Wednesday, 5/30/18

Chicken in a cilantro chutney curry, from Made in India., rice, tiny vegetable samosas (from Aldi. I wasn't quite that ambitious). The curry was excellent, even though it turned out that I didn't have any green chilis on hand. The samosas weren't bad for frozen, but I prefer homemade; the wrapping is more pie crust, less filo.

Tuesday, 5/29/18

Jason night. He claims to want to cook, but all he offered us was matzoh. The bread of affliction. 

I at least threw in a can of three bean salad from Aldi (too sweet for me, even after doctoring it up, but the boys liked it)..

In all fairness he did also serve cream cheese and jelly.

Monday, 5/28/18

Everyone was finally able to make it to Whately for dinner! And I think we ate several weeks worth: cheese and crackers, crudites, nachos, mozzarella sticks, gorgonzola/onion puffs, little spanikopita,  meatballs and tiny hot dogs, shrimp cocktail... My mom had even more food but we just couldn't do it. So fun and tasty.
Dessert was Milk Bar's Crack Pie, which I was glad to finally have a reason to make. There are two versions online---I used the slightly more complicated one from the book (I had been avoiding it because I don't have corn powder, but I tried corn starch instead) and the flavors were spot on. I don't think my oatmeal cookie crust was compacted enough so everything sort of spread, but we still liked it.

Sunday, 5/27/18

We were supposed to meet Mike and Kristen for an early dinner at Frontier Pizza, but everyone's schedules got weird, so it was a very early (and rushed) dinner and Kristen had to sit in the car with a sleeping child. Still, the pizza was good. And Carter had a great time in Maine for Ultimate:

I guess Dad has to carry all the stuff?

Saturday, 5/26/18

Jennie and David. Bread (with garlic) from Jason, a chocolate skillet cake from me (from Serious Eats). It was fun to make, as you mix and bake in the skillet, and the milk chocolate ganache frosting was easy and delicious (although the warm weather did it no favors). Would probably make this again.

Sprinkles make it festive

Friday, 5/25/18

Dinner with Jen and John. Jason made bread, I made my regular old brown sugar cake (delicious, even though I feared I had overcooked it), John grilled a flat iron steak and some sausages, Jen made an asparagus tart. I admit I was dubious about the tart (for one thing, the recipe called for puff pastry and she just used a pie crust; not blanching the asparagus made me nervous...) but it was really great. Poor Jen, I don't give her enough credit. Nice collaborative meal on a beautiful evening.

Thursday, 5/24/18

Just bagels. I am trying to whittle away the number of bagels that we have in our freezer. I would like to get below 20.

Wednesday, 5/23/18

A recipe from Serious Eats caught my eye: Vietnamese style chicken meatballs with mint. Seasoned with garlic, ginger, scallions, mint and chilis, then shallow fried, THEN rolled in a little sugar and sauteed again, for a crunchy spicy-sweet effect. I made them into sandwiches with hoisin, some of the leftover slaw and sriracha. These were beyond good. I will make them again and double the recipe because there were almost no leftovers.
(plain broccoli on the side, btw).

Tuesday, 5/22/18

Jason mixed it up a little this week: hot dogs instead of hamburgers! I gamely ate one, even though I have not had a hot dog in years. It was fine. Also tater tots and cole slaw.

Monday, 5/21/17

Another nod to Carter---ravioli with tomato sauce. The grownups had plain spinach with theirs, but Carter successfully avoided most of his.

Sunday, 5/20/18

Pulled pork in the slow cooker (with onions and bourbon). While the slow cooker results aren't quite as good as roasting or making carnitas, it is certainly easy. Served as sandwiches on Carter's favorite brioche buns. with various barbecue sauces. Traditional coleslaw for Carter and Jason, a more Thai-inspired version for me. Plus potato chips

Saturday, 5/19/18

Jennie and David's: bread with garlic, flan, toasted coconut shortbread cookies. Didn't go out on any limbs, but we all love flan. Sometimes you have to play your greatest hits instead of something from the new album....

Friday, 5/18/18

Cooking project: blintzes! I make the crepes, Jason fills them up. We served them with jam and sour cream (hard as it is to imagine any additional dairy). We also split a delicious, delicious mango.
It was a very sweet dinner.

Thursday, 5/17/18

Some leftovers from the freezer: pasta with spinach and italian sausage. Jason was experimenting with adding raw chopped garlic to his usual bread (he didn't think the roasted garlic added enough flavor), so that was nice to have alongside.

Wednesday, 5/16/18

Curry-coconut tomato soup (from the NYT), plus some pita that Jason made. I added chick peas and spinach to the soup to round out the meal and it was very good (except that I didn't shake up my coconut milk well enough and it left these slightly unappealing little blobs in the soup). I also made a batch of biscotti for Jason (walnut-dried cherry).

