Friday, 9/28/17

A glut of ingredients in the refrigerator prompted me to make up a casserole. So, the Cauliflower, New Potato, Italian Sausage and Leftover Broccoli Casserole was born. Pretty tasty, although my cheese sauce could have been a little cheesier. We also had a tomato and mozzarella salad. I am going to be very sad when the tomato bounty from our farm share is over.

Thursday, 9/28/17

Pulled pork (slow cooker; bourbon, onions, liquid smoke and sriracha) sandwiches with lettuce and pickled red onions), plus some french fries. No time for anything else as we were off to Carter's Open House.

Wednesday, 9/27/17

A podcast I listen to (The Level Teaspoon) convinced me that I needed to make fried rice noodles, Vietnamese sate sauce and stir-fry. The sate sauce didn't quite live up to the hype, mostly because I think my ground dried shrimp were too assertive. Even after cutting the amount called for in half, Carter still remarked that it smelled like cat food (I couldn't really disagree). Plus getting the lemongrass ground up was quite a process. But anyway, the fried noodle cake was amazing (and not difficult in a low, nonstick pan), and the stir-fry (chicken, garlic, ginger, dark and light soy, sesame oil and bok choy) was a good foil. The sauce soaks into the noodles, making it simultaneously crunchy and chewy in a way that was hard to stop eating. All recipes from The Pho Cookbook. I am thinking of doubling down on Vietnamese for a week or so.

Tuesday, 9/26/17

Used up some fried eggplant in the freezer to make grinders. Topped with provolone instead of mozzarella, they were really tasty. I also steamed some broccoli and topped it with lemon, red pepper flakes and some asiago. Carter says he might like eggplant grinders better than regular old eggplant parm.

Monday, 9/25/17

Dinner in Whately; Jason made a loaf of bread (that got completely demolished), I lazily brought leftover cake and pizzelles. Turns out the pizzelles are really good with the cake glaze.

But the highlight was sausage, chicken and shrimp gumbo.My mom makes the best gumbo. I don't care what anyone else says.

Sunday, 9/24/17

Reprise of quesadillas; I actually did manage to put together a salad this time (albeit not a very interesting one). We also had a nice salsa verde from farm share tomatillos and peppers.

Saturday, 9/23/17

Dinner with Jennie and David: bread (of course), rice pudding (from my recipe book) and pizzelles. I was worried that they didn't like rice pudding but it was a big success. I do think that it warrants adding a bit more rice to the recipe though, since it is a little liquid-y.

Friday, 9/22/17

Dinner with Jen and John: John grilled chicken thighs with peaches and red onions; we brought a loaf of bread and this years apple cake, plus I made a big batch of corn fritters there. Loosely used a Paula Deen recipe, using fresh instead of canned corn and regular cornmeal instead of self rising. Then we all peered at the moon through John's giant new telescope.

Thursday, 9/21/17

Chana masala (from Made in India), plus rice and roasted cauliflower with the last of the spicy fish sauce sauce. Not super quick, but very satisfying.

Wednesday, 9/20/17

Quesadillas with poached chicken and guacamole. I meant to also make a salad, but...

Tuesday, 9/19/17

Picked up a couple of pizzas from Bertucci's on a whim. Jason complained so much that we won't be doing that again (although for what it's worth i like the pizza).

Monday, 9/18/17

Dinner in Whately. Tacos and flan. Ate too much and I don't regret it.

Sunday, 9/17/17

Leftovers. Said goodbye to chili, bread and lasagna.

Saturday, 9/16/17

Jennie and David's: Jason made bread (with caraway seeds) and I made a cake. The white cake recipe was from Cook's Illustrated, and though I tried to mess it up with wrong temperature ingredients, it was lovely. Cooked flour frosting and a coconut pastry cream filling. Each component troubled me a little (lumpy filling, curdled looking batter, hot kitchen...) but the finished product was much better than the sum of its parts. Everyone really liked it. Even Jason said it was better than a cake mix which I think is a compliment??

Friday, 9/15/17

One enormous lasagna. Homemade pasta sheets,fresh spinach and Italian sausage. I wanted just plain cheese and sauce, but gave into Jason's desire for additions. They were actually wonderful, although I am always dismayed at how small a bag of spinach ends up being once cooked.
Even Carter liked it and he isn't usually a fan.

Thursday, 9/14/17

Marinated, roasted tofu, with a stir fry of broccoli, baby bok choy and noodles. Very popular.

Wednesday, 9/13/17

Dinner with my parents. Butter chicken that was so rich and delicious...everyone loved it. Carter also have a LOT of naan. He honestly prefers the store bought and I kind of don't blame him. They are so soft and fluffy.
Speaking of soft and fluffy, I made an angel food cake. It was a perfectly nice angel food cake and used up frozen egg whites from the freezer.

