sunday I was planning tacos al pastor, but by the time I got it going, I didn’t think the meat would have sufficient time to marinate, so I decided that would be tomorrow’s meal, and for now we would have wraps. Nothing spectacular, but tasty enough: Turkey, salami, bacon, and provolone with horseradish sauce.

And I had a nice little time working on the marinade. This is the recipe I use, and it’s rather time-consuming, but fantastically delicious. First you blister up the guajillo peppers

then you scrape the seeds out

and then you soften them up

and then you blend them up with a bunch of other ingredients,

including achiote paste, which I can never find, so I also make that out of a bunch of other ingredients

which you make into a paste

and then chuck it all into the food processor. Actually, I ran out of ground cumin, so I had to grind some up in my mortar and pestle. At this point I was starting to feel like it was possible this recipe was Too Much Work, but I was in too deep, so I went ahead and pestled it. And that was the last ingredient.

And then you can marinate the meat overnight, which I did. Whew. It felt a lot like finally getting a beloved but rather dramatic child to bed. (If you are planning to eat the child later, with sour cream.)

MONDAY
Tacos al pastor; pico de gallo and tortilla chips

Monday I made a big bowl of pico de gallo out of very sweet little grape tomatoes, onion, fresh lime juice, kosher salt, and cilantro. 

Jump to Recipe

And when it was almost dinner time, I heated up a bunch of tortillas, and then set up two greased pans to broil: One with the marinated meat

and one with chunks of pineapple; and I switched them and stirred them up a bit, so they both got a little charred. (The pineapple takes several minutes longer than the meat to cook, which I always forget.)

And that’s it. I had mine with just a little sour cream on the tortilla, just the meat and the grilled pineapple, and a little cilantro, with pico and chips on the side. 

Stupendous. The marinade has so much flavor, it’s ridiculous, and you will not want to add any hot sauce or salsa or anything. It’s got a tangy, nutty, smoky kind of sweetness that’s incredibly pleasing, and the meat is of course so tender from all that marinating. The pineapple turns almost candy-sweet on the outside when you grill it, and I am completely in love with the combination of the savory meat and the juicy pineapple with a little sour cream. It was not Too Much Work. It was Totally Worth It. I have made this recipe many times and it never even occurs to me to look for another one. 

TUESDAY
Korean beef bowl with rice; cucumbers

Haven’t had Korean beef bowl for a while.

Jump to Recipe

It came out so nice. I used plenty of fresh garlic and fresh ginger, and what I’ve been doing is cooking the meat about 80% of the way through, draining the fat, and then adding the minced ginger and garlic and cooking it. The ginger and garlic bits stay really bright and pungent that way. 

I served it over white rice, and just served plain cucumbers on the side. I briefly considered one of those cute little piquant cucumber salads with the rice vinegar and the hot pepper flakes, but sometimes I like to have mercy on the kids and just serve regular old cucumbers.

WEDNESDAY
Moussakhan and taboon

Always a popular meal. This time I had some especially good sumac from the International Market, and woof, it made my nose quiver. Lovely dark plum color, in glossy little flakes.

This is quite an easy recipe with a massive return on your effort, and you can serve it over rice or just eat it plain, or with pita, or whatever you want. I do like the dramatic presentation of the enormous platter of piping hot taboon bread, with all the chicken and its juice served on top of it, so everyone can help themselves to whatever pieces they want, and tear off some taboon to go with it.

I had a long tray of drumsticks and a half dozen thighs, and you slash the meat to the bone to get the marinade really deep in there, and then just marinate it for half a day or so. 

I only had two regrets: One was that I ran out of lemons to juice, and decided to use lime juice, which wasn’t disastrous, but it’s not ideal; and the other was that I was working outside on moving my raised garden beds around and whatnot, and was so afraid I would get garden madness and lose track of time, so I checked the clock frequently and had it all worked out exactly when I had to put everything in the oven so it would be done on time, and I did work it out, down to the minute, but then I . . . . forgot to do it. And you know, it really just doesn’t cook well that way, I find, when you don’t actually put the food in the oven. Awfully slow.

But EVENTUALLY we did have supper, and it was delicious. 

I made my Giant Pan o’ Taboon, which is quite fast to make, and only takes one rise, so you can start it about an hour and a half before you want to get dinner on the table, and that’s enough time. 

Jump to Recipe

and I used the last of the big pouch of pine nuts I splurged on a while back. You toast them up in olive oil just before serving the meat,

and you put the chicken and onions on the bread, and sprinkle that with sizzling pine nuts and chopped parsley, and BOY is it good. 

Just so good. 

I decided that the taboon recipe as written had a silly amount of salt in it, so I decreased it, and you know, I just didn’t like it as much. I honestly don’t know if the amount of salt I wrote is a typo or not, but I like it that way, so I’m going back to a truckload of salt next time I made this. Salty taboon for all!

THURSDAY
Ravioli

The kids were on vacation all week, so most days this week, I have been rushing around doing a lot of pent-up yard work and gardening and whatnot. The ducks have been spending more and more time outside, and overall I like the looks of things around here, and I’m making slow but steady progress toward my patio area. Thursday Benny and I made a little trip into Massachusetts to get some used bricks,

and then she had a couple of pals over. Corrie had a friend over earlier in the week. Why is it so hard to have friends over! I guess it’s because we live far away from everything, and so does everybody. But having ducks helps. People do want to come see ducks, even if they have their own ducks. 

FRIDAY
Aldi pizza

Friday Elijah and I climbed Mt. Cesar.

This is not a very big mountain, but it was steep enough to make me wheeze like a, like I don’t know what, a big wheezer. I’m not even in bad shape, it’s just my dumb lungs. Whatcha gonna do. Go to the doctor, I guess. But Friday was also the most important day all year in our little town: Rummage sale day!!! It’s not even a very good rummage sale, but there are people crowded outside the door waiting to get in. So we went and got our weird mugs and our dubious John Le Carré paperbacks and our little glass hummingbirds and our rusty scooter and then came home and,,, had some Aldi pizza. 

And this is the kind of paragraph that makes me think it doesn’t really matter much which volume of What’s For Supper? it really is. It’s eleven. It goes up to eleven. 

Print

Pico De Gallo

quick and easy fresh dip or topping for tacos, etc.

Ingredients

  • 2 large tomatoes, diced
  • 1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and diced OR 1/2 serrano pepper
  • 1/2 onion, diced
  • 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 1/8 cup lime juice
  • dash kosher salt

Instructions

  1. Mix ingredients together and serve with your favorite Mexican food

 

Print

Korean Beef Bowl

A very quick and satisfying meal with lots of flavor and only a few ingredients. Serve over rice, with sesame seeds and chopped scallions on the top if you like. You can use garlic powder and powdered ginger, but fresh is better. The proportions are flexible, and you can easily add more of any sauce ingredient at the end of cooking to adjust to your taste.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup brown sugar (or less if you're not crazy about sweetness)
  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
  • 3-4 inches fresh ginger, minced
  • 6-8 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3-4 lb2 ground beef
  • scallions, chopped, for garnish
  • sesame seeds for garnish

Instructions

  1. In a large skillet, cook ground beef, breaking it into bits, until the meat is nearly browned. Drain most of the fat and add the fresh ginger and garlic. Continue cooking until the meat is all cooked.

  2. Add the soy sauce, brown sugar, and red pepper flakes the ground beef and stir to combine. Cook a little longer until everything is hot and saucy.

  3. Serve over rice and garnish with scallions and sesame seeds. 

 

Print

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

  1. Mix the flour, salt, and yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. Preheat the oven to 400. Put a greased pan or a baking stone in the oven to heat up.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. Bake for 10-12 minutes until it's just slightly browned.

