Saturday, 3/30/19

What Jason calls a "Classic Lace Meal": chicken breasts in a lemony cream sauce with mushrooms and capers, Israeli couscous with a little Parmesan, and green beans with almonds. He may tease, but everyone loved it. And you know why? It was absolutely delicious.
For dessert I made an angel food cake (from the recipe in my email that  I always use), because egg white quantities were reaching code red levels. I may have slightly underbaked it, but it was still good.

Friday, 3/29/19

Dinner at Jennie and David's: bread from Jason, a chocolate cream pie from me. My usual recipe from Cook's Illustrated. The only (small!) problem was that I had frozen some peppermint Jojo's to use for the crust, and it compromised their texture a bit. Not really noticeable in the finished product.

Thursday, 3/28/19

I was grumpy, and let everyone fend for themselves for dinner. I had a spinach salad and some mozzarella sticks (from Trader Joe's). Carter and Jason finished the mozzarella sticks, which are not as good as homemade but certainly easier.

Wednesday, 3/27/19

Fish and chips, which was a big mess and production. We had to eat in shifts, so first we had french fries, and then battered haddock. I basically used the Serious Eats recipe for the batter, omitting the beer and adding some baking soda and lemon juice. The fish was pretty good, but so messy! I made some coleslaw for Jason (that apparently wasn't great. I guess that can sometimes happen when you are cooking something you don't like). I had sad leftover broccoli.
Not my favorite meal.

Tuesday, 3/26/19

Jason made kind of french toast from a recipe! He used a french toast casserole from SK so that he could bake it all at once. I think I prefer the regular kind, but it was pretty good. I had also made some breakfast sausage that he cooked up for us (good flavor, too dry). And some plain broccoli.

Monday, 3/25/19

Dinner in Whately. Tonight's Blue Apron featured chicken curry (excellent), kale, and rice. We added cauliflower and bread. My dad had a lemon cake someone sent him, so we had that for dessert (it was only OK). I really liked the Vadouvan curry blend they sent. One of these days I'll get some.

Sunday, 3/24/19

Dinner at Jen and John's. The Blue Apron du jour was pan-fried chicken breasts, polenta, and roasted broccoli. I added some asiago to the polenta to pep it up a bit. Another tasty one, but I am beginning to see a lot of repeated elements (not complaining). We supplemented with a loaf of bread and  some potstickers that I found in the freezer. These gave me a lot of trouble and basically exploded. Oh well, a tasty mess. We also brought some chocolate chip cookies and the omnipresent hamantaschen. Confession: I ate some tiramisu when I got home. As expected, better the second day.

As a bonus, we finally finished this puzzle!

Saturday, 3/23/19

I tried to duplicate my success with corned beef and cabbage, but I think  the  brisket I bought this time was already seasoned? At any rate, the meat, potatoes and carrots were very, very salty. And so was the gravy. Only the cabbage (having been cooked separately) was safe. Only Jason liked it. For dessert I made a giant tiramisu, so big that I had to make an additional small one. Jason and I demolished the little one, and it was good but could use some more sitting around time.

Oh, and Jason and I made challah! It also was not salty!

Friday, 3/22/19

Corrina came for dinner, and we were in a hurry to get to a show (The Addams Family Musical at UMAss), so I heated up leftover chicken, potatoes and broccoli.  Almost as good as the first night and we made quite a dent in the leftovers. we can't stop making hamantaschen so we had some of those, too.

Thursday, 3/21/19

Another night for Carter: burritos with refried beans, cheese, guacamole and ground turkey (sitting in for ground beef. It was on sale). He was very appreciative (and didn't even complain when I put cabbage on one of his burritos.

Wednesday, 3/20/19

Another Carter favorite night: fried boneless chicken (brined and breaded with spicy flour), broccoli, and mashed potatoes. Plus gravy because whenever gravy can plausibly be made, I do it. Good meal for a growing boy just home from Ultimate.

Tuesday, 3/19/19

Jason night: pizza. One cheese for Carter, and one with leftover eggplant for the adults.

