Wednesday, 3/29/17

Dinner with my parents and it was a crazy amount of food. A delicious (and impossibly tender) chicken with cream, peas and pancetta, and salad AND goulash. I was also planning fish cakes (from the NYT--again, skipped the potatoes)  so I brought the mix along and fried them up. And then my mom had a chocolate cake!
See, crazy!

Tuesday, 3/28/17

Tofu Tuesday, is that a thing? Anyway, Carter wanted "regular tofu with noodles and broccoli" so that is what he got. Jason and I also had stir-fried chinese broccoli with peppers and mushroom with ours.
Nothing exciting.

Monday, 3/27/17

Waffles, from a Melissa Clark recipe in the NYT. I usually make a yeasted waffle from SK, but didn't feel like bothering with the long rise and very flat end result. These were quick to put together and very good (I added a bit of vanilla and swapped in a little whole wheat flour but otherwise as written) with fruit salad and bacon.

Sunday, 3/26/17

Dinner at Jennie and David's. I was working all day, so didn't contribute much: a poundcake from the NYT. I added some lemon simple syrup after baking. It was....nice. Perfectly nice. Maybe I don't love poundcake? Anyway, Jason made a loaf of excellent bread, too.

Saturday, 3/15/17

A rare Saturday night at home. I was overly ambitious and should have started earlier but we were off bouncing at the trampoline park. Carter had requested chicken tikka masala, and I found a promising recipe at Serious Eats (I know that is not a very Indian website, but I figured since it isn't exactly a very authentic dish anyway...). It wasn't really too involved and would have been a snap if I wasn't working on 5 other recipes at the same time. Also made: mango chutney (delicious) and naan (our best effort so far. Jason has mastered the rolling and cooking) from My Bombay Kitchen, sweet potato/spinach bhajia (these fritters looked intriguing but were annoying to work with and did not fare well being deep fried. After a few I switched to shallow frying instead and had better results. I also liked them better reheated the next day) with a tamarind chutney (the addition of cane syrup did nothing for the recipe) from My Two Souths, plus another request from Carter for kheer. I found this recipe here. It was easy to make and would have been even better if I hadn't toasted the spaghetti (my own addition) too much. Also found that I need more sugar than the recipe called for. But Carter approved.
Anyway, the chicken was all that Carter hoped, the naan was great, the fritters were so-so and I think we all liked the dessert. The amount of dishes in the sink was truly epic.
I also was baking a pound cake but won't know until Sunday how it turned out.

Friday, 3/24/17

Dinner at Jen and John's: nachos, with beans and beef and all the usual toppings. Good, but it makes me sad when they invariably get soggy. Also made a key lime pie (from SK, the only change I made was using gingersnaps for the crust).

Thursday, 3/23/17

Dinner with Jason's parents (tuna melts). We brought "puppy chow" (dumb name), from "Sally's Candy Addiction". Kind of a sweet chex mix. I would definitely make it again and even play around with the ingredients a little.

Wednesday, 3/22/17

I admit, I served the leftover chicken. Still quite good. But I also made (AGAIN) zucchini fritters and some excellent rice pilaf. So it was like a whole new meal. Since I like those fritters so much, I am saving the recipe:

GARLIC SAUCE
½ cup [120 ml] sour cream
1 small garlic clove, minced
2 Tbsp minced fresh mint or dill, or a combination
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
½ tsp kosher salt

FRITTERS
Kosher salt
1 Tbsp nigella seeds 
½ cup [60 g] all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder

1 lb [455 g] zucchini, ends trimmed, coarsely grated
1 egg, beaten
Neutral oil, such as canola, grapeseed, or safflower, for frying

Lemon wedges for serving

Tuesday, 3/21/17

To make it up to Carter I scrapped the chicken etouffee I had on the docket and make Popeye's style chicken fingers instead. The verdict: "This is legit, Mom". Jason made us a loaf of his signature bread, and I roasted some cauliflower. Everyone was happy (except maybe Emeril Lagasse who is wondering why I dumped him for Popeye's. I'll be back, Emeril! I still have all that celery to use up, after all!)

Monday, 3/20/17

I made what I thought was a perfectly delicious and innocuous  pasta from the NYT, but Carter HATED it! He ate it only under extreme duress. What is so bad about chick peas, lemon, garlic and parmesan? I thought it was lovely but I promised Carter he never had to eat it again. I also threw in a bunch of steamed broccoli.