 

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 245: Got any duck food?

Happy Friday! But first, a word from the ducklings:

PEEP.

Seriously, that’s what they say. Peep peep! Peep peep peep! Or sometimes, Weep weep! Weep weep weep! 

They’re terribly shy, as you can see:

and they don’t fit in at our house at all. 

It’s quite sad, how neglected they are.

They still only eat something called “protein crumbles” and they are VERY EXCITED ABOUT IT and also VERY EXCITED ABOUT GETTING FRESH WATER and then they fall asleep. AND THEN THEY WAKE UP AND PEEP PEEP PEEP!!! and then they fall asleep again.

And that’s duck news! We had something a little more elaborate than protein crumbles this week, as follows: 

SATURDAY
Burgers and chips

Cooked outside! It’s finally warm enough, hooray! Damien cooked the burgers outside and they were juicy and delicious. 

Speaking of outside, I have such big plans for our yard this year. I’m moving the garden beds I built (and really kicking myself for putting rocks on the bottom layer for drainage. I PUT ROCKS IN THE DIRT. On purpose!!!) to the other side of the yard, and planning a little patio encompassing the St. Joseph garden and the young peach tree. It is going to be so bougie, you will throw up, I’m telling you. Cannot wait. Those tacky cafe string lights and a little propane fire pit and everything. 

SUNDAY
Spinach salad with hot bacon dressing; matzoh brei

New recipe! I slavishly followed this recipe from the delightful Sip and Feast, which hasn’t steered me wrong yet. Well, I used about twice the amount of bacon it called for, actually. The salad is baby spinach, red onion, mushrooms, and chopped bacon, and you mix it with a hot dressing made of bacon fat, olive oil and wine vinegar, sautéed minced shallots, honey, dijon mustard, salt and pepper, and a little grated cheese. 

So the spinach wilts a bit when you pour some of the hot dressing on, and then you toss it and let people add on more dressing if they want. Oh land, it was so good. 

I sprang for good ingredients, thick bacon, freshly-grated cheese, actual shallots, and so on, and it was just wonderfully savory and tangy, with a fantastic array of textures. It was easy to make, and tasted like it came from an expensive restaurant. I only wish I had sliced the mushrooms thinner. They were a bit too chunky and sort of interrupted the flavor party, but only slightly. 

I also made matzoh brei for those who wanted it. Matzo brei is a weird little recipe that everyone should know: You take a sheet of matzo, break it into chunks in a bowl, and pour hot water over it. Let it sit for thirty seconds or so, and then press the water out. Then beat up two eggs, stir in the drained matzo, and fry the mixture up in some hot oil, turning once, until the edges are crisp.

People sometimes eat matzoh brei with jelly, or cinnamon and sugar, or any sweet breakfasty way you can think of; but I vastly prefer it savory. It’s so good just with salt and pepper, hot out of the pan, with the little morsels of still-crisp matzoh poking out of the egg. 

This is the best way to approach a box of matzoh:

@simchafisher660what’s in the box?♬ original sound – simchafisher660

 

Oh nooooo! That can’t be kosher! Better find another box.

(I’m not really on TikTok, not really. Just trying to figure out where to put the ten thousand little duck videos I now have. I did notice that, after finally managing to retrain myself to turn the camera sideways to take videos, I guess now you’re supposed to not turn it sideways for TikTok. Whatever! Shame on you! Where’s my cane!)

I also made some ice cream, and it turned out weird, and I don’t know why.

I made the same recipes I’ve used many times, Ben and Jerry’s strawberry ice cream, and Ben and Jerry’s sweet cream base with M&M’s stirred in. They just didn’t freeze in the ice cream maker, and so when I put them in the freezer, they came out a few hours later more like ice milk, with shards of ice surrounded by fast-melting cream. The taste was fine, but it just wasn’t ice cream. I have no idea. An ice cream mystery. The only thing I can think of was the cream was a little old, but it smelled and tasted fine. I dunno.

MONDAY
Chicken quesadillas with spinach and caramelized onions

I had four chicken legs, which I skinned, drizzled with oil, and sprinkled heavily with Tajin seasoning, then roasted. 

Then I shredded the meat. I forget why, but I found myself with a little extra time before dinner, so I sliced up about five onions and caramelized them. Then I made up quesadillas to order. Only a few people chose all the available options (chicken, cheddar cheese, fresh spinach, and onions) but those who did were rewarded with a tasty treat indeed. 

Quesadillas are something I never had or even heard of until I was in college. I realize these aren’t authentically Mexican or whatever, but they’re delicious. What do you like to add to yours, besides cheese? 

TUESDAY
Corn dogs and chips

Tuesday was Corrie’s little play, in which she was Mother Rabbit. She told Peter and the others to stay out of Mr. McGregor’s garden, but did they listen? THEY DID NOT. 

How the tables have turned, Mother Rabbit.

It was super cute, but between having to be in another town at 5 and various other people needing to be in yet another town and picked up in another town, respectively, at 5:30 and 6, it was beginning to look a lot like corn dogs. 

I love corn dogs. If corn dogs were the only thing America had ever invented, it would be enough. That and Magic Eraser. 

WEDNESDAY
Banh mi

I planned banh mi for this week because I thought we’d have leftover chopped liver to put on the sandwiches. But I forgot to tell the fridge-cleaning kid not to throw the leftover chopped liver away! It was a liver tragedy. Luckily, banh mi on its own is still delicious. 

Speaking of liver tragedies, I gained a bunch of weight when I started taking Lexapro for PMDD back in November or December. It works great for PMDD, which is actually life changing, but I gained 15 pounds, and that was a bummer, but, now I’m finally tapered off Lexapro (I’m trying Prozac) and it is time to get my punk ass in gear again, by which I mean I can’t just wander around the house eating everything I find and saying “ooh, I hate these meds, they make me gain sooo much weight.”

What I’m trying to tell you is that, I’m really trying, and by the time dinner came around, I was SO HUNGRY, so possibly that’s why these sandwiches seemed so good. 

Another possibility is that they were just damn fine sandwiches. Maybe both things can be true.

I marinated the meat for about four hours, and I cut up a bunch of cucumbers, chopped up a bunch of cilantro, did a quick pickle of some carrots and radishes.

Jump to Recipe

I actually pickled the carrots for a few hours, then just before dinner, I re-used the brine to pickle the radishes, which I had sliced very thin

but not before having a larf over the branding 

I mean, yes, I paid for them, so I should hope. Next time, ask me! I will come up with a better name! Sunny Day Radishes! Fatso’s Radishes! Chompsville Radish Farm! Mrs. Rabbit’s Radish Party! Those are all better than what they actually went with. But nobody asks me. 

Anyway, pickled radishes will turn a pretty salmon pink if you let them sit for a couple of hours,

but if you slice them thin (I used the long, flat holes on the cheese grater), they do take on flavor right away.

I set out mayo, sriracha, and sriracha mayo. I forgot the jalapeños, but nobody complained. We again had a sort of rolling dinner because everyone was going to and fro all evening again, so I toasted a length of french bread and heated up some meat in the microwave, then assembled my sandwich, and it was just perfecto. 

I only had half the amount of fish sauce the recipe called for, and you know what? It was better. So I have amended the recipe to show that.

Jump to Recipe

I also used more pepper, just because I was having fun turning the crank, I guess, so I amended that in the recipe, too. I am a whimsical food god and with a careless swipe of my finger will change the recipe of banh mi at will, just try and stop me. If you are still reading, put an X here   [     ] yes  [     ] no

THURSDAY
Fancy ramen

My plan was to serve ramen the day after the banh mi so there would be leftover pickled vegetables, but they all got eaten. Oh well. 

