Monday, 2/26/18

Dinner in Whately. Tacos, chips, queso and salad that were all too delicious, because I really overate. My mom re-created a dessert that we used to have when we lived in Texas, at a little taco chain: fried tortillas topped with cooked apples, a little cheddar cheese and red hot candies. Jason described it as like an openfaced apple pie from McDonald's and he isn't wrong. But I love McDonald's apple pies, so it is a good thing. I also made a cake and no one ate it.
Man, that queso was good.

Sunday, 2/25/18

Carter's request, spaghetti and meatballs. I made smallish meatballs and used the trick from "The Home Cook" of toasting the breadcrumbs first. Not sure if it was noticeable in the finished product. We also had some green beans sauteed with garlic and cherry tomatoes but they were certainly nothing special.

Saturday, 2/24/18

Dinner with Jennie and David....bread from Jason, tiramisu from me.  I made a giant batch of tiramisu earlier in the week, so big that it had to go in two containers. We brought the untouched portion, and fortunately, it was still pretty good all those days later. I don't know where I originally found the recipe, but it is in my email. I had to futz around with it a bit in order to use up all the mascarpone and lady fingers we had on hand.

Friday, 2/23/18

I decided at nearly the last minute to make chili for dinner, and was pleasantly surprised that it turned out really well. I wish I could say why, so I could do it again. Was it the tomato paste? Extra cumin? It only got to cook for about 3 hours. Anyway, that plus some leftover bread with a nice sharp cheddar made a good dinner.

Thursday, 2/22/18

Dinner at my mom's, hurray! So glad everyone was feeling better. Roast pork with gravy, rice, corn and green beans, plus bread from Jason. I made a bar cookie from The Perfect Cookie that was nothing groundbreaking, but tasty. Oat bottom, chocolate middle layer, crumb topping. A little overcooked but not bad. Certainly easy, which is the draw of bar cookies.

Wednesday, 2/21/18

I was going to make oriechette with bacon and cream from "The Home Cook" and I basically did, although instead of following the recipe I just used that idea as a jumping off point. There was oriechette, bacon and cream, plus I added spinach, cherry tomatoes, onions, corn and scallions. It was as good as you would expect bacon and cream to be. Plus no leftovers.

Tuesday, 2/20/18

A collaboration with Jason...he made pancakes, I made homefries, plus sausage (nobody really made the sausage). I don't know why those pancakes from a mix were so tasty, but they were. Maybe because Jason kindly banged on mine with a spatula after flipping it. I hate a fluffy pancake.

Monday, 2/19/18

After another deluxe breakfast at the hotel and a late lunch at Five Guys, no one really wanted dinner. I think Carter may have had a snack.

Sunday, 2/18/2018

Woke to a snowy morning:

View from the room

Warmed up to a beautiful, sunny day. The hotel provided a fancy breakfast (Carter loved it), we treated him to lunch at the world's saddest looking Wendy's, and ordered in pizza for dinner. The local House of Pizza reminded us of Frontier, so that was good. A lovely little piece of Opera cake from a bakery down the block finished things off.

Saturday, 2/17/18

Away for the weekend in Salem! For night number one I made Italian cold cut sandwiches at home, and we had those in the room along with chips, apples and cookies. This was after enjoying cocktails, cheese and fruit in the common room of the hotel. Jason taught us to play hearts and a fine time was had by all.

Fancy gin and a nice fire

Friday, 2/16/18

Dinner with Jen and John. We brought broccoli-cheddar soup (since I knew Carter liked it), a loaf of bread, and another batch of the salted butter/chocolate chunk shortbread. I was out of bulk dark chocolate I used a combination of my good chocolate chips and some chopped milk chocolate. They may have been even better. Plus some good cheese and salami from Jen and John.

Thursday, 2/15/18

Leftovers....dal for Carter, soup for the grownups. Plus some toasted bagels on the side. For some reason Carter really likes the dal (he noticed the coconut!) and maybe doesn't realize that he is eating sweet potatoes?

Wednesday, 2/14/18

Meatball soup from a cookbook called "The Home Cook", by Alex Guarneschelli. Tiny meatballs poached in the soup broth, seasoned with paprika and cayenne, plus Israeli couscous. Of course I made some changes:  I had twice as much ground beef on hand so I doubled everything; skipped the thyme because I don't like it, and left out celery because I didn't feel like buying any for one little soup.
This was so good! I think that toasting the bread crumbs for the meatballs added a lot of flavor, especially because you don't cook them beforehand (a lot of parmesan probably also helped). I also happened to have some really good chicken stock in the back of the fridge. The ultimate compliment is that Jason ate it as leftovers....twice. He is normally not enthusiastic about eating leftover soup, so this recipe is a keeper.
We also had the remains of a loaf of bread Jason made earlier in the week.

Tuesday, 2/13/18

Chana dal with sweet potatoes, green curry and coconut milk, served over rice. This made a complete meal and came together easily in the slow cooker. I threw some peas in mine for color, and served with toasted peanuts and coconut. The green curry paste is REALLY spicy, so I remembered to use it sparingly this time.