Tuesday, 5/15/18

A nice regular tofu meal, for Carter's benefit: roasted tofu, spinach and broccoli stir-fried with noodles.

Monday, 5/14/18

Corrina and I went to the Alvah Stone for a Mother's Day dinner. It was so, so good! We started with griddled brown-butter cornbread with honey-bacon butter; I didn't know what to expect with the butter (would it be weird and full of bacon chunks?) but it was addictively delicious. Maybe they use bacon fat? That would make sense. Corrina had shrimp with cheddar grits, and I had the best gnocchi ever. Black pepper-ricotta gnocchi with ramps, brown butter crumbs and aged provolone. I could have easily eaten two orders. We shared a bowl of broccoli with XO sauce and Thai chilies which was also outstanding. Desserts were a blondie with buttermilk ice cream and hot fudge for Corrina, salted caramel pudding for me.
The cocktails were also really good (especially mine: THE MACHINE: blanco and reposado tequila, Thai chili, red pepper, green chartreuse, lemon, agave, grapefruit bitters).
The only downside was missing my mom. I hope we can try again soon.

Sunday, 5/13/17

Jason's night to cook, and he did not make hamburgers! Pizza instead, which was nice. Good after a long weekend.

Saturday, 5/12/18

Dinner with Jennie and David. Jason's bread of the evening featured roasted garlic (it was great but not as garlic-y as he hoped). I made chocolate pots de creme but overcooked them on the stovetop . So the flavor was nice but the texture was severely lacking. I quietly sulked.

Friday, 5/11/18

Ultimate Potlock (lots of pasta). Jason made a loaf of bread, and served it with cheddar cheese. The team devoured it in minutes. I was lucky to snag a piece.

Thursday, 5/10/18

Jason and I had gigantic lunches at UMass, so we weren't hungry for dinner. We nibbled on bread and cheese, and gave Carter some macaroni and cheese.

Wednesday, 5/9/18

Repeat of a dinner from a couple of years ago: chicken skewers with Thai peanut sauce, cucumber salad, and rice. The recipe in the NYT is for pork satay, but we had chicken, so....
Carter took issue with the charred zucchini and yellow peppers, but the chicken was very juicy and flavorful, and the cucumbers were a nice spicy/crunchy counterpoint.

Tuesday, 5/8/18

It is with a heavy heart that I report that Jason made cheeseburgers, tots, and corn again. I may have to revoke his cooking privileges.

Monday, 5/7/18

I was planning to make General Tso's Cauliflower (from Food52) and I sort of did, but...it called for battering and deep frying the cauliflower, but I just wasn't up for it. I roasted the cauliflower instead, and threw in a can of chickpeas to round things out. It was good except for maybe a little too much cornstarch in the sauce.

Sunday, 5/6/18

There is nothing more gratifying than making a dinner that everyone likes. Finnish meatballs (from NYT, very rich and delicious), egg noodles, plain broccoli. Even a compliment from Carter.

Saturday, 5/5/18

Pride in the morning (deviled eggs; they looked ugly but disappeared), plus Carter away at dinnertime meant that Jason and I just ate leftover lasagna and cake.

Friday, 5/4/18

It was too hot to make fried cheese sticks and lasagna and a rum cake. Did it anyway. Here is a pro tip: if your grocery store doesn't sell blocks of mozzarella, mozzarella string cheese makes a worthy substitute. The lasagna included ground pork and lots of spinach, plus the usual cheeses AND provolone. This was a very cheesy dinner. I should have made more tomato sauce because I thought it was a little lacking. After all that fried cheese we weren't terribly hungry, so there are plenty of leftovers (glad I froze half before even baking it). The rum cake was good but will probably be better tomorrow after more sitting.

Thursday, 5/3/18

Grilled cheese (swiss/provolone on rye for me and Jason, cheddar on white for little C) plus my standby spicy tomato soup from Martha Stewart. I added the leftover grilled chicken to the soup for extra protein and flavor. I had thought to make another rum cake but it was TOO HOT.
I must say that when I am on my game (that is to say, actually paying attention) I make an excellent grilled cheese.

Wednesday, 5/2/18

My favorite sandwiches so far: bahn mi. I used recipes from "The Bahn Mi Handbook" again and it was all delicious: pickled daikon/carrot, Maggi-braised tofu (a surprisingly lengthy process) and pickled shallots. I also layered the sandwiches with cucumber, cilantro, avocado, hoisin, jalapenos,  and some leftover grilled chicken, sliced thin. Man, so many flavors and textures. I made the leftovers into a salad for my lunch and I can't wait to eat it.











ps here is the salad:

Tuesday, 5/1/18

Jason night and he made burgers and potato cake things again. This time he served corn instead of carrots.

No one else added potato cakes and sauerkraut to their burgers but Jason

Monday, 4/30/18

Quesadillas with grilled chicken and sauteed greens. A bit of a stretch, sandwich-wise. It was an easy if not overly delicious dinner.