I had some boneless pork ribs and sliced them into strips, sautéed them in chili oil, and then doused them with soy sauce when they were almost done cooking. 

I ended up with that, some nice sprouts, plus shredded cabbage left over from last week’s fish tacos, spinach left over from the vast quantities of spinach I buy every week because I’ve become a spinach fiend, some crunchy noodles, some boiled eggs, and various sauces and some sesame seeds.

 

It’s a decent meal. 

I like to line the bowl with spinach and pour the hot ramen on top of that, so there is a tasty treat waiting at the bottom. I really am a spinach fiend.

One of these days I’m actually going to make a good ramen broth, rather than using the little packets, but I know it will spoil us all, and we won’t be able to go back, and then I’ll lose another easy meal, and I’m not ready for that! Don’t take away my protein crumbles! Peep peep peep!

FRIDAY
Mac! and! cheese!

Just because it’s been a while. 

In closing, let me say: PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP! Hope you are same.

5 from 1 vote
Print

Pork banh mi

Ingredients

  • 5-6 lbs Pork loin
  • 1/2 cup fish sauce
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 minced onion
  • 1/2 head garlic, minced or crushed
  • 2 tsp pepper

Veggies and dressing

  • carrots
  • cucumbers
  • vinegar
  • sugar
  • cilantro
  • mayonnaise
  • Sriracha sauce

Instructions

  1. Slice the raw pork as thinly as you can. 

  2. Mix together the fish sauce ingredients and add the meat slices. Seal in a ziplock bag to marinate, as it is horrendously stinky. Marinate several hours or overnight. 

  3. Grill the meat over coals or on a pan under a hot broiler. 

  4. Toast a sliced baguette or other crusty bread. 

 

5 from 1 vote
Print

quick-pickled carrots and/or cucumbers for banh mi, bibimbap, ramen, tacos, etc.

An easy way to add tons of bright flavor and crunch to a meal. We pickle carrots and cucumbers most often, but you can also use radishes, red onions, daikon, or any firm vegetable. 

Ingredients

  • 6-7 medium carrots, peeled
  • 1 lb mini cucumbers (or 1 lg cucumber)

For the brine (make double if pickling both carrots and cukes)

  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 cup rice vinegar (other vinegars will also work; you'll just get a slightly different flavor)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 Tbsp kosher salt

Instructions

  1. Mix brine ingredients together until salt and sugar are dissolved. 

  2. Slice or julienne the vegetables. The thinner they are, the more flavor they pick up, but the more quickly they will go soft, so decide how soon you are going to eat them and cut accordingly!

    Add them to the brine so they are submerged.

  3. Cover and let sit for a few hours or overnight or longer. Refrigerate if you're going to leave them overnight or longer.

What’s for supper? Vol. 243: The next big hing

Here it is Friday again! What do you know about that. 

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, veg and dip

Damien made these, and they were yummy. Nothing much else to report, except look at the pretty dish Clara made. 

SUNDAY
Pasta carbonara

Bacon was on sale and we had leftover parmesan in the house, so I was powerless. Carbonara was calling and would not be denied. 

Here’s my easy peasy nicely greasy recipe:

Jump to Recipe

And very good it was, pasta carbonara. 

MONDAY
Ham, peas, mashed potatoes

The meal for when ham is on sale for Easter and you’re planning to make a big Passover meal the day before Easter so you don’t need ham for that, but despoiling the Egyptians is always in season. Or something. Anyway, the kids like ham. 

I don’t know why there is a marble on my plate. 

On Monday, despite being full of potatoes, I was already getting excited about Tuesday’s meal, when I would finally get to use my little bottle of hing. 

Hing is the Hindi word for asafoetida, which means “stinky ass.” Not really, but kinda really. It is made from the resin of giant fennel plants and whoever smelled it and thought, “boy, I bet this is just the thing to make my food taste really excellent!” must have been super high. It smells like . . . did you ever have a kid who got really really attached to a pair of green rubber boots with frogs on the toe, and he insists on wearing them all summer long, but won’t wear socks? And then finally takes them off and fills them with hot shrimp ramen? Hing kind of smells like the ramen that comes out of those boots. 

So naturally I was quite excited about adding this ingredient to my family’s menu. I decided to test the waters with another ingredient I also haven’t tried before: Flattened rice. 

Look at those guys! Look at them dance!

I cannot possibly miss when I have poha and hing on my side!

The recipe I landed on described itself as “mild,” and “easy” and “quick” and “for complete dumbasses” so I thought it would be a good first foray. 

Benny and Corrie had never seen a fresh coconut before, so we had fun stabbing it in the eyes and beating it over its hairy head with a hammer. Then I sent them off to bed and shredded the meat, which I was was the boring part, but really I wanted to keep all the end pieces for myself to gnaw on.

Then I bagged it for the next day, pretty excited about the poha to come. 

TUESDAY
Indian roast chicken, coconut poha, mango

First let me tell you about the main dish, which was roast chicken. As I have mentioned, I get kind of crabby when I have to roast a whole chicken, but mixing together a bunch of pungent Indian spices did cheer me up. I followed this easy recipe from Aarthi at YummyTummy, and it turned out great. I quadrupled the recipe and it made more than enough marinade paste for two six-pound chickens.

You just stab the chickens all over, rub the marinade in, including inside cavity, and roast it covered, and then uncovered. You do have to change the temperature once, and baste it toward the end. 

It was juicy and delicious. I didn’t have every last ingredient, but it had a little fiery burst at the first bite, which mellowed out quickly and just became warm and cheering and lively. The kids are very quickly acclimating to Indian flavors, and most of them ate the chicken happily, including the rather spicy skin, which was very crisp and packed with flavor. 

Definitely going to make this again. I may keep it covered a bit longe, just to avoid blackening the marinade quite so much. That being said, several people went back to the kitchen to scrape pieces of said blackened marinade off the pan after dinner, so the color clearly wasn’t a deterrent. 

And now for the poha. I more or less followed this recipe from SharmisPassions , except I had peanuts instead of cashews, dried ground mustard instead of mustard seeds, and I didn’t have any jeera. I also misread the directions and left the nuts in the pan when I was tempering the peppers and curry leaves and spices, so the nuts got a little burned.

THAT BEING SAID, I had hing, darn it! I had been led to believe (possibly by myself) that if you have hing, the magic of umami is going to grab you by the taste buds and drag you straight to flavortown.

This . . . did not happen. I swear I used plenty of it, and I had so many fresh ingredients, fresh curry leaves, fresh coconut, and did I mention hing, and I let it splutter and everything like the recipe said! But the whole dish just tasted like hot wet shredded paper with burned peanuts in it. 

Oh well. It wasn’t bad, it just didn’t taste like much of anything, and was more baffling than anything else. I don’t know, maybe I got confused somehow and messed up the proportions when I was sizing it up. I have lots more poha, and I’m definitely going to try again! Just . . . not that particular recipe. (I don’t blame the recipe, but it’s cursed now, and I have to move along.)

The chicken was great, the poha was at least hot, and the fresh mango was nice. Still a pretty good meal, just weird. 

WEDNESDAY
Chinese pork, chopped salad, pineapple 

Now this was a bit of a triumph, and made me feel better about my cooking. I had this big lump of pork and only the very vaguest of plans. I had bought a little red cabbage, and a bag of kale on clearance — sale kale, if you will — and some crunchy noodles, and that was as far as I got. It seemed like we’ve been having a lot of rice lately, so I wanted to make something different. And it was kind of late in the day to start char siu. 

