4/29/15

Dinner with my parents. Delicious chicken and sausage gumbo, plus biscuits. I brought butter cookies (from NYT). Pretty basic, but the kind of thing I like. I would skip their glaze and make the butter-confection sugar icing instead next time. Sadly, I was too timid with the almond extract.

4/28/15

Leftovers, sort of. Potstickers from the freezer (that we made a few weeks ago), plus noodles stir fried with ginger, garlic, peas, zucchini and broccoli. The potstickers were good even though I was in a bit of a rush. The nonstick pan works really well for cooking them.

4/27/15

Pasta with tomato sauce, made like my mother's---slow cooked in the oven all day, with italian sausage. I love how tender the sausage gets with this method. Zucchini, and some homemade white bread from NYT:

The bread is a nice, plain white loaf. More complicated to make than my standard bread, but good in a different way.

ps: Not loving the chocolate madeleines.

Sunday, 4/26/15

Sushi and her lazy cousin, sushi bowl (ran out of nori). With roasted tofu, avocados, mango and cucumber. Delicious!
I also made these:

Fortunately, they taste good.

Chocolate madeleines do not actually look like madeleines at all, as it turns out. They are very rich and chocolatey, however. Kind of like little individual brownies.

Saturday, 4/25/15

Dinner with Jennie and David. We brought the Bread of Awesomeness, cornbread madeleines with cane syrup/butter dipping sauce (my attempt, only somewhat successful, to recreate the madeleines at Blue Smoke) and a maple-nutmeg custard pie (obviously right up my alley, although the bottom crust was disappointingly soggy).

Friday, 4/26/15

Could it be possible that I made more madeleines? Why yes, it is! They are truly best right out of the oven.

Also featured; hamburgers, french fries (frozen, but deep fried), spinach salad with avocado, mango, pumpkin seeds and citrus vinaigrette. Plus some sauteed mushrooms from the NYT. Really, we could have skipped the burgers. Those french fries were very filling.

Thursday, 4/23/15

Dinner at Jen and John's. We brought marinated chicken (sort of a mojo marinade---mango, OJ, garlic, sriracha) that John grilled, and chocolate pudding (SK). They provided asparagus (also grilled), Hungry Ghost bread and cheese. And booze, of course. Good dinner, good company.

Wednesday, 4/22/15

Dinner with my folks (grilled chicken, pilaf, asparagus). The second batch of madeleines (from Dorie Greenspan's blog) was noticeably inferior. So the easier recipe (from "Madeleines", by Barbara Morse) is the winner. I will have to try some variations.

Tuesday, 4/21/15

Cheese pupusas (cooked in the new nonstick pan!), grilled hanger steak (just plain, but good), and baked sweet potato. This was an odd combination for us, but really good.
I'm experimenting with madeleine recipes. I made one batch from a book called  "Madeleines"; just plain and very quick to assemble. really delicious warm from the pan. There is another batch chilling overnight in the fridge; this recipe is from Dorie Greenspan and I flavored it with a bit of orange zest. I can't wait to sample them tomorrow!

Monday, 4/20/15

Spicy orange tofu with broccoli, adapted from Food52. Jason and I liked it, Carter was neutral. Trader Joe's was out of extra firm tofu, so it was a bit difficult to work with, and shallow frying the cornstarch-coated cubes was messy and smelly. But Jason and I both appreciated the crunchy/chewy texture.
Exciting news: I now own a madeleine pan! Stay tuned for madeleines.

Sunday, 4/19/15

Carter's Birthday! No cooking. Breakfast at the Roost (I LOVE those breakfast sandwiches), lunch at Wendy's (surprisingly subpar), dinner from Christo's Pizza in North Adams (fine. Frontier is still my gold standard for greek pizza, though). Chocolate birthday cake for dessert (yay Porches!).

Saturday, 4/18/15

Dinner with Jennie and David. I brought a perfectly serviceable apple galette. My favorite part was the dark caramel sauce I made to go with it (from SK). I liked it so much I came home and ate it on angel food cake.

Friday, 4/17/15

Spent the day in NYC with Carter and Corrina, so no cooking for me. We went to Corrina's restaurant, Blue Smoke, where we enjoyed deviled eggs, roasted oysters (SO good!), asparagus, cornbread madeleines with an amazing butter/cane syrup dipping sauce, and banana cream pie. We didn't love the macaroni and cheese and the strawberry/smoked goat cheese/red leaf and ham salad as much, but it was a great dinner and a great day.

Thursday, 4/16/15

Disappointing. I made pasta cacio e pepe, from Mark Bittman's recipe in the NYT. The cheese clumped up, and no amount of pasta water and olive oil could make it into a smooth sauce. Served this mess with roasted cauliflower (uninspired) and italian sausage (overcooked the onion and peppers). I was really excited about this pasta! I don't know if I should bother again, as grating all that cheese was a pain.
At least the brownies I made for Carter's class were good.

