Tuesday, 1/30/18

Breakfast for dinner. Waffles, sausage links and V8. The waffles were a very basic Martha Stewart recipe. They tasted good, but the recipe was pitifully small! I had to make a second batch, and if one wanted any leftovers, a third would be necessary. They come together quickly, though. Carter paid me the backhanded compliment that "the sausage is good; you didn't burn it this time". Thanks for the vote of confidence, kid.

Monday, 1/29/18

Dinner in Whately! Beef stew with rice AND mashed potatoes, because we aren't afraid of carbs. Jason made a loaf of bread (with caraway seeds. People liked it a lot) and I made a butter pie (from the NYT). I have made this a couple of times before, but apparently not for a while. I remembered Corrina really liking it, and she did; describing it pretty accurately as a pecan pie with no pecans. I took pains to scale up my pie crust recipe to for my (enormous) 10 inch pie pan, only to realize that the filling was clearly meant for a smaller pie pan. Oh well, I like a lot of crust anyway and that filling is sweet.

Sunday, 1/28/18

Tofu chow fun, from the "Meyers and Chang at Home" cookbook.  I love "Flour", their baking book, but this was only semi-successful. My fresh rice noodles were a pain to work with, my tofu was too soft, and I thought there was a little too much black vinegar in the chow fun sauce for my taste. I did like the soft slipperiness of the noodles, but thought the whole thing was only meh. Still, everyone ate it.

Saturday, 1/27/18

Dinner with Jennie and David...bread from Jason,  two kinds of cookies from me. Lemon bars from the new Cook's Illustrated cookie book (the modestly titled "The Perfect Cookie") that I made exactly as written. I even went out and bought a new 9x9  baking pan to ensure that they would be perfect. They turned out tart and delicious. The other recipe, pecan sandies, came from the Bravetart cookbook. I took my friend Jill's advice and cut back the sugar a little. I also made them as slice-and-bake cookies which worked well. Jason keeps telling me not to make pecan sandies but he ate them all in less than two days so I call that recipe a success.
As an aside, Carter requested candied apples (by which he meant caramel apples) this afternoon. I found a recipe at Serious Eats that was pretty easy, and he loved them! I feel like I had a real parenting win.

Friday, 1/26/18

Carter requested eggplant parmesan for dinner. So we had that (well, technically eggplant provolone/mozzarella), along with some leftover deviled eggs and tiny quiches from my mom's. Plus I made a batch of chocolate cookies from Dorie's Cookies. Those cookies never let you down.

Thursday, 1/25/18

I didn't really have a dinner plan for today (which is weird), but hit upon the idea of broccoli-cheddar soup. Followed a recipe from the NYT pretty closely---just swapped out some 1/2 and 1/2 for whole milk and omitted the nutmeg. It worked really well, much better than my last attempt. My harshest critic, Carter, liked it. Served with some biscuits from the freezer.

Wednesday, 1/24/18

Sushi rolls with avocado and seared tuna. I would rank these as "pretty good". About on the level of supermarket sushi. My rolling skills were on point, but the rice was a little mushy.

Tuesday, 1/23/18

Odd combination for dinner: pasta arrabiata (almost too spicy), smoked bratwurst sauteed with onions (these were entirely for the boys' benefit) and a ton of zucchini sauteed with scallions, cumin and pepitas (sounds better than it tasted). There are many delicious ways to prepare zucchini and this isn't one of them.
Still, this all went on the table in under 20 minutes or so.

Monday, 1/22/18

Dinner in Whately with my folks. I think we were all pretty psyched to arrive to find deviled eggs, cheese, crackers, tiny quiches, meatballs and other tasty bits on the table. Like a min-Christmas. Jason made a loaf of bread and I made the chew chocolate/coconut oat bars from the new Smitten Kitchen cookbook. (they are fine).

Sunday, 1/21/18

Hamburgers with tater tots. Carter had broccoli, Jason and I had a spinach salad with roasted cauliflower, chick peas, pickled red onions, avocado and a lemon-tahini dressing. Not bad.

Saturday, 1/20/18

Dinner with Jennie and David. Bread from Jason,  lime meringue pie from me. I had some issues with this recipe (from Stella Parks, via Serious Eats). The first wasn't her fault: turns out that her whole wheat pie crust recipe is for a 9 inch pie pan and naturally my pie pans are 10 inches. This explains why I keep having so much trouble rolling out the pie crusts (it was pretty good otherwise). I found the filling a little too tart; I thought the meringue would balance it out, but not really. Also the meringue (which I burnt and had to peel off the top layer and then re-brown it; again, my own fault) kept sliding off the filling. It was a tart, ugly mess. Not sure I would bother again, honestly.

Friday, 1/19/18

I made some fried mozzarella (I usually have it on my birthday, but didn't for some reason this year) and I am only slightly abashed to say we ate it all. I also re-purposed the chicken marsala into a pasta with Israeli couscous and peas. I liked it even better as a pasta.

Thursday, 1/18/18

Chickpeas and cauliflower masala in the crockpot, with rice. It was fine, although I think I should have put in some coconut milk to smooth it out.

Wednesday, 1/17/18

ANOTHER snow day. I wasn't allowed to make any desserts, so I contented myself with a focaccia from my Jim Lahey bread book. A little unusual in that it called for cooked potato in lieu of some of the flour. It was really good although a little flat. More salt next time, Also chicken marsala, and spinach sauteed with garlic.

Tuesday, 1/16/17

Yes, we still eat at home sometimes. Marinated and roasted tofu, plus steamed broccoli for Carter and roasted broccoli with garlic for Jason and me. Rice noodles with a quick version of black pepper tofu sauce: butter, light and dark soy, onions, garlic, sambal oelek and a little brown sugar. My favorite part of dinner.