So I mooched around some recipes, and decided to try something that I thought should work.  Famous last words, right?

I put together some classic Chinese roast pork ingredients — soy sauce, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, honey, white pepper, and five spice — and I just mixed it together and hucked it all in the Instant Pot with the meat for 22 minutes. It came out undercooked, which was okay, because I was planning to finish it on the stovetop.

I put the sliced meat in a big pan with all the sauce and just simmered it slowly 

stirring it occasionally, to make sure all the sides of the pieces of meat got coated. And I’ll be darned if it didn’t reduce way down until it was sticky and glossy and dark reddish-brown, and truly delicious. 

It took about half an hour, maybe forty minutes, and it really, really tasted like restaurant roast Chinese pork. I was so pleased. Very little effort. I was afraid the pork would be tough with all that cooking, but it was not. 

I chopped up the red cabbage and kale and just served the meat on top of it with the crunchy noodles, and it was fab. I bought some bottled sesame dressing, but ended up not using it, because the meat had such an intense flavor. I served pineapple on the side just to round the meal out. 

Extremely pleased with this. I was so nervous about serving meat without rice, but I think it worked so well. The meat has a very potent flavor and is very sticky, so it was good to have the fresh crunchy vegetables for texture contrast, and the extra snap of the thin noodles made it perfect.

Here’s the recipe with the exact directions:

Jump to Recipe

You could really taste the white pepper in the sauce, too. I highly recommend getting a canister of white pepper to keep around, even if you only use it every once in a while. There really is no substitute for that strange little sizzle it adds. (Warning: It smells like horse manure for some reason.)

THURSDAY
Burgers and chips

When I tell you how relieved I was to look at the menu and see it was just burgers and chips. I know I’m the one who makes these stupid complicated menus, but still! Why do I do this to myself! Because I like good food, that’s why. But still, I was relieved. And burgers are good food, too. 

I was determined to take a more interesting picture of a burger, and the only thing I could think of was to deliberately stick my finger in the frame.

This struck me as hilarious at the time. Then I took a two-hour nap. 

In other food news, on Thursday morning we did try poha again, this time as a sweet breakfast dish. I soaked the poha in water for about five minutes, squeezed it out, doused it in milk, and heated it in the microwave for two minutes, then put honey on top. 

(It occurred to me too late that I could have just soaked it in milk and saved myself a step, and also made it taste richer.) The little kids liked it. I tried a bit and it was nice, reminiscent (understandably) of rice pudding. My kids like hot cereals — oatmeal, cornmeal mush — and this is along those lines, although the grains of rice don’t meld together into porridge but stay separate and sort of fluffy. Neat stuff!  

FRIDAY
Sabanekh bil hummus for adults, tuna for kids

We had this stew just a few weeks ago, but we’re headed toward spring and I only have a little bit of soup season left. It’s been blustery and nippy out, so a nice pot of this earthy, nourishing Palestinian spinach and chickpea soup with a lemony twist while the predicted rain washes away the last of the snow is going to be just the thing. 

And if you don’t like it, you can have tuna! Sprinkle some hing on it, see if I care.

(I do.)

Print

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

  1. Fry the bacon until it is crisp. Drain and break it into pieces.

  2. Boil the spaghetti in salted water until al dente. If you like, add some bacon grease to the boiling water.

  3. 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.

  4. Add the raw beaten egg and mix it quickly until the spaghetti is coated. Serve immediately.

 

Print

Quick Chinese "Roast" Pork Strips

If you have a hankering for those intensely flavorful strips of sweet, sticky Chinese roast pork but you don't want to use the oven for some reason, this works well, and you can have it in about an hour and a half, start to finish. You will need to use a pressure cooker and then finish it on the stovetop.

Ingredients

  • 4+ lbs pork roast

For sauce:

  • 3/4 cup soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup oyster sauce
  • 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
  • 1/4 cup mirin
  • 3/4 cup honey
  • 1 tsp white pepper
  • 2 tsp Chinese five spice

Instructions

  1. Blend all sauce ingredients together. Put the pork in the Instant Pot, pour the sauce over it, close the lid, close the valve, and set to high pressure for 22 minutes.

  2. When pork is done, vent. Remove pork and cut into strips, saving the sauce.

  3. Put the pork in a large sauté pan with the sauce and heat on medium high, stirring frequently, for half an hour or more, until sauce reduces and becomes thick and glossy and coats the meat.

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 241: Troubles with soup are better than troubles without soup

Happy whatever day it is! I didn’t do a food post last Friday because, I forget why. Oh, because I was complaining about the pope.  Anyway I wanted to share the results of a recipe from the previous Friday. It’s sabanekh bil hummus, Palestinian spinach and chickpea soup. I followed the recipe from Saveur and it was deeee-lectable. 

You saute some onions in olive oil, and then you toast some spices (cumin and coriander) and then grind them, then add them to the onions along with some garlic, plus allspice and nutmeg, and pepper, and cook a little longer, then add chickpeas and stock. (It called for vegetable stock, but I had chicken.)  

THE SMELL.

Simmer for about half an hour, add in fresh baby spinach, fresh lemon juice, some kosher salt, and a little more olive oil. Look-a here, now.

It was so good. The earthy spices combined with the bright lemon juice and the tender chickpeas and spinach made it a surprisingly interesting dish, considering it’s just broth with chickpeas and spinach.  Damien and I absolutely loved it. Definitely adding it to the Friday rotation. 

I’m kind of mad about this, but I’m now fully converted to the notion that fresh ingredients are worth the trouble. Sometimes you just plain don’t have the time or energy, and then it’s a blessing to use convenience foods! It’s fine, it’s not a moral issue! But if you can grind spices and squeeze lemons and crush garlic and chop herbs, oh man. Do yourself a favor. It eventually stops feeling laborious and extravagant and just feels like the normal way to cook, and it elevates your flavors so much.

Of course I still buy bouillon powder, rather than making my own stock, and I still routinely buy frozen pizza dough and so on. Let’s not be silly. I know you’ll agree that I draw the line at exactly the right arbitrary spot. I KNOW YOU’LL AGREE.

Damien and I were both insanely busy all week. Just tons of writing, and we had two birthdays, and a bunch of other stuff I can’t even remember. Also Sophia went to Rome with her high school class, and we had to get both cars fixed (my car was doing something that was causing people to stop me and say, “Excuse me, do you know your car is–” and I would have to sigh, “Yesss, I am aware,” and I drove around like that for over a week before I had a chance to get it fixed. So penitential, much litany of humility. Damien’s car was fine, except for the brakes, pff), and Lena taught the dog to roll over, which was more emotionally fraught for the whole family than you might expect.  Also the dryer broke, and I hit some lady’s mailbox on the way home from band. I really kranged it good, and it was very cold out, so it shattered, so I had to knock on her door and say, I’m sorry, I hit your mailbox, and there was a very old, unclothed man sleeping in the living room with purple old his legs sticking out. Probably can’t really blame the dog for that (I do not take him to band). 

I did manage to get the one stinking maple tree tapped finally, though. It’s a long story and probably nothing will come of it, but I really hate not finishing projects, so I’m forging ahead. Look-a here, now!

 

I’m sorry I keep saying that. I’ve been listening to funk music lately and it stuck, for some reason. 

SATURDAY
Hamburgers, chips

Words cannot describe how long ago that Saturday and those hamburgers were. 

SUNDAY
Grilled ham and cheese

We had these sandwiches on ciabatta rolls. I really hate cooking with an iron frying pan, but it does come in handy for laying on top of a puffy sandwich and weighing it down when you’re trying to get cheap Aldi cheese to melt. 

