7/30/15

Tofu, that I dredged in flour + cornstarch and pan-fried. served with rice, plus a thai-style curry that  made with red curry paste, coconut milk, onion, garlic, ginger and zucchini.

7/29/15

Dinner with Jen and Gus. Corn and green chile & chicken macaroni and cheese. I know I have made it twice before, but I love it so. Turns out that green chile and cheese are two of my trigger ingredients. I wonder how it would be in an enchilada form?

Gus buys the ice cream

7/28/15

Another night of SULA: hot dogs and sauerkraut for Jason, grilled cheese for Carter. I made a pasta with beet greens, garlic, red pepper and anchovies:

I ate this in the car (again), which would have been OK except that the pasta could have used some salt and I didn't have any. Still, using up those beet greens made me feel virtuous.

7/27/15

Dinner with Jennie and David. We brought bread, another blueberry pie, and some aloo tikki w/ mint and tamarind chutneys (from "Indian for Everyone"). I have had better luck with the chutneys from Saveur. The fritters were nice; I think if I make them again I would dredge them in chick pea flour before frying.

Here is a picture to annoy Jason:

Rainbow over cohousing

7/26/15

Chicken fried chicken (which I never deigned to eat when I lived in Texas) with mashed potatoes, cream gravy and a salad. I thought the chicken turned out really well, and I will repeat that technique, but the gravy was too thick, and I did not like the addition of garlic. I also over-salted it, but I can't blame Serious Eats for that. The potatoes were a vehicle for gravy and the salad was largely ignored.

7/25/15

No cooking at all. We were invited to Guy's house for dinner and brought only a bottle of prosecco. That felt weird. What a dinner, though: cheese and crackers, corn, cucumber/dill salad (right from the garden), grilled chicken, ribs, homemade bread and a fruit crisp for dessert. I am definitely intrigued by the idea of making ribs. These had a sour cherry glaze and were really delicious. I will bookmark that idea...

7/24/15

Dinner with my parents---a really good chicken/chickpea curry, roasted cauliflower and my first corn of the season! We brought a blueberry pie.

I wish I had gotten a picture of Jason licking his plate...The recipe is the same as the one for strawberry pie; coincidentally it was in the Genius Recipe cookbook I was flipping through, so I more-or-less used their proportions, although I used more of everything. I didn't bother with their overly complicated crust instructions.

7/23/15

I made a big pot of chickpea curry with sweet potatoes and spinach, from a book called "Cafe Spice Cookbook". I think I put in a little too much tomato, and thought it could have used some cream or coconut milk to smooth it out. Still, it was pretty good and a meal in itself (with some Trader Joe's naan). I don't think I need to keep the recipe, just the idea. Also, I am totally sold on using dried chickpeas.

7/22/15

Jason had been dreaming of fettucine alfredo, so I made a version with vegetarian sausage (surprise, Jason and Carter! Did you notice it wasn't meat?) and peas. Popular all around. Also made a salad with the worlds tartest vinaigrette.
disclaimer: it was actually linguine.

7/21/15

Tuesday night---haphazard dinner. Now I know how all those families that never have dinner together feel. Carter and Jason had sandwiches? I don't even know. I had leftover pasta with zucchini that I ate in the car at the SULA fields. Sad.

7/20/15

Various grilled cheese sandwiches: a reuben for Jason, grilled ham and swiss with onions on rye for Carter, swiss and cherry peppers for me.

7/19/15

Home, pool, Jennie and David's. We didn't have time to make a dessert or bread, but we brought an Atkin's cake and a bottle of rum, so we were warmly received.

7/18/15

The last of the leftovers: meatballs and tomato sauce, plus some garlic bread. I don't know if it was because they had been in the freezer, but I thought they weren't my best meatballs. A bit dry. Our last meal in our little cottage; we took a nice walk after dinner and played in the water and I enjoyed the sunset.

The tv may have been on.

7/17/15

Grilled chicken (again using the NYT fish sauce/lime marinade), guacamole and chips, and an actual vegetable! Just zucchini, but still. Although the fish sauce doesn't smell great, that marinade produces a really tender, flavorful grilled chicken.

See? No scurvy for us!

7/16/15

Pizza night, improvised because of a lack of baking sheets. One hamburger. mushroom and onion, the other salami, pepperoni, cherry peppers and some provolone. The salami pizza was a bit thicker that usual, and had a crust that was almost like focaccia.

