Wednesday, 6/27/18

Homefries with pinto beans, cheese, avocado and salsa. I don't know whether to call them "Potato Nachos" or "Super Homefries", but either way, what can go wrong with potatoes and cheese? Add some watermelon and that was dinner.

Tuesday, 6/26/18

SULA season is back, so weird dinners for a while. Jason made two rounds of pizza: one for Carter to eat beforehand, and another pie (with spinach, hot peppers, salami and onions) that we had while Carter was off coaching little kids.
(I secretly prefer Carter's plainer pizzas)

Monday, 6/25/18

A surfeit of broccoli led to an old standby, pasta with broccoli pesto. I don't exactly follow the recipe anymore, but the idea is broccoli pureed with garlic, parm and a little cream. I felt this could have used a bit of lemon, but was too lazy to bother.  We all liked it, along with some leftover bacon/onion bread (which apparently makes delicious grilled cheese).

Sunday, 6/24/18

Dinner with Jen and John, which was very jolly. We brought a salad and a loaf of bread (with bacon and onion. Carter thinks bacon in bread is gross). We also had roasted asparagus and bulgogi (from a Blue Apron. It was delicious! And Carter even helped John make it). Jen made a strawberry cake from SK that was also lovely. I kind of want to make one but we already picked all our farm share strawberries for the season. Maybe we could sneak in one more quart....

Saturday, 6/23/18

Dinner with Jennie and David. Jason is still working on sesame bread. Those darn little seeds just don't want to stay on. I made (with Carter's help) a coconut tres leches cake. I think it turned out pretty well, although due to a mixing error I the cake was a bit leaden. I guess by the time you pour all those milks on top that doesn't matter.

Friday, 6/22/18

Finally got around to making a dish I have been wanting to try: chicken and soba noodles with miso butter (from Serious Eats). I loved the flavors in this dish (I am planning to make a big batch of miso butter as I can see that it could be good with a lot of things), but found the end product a little goopy. You cook the noodles in stock, which is flavorful, but my stock had a lot of body and I think the noodles got too gloppy. I threw in some Swiss chard which was unobtrusive, plus some shredded chicken, scallions and cilantro. We also had a salad, about which there is little to say.

Thursday, 6/21/18

I was fasting for my stupid colonoscopy, so all I had for dinner was about a gallon of gross liquid. I don't even know what Jason and Carter had. Leftovers, I presume.

Wednesday, 6/20/18

Family dinner in Whately: sloppy joes, salad, chips and dip.  Yum! I made peanut butter swirl brownies (a little bit underbaked) from SK. I don't know why i never made them before. VERY rich.

Tuesday, 6/19/18

Jason basically repeated the kielbasa and rice from last week, substituting steamed broccoli for the sauteed greens. It was fine, but I am going to balk if he tries for a third week!

Monday, 6/18/18

I had planned on making chicken tinga, but I sort of bastardized the recipe: I stewed a cut up chicken with  tomatoes, cilantro, onions, green garlic, jalapeno and a couple of dried chilis. I shredded the chicken and pureed the vegetables to make a sauce. This was the basis for tacos (with homemade soft flour tortillas from Serious Eats), along with cotija cheese, avocado, and lime. Plus a salad with the last of my ersatz Green Goddess dressing.

Sunday, 6/17/18

We decided to go to Stamford to visit Jason's grandmother at the last minute. So lunch was at a place called Wayback Burgers, south of Hartford (Carter LOVED this place. He said it was the best burger ever. We all decided that it is better than 5 Guys). Dinner was at our favorite Stamford pizza place, Hope Pizza. Ordered too much, ate too much (giant Greek salad, mozzarella sticks, cheese pizza), got stuck in traffic on the way home. So we all had a piece of pie and went to bed.

Saturday, 6/16/18

Dinner with Jennie and David. Round 2 of sesame bread (a little added wheat flour was nice; still not optimal sesame seed coverage). I made a strawberry pie that seemed well-liked. Always gratifying (plus it is very easy).

This isn't actually the pie I brought. We liked it so much that I made one Sunday morning, too

Friday, 6/15/18

Potluck for the Ultimate end of the year party. We brought a loaf of bread and cheese. Lots of snacking, plus burgers. Left feeling full but not like I had really had dinner (but Carter had fun).