Sunday, 3/19/17

At Carter's request, I made a lot of meatloaf (he wanted leftovers for lunchtime sandwiches). I used the recipe from SK again; they taste good but the cooking time was much longer than I expected. I also made mashed potatoes that were supposed to be from  a Bobby Flay recipe but it just seemed to complicated so I just used the gist of the idea: mashed potatoes with lemon zest, ricotta and scallions. Not as tasty as it sounds. We also had another caesar salad as we had a lot of leftover croutons. The idea of making caesar dressing with mayo still grosses me out but I have to admit it makes a good dressing.
The good news is that Carter has been enjoying his sandwiches.

Saturday, 3/18/17

I sent Jason and Carter off to North Amherst with bread, some of the caponata,  and a giant bread pudding (from the NYT) and hard sauce . The bread pudding used up a bunch of unpopular cake from our freezer. I think I should have made more custard base for it as it is a bit dry, but the bourbon hard sauce covers a lot of mistakes.

I assume they had a good meal as I went off to Boston with my Mom and her friend Alice to have a fancy Icelandic meal. Here is the menu:

Small Tastes of Icelandic Nature:

Forest Mushrooms in Volcanic Croquettes

Langoustine with Black Garlic-Herb Garden

Smoked Lamb and Leaf Bread

Lightly Smoked Sea Trout

Broccolini, shaved broccoli, crisp rye bread, cream of eggs

Chargrilled Filet of Icelandic Lamb

Leeks, oyster mushrooms, watercress, onion jus

White Chocolate Brownie

Skyr ganache, crowberry sorbet, meringue

Everything was amazingly delicious; I had been skeptical but I cleaned every plate. The leaf bread is almost like a pappadum, thin and crispy (there was also a silky horseradish sauce with it); the crispy rye was more like that, too (Alice, who has been to Iceland, explained that they don't have much wheat there, so that is why the breads are so thin), the lamb was mild and tender (and the braised leeks were incredibly flavorful), and the dessert was both beautiful and lovely to eat. The brownie was more like a goo-ey fudge; the Skyr (a cheesy yogurt or maybe a yogurt-y cheese?) was lush and sweet and the crowberry sorbet wasn't super flavorful but provided a nice fruitiness. We had a terrific trip and may go again next year.

Friday, 3/17/17

My mom lent me a ravioli maker, so it seemed like the perfect afternoon to try it out. Used a pasta (and filling recipe) from Serious Eats; Jason was the pasta roller and I was the filler. The ravioli form worked beautifully after a tweak or two:  flour the mold or it will stick! and press down firmly on all the perforations. We also had a caesar salad (used the recipe from Small Victories, omitting the anchovies because my anchovy paste was all dried up), some caponata (from David Lebowitz, I mostly followed the recipe but was out of olives and added garlic and a yellow pepper. It tasted just like I hoped, but I think I cut the eggplant a little too small), and fried mozzarella as an appetizer. I think I could have been happy with just the cheese, salad and caponata. Homemade ravioli is right on the edge in terms of being worth the trouble.

Thursday, 3/16/17

Rice and lentils (no recipe), paratha (adapted from Made in India: used half wheat and half AP flour, subbed in butter for the oil), mango chutney (also from Made in India) and some lonely plain peas. The lentils were typical, the paratha was very thin but flaky and good, and I thought the chutney was delicious but it was a very small batch and now it is gone. Luckily, it looks like mango season is here so I can stock up next week.

Wednesday, 3/15/17

Dinner in Whately---a favorite meal for our whole family. Lot's of tacos, burritos, guacamole, Carter's favorite lime chips. Hard to stop eating. All we brought was a few of those giant cookie/brownie things from the snow day.

Tuesday, 3/14/17

Another snow day, full of cooking projects. I found the most complicated cookie recipe I could (from Dorie's Cookies): chocolate coconut base, coconut pastry cream, chocolate crumb topping, baked up in muffin tins. These are more like a cross between a brownie and cupcake; very rich and chocolately. I would only make a bit more pastry cream and use a little less coconut.