Monday, 1/15/17

Breakfast for dinner with my parents. Brought the cookies, AGAIN, but made biscuits instead of bread. The taste was good but I was unhappy with how flat they were. I cut them with a biscuit cutter instead of into squares, and I may have overproofed them before baking. Disappointing. There are some unbaked in the freezer and when it comes time to cook them I may skip the second rie and see what happens.

Saturday, 1/13/17

Dinner with Jennie and David. Jason made bread; I made several batched of cookies: pizzelles (just fine if you ask me; I prefer the spiced ones from Dorie's Cookies); a spiced shortbread sandwich cookie with white chocolate filling (from Cook's Illustrated "The Perfect Cookie"), and World Peace cookies from Dorie's Cookies. The sandwich cookies would have been better had I rolled the dough out thinner; the filling was nearly undetectable which is a shame given how pricey good white chocolate is. The chocolate cookies were actually my favorite (and a crowd favorite as well; should have made more).

Sunday, 1/14/17

Dinner with Jen and John. They made chili; we brought bread and the cookies.

Friday,, 1/12/18

Jason made us a loaf of bread, which we ate with various cheeses and condiments, and I made a swiss chard gratin (more or less from a quiche recipe from Smitten Kitchen; omitted the crust). The gratin would have been better had I washed the chard a little more thoroughly---the occasional bit of grit is unpleasant.

Thursday, 1/11/18

Remember the pizza from Tuesday? Well, there was a lot of it. So we had it again.

Wednesday, 1/10/18

Pulled pork sandwiches, potato chips and some cabbage sauteed with scallions. I made the pork in the slow cooker with browned onions, sriracha and some bourbon. Plus a little of the secret ingredient, Liquid Smoke.

Tuesday, 1/9/18

Jason made pizza---everyone got to pick what they wanted. His had peppers, onions, mushrooms and pepperoni; Carter was a thin crust with just cheese, and mine had salami with hot peppers and provolone. Thanks Jason!

Monday, 1/8/18

Dinner with my mom; a really nice sort-of-mexican soup with sausage, little empanadas and cheesy jalapeno roll-ups. I made another sweet potato pie and I think it was a big success. My crust still shrunk, but it was admirably crispy. Might replace some of the white sugar with brown and next time, and dial it back a little more.

Sunday,1/7/18

Had the exact same meal from Friday: samosas, pakoras, chicken tikka masala and naan. Better this time because there was not nearly as much cooking and dishwashing involved.

Saturday, 1/6/18

I feel like my Jennie and David desserts have been hit or miss lately, so I went with a known crowd pleaser: flan, plus some butter cookies from Aldi. Predictably good. Onion bread from Jason.

Friday, 1/5/17

Another cold, cold snowy day, so I spent the afternoon making Indian food. Chicken tikka masala, potato samosas, cauliflower pakora (ish) and naan. Plus two chutneys: tamarind-date and cilantro.

The chicken was largely for Carter's benefit, since it is his favorite item at Indian restaurants. I was sort of following two different recipes and it turned out fine, although the sauce could have been smoother. I would puree the tomatoes more next time, and it would have been better if I could have grilled rather than broiled the chicken. In fact, it would have been better had I just made chicken korma, but this was a nice change.

The samosas were also cobbled together from a couple of sources. The bad: WAY too much leftover filling, and the dough was super hard to work with. I partly blame myself for bad technique and partly the dry cold house. I baked them instead of frying and they are tasty if ugly.

The so-called pakoras were really just cauliflower fritters that I adapted from SK, using seasonings from a cookbook I brought home called "Chai, Chaat and Chutney". I would have liked them to be crunchier (more oil?) and there was a smidge too much fennel.

The naan was from Made in India, as was the date-tamarind chutney. Both were great. The cilantro chutney was from Chai.... and was fine.

Overall very good and a pleasant way to spend the afternoon (except for so so so so many dishes). Made in India seems to be the winner for reliable recipes.

Thursday, 1/4/17

Snow day, and we have too many desserts in the house do any baking. Turkey soup and yeast biscuits for dinner. Jason and I thought the soup was light and tasty, Carter opined that it reminded him of hospital food. But he gobbled it down anyway.

Wednesday, 1/3/17

Beef and bean burritos, to satisfy Carter's desire for a "normal dinner". Plus an ersatz spanish rice and some overly spicy zucchini. For such a simple dinner it sure created a lot of dishes, but Carter liked it.

Tuesday. 1/2/17

Turkey sandwiches in different guises for each of us: with bbq sauce and a little spinach for Carter, with stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce for Jason and open face with sauteed spinach for me. Not particularly thrilling.

Monday, 1/1/18

Happy New Year! Late lunch in Whately. One of my mom's best yet: ham, sweet potatoes with homemade maple marshmallows, black eyed peas and macaroni and cheese. We made yeasted biscuits (also called angel biscuits; I saved the recipe) and I was dubious but they are super good. All in all a real southern feast, followed by ice cream sundaes and cookies. Carter had some ramen in the evening; Jason and I skipped dinner altogether.

All that remains of an awesome lunch

Sunday, 12/31/17

New Year's Eve party at Jen and John's. Incredibly, we stayed out past midnight. Jason made two awesome loaves of bread (plain and caraway), and I made carrot cupcakes with maple frosting.  Out kitchen was so cold that the frosting never really got fluffy, so they do not look very appealing/. Taste good, though. John made some caramel popcorn that we will be making very soon. I singlehandedly ate most of the fancy cheese.

Saturday, 12/30/17

Dinner at Jennie and David's: bread and Dream Bars, which let me down for the first time. Overcooked, so the cookie layer was dry. Very annoyed with myself.