MONDAY
Southwest chicken salad

I drizzled some chicken breasts with something called elote seasoning, which seems to be mostly chili powder, salt, and dehydrated cheese powder, and roasted the chicken, and served the chicken slices over mixed greens with shredded cheddar, some corn sautéed in olive oil, and chipotle ranch dressing, with corn chips. 

I feel like there were beans, but maybe they remained in the realm of hypothesis. Anyway, it was a good salad. 

TUESDAY
Lasagna, Mars cake

Tuesday was Elijah’s birthday celebration, and he requested Damien’s amazing lasagna, which he makes using the Albert Burneko recipe. Absolutely stupendous. Creamy cheese sauce, ultra savory tomato sauce with meat, just fab. I always get a terrible picture of this lasagna because, once he sets it on the table, no power on heaven or earth can slow me down.

It weighs about 87 pounds and it’s so good. 

I also made a Mars cake. Elijah likes Mars a lot, and I thought it would be nice to throw together a little fondant Mars Perseverance Rover with wheels that turn and a little gum paste Ingenuity helicopter with a rotor that spins, how hard could it be??

Well. I took a chance and broke away from my filthy box cake ways and used the King Arthur “Simple and Rich Chocolate Cake” recipe and it was exactly that, simple and rich (and chocolate, and cake. And a recipe. You guys, I’m so tired). And the cake turned out very well! I made a simple frosting with butter, a little salt and vanilla, powdered sugar, and milk, and the Mars part was pretty enough.

Then, well, things got out of hand a little bit with the robots

What can I say, an attempt was made. The good news is, he turned down my original idea, which was a galaxy mirror glaze cake with a surprise Mars-shaped heart baked right into it. So like when you cut space open, there’s Mars inside! Just like in real life! So we didn’t do that, which is good, because I can’t do that. Instead, we had the robuts, held together with toothpicks. They would have been better if he had let me put candy eyeballs on them, but I learned just in time that he actually feels strongly about robots and eyeballs. Look-a here.

WEDNESDAY
Tacos

Man, it’s a good thing I wrote this down, because I don’t remember this at all. What a week. I fell asleep on the couch so many times. 

THURSDAY
Mussakhan and taboon bread, tabouleh 

This I do remember. This is the second time I have made this meal, recipe also from Saveur, and it was just as popular this time. It’s quite easy, but packs a huge punch with flavor. You just have to get your chicken parts and onions marinating several hours ahead of time, and then you just roast it up.

Just before it’s done, you fry up some pine nuts and toss them over the top of the sizzling hot chicken, which you have lavishly spread over the piping hot taboon bread,

Jump to Recipe

which you have whipped up a few hours before dinner because you believe in yourself. Actually I timed it a little wrong and the chicken was ready a few minutes before the bread, so people started eating it before I could put it on the bread. A minor disappointment, soothed by the implied compliment that they couldn’t wait to get their hands on that chicken. I still had my chicken on bread, and I spooned up plenty of the lovely sumac-laden roasting juices to ladle over the tender, dimpled taboon. 

This meal is so good, you can’t imagine. The chicken is so juicy and the mixture of spices is just heavenly. You got the happy salty little bread cloud floating underneath and it’s really just hard to stop eating. 

I also picked up a few boxes of tabouleh, already mixed with seasoning, so you just had to pour hot water over it to wake it up, and then I added some chopped tomatoes and cucumbers and feta cheese. I ate, uh, kind of a lot of that, too, even though it was just boxabouleh. 

FRIDAY
Pizza

Just regular old pizza, whew.

Oh, I was planning to tell you about the whole other cake, but I guess that belongs in next week’s post! I mean this week’s post. I did start it on Thursday. Well, next time, I’ll tell you allll about it. It just about killed me. 

And now it’s Tuesday. We got a massive dump of snow, the power is out, and I guess we are going to have corn flakes and melted snow for supper. 

Print

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

  1. Mix the flour, salt, and yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. Preheat the oven to 400. Put a greased pan or a baking stone in the oven to heat up.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. Bake for 10-12 minutes until it's just slightly browned.

What’s for supper? Vol. 240: Challah round the world

I have a message for you: You’re going to be okay. I hope that isn’t the wrong thing to say, but it keeps coming into my head, so I’m passing it along.

And now for what we ate this week! My lame excuse for the title is that we had Italian soup, Jewish bread, Palestinian soup, Korean stir fry, Mexican quesadillas, and I guess American Jell-o. I guess pulled pork is American, too. The steak, however, was out of this world, ho ho ho ho ho. 

SATURDAY
Steak and Jell-o

Saturday was Corrie’s birthday, and she had this very definite dinner request. Actually she wanted steak and blue Jell-o, but I didn’t get started early enough in the day to make that happen from Jell-o powder, so we got a few packs of baby’s very first pre-made gelatin cups in assorted colors, and she was pretty happy. 

Her party is supposed to be tomorrow, if it doesn’t get cancelled by yet another snow storm, and I need to get started on that cake today. It will be an under-the-sea theme, and I HAVE AMBITIONS. They include Jell-o.

For the next photo, regarding the steak we had, you may want to engage your custody of the eyes, because it’s a Friday in Lent, and boy. 

First I’ll tell you how Damien cooked the steaks: Season the steaks with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Get an iron frying pan screamingly hot and throw a few cloves of garlic and some olive oil in, and then cook it three minutes, then spread some butter on it and cover it and cook it for another minute, then flip it and do the same thing on the other side. May or may not need to cook it more after that, depending on how thick the steak is. 

Okay, here’s the picture, and don’t say I didn’t warn you:

Sigh. It was so tender, so juicy. 

I’m starving. This is fine. 

SUNDAY
Pizza 

Museum day! It was the very last day of February vacation and we made the trek to the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA, which Damien and I have been to before, but the kids have not. It’s a wonderful ride that takes you way up in the Berkshires, and the museum itself is excellent, and they have FREE ADMISSION THROUGH MARCH. I shared a few photos of our trip here:

Very nice. We stopped for pizza on the way home at a little Greek place, Village Pizza in Greenfield, MA. Tasty pizza, friendly service, clean and cheap.

This was the trip where I finally let the kids use the DVD player in the car. We’ve never had a vehicle with a DVD player before, and I’ve been holding off using it because I am a big believer in the value of both scenery and boredom; but this was a pretty long haul, so they watched some Harry Potter thing on the way there, and Barbie as the Island Princess on the way home. Now Corrie is going around gleefully singing, “Some people say that we’re VERRRRRRRmin, but we’re just misunderstood!” Those Barbie movies were not half bad! 

MONDAY
Chicken broccoli stir fry with rice

Boneless, skinless chicken breast was on sale, so I got a few pounds of it and cut it up small, and a few pounds of broccoli crowns and cut them up small, and I made a batch of simple sauce that I was pretty happy with. I used the sauce in this recipe from My Korean Kitchen, which is meant for a noodle dish, which also sounds delicious.

The sauce calls for equal parts oyster sauce, soy sauce, and honey, plus some minced garlic and sesame oil. Nice and easy but tons of flavor. I had two open bottles of oyster sauce and wasn’t sure how old they were, so I smelled them both and they both smelled like old feet, so I used them both. 

I threw in some mushrooms and I think maybe some onions, and it was delicious. I cooked the chicken about 3/4 of the way through before adding in the broccoli, because overcooked broccoli is so very sad. 

I made a big pot of rice in the Instant Pot. I also made a little fruit salad of strawberries and mangoes.

I love to have something sweet along with the strong umami flavor of the oyster sauce. 

