Sunday, 4/29/18

First night of Sandwich Week: turkey, spinach, tomato, and swiss on rye, with various condiments (mustard for me, mayo for Carter, sauerkraut for Jason). Roasted carrot and avocado salad, pretzels.
So far, so good.

Saturday, 4/28/18

Dinner with Jennie and David, after ANOTHER day of Ikea shopping. We are mad for Ikea!
Jason made a loaf of his bread with onions. It came out extra beautiful and delicious. I made a rum cake from Food52 that called for a boxed cake mix and a box of instant pudding....I was dubious but it was a pretty low stakes experiment. The directions were a little fuzzy on how much water to put in (I used a quarter cup, for the record) and I was anxious, but it was great! It reminds me a lot of the Southern Comfort cake my parents used to make. Everyone loved it so I kept my mouth shut re boxed mix.

Looming Brutalist  building across from Ikea. Turns out it is an actual Marcel Breuer

Friday, 4/27/18

I think henceforth it is safe to assume that Carter will hate any cheesy pasta, with the exception of boxed macaroni and cheese. I made something that I thought I had made before with success: pasta with sweet potatoes, goat cheese and brown butter. I don't know if I misremembered what was in it or how I made it or what, but it was only fine. I think I skimped a little too much on the butter. And as I said, Carter hated it and it took him the better part of the evening to eat one small bowl (does he think dawdling will improve the taste or that his parents will relent?) So this won't be going into rotation.

Thursday, 4/26/18

Cream of vegetable soup (I think I used up carrots, celery and spinach) plus a box of those Red Lobster cheddar biscuits (I don't really believe in "guilty" pleasures but it is a little embarrassing how much we like those). The soup was fine, everyone ate it, but it could have used a little texture, like some croutons or something.

Wednesday, 4/25/18

Jason and I had grain bowls (ugh, that feels so trendy) with farro, roasted broccoli and mushrooms, spinach, tahini sauce, avocados and more pepitas. Good but very filling, plus sounds wholesome as hell.
For once I just wasn't up for getting Carter to try something, so he had plain steamed broccoli (that he complimented me on. How sad) and macaroni and cheese.

Tuesday, 4/24/18

Jason night: cheeseburgers and potato cakes (like the hash browns from McDonald's. The store was out of tots). He graciously allowed me to make a salad (pretty plain; but toasted pepitas jazzed it up a bit). Molasses cookies for dessert. I tried a recipe from King Arthur flour via Serious Eats and I was moderately happy with it.

Monday, 4/23/18

Chana dal that I cooked with onion, ginger, garlic, mustard seeds and coconut milk. I also added a little bit of Thai green chili paste (but only a little! That stuff is spicy). With it we had rice and roasted cauliflower. Pretty typical weeknight dinner,  but I thought the dal turned out particularly well.

Sunday, 4/22/18

Cooked a real dinner at home for the first time in what seemed like a long time. Vegetable chili, plus a loaf of Jason's bread from the freezer, salami and cheese. No surprises.

Saturday, 4/21/18

Crazy day---trip to Ikea, painting and more painting. We had a late lunch at Ikea (meatballs, what else, plus a pulled pork sandwich that was not bad), and then just zonked out with Pringles and wine for dinner. But!

Finally using the birthday Xbox!

Friday, 4/20/18

Impromptu dinner in Whately---we brought a couple of pizzas. Then I ate a lot of my mom's candy.

Thursday, 4/19/18

Happy Birthday Carter! Lunch at Bombay Royale, chicken wings from The Hangar for dinner. I also roasted cauliflower and tossed it with lemon-tahini dressing, but didn't force the birthday boy to eat any. As usual, he didn't want a cake (to my dismay).

14!

Wednesday, 4/18/18

Spicy orange chicken, from a recipe at Food52.  I would characterize this as just "fine". It looked not so appealing. I threw in a lot of broccoli and served it over rice, and there were no complaints but I was mildly let down. I think I should have either truly deep fried the chicken bits or just sauteed them. The middle ground of shallow frying was the problem.

Tuesday, 4/17/18

Jason night: ham steaks (better  that I was expecting), cooked carrots with a brown sugar glaze, yorkshire pudding. I tried to tell him that adding flour to his sauce for the carrots would not work out well, but he neither listened nor cared, so it was lumpy. A minor quibble.

Monday 4/16/18

Jeff and Sue still here, more odd dining times (poor Jason. He is very set in his ways and almost refuses to eat during him non preferred meal times, but he had to adapt or starve). Late breakfast (Johnny's Diner) and then early dinner at  UMass Dining (Lily was touring campus). So we had everything from salad to sushi to pasta and lots of dessert for dinner. The sweet potato fries were a favorite.

Sunday, 4/15/18

Jeff and Sue and company were in town; we had an awkward early dinner at Fitzwilly's and then pizza later at the Red Roof Inn, where we all stayed. Our house is too small for 5 additional people...

I did do some cooking, though: carrot cupcakes (the Robicelli recipe I usually use; terrific as always) with a version of cooked-flour frosting from The Perfect Cake. As is so often the case with Cook's Illustrated recipes, I didn't love it. It tasted a little starchy, and it broke (probably my fault). I'll go back to my regular version, but keep the idea of using brown sugar.

Saturday, 4/14/18

Dinner with Jennie and David. Jason made a loaf of bread; I made lemon-lime custards (from Nigella Lawson via the NYT). These have a lovely texture and bright taste, but I should have obeyed my instincts and strained out the citrus zest.

