Tuesday, 11/29/16

We picked up some green vegetable noodles from the market and I made tofu and greens to go with it. Regaular broccoli, chinese broccoli and scallions, plus the usual aromatics and roasted tofu. Carter thought it was too spicy and was not impressed ("can't we have normal tofu and broccoli and noodles? I would have loved that") Sorry, kid. The tofu and vegetables were great, I didn't love the flavor of the noodles but they did have a nice springy texture.

Doesn't that look healthy?

Monday, 11/28/16

At last, a meal where every element turned out! Grilled chicken sandwiches with red onion jam, spinach and tomato (Carter: these are good, Mom. (bite) Really good!), potatoes that I baked in the morning, sliced thickly and pan fried, plus whipped cauliflower with garlic and ricotta. I liked these so much that I may never go back to mashed potatoes. The cauliflower recipe came from Cravings (again), but it is an easy and versatile enough preparation that no recipe is really necessary.

Sunday, 11/27/16

Spaghetti with meat sauce, zucchini cakes (fritters?), bread and cheese. The bread (made by Jason) and cheese were wonderful, but I thought my tomato sauce wasn't tomato-y enough, and the zucchini wasn't crispy enough. Overall, less than the sum of their parts. Maybe I should have put baking powder in with the fritter batter? Or used a cast iron pan instead of ceramic?

Saturday, 11/26/18

After a trying day capped by the sudden breakdown of our washing machine, we went off to Jennie and David's for dinner. And adult beverages. Jason made his new delicious onion variation of bread, and I tried another Dorie recipe, pumpkin bars. Basically, a shortbread base, a nice pumpkin pie filling layer, and then finished with a layer of mini marshmallows that you broil. It would have been even nicer, I think, with homemade marshmallows, but I was too busy buying a new washer. Next time!

Friday, 11/25/16

Michael and Kristen and baby Mercer came over for dinner! I am happy to report that Mercer liked the lentils and rice and the naan (both from My Bombay Kitchen). He also ate his cauliflower with brown butter and pumpkin seeds, but was not a fan of flan. The most he would do was lick it. Oh well, more for us.
In other dessert news, I re-heated the soggy jam cookies and they freshened up nicely.

Thursday, 11/24/16

Thanksgiving at Jay and Jodi's. The usual stuff (still no gravy), but the grilled turkey was especially good. We brought a couple of pies (pumpkin and pecan, from trusted recipes from David Lebowitz and SK, respectively). I would have liked to do more but Jason held me back. The pecan was more popular than the pumpkin, so that is something to remember.

Wednesday, 11/23/16

Dinner with my parents. We had a fun buffet style meal of treats like chicken wings, shrimp, bread and cheese. Jason made another batch of onion bread (awesome), plus we brought some cheese and the leftover cookies. Sadly, they had lost their crispiness. I blame my lame tupperware and will try re-heating them a bit before serving them again. We played a silly new board game and had a great time, soggy cookies or not.

Tuesday, 11/22/16

Dinner with Jen and John (and Gus). I made lentil soup with lemon and tomato from the NYT, which I belately realized I had made last time we had dinner together. Embarassing. They are trying out Blue Apron, so we also had fun cauliflower and egg tostadas with a watermelon radish-orange salsa. They were really good and I am a little jealous that we don't have Blue Apron but I can just steal their ideas. I also made another batch of cookies from Dorie's Cookies, "jammers". Sable dough is baked (in muffin tins, what a pain) with a little jam (blackberry in this case) and sprinkled with streusel. These are fussy to make but quite lovely. My streusel was a little wonky but tasted fine.

Monday, 11/21/16

Jason graciously made dinner (Jason style), so we had burgers and fries. I dutifully finished the zucchini, too.

Sunday, 11/20/16

I just wasn't feeling like planning out everything this week, so tonight we had nachos for dinner, along with some zucchini. Curiously unsatisfying but that is what I get.

