Monday, 5/30/16

A repeat of black pepper tofu with noodles and broccoli. Very flavorful, and very good texture for the tofu. Carter found it too pepper-y, but he ate it anyway. I would have liked it a tiny bit more with the called-for scallions, but I inadvertently used them all up.

Sunday, 5/29/16

Baked fish sticks (from the NYT, minus the fries this time), plus  watermelon and a lemon-scallion potato salad. I persist in making potato salad even though I am the only one who really likes it. Jason and Carter had potato chips instead. Oh well, it will make a good work lunch for me. Also,  I think I overcooked the fish sticks a tiny bit. That is where cocktail sauce comes in handy!

Saturday, 5/28/16

Jennie and David's: bread (Jason's latest iteration: lighter crumb, thinner, crisper crust), plus key lime pie (squares). they need whipped cream, a point of contention at our house.

Friday, 5/27/16

Potluck at Laurie's (in an unusual turn of events for us). Someone made homemade mozzarella sticks that were excellent and made me want to make some soon. We brought the standby brown sugar cake (with maple whipped cream). It seemed to go over well, and I thought the dark brown sugar made a nice difference.

Thursday, 5/26/16

Dinner in Whately! Grilled chicken, rice, peas, carrots, watermelon....a regular banquet. We brought brown sugar cookies (SE). Must remember not to add all the brown sugar (as some is meant to go on the outside. I hate it when recipes don't mention that up front). Also, they didn't respond well to chilling overnight. The batter was rock hard. AND, they got stale quickly. So: make them and eat them all in one day, is my advice.

Wednesday, 5/25/16

Spaghetti with tomato sauce and sausage, in the slow cooker. Plus a loaf of bread from Jason that turned out really well. I also served some spaghetti squash, but no one ate it. Well, maybe Jason ate one bite.

Tuesday, 5/24/16

Chopped salad with lemon-oregano vinaigrette (SK), salami, provolone, chick peas, cherry tomatoes etc. Plus croutons because we are never running out of bread here. Jason and I liked it, Carter not so much.

Monday, 5/23/16

It was hot, and the refrigerator was preposterously full, so we had bread, cheese, prosciutto and chutney. We have almost gotten through all of Jason's various starter-related breads and whatnot.

Sunday, 5/22/16

Dinner with Jennie and David:  bread, rhubarb cobbler (from Pioneer Woman), hard sauce and some mango chutney (loosely adapted from a recipe in the NYT). Turns out Jennie is allergic to mangoes so I will have to keep that in mind.

Saturday, 5/21/16

Spent the day in Stamford, so dinner was late and slapdash: sourdough waffles. Jason has been nurturing a starter, so we have been having sourdough everything. These were good: the batter sat out on the counter all day getting nice and funky, and we just finished them up when we got home. The recipe for the starter and the waffles came from the King Arthur website.

Friday, 5/20/16

Chicken satay with peanut sauce, pickled cucumbers and basmati. The peanut sauce was the best version I have tried: it was made from peanuts (instead of peanut butter) and coconut milk, for a more thai flavor. The cucumbers were spicy and a nice crunchy counterpoint to the rich sauce. All recipes from the NYT.

Thursday, 5/19/16

Dinner with my parents! Lots of fun stuff: tomato and fresh mozz (which I monopolized), shrimp, chesse and bread, fresh asparagus...
We brought some homemade Snickers. I doubled the nougat portion, which I thought was a good idea, but think they are too chocolately. I wonder if cutting them into squares, placing them on a cooling rack and pouring the chocolate over them would be better than dipping them fully? Maybe I will try that next time. The recipe is in my email.

Wednesday, 5/18/16

Well, Jason wasn't home for dinner, so it was was me, Carter, nachos, and TV. But who doesn't like nachos?

Tuesday, 5/17/16

Jason and Carter night: burgers and fries (I didn't even make a salad!). I admit it was delicious. I topped my burger with cheddar, some homemade bbq sauce and caramelized onions. Just like a fancy burger joint.
I also made a lemon cake from a recipe that came from a friend of a co-worker (there was cake in the staff room and I loved it and demanded the recipe). oddly, it was adapted from Pioneer woman's texas sheet cake. I would not have thought of making into a lemon cake but is is really good: a bit dense, very moist and rich. I made it in a bundt and added a lemon glaze. I can't stop eating it...I will definitely make it again, but wonder how it would be if it was assembled in a more traditional style? The recipe is in my email.

Monday, 5/16/16

Tortellini that was supposed to be a recipe from SK, but I ended up changing almost completely. Made a cream sauce with prosciutto, peas, white wine and asparagus. We also had a little salad with greens, mangoes, goat cheese and lime. Looking forward to more asparagus.

Sunday, 5/15/16

The deferred pork sandwiches: good, but I need to remember that the marinade needs more salt, and that the process takes all day in the slow cooker. Dinner didn't happen until 7:30. Served with caramelized onions, roasted garlic, lettuce, jalapenos. I forgot the cilantro, which probably would have added a nice brightness. Oh well. The recipe is in my email under Paseo Pork Sandwich.

Saturday, 5/14/15

Dinner with Jennie and David. No innovations: bread, flan, Bordeaux cookies (from Pepperidge Farm---I didn't even make them).