Friday, 4/13/18

A lack of planning meant that I had to think up dinner while at the grocery store. So we had baked ziti with spicy Italian sausage and spinach. It was fine, although I wish I had time to cook the sauce longer.

Thursday, 4/12/18

Exam night for Jason; leftovers and  "The Theory of Everything" for Carter and me.

Wednesday, 4/11/18

A lot of eggs and potatoes in the house, so I made a Spanish tortilla (the recipe is from SK). I wish I had used the nonstick pan, as it got a little brown and sticky on the bottom. The experiment of the week was broccoli tots, a recipe from Food52. These were pretty easy (and very tasty), but I would cook the onions first next time. Surprisingly, Carter loved the tortilla but not the tots. I guess he likes his broccoli plain.

Tuesday, 4/10/18

Jason night: pizza. Carter had cheese and pepperoni, we had spinach, onions, salami, mushrooms and provolone. It sounds like a lot, but it was really, really good.

Monday, 4/9/18

Even though we weren't able to have dinner in Whately, my mom managed to provide most of our dinner by dropping off pasta and potato salads. Thanks, Mom! We supplemented that with marinated grilled chicken breasts. Finally busted out the new grill which was nice.

Sunday, 4/8/18

Slightly disappointing meal of tofu, rice and asparagus. The tofu was a little too chewy (I marinated it with maple, soy and sriracha and roasted it) and some of the asparagus stalks (stir fried with garlic, ginger, scallions, soy and butter) were inedibly tough. The rice was good, though!

Saturday, 4/7/18

Dinner at Jen and John's. Why I made enough nachos for 20 people, I don't know. I just got carried away. They were good but very, very filling. I also brought a flan and Jason made chocolate chip cookies, so it was a pretty rich meal.

Friday, 4/6/18

Unusual night for dinner with Jennie and David. Bread and the rest of the turtle bars so nothing to see here, folks.

Thursday, 4/5/18

We had the rest of the bread with cheese and salami, plus a salad from "Six Seasons". I feel that I owe the chef an apology after what I did to his Farro and Roasted Carrot Salad with Apricots, Pistachios and Whipped Ricotta. First I realized that I didn't have as many carrots as I thought I did so I used sweet potatoes instead. No dried apricots in the house; how about dried cranberries? Pistachios are too expensive so in went toasted pepitas. Finally I didn't feel like whipping the ricotta and skipped it. I did have the called for feta cheese and farro, at least! Luckily it was still really good, despite my tinkering. I must try to remember to use this book more when our farm share starts up.

Wednesday, 4/4/18

After a long hiatus, dinner in Whately! Ham, brussels sprouts, bread from Jason, and roasted potatoes (as Jason said "some of the best roasted vegetables ever"). We brought turtle bars from Sally's Cookie Addiction. Easier than my other recipe, and almost as good.

Tuesday, 4/3/18

Jason's night for dinner. He served bagels and tried to pass off pepperoncinis as the vegetable.

Monday, 4/2/18

I was feeling like I was in a cooking rut, so I tried a couple of new recipes, both from the archives of the NYT. First, roasted fish with brown buttered corn; I used haddock, but under the lemon-garlic butter that you roast the fish with and the really amazing corn sauce, I could have used an old shoe and it would have been delicious (if a little tough). The sauce is made by sauteeing corn in brown butter, pureeing half and seasoning it with lemon, garlic and parsley. If it was this good with frozen corn, I can't wait to make it again in the summer. It would also be good on grilled chicken, I think.

The other new dish was a roasted cauliflower salad with lemon-tahini dressing and crispy chickpeas. Another winner, so thank you NYT! With a little farro thrown in it made an excellent lunch, too.

Sunday, 4/1/18

Chicken and white bean stew with green chilis, from Homesick Texan. I didn't have any dried white beans, so used up the one can I had plus a can of white hominy, so it ended up a little more like a posole. I liked the use of a little masa mixed in at the end. It gave a nice flavor and texture. We also had some beets and (it almost is embarrassing to admit) a box of Red Lobster cheese biscuits that was hanging around that Jason mixed up for us. Yes, they are good, I admit.

Saturday, 3/31/18

Dinner in North Amherst; bread from Jason, more macaroons and chai shortbread from a book called "Sally's Cookie Addiction". Those were fine; the texture was pleasant but the flavor was almost too subtle. Plus the dough was very soft and tricky to roll out.

Friday, 3/30/18

  Got a late start roasting my pork shoulder for bo ssam. Therefore, I didn't really think it was tender enough. In fact, I think we all prefer pork shoulder in the slow cooker so I think I will just stick with that. The bo ssam accompaniments, a scallion-ginger sauce and a chili paste sort of sauce , are good, though.  We also had rice and some spinach  a recipe that I have made before (https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/sigumchi-namul) and really love, although a giant bag of spinach cooks down to such a silly little amount.

Thursday, 3/29/18

Dinner from Jason: tater tots, cheeseburgers and the leftover zucchini. I don't care what anyone says, tater tots are the best.

Wednesday, 3/28/18

Chicken parmesan, zucchini with semi-caramelized onions, no pasta because I forgot. I must say I make a very nice chicken parm. No complaints.
After dinner a made a batch of macaroons for Jason. I have used the recipe from David Levovitz's website before and they are always delicious. I think they are the best macaroons anywhere.