Sunday, 7/30/17

Dinner with Jennie and David. Jason made bread, and I made two kinds of cookies: a no-bake chocolate w/ caramel and rice krispies (called star crunch; apparently a replica of a Little Debbie cookie), plus some lemon sugar cookies from Dorie's cookie book. The star crunch gave me trouble; the first time I undercooked the caramel so they wouldn't firm up. The result was tasty, but also a little too sweet. So I tried again, adding more rice krispies and subbing in a little dark chocolate for milk, and found them not quite pliable enough. All in all I don't think these are worth bothering with again. The "no-bake" aspect isn't much of a draw when the caramel temps are so fussy.
The lemon cookies, on the other hand, are nearly perfect. The are crisp on the edges and soft within, as promised. Personally I would add a little more lemon zest, and I somehow forgot the salt, but I will definitely make these again: easy and delicious.

Saturday, 7/29/17

We rode our bikes to Northampton and had an enormous lunch at Bombay Royale, so no real dinner. We just had snacks and watched a movie.

Friday, 7/28/17

I had been promising Carter burritos all week, so we finally had them. My favorite part was a salsa verde made from the meager amount of tomatillos I was able to get from our farm share this week.

Thursday, 7/27/17

Another Ultimate night, another dinner eaten standing at the counter. At least I had the foresight to make a batch of (very meaty) meat sauce, so Jason made a fantastic loaf of onion/bacon bread, sauteed up some zucchini and cooked the spaghetti, and voila. Dinner. Here he is at the field:

Wednesday, 7/26/17

Dinner in Whately: my mom made all the things: 3 (!) kinds of potato salad, corn (on and off the cob), shrimp cocktail, hamburgers...All we brought was yet another blueberry crisp.

Tuesday, 7/25/17

Jason made blueberry pancakes and bacon for himself and Carter. I scarfed down a couple when i got home (delicious), plus a couple of pieces of cheese and off to Ultimate.

Monday, 7/24/17

Jason claimed (inaccurately) that  we had too many leftovers and I shouldn't cook anything else. We cobbled together a meal and I made a small batch of no-bake chocolate cookies from Serious Eats (basically? fudge.). I have made them from another recipe before and think I liked these a bit more. I wonder how rice krispies would be in place of the oatmeal?

Sunday, 7/23/17

More cooking, hooray! Chicken marsala, cous-cous and a salad. I toasted the (israeli style) cous-cous before cooking it, and then tossed it with butter and parm. Good thing to remember: apparently pasta that has been toasted cooks faster. The chicken was, as Carter said, "a classic" and the salad was a salad (albeit a lovely local ingredients one). I made a lemon-tahini dressing that was kind of like having hummus on your salad but that isn't such a bad thing.

Saturday 7/22/17

After a fun day hanging out with my parents and Zac and Corrina (Frostie, board games, pool), I was excited to come home and do some cooking for a change. I had wanted to make my favorite green chile-chicken macaroni and cheese, but didn't get hold of all the ingredients. So I made a faint copy of it with no chicken and no salsa verde, but used pepper jack and added cilantro. Not the same, but good (and Carter like it). I sauteed a bag of spinach that was on the edge and cooked up a bunch of broccoli; added to the macaroni they were a nice contrast to the richness.
I also made some pickles, cole slaw and another blueberry crisp. It felt good to spend the afternoon in the kitchen.

Friday, 7/21/17

Dinner with Jennie and David: Jason made bread (with scallion instead of onions this time; not a particularly strong flavor) and I made another blueberry crisp. I have the recipe memorized at this point and have made a couple of minor changes: a little more cornstarch in the berries, and a little less sugar. Almost no leftovers.

Thursday 7/20/17

This Ultimate two nights a week thing...
Came home and ate as much salad as I had time for (brought the rest to the fields), plus some tiny boiled new potatoes with more of the pesto-ish dip. I used yogurt instead of sour cream this time and may like it even better. I think Carter and Jason finished the lentils.

Wednesday, 7/19/17

Baby shower for a coworker meant that I left Carter and Jason to watch Logan and fend for themselves. It was a potluck, and since I know my coworkers I figured there would be  lots of healthy salad-y things (yup) and made another blueberry crisp. It was devoured.
Got home just as Logan wrapped up, so good timing.

Tuesday, 7/18/17

I gulped down the lentils and rice we made yesterday, plus some blueberry crisp, and headed out to Ultimate.