Friday, 5/13/16

I was planning on making roasted pork sandwiches, but after a giant lunch and an unexpected eye exam for Carter, it just didn't pan out. Luckily, UMass was hosting a free family bbq, so we walked over and had dinner there. Carter was very reluctant to go, but the popcorn, cotton candy, potato chips, sodas and macaroni and cheese won him over. Then we headed over to watch a chemistry demonstration, so thanks, UMass!

Thursday, 5/12/16

First Frostie visit of the season! Dinner there with my folks.

Wednesday, 5/11/16

Curried tomato soup from Melissa Clark, and Jason was kind enough to make dinner rolls. Everyone liked this soup: I added some chick peas to make it more filling, and the curry and coconut milk made for a much more interesting tomato soup. The rolls were, of course, fluffy and awesome.

Tuesday, 5/10/16

Finally a dinner that I was happy with turkey-scallion meatballs (from the NYT), basmati rice, roasted cauliflower. The only think I would change is to cut back the brown sugar in the glaze for the meatballs. Delicious.

Monday, 5/9/16

Matzoh fest! We had a couple of boxes of matzoh hanging around, so we just had them with various condiments: cream cheese, goat cheese, peanut butter, jelly, etc. And then caramel matzoh crunch for dessert. Still a lot of matzoh left, though.

Sunday, 5/8/16

Dinner, while not exactly disastrous, was no delight. Overcooked the egg noodles, broke the lemon-butter sauce for the sole, and who cares about the zucchini? The sole was fine, nothing exciting. I think for fish at home, the homemade fish sticks are still the winner.

Saturday, 5/7/16

Pride brunch in the morning: chocolate bundt from F&W. Serviceable (although people seemed to like it). Nothing exciting.
For dinner at Jennie and David's we brought a cake (from F52) called, enticingly, The World's Best Cake. Unsurprisingly, it did not live up to the name. If is made by spreading a layer of yellow cake batter into a 9x13 pan, and then spreading a layer of meringue over it. The first problem was that the 25 minutes called for baking was laughably low. I gave it a few extra, but still found to my dismay that it was still liquid in the middle. It had already cooled at that point, but I threw it back in the oven and it was done just in time to leave. By that time, it was too late to split and fill it with the lemon curd (an odd, but easy recipe from Ina Garten) so I just had to serve it on the side.  The second problem (perhaps related to the first), was this got hard as a rock after sitting overnight. I would like to try again, though.I will cook it longer, and use a more conventional creaming method, and cut back some sugar in the meringue layer. Also, i think strawberries would be great in the middle.

Friday, 5/6/16

Italian grinders with capricola, fresh mozzarella, salami, tomatoes and hot pepper spread,  On homemade rolls from The Hot Bread kitchen cookbook (thanks, Corrina!). The rolls were easy enough,  as long as you were going to be home at various parts of the day. Peanut butter cookies from SK for dessert.                  

Thursday, 5/5/16

Leftovers (sorry, Mom!)

Wednesday, 5/4/16

Just Carter and me. I made cuban black beans in the slow cooker (from a Nigella Lawson recipe) that were super easy, and then we made them into tacos with guacamole, tomatoes, and homemade flour tortillas. I don't think Carter will be as enthused to discover them in his lunch today!

Tuesday, 5/3/16

Dinner with my mom---Carter's and my favorite kind of meal: bread, cheese, shrimp, fun condiments. We could probably eat that almost every night. I brought a butterscotch pudding (from SK). I followed my own suggestion from making it a while ago and browned the butter, but I still felt it needed more flavor. I may need to suck it up and buy some dark brown sugar.

Monday, 5/2/16

Egg sandwiches on ciabbata rolls with sharp cheddar, bacon, and tomato jam. Jason and Carter were just there for the bacon, I wanted to try the jam (easy, from NYT. Maybe a little less fennel next time and some hot pepper flakes). Plus a fruit salad.

Sunday, 5/1/16

Tofu, rice and broccoli. I squished the hell out of the tofu and then shallow fried the cubes. That part was good, but the sauce was curiously flat. Kept adding soy sauce and sriracha at the table.

Saturday, 4/30/16

No Jennie and David again this weekend, but we still got to enjoy a loaf of Jason's bread. It was actually one of his best loaves. We also made homemade spinach ricotta ravioli, to Carter's delight. Once you resign yourself to using all those egg yolks, the recipe from Serious Eats really is excellent.
Also made pecan financiers from the Standard Bakery Cookbook. They might have been much better had I not overcooked them. In my defense, I pulled them almost 10 minutes before the specified time and several were still burnt. Someone else has written little notes in the margins of this cookbook and I can see why. I do want to try them again at a slightly lower temperature and less baking time.

Friday, 4/29/16

Sort of leftovers. Pierogis from the freezer (I was only in it for the fried onions), kielbasa, overly pepper-y broccoli. Plus a big batch of coleslaw for Jason (I couldn't tell you if it was any good but he seems happy enough). Finished all the cake in a moment of weakness.
As a lunch aside, my mom and I went to The Five Eyed Fox in Turners, where we had a lovely time and lots of cheese.

Thursday, 4/28/16

Dinner with my parents...as previously noted, my mother's sausage gravy is always much better than mine. I brought a brown sugar cake, since it had been a while since I made one.