TUESDAY
Italian wedding soup, challah

Snow day! Actually a remote school day, because they knew there was a storm coming, so they sent the kids home with packets so they could get work done and the day at home wouldn’t count against their summer vacation. Okay with me. And a good day for soup and bread. 

And this was tremendous soup. Simple, but powerful. I more or less followed this meatball recipe from Sip and Feast, except I had ground chicken instead of turkey, and shredded manchego instead of grated parmesan (and I used about twice the cheese that was called for). The other ingredients are breadcrumbs, grated onion, eggs, a little milk and olive oil, pepper and kosher salt; and then it calls for fresh basil and parsley, which I didn’t have, so I just dumped in a generous handful of [shield your ears] dried Italian seasoning, which is probably, I don’t know, oregano and parsley and basil. These are small meatballs, and I baked them on parchment paper in the oven. 

I did run into a small snag, wherein I was mixing the ingredients by hand and trying to stifle my increasing alarm at the wet, pulpy texture of it. Was it really supposed to be this gritty? And why was it that color? And how could this possibly be enough for a double recipe??

Then I realized I forgot the meat. So I put in the meat in the meatballs and then they were fine.

Follow me for more cooking tips. 

The soup, I first sauteed some diced onions and carrots and wedges of zucchini, then added about ten cups of chicken broth. Then I threw in the meatballs and kept that warm all day. When it was almost supper time, I added several handfuls of baby spinach and a cup of ditalini, and simmered it until the pasta was done.

So not really traditional Italian wedding soup, but extremely tasty and warming, and a wonderful shimmering gold. 

I also made a couple of challahs. I made two separate batches, and accidentally conducted a science experiment, one with a control challah

Jump to Recipe

and one eliminating the oil. Challah needs two rises, and I didn’t realize I forgot the oil until after the first rise, so I decided to just see what would happen. (This was after I had almost made meat-free meatballs, so I was trying to be kind with myself at this point.) 

Then I decided, oh, what’s the worst that could happen, I’ll just quickly learn how to do a four-strand braid, rather than my usual technique, which is to make a big challah with a little challah lounging on top. I followed this helpful video from Jamie Geller, which was helpful for a minute or so until my battery died, and then I had no idea what the hell to do. Even when I’m not exhausted and extra dumb, I am very very bad indeed at left-right stuff, and get unreasonably confused. I can see that it’s simple, but that doesn’t help! My brain goes, “Okay, I see, I see, I see . . . HWAA????”

So this is what I made:

Eh, it’s still bread. I brushed them with egg wash, let them rise again, and guess what, they came out looking lovely:

I took the advice to keep the braid loose, and some real magic happened in the oven.

So we had a really good snow day meal of soup and bread. 

Oh, as for the challah with vs. without oil, the one without oil was somewhat less supple to work with, but I could honestly hardly tell the difference when I ate them. Here are photos of the insides of both:

Did I remember to make a note of which is which? I did not. I remember thinking that mayyyyybe the one without oil tasted a little dryer, but it also might just have been the power of suggestion. I think maybe the first one is the one without oil. It does look dryer, but honestly, you could not taste much difference. So there you have it. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken spinach quesadillas, chips and salsa

Boneless skinless chicken breast was also on sale, so Damien broiled it up with a bunch of hotsy totsy spices while I was running around, and Elijah shredded up a bunch of sharp cheddar cheese, and I made quesadillas to order. 

I had mine with chicken and spinach, no jalapeños, and it was very fine.

I’m adding spinach to more and more things, and no one can stop me! When they dig up my barrow millennia from now, they will say, “WHO WAS THIS POWERFUL WOMAN, AND WHY ARE HER BONES SO STRONG AND FIRM AND RIDDLED WITH SPINACH?” Yes that is how it works. I have an online degree, it is how it works. 

THURSDAY
Pulled pork sandwiches, baked potatoes, peas

Went back to the recipe I used last time for pork nachos,

Jump to Recipe

but this time I just served the pork on sandwich rolls. Also this time I split open the chipotle peppers and let the seeds spill out, which upped the spiciness a little bit.

Part of my reasoning for making this dish was that Damien was being interviewed for a documentary on Thursday, IN THE LIVING ROOM, and we did clean up the house as much as we were able on short notice, but I thought if it smelled good in there, the muddy floor would be less visible? I don’t know, maybe that only works with me. Anyway I made pulled pork. 

Here’s another Lenten carnal detachment test for you: I cut up pork in big chunks, seasoned them heavily with salt and pepper, and browned them in oil 

then chunked them in the Instant Pot along with some orange quarters, a can of Coke, some bay leaves, three chipotle pepper, and a heaping tablespoon of cumin. Closed the lid and valve and cooked it on high pressure for 24 minutes. Opened it up, oooooh . . . 

Picked out the bay leaves, oranges, and peppers, and poured out most of the liquid (but saved it for gravy, as it’s a very tasty gravy), and shredded the meat

It should be mega mega tender and easy to shred. I served it with toasted rolls, thinly sliced red onions, and bottled barbecue sauce, and some peas on the side just for green.

I also splurged on baked potatoes, as you can see, which hardly seems like something to splurge on, but big potatoes are expensive, especially for ten people! But everyone does love them every once in a while. I briefly considered having baked potatoes with pork on them, but I’ll save that adventure for some other day. 

FRIDAY
Sabanekh bil hummus (Palestinian chickpea spinach stew)

A new recipe. Don’t ask me why I decided to try a new recipe when I’m supposed to be making an under-the-sea cake, but that is what I planned. It does smell absolutely scrumptious so far, and it’s cheap and Lent-y, and who knows, maybe a couple of people will even eat it. I’ll keep you posted. The recipe is from Saveur.

It comes together pretty quick. You have to saute some onions, then toast a few spices and grind them up, then add the spices and some garlic to the onions and cook that, and then add in chickpeas and stock, and simmer. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. Gosh, it smells amazing. 

Later comes spinach and some fresh lemon juice. 

If I’m feeling like a hotshot, maybe I’ll make a Giant Taboon to go with it. There’s always the possibility of a Giant Taboon. 

I think I forgot to tell you what the secret fiendish thingy was in the last food post! Several people did spot and correctly identify it, right in the bowl of butter chicken. 

It is the little stopper for the cream carton.

Nicely stained with turmeric, too. 

I must have pulled it off and then dropped it into the cream, and then poured it into the pan and then served it to myself and then taken a picture of it. Follow me for more etc. etc. At least I didn’t eat it. 

Okay, that’s a wrap! I think I may have to reschedule Corrie’s party, but I’m not sure, and this cake needs to be started quite a ways ahead of time. It looks like a pretty big storm, AGAIN. Gah, I am so tired of snow. We did pop outside and gawk at Jupiter and Venus blazing away about an inch and a half away from each other last night, and that was pretty neat. I suppose if they can show upand put on a good show, so can I. Hup! 

5 from 1 vote
Print

Italian Wedding Soup with pork meatballs

Lots of variations to this pleasant, nourishing soup with little meatballs.

Ingredients

For the meatballs:

  • 4-5 lbs ground pork (can mix in some ground beef or turkey)
  • 5 eggs
  • 2-1/2 cups bread crumbs
  • 4 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 1 Tbsp oregano
  • 1 bunch fresh Italian parsley, chopped fine
  • 1 to 1-1/2 cups freshly-shredded parmesan
  • 1/2 cup butter for frying

For the soup:

  • 3 lg carrots, diced
  • 1 lg onion, diced
  • 8 cloves garlic, minced
  • 16 cups chicken broth
  • 3 cups white wine
  • 3-4 cups raw kale, torn into pieces
  • 2 cups uncooked small pasta like ditalini
  • pepper
  • more parmesan and Italian parsley for garnish

Instructions

To make the meatballs:

  1. Thoroughly combine all the ingredients (except the butter) with your hands. Form them into small meatballs. In a large, heavy pot, melt the butter and lightly brown the meatballs in batches. They do not need to be cooked all the way through, as they will continue cooking in the soup.