Tuesday, 9/12/17

We somehow all ended up eating at different times tonight, but we all had the same thing: potato-leek soup and a loaf of bread from Jason. I added peas to my soup; Jason loved it (he said), and Carter ate it uncomplainingly while doing his math homework. Well, he wasn't complaining about the soup, anyway.
It was good to use up a bunch of farm share produce, although it seemed a little sad to use those adorable little purple potatoes in such a pedestrian way.

Monday, 9/11/17

Regular old chili, made in the crockpot. It was great to have dinner ready right when I got home, and I must say the chili turned out really well. Served with broccoli sauteed with garlic and hot peppers, plus Fritos for crunch.

Sunday, 9/10/17

Ground turkey lettuce wraps from Cravings. Sort of. The recipe calls for ground chicken, I usually use pork and this time I used turkey. It doesn't matter----the sauce would make sawdust appealing. And our lettuce leaves were too small/inflexible to do any wrapping so we just ate it with rice and lettuce on the side. Delicious (again).

Saturday, 9/9/17

Dinner with Jennie and David: onion bread from Jason, malted vanilla ice cream with chocolate covered pretzels from me. I got the idea from a podcast I listen to (the Level Teaspoon) and she made it sound so good that I had to make it right away. Standard ice cream base; the only tricky/annoying part was hand dipping all those tiny pretzel pieces. Yes, I know you can buy chocolate covered pretzels. These were better, dammit!
This ice cream was AWESOME. I love the malt flavor, and the addition of corn syrup to the base made it super smooth and creamy.  Jason and I polished off the leftovers when we got home.

Friday, 9/8/17

Burgers that I doctored up with all kinds of things (onion flakes, garlic salt, soy sauce and some liquid aminos that I had samples of), french fries, kale. Also some fried cheese curds from Aldi that are actually rather good. The burgers tasted like little meatloaves which was kind of weird. It doesn't matter, though, since I will never be able to replicate them.
Also, these:

Thursday, 9/7/17

I made a big batch of fried rice, using some pork from the freezer and little leftover poached chicken. Talk about a fast dinner. One thing I love about having a gas stove again is that I am able to use my wok, which gave the rice a nice crisp finish.

Wednesday, 9/6/17

Made one of Carter's favorite meals, chicken korma. He said it was "the bomb". Jason contributed pita/naan, and I also sauteed some spinach with chilies, garlic and lemon, from Made in India. It was nice to have the time to make a slightly more complex dinner. Also, I love Made in India.

Tuesday, 9/5/17

Pasta with corn, bacon, cherry tomatoes and (don't tell Carter) a couple of summer squash. Based loosely on a recipe from SK that I made last summer. Nice easy dinner and it was good to use up that squash. It really benefited from a little sriracha at the table, though.

Monday, 9/4/17

Dinner with my parents. Pork loin with a creamy apple sauce, peas, roasted potatoes,the most delicious beans and bread from Jason (with caraway seeds. Tasted a little rye-ish). I brought Oreo style cookies from Dorie's cookies which were fine but overshadowed by oatmeal cream sandwich cookies from my mom.

Sunday, 8/3/17

I made sausage gravy and biscuits again, knowing I wouldn't really like it. I didn't. But Jason and Carter did, so that was fine. I didn't even make my own biscuits! Heresy. At least we made our own sausage. Also had a salad.

Saturday, 9/2/17

Dinner with Jennie and David. Bread, of course. I decided that an apple pie wasn't annoying enough to make, so I would make 14 hand pies instead. The crust was fiddly (many chilling steps), you have to cut the apples up teeny-tiny, and I am awful at rolling out dough, so this seemed like a fool's errand. Also, the crust was so buttery that it oozed out of the crust while baking. However, none of this was enough to mess up SK's recipe (hers called for peaches), and they were super flaky and delicious. I would even make them again. The only changes I made to her recipe were adding a bit more sugar (half of it brown) and some cinnamon and nutmeg.

Friday, 9/1/17

Dinner with Jen and Gus, to console Jen since her weekend plans got messed up. We made a tomato-cheddar pie (good crust, good flavors, soggy),  Jason made bread, Jen made a peach cobbler. Then Jason practiced picking everyone up and we watched Wayne's World 2.

Yes, he is picking up Jen, Gus and Carter

Thursday, 8/31/17

Request from Carter---crunchy tacos with beef and beans. There is not much to say about this beloved and fast dinner.

Wednesday, 8/30/17

Dinner in Whately (steak, salad and a very very good corn casserole); Jason made bread and I repeated the apple cake. I skipped the bourbon in the glaze this time. This is probably my favorite apple cake (and I have made a few over the years).
Also: first day of school for Carter.