Thursday, 6/14/18

Once again I bailed on my original plan (chicken tinga with tortillas. I neglected to thaw the chicken in time). Instead we had some of the potstickers from the freezer, some egg rolls from Aldi (fine, nothing special) and the leftover greens (broccoli for Carter).

Wednesday, 6/13/18

Jason made us a loaf of bread (he is still experimenting with cheese; he used parm this time and still wasn't completely happy. I liked it)I made a zucchini-ricotta tart, from Food52. It was supposed to have peas, but we had a lot of zucchini languishing in the fridge. It was all pureed up, so Carter didn't even notice. It was pretty nice, really like a crustless quiche. A little too salty, though.

Tuesday, 6/12/18

Jason's night, and he made a whole dinner: grilled kielbasa, rice, and sauteed turnip and beet greens. Well, I actually made the greens, but still. It was pretty good, honestly. I will never love kielbasa as much as the rest of the family, but with some spicy BBQ sauce it isn't bad.

Monday, 6/10/18

I was planning on making lentils, but the sight of a lot of asparagus stems in the crisper reminded me that I needed to make soup. I also used up the leftover asparagus my Mom gave me, so that was nice. Jason whipped up his famous cheddar biscuits. OK, they are the box mix from Red Lobster but they are undeniably delicious.

Sunday, 6/10/18

Lasagne with all the things: mushrooms, tomato sauce with ground pork, spinach and chard. Carter correctly noted that it was a bit watery, but I bet the leftovers will be awesome.

Saturday, 6/9/18

Dinner with Jennie and David. Jason made bread, of course. This week's variation was sesame seeds (which I love). I didn't try anything new-----banana cake with penuche icing, from Food52. Hands down the best use for yucky bananas.

Friday, 6/8/18

Deviled eggs, pickled cauliflower (from a book called Saladish that I am lukewarm on and the cauliflower was only so-so. I may have put too many nigella seeds in), cheese and a loaf of bread from Jason. He experimented with putting chunks of cheese in the bread, which I wholly endorse, but his choice of cheese was too mild and not really noticeable. Still a great bread, though.

Thursday, 6/7/18

Dinner in Whately, always a treat. Chicken in gravy, rice, asparagus, corn AND peas, plus some sourdough bread. I made butterscotch-oat squares from The Perfect Cookie. Very sweet.

Wednesday, 6/6/18

Fish cakes (mostly from the Times) with a sour cream-cilantro sriracha sauce; boiled new potatoes (from the farm share), roasted asparagus. The fish cakes were super delicious. I never remember that the recipe calls for a mashup up baked potato, but I had some potato flakes left over from something and that seemed to work just fine. As usual, I omitted  the mayo, using some greek yogurt this time.

Tuesday, 6/5/18

Jason  actually cooked his dinner tonight. Hamburgers, tots, broccoli. I should note that I chopped the broccoli (and sauteed some mushrooms to top the burgers).

Monday, 6/4/18

Last time I made lasagna I froze half, so we had that for dinner along with another salad. The freezing did no harm; in fact it may have been better.

Sunday, 6/3/18

Carter requested potstickers, so Jason and I made a bunch Saturday afternoon. They turned out really well, but I was super excited about the salad. Nothing fancy, just greens, carrots and toasted almonds, but it was the first salad of the season from the farm share! I also made an ersatz Green Goddess dressing that I am afraid I'll never be able to duplicate. It had basil and green garlic from the farm, cilantro, sour cream, olive oil and a little milk. It is so fresh and herbal that I could eat it on a lot of things.

Saturday, 6/2/18

Last week's Crack Pie recipe made two pies, so I brought the second one to Jennie and David's. I love the flavors, but wish the crust had stayed crisper. Might be worth playing around with.
Jason brought delicious bread, as always.

Friday, 6/1/18

Lemony pasta (from the NYT), smoked bratwurst and roasted asparagus. The pasta was so simple (cream, lemon juice and zest, salt and pepper) and we loved it. Carter even liked it re-heated the next day.  It was also nice with the asparagus mixed in.

Thursday, 5/31/18

Tacos and burritos, American style. Used up a can of unloved sriracha chili from the cabinet, so that was a plus. Also, everyone loves tacos, authentic or otherwise.