To make the soup:

  1. Remove the meatballs from the pot. Put the onions and carrots into the butter and cook until they're slightly soft. Add in the garlic and continue cooking until the garlic is fragrant but not too browned.

  2. Add the meatballs back in. Add the broth and white wine, the kale, and the pepper to taste. Simmer for several hours.

  3. About half an hour before serving, add the uncooked pasta and turn up the heat to cook.

  4. Serve with shredded or grated parmesan and coarsely chopped Italian parsley for a garnish.

 

Print

Challah (braided bread)

Ingredients

  • 1.5 cups warm water
  • 1/2 cup oil (preferably olive oil)
  • 2 eggs
  • 6-8 cups flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1.5 tsp yeast
  • 2 egg yolks for egg wash
  • poppy seeds or "everything bagel" topping (optional)
  • corn meal (or flour) for pan, to keep loaf from sticking

Instructions

  1. In a small bowl, dissolve a bit of the sugar into the water, and sprinkle the yeast over it. Stir gently, and let sit for five minutes or more, until it foams.

  2. In the bowl of standing mixer, put the flour (starting with six cups), salt, remaining sugar, oil, and eggs, mix slightly, then add the yeast liquid. Mix with dough hook until the dough doesn't stick to the sides of the bowl, adding flour as needed. It's good if it has a slightly scaly appearance on the outside.

  3. (If you're kneading by hand, knead until it feels soft and giving. It will take quite a lot of kneading!)

  4. Put the dough in a greased bowl and lightly cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap. Let it rise in a warm place for at least an hour, until it's double in size.

  5. Grease a large baking sheet and sprinkle it with flour or corn meal. Divide the dough into four equal pieces. Roll three into "snakes" and make a large braid, pinching the ends to keep them together. Divide the fourth piece into three and make a smaller braid, and lay this over the larger braid. Lay the braided loaf on the pan.

  6. Cover again and let rise again for at least an hour. Preheat the oven to 350.

  7. Before baking, make an egg wash out of egg yolks and a little water. Brush the egg wash all over the loaf, and sprinkle with poppy seeds or "everything" topping.

  8. Bake 25 minutes or more until the loaf is a deep golden color.

 

5 from 1 vote
Print

Pork nachos

Ingredients

  • 3-4 lbs pork butt/shoulder, trimmed and cut into pieces
  • salt and pepper
  • oil for frying
  • 2-3 oranges or clementines
  • 3 chipotle chiles
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 Tbsp cumin
  • 1 can Coke

Instructions

  1. Heat the oil in a heavy pan. Heavily season the pieces of meat with salt and pepper. Brown the meat on all sides.

  2. Transfer the meat to the Instant Pot. Add the Coke and the rest of the ingredients. Close the lid, close the valve, and cook on high pressure for 24 minutes.

  3. Discard bay leaves and orange peels, remove meat from broth, shred, and serve.

What’s for supper? Vol. 236: Lardum et labora

What’s for supper? WEWLL, as Corrie used to say, if you read Wednesday’s post about menu planning and shopping, you already know most of it! Nevertheless, here is the thrilling conclusion to my story about sale pork and such.

We’ve had multiple snow storms and slush storms and whatnot, so this is the week for winter cooking to shine. Damien did this

and Corrie did this

and I just mainly hovered around the stove and cooked. 

Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY
Spaghetti with sauce and sausage

As anticipated, the people who went sledding on Saturday were happy to come home to a big pot of hot spaghetti and sausage. 

Sorry it’s a terrible picture, but I was starving and didn’t feel like messing around.

I also grabbed a few boxes of brownie mix and made brownies. I have a long and dopey history of accidentally buying brownie mix when I meant to buy chocolate cake mix. Once I even went to buy cake mix, bought brownie mix by mistake, went back to the store to correct my mistake, and bought brownie mix again. (You may think this is because I secretly like brownies so much and am subconsciously sabotaging my plans so as to have more brownies, but, as I am constantly whining about, I can’t even eat chocolate at all! I’m just stupid.) So I was expecting to get razzed about the brownies a bit, but everyone was distracted by the fact that I made the brownies, put them in the oven, set the timer, let them bake, and turned off the timer, but forgot to take the brownies out of the oven, and so we got a giant chocolate brick for dessert, and nobody could tell what it was supposed to be. That’ll larn ’em.

SUNDAY
Hamburgers, chips, homemade ice cream

Sunday was the Lunar New Year Festival in Brattleboro. We didn’t eat much because it was a potluck and we hadn’t brought anything, but I did daringly try some kind of exotic egg dish which turned out to be hard boiled eggs with a little splash of soy sauce. We had fun, though. Here’s a few albums:


 

Corrie did a Korean rope tug, the girls and I tried to learn a circle dance, and we followed a dragon through the downtown. Then we came home and had hamburgers. 

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this in a while, but my method for making hamburgers, when we can’t grill them outside, is to use high fat ground beef, flatten the hell out of them, and then broil them in the oven on a pan with drainage. They come out yummy and juicy and you don’t throw grease all over your kitchen. 

Sunday I also made some ice cream. I made two batches of plain sweet cream base (2 eggs, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 cup milk, 2 cups heavy cream per batch), and put chocolate chips in one, and maraschino cherries and mini marshmallows in the other.

That ice cream maker has been an unfailing bright spot in family life. Maybe that sounds silly, but it’s been a tough year, and it’s nice to have something that just straight up worked out great. It’s a quick creative outlet, it almost always turns out well, and when people hear the machine churning, they go, “OOH, what are you making?” and they’re not disappointed like they are when they hear what I’m making for supper. And we get ice cream! If I could change one thing, it would be not having to remember to put the freezer bowls in the freezer the night before, but I usually manage. 

MONDAY
Roast chicken, mashed butternut squash, salad

The dreaded roast chickens. I’ve been trying harder to stick to what we have in the house and not be constantly running out to buy this and that, so I used what we happened to have, which was two elderly lemons, some rather decrepit garlic, and some rosemary that I bought for the soup later in the week.

I just kinda rubbed these on the chicken and then shoved them into the cavity, then added a little olive oil and salt and pepper and hot pepper flakes and more garlic powder to the skin, and roasted them chickens. They were fine. 

The reason whole chickens are dreaded is mainly because we had sooooo much chicken when we were poor, because it was cheap and I could get several meals out of it. I got extraordinarily sick of every part of the process of dealing with a whole chicken, and it hasn’t worn off yet. The whole thing just feels bitter and sad. Feel free to share your special tasty wonderful recipe so other people can enjoy it, but I don’t think I will get over my chicken resentment! 

I did put the carcasses in the freezer, so I suppose we’ll be having soup or something at some point. 

The part of the meal I did enjoy was the mashed squash. This is a surprisingly pleasant and tasty dish.

Jump to Recipe

I loosened up the squash in the microwave for a few minutes so it would be easier to cut, then I sprinkled the quarters with baking soda and kosher salt and put them in the Instant Pot with water, and cooked them for a good long time. 

Removed the seeds, scooped out the flesh, and mashed it up with plenty of butter, some brown sugar, and a little nutmeg, and man, it is cozy, fluffy, and delicious.

It’s like sweet potatoes went to finishing school and learned how to entertain. 