7/15/15

Hamburgers, fancied up a bit. I made a chimichurri sauce and grilled provolone to go on top. This made for a VERY rich burger (even without a bun). The provolone looked perfect, and I thought I would love it, but it was perhaps too much of a good thing. We also had french fries and not even one vegetable!

7/14/15

Shopping day in New Hampshire and Lawrence, so we met Jeff and Sue for dinner. The riverside setting was actually quite beautiful and the pizza was good, but what we really liked were these couches:

So comfy!

7/13/15

Second round of leftovers: blintzes. These re-heated beautifully, and Carter particularly liked them with some of Jeff's homemade grape jelly. I am loving the double experience of easy, tasty meals, and knowing how empty our freezer is....

7/12/15

First night of vacation. We are using the opportunity to use up a bunch of leftovers from the freezer, so tonight was empanadas (plus rice and peas).

7/11/15

Dinner with Jennie and David featuring lots of cookies: peanut butter (underbaked), madeleines (a little overbaked), brown-butter shortbread, and jam thumbprints. There are still a lot of cookies and a lot of dough leftover.

What was happening over there?

7/10/15

Friday Fryday

Jason realized his dream of hot dogs wrapped in pizza dough and deep fried, at long last. There was also a bit of fried dough and some french fries (and enough leftover dough to make a pizza).
Plus a perfunctory apple.

7/9/15

Cold noodles with sesame sauce, swiss chard, grilled sesame-lime chicken. The noodles were good, but still didn't match my platonic ideal of sesame noodles. I will keep trying! The chicken was big success, though---flavorful and not dry. The marinade is from the NYT, and I boiled it,  reduced it a bit, and swirled in a bit of sesame oil and butter to make a sauce for the chicken. It was my favorite part.

7/8/15

Dinner with my parents: spicy chicken sandwiches (and if that wasn't good enough, we put Fritos on them!), sweet potato fries. So good! We brought a key lime pie. Notes on the pie: dial back the graham crackers, but keep the butter for more cohesiveness. Also, next time try coconut and lime zest in the crust. The filling was perfect as is.

7/7/15

Finnish meatballs from the NYT. They were made with the usual ingredients, plus allspice and gouda cheese. You fry them up and then finish cooking them in broth and heavy cream. Delicious, but very rich. Served over egg noodles and nobody bothered with the zucchini. Again.

7/6/15

"Hobbit Dinner": bread, cheese, salami, deviled eggs, leftover chutney and pickled watermelon rind. My first attempt at those pickles, and thought they were good but not great. Too much clove?  A little overcooked? I should try to get the Papp recipe...

7/5/15

Dinner with Jennie and David. We picked up a cake from Atkins at Jennie's request. Jason made bread and I made roasted red peppers with fresh mozzarella, rosemary and garlic.

7/4/15

To celebrate the 4th, we made homemade ravioli:

Gets the thumbs up from Carter

I justified serving this with nothing else because there was tomato sauce and a bit of spinach in the filling. With just a little advance timing, the homemade pasta is so worth it. I think the next round will just be fettucine with butter and cheese.

7/3/15

Grilled pork loin sandwiches with grilled plum chutney (from Serious Eats), plus watermelon and a salad. Pork loin made it's debut in our house, and it was good, although the chutney was quite flavorful and we could have been eating anything under there. I have always been afraid of pork chops, but these were pounded thin and grilled and we liked it.

7/2/15

Manchurian chicken and broccoli from the NYT. I don't know why I tried this, since the main ingredient in the sauce is catsup, which strikes me as gross. I took the advice of commentors and added soy sauce, orange juice, sriracha and chili paste. Carter and Jason loved it, and I didn't dislike it, but would not make it for myself again.

7/1/15

Kicked off July with dinner at Jen and John's. They made feta-watermelon salad, burgers and hot dogs, we brought squash from the farm and brownies. I was dubious of doctoring up the burgers (mustard,  worcestershire, onions, egg and cornmeal), but they were great. I would not be averse to trying something like that again.

6/30/15

Sula again, so another hectic dinner. Carter and Jason had gumbo (I think it would have been better with more roux; Jason thinks the problem was chicken sausage). I had potato salad, but Ultimate made Carter so hungry that we had to stop for a pizza on the way home, so I had that too.

Carter and Team Yellow