Monday, 2/12/18

Since we didn't have dinner plans (poor Mom, Dad and John!), Jason got to realize his dream of making Yorkshire pudding. We also had hamburgers and broccoli. The only thing I did was chop the broccoli. Jason made the burgers thinner at Carter's and my request (excellent), and the Yorkshire pudding was delicious! Basically a big popover or squishy dutch baby, but whatever you call it, it was good both with dinner, or as a dessert with butter, sugar, and lemon. Thanks, guest cook Jason!

He was so proud he took several pictures

Sunday, 2/11/18

Another recipe fro the new Smitten Kitchen book, although I messed with it so much that it is hardly the same thing. It was supposed to be a halloumi-vegetable roast with zucchini and eggplant.
Well, it had zucchini! I forgot/didn't notice the eggplant; I used queso fresco instead of the much pricier halloumi, I accidentally added lemon juice at the beginning of roasting instead of the end, I used a little rosemary instead of oregano.....in short, made a million changes. It was still good! I will be more careful about overcrowding the pan, but this is clearly an adaptable, forgiving recipe. The queso fresco isn't as tasty as halloumi, but it does have a fun texture when melted. We also had a loaf of bread courtesy of Jason, and some really lovely delice de bourgogne cheese.

Saturday, 2/10/18

Jennie and David's. Plain bread from Jason, I made a couple of batches of cookies. The jam thumbprints were from a recipe I have used often and I think I am in the market for a new one. They were fine but not stellar (it didn't help that I made them a little too big). The other cookie was a salted butter chocolate chunk shortbread that has been all over the Internet lately. I liked them quite a lot and would even splurge on fancier butter next time. I always love a slice and bake cookie.

Friday, 2/9/18

Ricotta gnocchi (with tomato sauce) and a chopped salad from Nancy Silverton via Smitten Kitchen. Lots of fun things: artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, toasted pepperoni, provolone, chick peas...
The recipe is just a starting point, I think: make the dressing and then put in what you have on hand. I used romaine instead of iceberg. Pepperoncinis would have been good.

Thursday, 2/8/17

Corrina came to dinner and helped dye Carter's hair a lustrous black, and all we gave her was bagels and leftover green beans. Oh well, at least she liked green beans. And sour patch kids.

Wednesday, 2/7/18

Roasted tofu with sesame-peanut pesto, from the new Smitten Kitchen cookbook. The tofu treatment was pretty close to my regular cooking method. She does add a little cornstarch, which seems like a good idea. The sesame-peanut "pesto" was disappointingly bland, and had to be tinkered with quite a bit. She also has you roast broccoli but I had forgotten to save any, so instead I took our leftover steamed broccoli and threw it in the wok with noodles, garlic, butter and soy. A good meal, but don't need the recipe.
Since it was ANOTHER snow day, I did make another batch of pecan sandies from Bravetart. I cut the overall sugar from 6 to 4 ounces, and rolled and sliced them. Much, much better than store bought.

Tuesday, 2/6/18

Jason panicked at the sight of all that leftover pizza, so we had it again. Doctored up with some extra cheese, pepperoni, onions and BBQ chicken, it made a good meal the second time in a row. I felt guilty and added green beans with garlic and ginger to the menu.

Monday, 2/5/18

My poor mom was sick, so we ordered a giant pizza from Big Y in lieu of cooking dinner. A real bargain at $10.50, and not bad if not cheesy enough for me.

Sunday, 2/4/18

A dinner that I wasn't particularly excited about: leftover meatloaf from the freezer, mashed potatoes that I threw cheddar and scallions into, and some overcooked broccoli. Meh. I do make a pretty good meatloaf but may never master mashed potatoes. Maybe because I don't really like them that much? Not as much as other kinds of potatoes, anyway.

Saturday, 2/3/18

Dinner with Jennie and David. Bread from Jason, chocolate cake from me. The cake recipe is from the Times, and pretty normal (albeit very moist and tasty); the frosting was a little odd (and a little divisive; one guest loved it, Jason didn't, I liked it a lot with the cake but not by itself): nothing more than melted chocolate and sour cream mixed together. It could have been a touch sweeter, and maybe a little corn syrup would have taken care of that.

Friday, 2/2/18

We don't watch the Super Bowl, but we do eat nachos. I made these into buffalo nachos with the addition of chicken (whole breasts, poached and shredded and tossed with Frank's Red Hot), a little bleu cheese and scallions. They were very tasty, unsurprisingly. I still don't love bleu cheese though, and for myself would leave it off. Also made a guacamole riff by blending avocados, lime, lots of cilantro and a little sour cream in the food processor.

Thursday, 2/1/18

In a rare, rare event for this little family, we went out to eat. Falafel pockets for everyone from our favorite local falafel place. A real treat.

Wednesday, 1/31/18

Broccoli-rice fritters from the new Smitten Kitchen cookbook, plus some bratwurst (for Jason and Carter's sake). The fritters were delicious (lots of sharp cheddar helped), but they didn't hold together well. I used only wild rice, which has no starch, so that probably contributed. I also didn't really measure anything so the recipe is not to blame. These would be a great use for leftover rice, although the wild rice added a pleasant chew and sort of nutty flavor.