Saturday, 11/19/16

Dinner with Jennie and David. Jason made his usual bread but with the exciting and delicious addition of onions. I made a chocolate pudding from the NYT that was more complicated and no more delicious than my usual Smitten Kitchen recipe (so I'll stick with SK from now on). I also made some very plain vanilla cookies from my new cookbook (Dorie's Cookies) that were far tastier than you would think. The only trouble I had was that the scraps were really tricky to re-roll. I think I should have rolled them out a bit thicker, too.

Friday, 11/18/16

Jason and I actually went away for the night, just the two of us! We stayed at a cool hotel in Pittsfield, Hotel on North. It is a sister property of the Porches, and shares a lot of the sensibility. Sadly, it doesn't share a hot tub.
We picked up fancy cheese and crackers from a nearby gourmet grocery store, shared a bottle of wine, and had dinner in the room. So no cooking again.

Thursday, 11/17/16

Jason was away , so Carter and I just had leftovers. Then we went to a cookbook talk, dessert sharing cookbook give-away event at the Leverett library. I made something called Maine Bars from my new (!) cookbook, Dorie's Cookies. I over baked them, so they were a little dry. As a plain brown bar (sort of gingerbread-y) they were also a lot less sexy that some of the other desserts. But it was every fun  and I am looking forward to making more cookies from the book.

Wednesday, 11/16/16

Taco night at my mom's. We ate many, many wonderful tacos. I brought an angel food cake with some of my leftover hot fudge, which wasn't terribly inspired but did use up quite a few egg whites.

Tuesday, 11/15/16

Something new for me, pork chops (although these were so thin they were more like cutlets). I got the recipe from Serious Eats but in retrospect I didn't need a recipe. Just breaded with panko/parmesan and panfried. They were delicious because anything fried with panko is delicious. We also had rice pilaf with almonds and apricots, and roasted brussels sprouts. As a favor to Carter I busted out some jellied cranberry sauce and he was very pleased. Made a good accompaniment to the pork.

Monday, 11/14/16

ANOTHER recipe from "Cravings":  roasted cauliflower salad with orzo, spinach and feta. This was a great combination (it also had dried berries), although the dressing was a little bland and a little too sweet. I had to doctor it up with some vinegar and sriracha. I would skip the honey altogether next time. Overall, this cookbook it really hitting it out of the park for me.
We also had some sauteed kielbasa, for those who are fearful of not getting enough protein (Jason). In retrospect, I should have made deviled eggs.

Another terrible picture that doesn't do justice to this very pretty dish.

Sunday, 11/13/16

Pizza by Jason. I only tried the pepperoni, but it was great. Also,I have been making tomato sauce for so long that I can do it without tasting it. Although maybe it was terrible and all the pepperoni covered it up?

Saturday, 11/12/16

Dinner with Jennie and David. I was worried it would be too somber, but we drowned our sorrows and managed to be merry. I made vanilla ice cream from a NYT recipe, and hot fudge from David Lebovitz (looking back through older entries, I see that I have made hot fudge a couple of times and didn't mention where I got the recipe. What use is this to me if I don't cite my sources??). Both really good recipes and worth keeping. I also made hummus from Zahav; not sure if it was because I didn't precisely follow the recipe, but it was thick as hell, very garlicky and not "ethereally smooth" as promised. Good enough but still a work in progress.

Friday, 11/11/16

After a big lunch at Five Guys, we decided to just have leftovers for dinner. Still eating that giant eggplant casserole.

Thursday, 11/10/16

Used up some of the leftover roasted pork to make tacos, with homemade tortillas. Garnished with cotija cheese, avocado, red cabbage, cilantro and jalapenos. Very rich and there is still a lot of pork.