TUESDAY
Bo ssam with lettuce and rice and pickled radishes

The night before, I mixed a cup of salt and a cup of sugar together like an absolute criminal and rubbed it all over a big fatty hunk of pork, and sealed it in a ziplock bag in the fridge overnight. Tuesday, I put it the pork a foil-lined pan at 300 around 11:30 and, boop, the main part of supper was taken care of. 

You make a simple sauce (7 Tbsp brown sugar, 2 Tbsp cider vinegar, and 1 Tbsp sea salt) and spread that on top of the meat and turn the heat up for the last ten minutes of cooking, but that’s the only other thing you have to do. 

Then I needed to figure out what to do with the radishes.

A lot of Korean radish dishes are for Korean radishes, which are a whole other vegetable from radishes, and are also called daikon, which they had at the store but I did not buy. ACTUALLY, a Korean radish is something called “mu,” which is a kind of daikon radish. All I know is they don’t seem to sell mu in the store, and what I had were western radishes, the little round, reddish, peppery kind. The round, reddish peppery kind that are 𝓕𝓞𝓡 𝓨𝓞𝓤

So I pickled them, yay! A cup of rice vinegar, a cup of water, a cup of sugar, and a little sea salt, and a pound of radishes. I simmered the sauce ingredients until the sugar was dissolved, sliced the radishes thinly in the food processor, then poured the sauce over the radishes.

Then I refrigerated it until dinner, and they had turned a delightful pink

Not quite as dark as they look here, but more of a flamingo color. 

They were very nice. Quite sweet and tangy, and truthfully you could’t taste more than a faint a radish taste, but mostly just the texture. It was like pickled ginger, but not, you know, gingery. I thought they made a very pleasant accompaniment to the bo ssam, which is ferociously salty. 

Everyone was very happy with this meal and nobody was mad at me. So I guess it was 𝓕𝓞𝓡 𝓜𝓔 after all.

WEDNESDAY
Tomato bisque, grilled cheese

All week, I was looking forward to this soup. I made a few adjustments to this recipe since last I made it (more tomatoes, more garlic, and add the bacon right at the end), and man, it was scrumptious.

Jump to Recipe

Garlic, onion, tomato, rosemary, boom, you taste it all. (There’s also a bay leaf but I’m starting to believe that’s mainly a superstition.) 

I made cheddar and sourdough sandwiches and grilled them in bacon grease, which probably wasn’t absolutely necessary, but it did make them CRRRRRISP and nobody complained.

Just an excellent little meal, so cozy and good. 

I could eat this meal every week. Gotta have it at least once while there’s snow on the ground. 

THURSDAY
Gochujang bulgoki, pineapple, nori, rice, leftover pickled radishes, a little broccoli

The second pork hunk. It was a two-hour school delay, so the day got all messed up and I really wasn’t feeling terribly ambitious about dinner, but I had painted myself into a corner. So I sharpened my knife and started to hack away at the meat. I was listening to a radio show about people who are lobbying for the right to have more fixable appliances, and how they make videos for other people about how to fix things, and they give free advice about what kind of glue to use and stuff like that, and by the time I was halfway through that pork butt, the magic of doing things with your own two hands had taken over. I could have stood there all day, locating the direction of the muscle fibers, carefully trimming the fat, and thriftily separating away only the most inedible layers of onion skin with the tip of my freshly-honed knife. I even decided to trim a bag of baby carrots into matchsticks, which is insane, but the spirit of imaginary stick-to-it-iveness lay about me like a mantle, so that’s what I did.

I snapped out of it, though, because I had shit to do. Like yoga. I had to change out of my pajama pants into my yoga pants and do yoga, which was a special cardio glute burn, and then I took a shower and changed into my leggings so I could pick up the kids, and then I changed back into my pajama pants. Truly the American spirit breathes through my every pore.

I forget what we were talking about. Oh, bulgoki. Well it marinated all day and then I pan fried it, and it was tender and delicious. 

And you know what, it really is better with matchstick carrots than any other kind of carrots.

I made a pot of rice in the Instant Pot, cut up a couple of pineapples, and set out some lettuce and nori, and that is one super meal.

You make little bundles, either with the lettuce or nori, and grab up a little meat and rice and pop it in your mouth, and it’s so tasty, honeyed and savory with just a little gochujang burn. You can easily adjust the marinade to make it sweeter or spicier, but you should know that cooking takes the heat down quite a bit, so if you taste the marinade, it won’t be as hot as you expect.

Jump to Recipe

Although gochujang sneaks up on you a bit. 

FRIDAY
Pizza

Today I shall make four pizzas. And then this week can bite my butt. We are all so exhausted! Life is tiring! Better than the alternative. 

Hey, thanks for being interested in my shopping and planning post. I was unexpectedly moved to hear that people actually read through the whole thing. There is just so much dang work in the world that goes unwitnessed and unacknowledged, not just in big families, but in every family, in every life. It’s a lot of work to keep ourselves alive, isn’t it? I salute you, my dear reader who is getting it together one more time to figure out what’s for supper, whether it’s for a crowd or for your own self, whether you feel up to it or not. You made it to Friday, and you did good. L’chaim. 

Print

Instant Pot Mashed Acorn Squash

Ingredients

  • 1 acorn quashes
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 Tbsp butter
  • 2 Tbsp brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg

Instructions

  1. Cut the acorn squashes in half. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt on the cut surfaces.

  2. Put 1/2 a cup of water in the Instant Pot, fit the rack in it, and stack the squash on top. Close the lid, close the valve, and cook on high pressure for 24 minutes. Do quick release.

  3. When squash is cool enough to handle, scoop it out into a bowl, mash it, and add the rest of the ingredients.

 

Print

Tomato bisque with bacon

Calories 6 kcal

Ingredients

  • 1 lb bacon (peppered bacon is good)
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 5 cloves garlic, minced
  • 56 oz can of whole tomatoes
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 46 oz tomato juice
  • 8 oz cream cheese
  • 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
  • salt and pepper
  • crispy fried onions (optional garnish)

Instructions

  1. Fry the bacon until crisp. Remove from pan, chop it up, and drain out all but a a few teaspoons of grease.

  2. Add the diced onion and minced garlic to the grease and sauté until soft.

  3. Add tomatoes (including juices), bay leaves, rosemary, and tomato juice, and simmer for 20 minutes. Save some rosemary for a garnish if you like.

  4. With a slotted spoon, fish out the bay leaf, the tomatoes, and most of the rosemary, leaving some rosemary leaves in. Discard most of the rosemary and bay leaf. Put the rest of the rosemary and the tomatoes in a food processor with the 8 oz of cream cheese until it's as smooth as you want it.

  5. Return pureed tomato mixture to pot. Salt and pepper to taste.

  6. Heat through. Add chopped bacon right before serving, or add to individual servings; and top with crispy fried onions if you like. Garnish with more rosemary if you're a fancy man. 

 

Print

Gochujang bulgoki (spicy Korean pork)


Ingredients

  • 1.5 pound boneless pork, sliced thin
  • 4 carrots in matchsticks or shreds
  • 1 onion sliced thin

sauce:

  • 5 generous Tbsp gochujang (fermented pepper paste)
  • 2 Tbsp honey
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 2 Tbsp soy sauce
  • 5 cloves minced garlic

Serve with white rice and nori (seaweed sheets) or lettuce leaves to wrap

Instructions

  1. Combine pork, onions, and carrots.

    Mix together all sauce ingredients and stir into pork and vegetables. 

    Cover and let marinate for several hours or overnight.

    Heat a pan with a little oil and sauté the pork mixture until pork is cooked through.

    Serve with rice and lettuce or nori. Eat by taking pieces of lettuce or nori, putting a scoop of meat and rice in, and making little bundles to eat.