Then I made some Korean-ish pickles (using Tyler Kord's brine--I found the recipe on the internet), some "Emergency Kim Chi" from Maangchi's blog, and some spinach from there too. The kimchi is too new to evaluate; the spinach tasted terrific (you blanch it and top with scallions, garlic, sesame oil and sesame seeds) but a big bag of fresh spinach cooked down to a comically tiny amount. A few bites, really. We also had chicken bulgogi, from David Liebowitz. I couldn't grill it, but it was still good. Will dial back the gochuchang next time, at Carter's request. Then we watched a bad movie and I call that a pretty good snow day.

Monday, 3/13/17

Maple-sriracha roasted tofu (Jason and I love it; Carter deems it a little too spicy and he prefers his tofu in cubes not rectangles. Easily remedied, I say). Plus noodles and lots of broccoli.

Sunday, 3/12/17

Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, old school. Although the tomato soup had cilantro, lime and jalapeno (a Martha Stewart recipe I have used often). With some marinated mushrooms/cauliflower. Quick and the added bonus of no leftovers. The struggle is real, as my millennial girl says.

Saturday, 3/11/17

Dinner with J & D--bread (perfect) and apple crisp (recipe in archives under blueberry crisp). I used maple sugar in with the apples and in the whipped cream. Not sure anyone noticed but it was good. Jason, Carter and I were still pretty full from lunch at Bombay Royale so we weren't able to do justice to the evening.

Friday, 3/10/17

I felt sorry for Carter, bravely eating so many leftovers, so we had burgers and fries for dinner, along with roasted carrot/avocado salad (SK). Oh, and some marinated mushrooms and cauliflower. I was in it for the vegetables but you can't beat hot french fries dipped in sour cream and sriracha.

Thursday, 3/9/17

We had dinner with Jason's parent's, unusually enough. They are proud of their new panini press and made us some pretty tasty tuna melts. We brought caramel matzoh crunch and cleverly left most of it there. I am so over that dessert. In other news, you would not believe the shelf life of matzoh.

Wednesday, 3/8/17

The last hurrrah for the pulled pork; I made some buns to go with it which looked great, tasted nice and smelled good, but had a less than perfect texture. Not fluffy enough somehow. I used the "cemitas" recipe from Serious Eats and I remember thinking before that the texture wasn't great, but I didn't have time to investigate another recipe. I also sauteed up some shredded zucchini and topped it with bread crumbs and parm for a faux gratin.

Tuesday, 3/7/17

More leftovers. Boring to write, easy to prepare.

Monday, 3/6/18

I have been put on a cooking ban, since our fridge looks like a train wreck, so leftovers for the next few days. I did sneak in some broccoli fritters, though, adapted from the zucchini fritter recipe in Small Victories.

Sunday, 3/5/17

Laurie S. kindly invited us to dinner and served up a variety of quiches. Jason made an excellent loaf of bread and I made Dream Bars from Cookie Love again. I think they are my new favorite cookie.

Saturday, 3/4/17

Lunch at my parents, brought a cake. I had never made a pineapple upside down cake before, even though I had been meaning to. I used a recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction, and the only thing I would change is that I would not make it in a (leaky) springform pan next time. Otherwise it was pretty tasty.

Then on to dinner at Jennie and David's. Another exemplary loaf of bread from Jason. I made lemon-lime custards from the NYT (called "Satin Creams" by Nigella Larsen but I am not that fancy. They are satiny and creamy indeed, though). And Jason and I collaborated on vanilla pizzelle.

Friday, 3/3/17

Dinner with Jen and John---Jason made a couple of enormous delicious pizzas, and I made a butterscotch pie from SK. The texture and butterscotch flavor were good, but I thought it was a little eggy. 6 eggs did seem like a lot; I wonder if I could cut it down to 4 next time? I continue to be terrible at rolling out pie dough.

Thursday, 3/2/17

Jason was off giving an exam, so Carter and I had our usual TV and leftovers date.

Wednesday, 3/1/17

Dinner in Whately! My mom made the best meatloaf (which Carter loved as sandwiches for lunch), plus mashed potatoes and salad. I didn't bring anything at all and felt like a slacker.

Tuesday, 2/28/17

We have a lot of eggs, so to be thrifty, I made a shakshuka (more or less from the NYT version), throwing in the leftover broccoli rabe, feta, and some leftover harissa salsa. Jason made us a beautiful loaf of bread to round out the meal. It was good enough, but after making it twice I am just not sure if it is a dish that I really like all that much. Maybe when good tomatoes are in season?