Wednesday, 11/9/16

Dinner with my mom: hamsteaks, scalloped potatoes, broccoli. My mother didn't think the potatoes turned out well but I thought they were delicious and and I had to have thirds. We brought a banana cake (from Food52) with penuche frosting (but only on half, as Jason categorically refused to eat frosting). I had made this before, as a layer cake, but did it as a sheet cake this time and liked it better than I remembered. Maybe because my half had double frosting?

Tuesday, 11/8/16

Another recipe from "Cravings", another version of pasta alla norma. Lots of eggplant, lots of olive oil, lots of cheese. Bakes, it turned out more like a baked ziti or lasagna. Carter did not approve "(I hate browned cheese! I like normal, cold cheese!"), and it was a bit rich. I had it for breakfast the next morning and liked it better re-heated. actually, I would like it even better without the eggplant and with italian sausage instead.

Monday, 11/7/16

Another recipe from the cookbook "Cravings": chicken with thai basil. So good! I didn't have any oyster sauce, so improvised with a mixture of fish sauce, hoisin and dark soy (thanks, internet). It was really nice and a different flavor profile for us. I was worried that I put in too much basil but I could have used even more. We also had some chinese greens made according to a recipe that I found in Milk Street Magazine (to which I will not be subscribing because I still don't care for Christopher Kimball). Steam whatever greens you have, top them with scallions, ginger and hot peppers, and then pour a little hot hot oil over them. Topped with a little rice vinegar and sesame seeds, these were tender, flavorful and a nice easy method for serving greens.
Also, rice.

Sunday, 11/6/16

Dinner at Goten with my parents and Thor. Fun as always, with two surprises: Jason ordered some sushi and it was really good! And Carter caught the flipped shrimp so that was a victory.

Just as well I didn't cook because leftovers were getting out of hand.

Saturday, 11/5/16

An old standby from Cook's Illustrated---chocolate cream pie. Nobody doesn't like this. The crust is an Oreo's highest calling. Plus Jason made some bread---I liked the inclusion of sesame seeds.

Friday, 11/4/16

Another go round with a giant pork butt and bo ssam. The pork roasted for about 6 hours and was nice and tender. I forgot to put out the kimchi, but there were still the two other sauces with it so there was no lack of flavor. Plus rice and a little leftover broccoli.

Wednesday, 11/2/16

We had to fend for ourselves since my mom was busy. But we rallied and made ricotta-lemon pancakes and grilled up some homemade breakfast sausage from the freezer. The pancake recipe was from a place called Plow that Jessica and I tried. I thought it could have been a little more lemony, and it could have used some salt, but they were nice.  I can't be positive, but I am pretty sure the boys would have been just as happy with a mix.

Thursday, 11/3/16

Carter had pizza at Ultimate, so the tofu and noodles I made was primarily for Jason and me. Nothing too innovative---sauteed with ginger, garlic, etc and lots of broccoli. It was nice, but might have been even a bit better had we not run out of soy sauce. Don't worry, I re-stocked.

Tuesday, 11/1/16

Made what is probably one of my favorite meals in a long time: ground pork, sauteed with a bunch of stuff and served with rice and butter lettuce for rolling up (we still all fail at that rolling. Either the lettuce is too soft or two crispy). This came from a random cookbook that I picked up called "Cravings", by a woman named Chrissy Teigen who is apparently a swimsuit model? Anyway, it was SO GOOD. A lot of chopping beforehand (garlic, ginger, mushrooms, red pepper and more), but it otherwise comes together quickly. The hoisin in the sauce gave a nice sweetness but not overwhelmingly so.
Also had roasted cauliflower with pumpkin seeds (how seasonal!), brown butter, lime and cilantro. This was also good and I wished I had had a lot more of it.
I may have to try more from that cookbook.

Monday, 10/31/16

Late dinner, thanks to a last minute (although not entirely unexpected) decision to go trick-or-treating after all. So I got to stay home making fried chicken, roasted potatoes and green beans quietly and at my leisure. All tasty enough, and then we went right to bed. The house still reeked of frying chicken.