Monday, 7/17/17

When I got home, Carter requested onion rings for dinner, so we decided to add that to the lentils and rice that I had planned. Well, we also fried up a bunch of zucchini and some peppers, and never did eat the rice and lentils. I fear that Carter only had onion rings for dinner? I made a blueberry crisp, too, so at least he had some fruit. The crisp recipe is in the archives and is still easy and delicious.

Sunday, 7/16/17

Dinner with Jennie and David. Jennie had a lot of leftover birthday cake, so we brought bread, some fancy-ish cheese, and a dip made from my herb/radish & carrot top "pesto". Felt weird not making any dessert.

Saturday, 7/15/17

First night back and Carter had dinner plans. Jason and I finally got around to eating some calzone that we were supposed to eat on vacation, along with a tomato and fresh mozzarella salad.

Friday, 7/14/17

Last night of vacation, featuring much the same meal as the first night (although Carter opted for macaroni and cheese). Leftover grilled chicken stood in for the long-gone cold cuts. The last couple of cold rainy-ish days made for more dramatic surf, if less beachgoing.

Gloomy

Thursday, 7/13/17

More bread, cheese etc. We had frozen one of the loaves Jason made and it reheated beautifully.
I wish we had brought more dessert.

Wednesday, 7/12/17

Jason wanted pancakes. We had pancakes. My favorite combo is banana with cookie butter. We also had salad, I think.

Tuesday, 7/11/17

Marinated grilled chicken (simple garlic, lime and olive oil), boiled new potatoes with chives and parsley, plus zucchini sauteed with garlic and tomatoes. Nothing too fancy, since we packed pretty much every bite of food for the week.

Monday, 7/10/17

Dinner in town, thanks to the Freyinger's. We tried a place called Brick and Ash. The good: a nice Aviation, awesome poutine, avocado-yogurt dip. Pretty setting. The so-so: weird service, and it was hot in there. Still, a fun outing.

Cornhole got ugly

Sunday, 7/9/17

Jen, John and Gus joined us for a couple of days. Burgers, french fries, salad and brownies. We caught the sunset and the moonrise from the deck.

Saturday, 7/8/17

First night of vacation. Bread, cheese, a couple of dips made from our prodigious farm share, cured meats and pickles. The new place is remarkably well equipped and comfortable.

Not sure who looks sillier.

Friday, 7/7/17

Dinner with Jennie and David. Jason made a really nice loaf of bread with olives and thyme; since it was David's birthday I made a yellow cake (SK) with a chocolate frosting (the kind made with a milk slurry; so much easier than buttercream and nearly as smooth and delicious) that was exceedingly tall but I think everyone liked it.

Thursday, 7/6/17

Ultimate---who knows what Carter and Jason had. I wolfed down a sandwich of my own invention: leftover broccoli salad, provolone and a little radish/carrot top pesto dip on a bulkie roll. Surprisingly good, even though the roll was sub-par. The pesto is a good way to use up a ton of neglected farm share items.

Wednesday, 7/5/17

Carter was off gallivanting with his grandmother, so Jason and I, left to our own devices, made some batter and started fryin'. Started off innocently with zucchini. Then came onions, pickles and jalapenos. We also had some tortellini from Aldi but I did not love it. Jason tells me the leftover zucchini reheated well, but my heart was in the onion rings.

Tuesday, 7/4/17

Even though it was the 4th, Carter still had Ultimate. Luckily, I had the day off so we had time for a proper dinner: maple-sriracha tofu, rice and a broccoli salad from the NYT. Raw broccoli, marinated with red wine vinegar, garlic, olive oil and cumin seed. I punched it up with a little lemon and sesame seeds. It was a nice way to eat broccoli.

Monday, 73/17

At Jason's request, I made a batch of pesto. We had it with angel hair and some Italian sausage (probably a salad, too).

Sunday, 7/2/17

No real dinner, since we spent the afternoon at the Leverett pond (it was a lovely summer day and it was super fun . Carter got to do some kayaking). We brought bread and a dip made with the green sauce from Friday.

Saturday 7/1/17

Dinner with Jennie and David: bread with onions and caraway, banana cake with penuche frosting because the bananas were starting to take over the house.
The bad part about that cake is that I can't stop eating it.

Friday, 6/30/17

Spent the afternoon dealing with farm share vegetables. So we had salad with pickled kohlrabi, fresh mozzarella and tomato salad, a sort of pesto-chimichurri cross that used up some carrot and radish tops, and Jason kindly made a bread that I had asked for. It is called kubaneh, and while it was good, we decided to try a different recipe next time. It is kind of like a Middle Eastern Parker House roll?
Fun summery dinner.