Wednesday, 4/15/14

Carter and I went to Bertucci's for dinner:

Was seized by hungry-order-too-much syndrome, but at least we have plenty of leftovers.

I also made an angel cake with our surplus egg whites. I think I just ate about a third of it.

Tuesday, 4/14/15

Burritos, guacamole, ubiquitous zucchini/summer squash. I really need to branch out, vegetable-wise.
Enjoyable and unremarkable.

Monday, 4/13/15

Rice and beans, from a memoir called "Bon Appetempt". Really just regular rice and beans but made with coconut milk. Served with avocado. I liked it, Carter was meh, but it took a long time to cook. The recipe called for a skillet over a saucepan, which would probably cook faster, but I don't have a skillet with a lid.

So, no need to hold on to the recipe, but the coconut milk  was a nice addition.

I also made a batch of biscotti for His Jasonness.

Sunday, 4/12/15

Easy Sunday dinner---pasta and meatballs, roasted asparagus and leftover sampita. The pasta was great, the asparagus was fine, that sampita is quite the dessert. I think Corrina would love it.

Saturday, 4/11/15

Dinner with Jennie and David. We brought bread, sushi, and....Sampita!

I forgot to take the picture before we ate half of it. Also, it's a terrible picture of a pretty striking dessert. A thin layer of very rich cake, topped with a LOT of thick, sweet meringue. Reminiscent of 7 minute frosting. I did like it, overall.
The sushi (which I completely forgot to photograph) was a mix of vegetarian fillings--5-spice tofu, avocado, mango, cucumber. Good, but still not as good as Big Y. I think it was a success, in that there were no leftovers.
The bread was fabulous as always.
By the way, Jennie is allergic to melon.

Friday, 4/10/15

Dinner with Beverly and Joel. Brought caramel matzoh crunch, as bidden. Tried to mix it up a bit by making some dark and some milk chocolate, and by adding almonds to some. Still, I am so over this dessert, despite its tastiness/popularity.

Thursday, 4/9/15

Tofu with noodles. Broccoli and soy sauce for Carter, Chinese broccoli with ginger, garlic, korean chili paste and sesame oil for me. Basic tofu dinner (marinated and roasted the tofu).

Wednesday, 4/8/15

Dinner at my mom's (hamburgers, deviled eggs, potato soup,  if you are curious)! Pawned off all the buttermints on her, since she liked them. I liked them well enough, although the mint ones reminded me of toothpaste.

Tuesday, 4/7/15

Black bean soup, bread, broccoli. Alliterative! Convenient and quick, since the soup was made in the morning and Jason made his signature bread. The broccoli went uneaten, so now it is breakfast.
As expected, no one likes the buttermints but me.

Monday, 4/6/15

Tilapia with tropical fruit salsa, pilaf, salad. Overall quite uninspiring. The salsa was nice (and good on my lunchtime spinach salad) but overpowered the tilapia. The pilaf was underseasoned. The salad was lame (just romaine, peas and a little parm!) and the dressing was too tart. Carter liked the fish and rice, at least.
I did have fun with post-prandial candymaking, however. Buttermints and pralines.

Sunday, 4/5/15

Final night of dumpling mania---chicken and sausage empanadas from SK. I used a whole chicken, which made a lot of filling. They were not beautiful, but tasted great. Nice pastry, especially. The filling seems really adaptable--maybe add more onions and paprika next time? This would be a great use for leftover chicken. Served with good old zucchini and cherry tomatoes.

Saturday, 4/4/15

Ambitious night. Homemade ricotta ravioli (thanks, pasta machine dude Jason!) with Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce, caesar salad, maple custard. I was also working on tomorrow nights dinner, so it was hectic. The pasta was wonderful; the recipe for the dough and filling both came from SE. I would omit the lemon in the filling next time, and use my my regular sauce recipe. I don't know if I love the Hazan recipe. Even Carter liked the salad, although he thought the custard was too sweet. I didn't, but I don't think it needs to be steamed (it broke a bit). I won't bother with the foil next time.
We should really make fresh pasta more often.

Friday, 4/3/15

Asian night. Scallion pancakes (SE), pork gyoza (also SE), some sauteed chinese broccoli with garlic. I didn't think the scallion pancakes were as good as they were the first time I made them. The dough could really use some salt, and they weren't, well, greasy enough. The gyoza needed more care than someone who had had a couple of glasses of wine could provide. I also threw together some butterscotch pudding from SK. Now, that was one easy dessert to make, with tasty results. Not SUPER flavorful, but good. Maybe brown the butter and cook the brown sugar longer? Or use dark brown sugar (which to be fair, the recipe called for).

Thursday, 4/2/15

Pizza for dinner, made by Jason. Pepperoni, onion, peppers. I have to hide my extreme dislike of raw onions on my pizza, but otherwise great. Then way too much ice cream and candy.

Wednesday, 4/1/15

Diner out with my mom and Carter. Tried the new pizza place in Hadley and it was so-so. That didn't stop me from eating a whole (but thin!) pizza, though.