Monday, 3/18/19

Corrina and Zac were away in Denver, so we cooked dinner for my dad without the help of Blue Apron! Jason made a giant Yorkshire pudding, I made kielbasa sauteed with onions and some plain green beans. Kielbasa isn't my favorite, but everyone seemed happy.

Sunday, 3/17/19

Started off a week of Carter favorites with eggplant parm with spaghetti, plus Jason and I had broccoli rabe with garlic and crushed red pepper.The boy was very appreciative.

Saturday, 3/16/19

Dinner with Jen and John....more bread, more hamantaschen. I made a second batch, using some fig spread from Aldi. we also brought some leftover caramel matzoh crunch. Two Blue Aprons! One chicken with a sort of Korean sauce and spicy radish slaw, the other steak and mashed potatoes. The chicken was the winner.

Friday, 3/15/19

Dinner at Jennie and David's. The usual bread from Jason, hamantaschen from me. I used the recipe from Bon Appetit, plus prune filling from a recipe that I have in my email. I always forget how much I like them!

Thursday, 3/14/19

I used  the recipe from Cravings for chicken wraps as a jumping off point; I jumped quite a bit... So I ended up with ground pork sauteed with ginger, onions, garlic and broccoli, tossed with noodles. Really the only thing I kept was the sauce. Everyone loved it, though!

Wednesday, 3/13/19

I once again made the zucchini pizza from Smitten Kitchen, and once again told Jason it was focaccia. He is just so possessive about pizza making! I used a full recipe of the Jim Lahey all day dough, and subbed in a nice sharp cheddar for the gruyere. So good! I served it with some deviled eggs. I don't know about the boys, but I thought it was an excellent dinner.

Tuesday, 3/12/19

Jason night: pancakes, sausage AND bacon, potato cakes, bananas. Good if not particularly healthful.

Monday, 3/11/19

Dinner in Whately: two Blue Aprons, both chicken (one a panko fried cutlet with apples and kale, the other topped with fontina and sweet peppers). Luckily, they both called for mashed potatoes so that simplified things a bit. I made a coconut cream pie (from Classic Home Desserts), using a graham cracker crust instead of a regular. I am sorry to report that I may have had thirds.

Sunday, 3/10/19

My second attempt at clam chowder. The first time I used fresh clams and was disappointed. This time I bought chopped clams from the seafood department at Big Y, and also used a jar of clam juice. It was pretty good, and Carter really liked it. I think I liked the oyster crackers best? Anyway, the recipe was from Serious Eats, but I don't think it bears repeating. Served with a very good salad.

Saturday, 3/9/19

Dinner with Jennie and David: bread from Jason, caramel matzoh crunch from me. I resisted making it, but Jason whined and I gave in. It's pretty good, especially with pecans, but I wanted to make a pie.

Friday, 3/8/19

Carnitas (basically from SK, although I didn't have any orange juice), with corn tortillas, cotija cheese, avocado, cabbage, jalapenos and lime. These were good, but Carter prefers American style beef and bean burritos (he was apologetic, but the heart wants what it wants) and Jason and I were still kind of full from Bombay Royale for lunch. But I was determined to cook anyway, dammit! No pictures, but here is some of our lunch:

Thursday, 3/7/19

Jason was giving an exam; Carter and I had sausage grinders and Israeli cous cous with spinach and cream. I slow cooked the sausage in a little tomato, so it was nice and tender, then semi-caramelized some onions. Served on grinder rolls with provolone. Easy and tasty. Carter loved the cous cous (cream and parmesan, an easy sell), even though I made it a little too spicy.

Wednesday, 3/6/19

Took my usual chicken korma recipe, and made it with mixed vegetables, cauliflower and chick peas. It was fine, but Carter and I missed the chicken. I also made these fun Indian crepes called pudla (from  Made in India). I made them in order to use up some of our chick pea flour, but they are really nice. These had ginger, garlic and turmeric in them, but I bet they are pretty adaptable.

Tuesday, 3/5/19

Jason night: burgers, potato patties and broccoli. A pretty typical out from him, but the burgers did turn out pretty well.

Monday, 3/4/19

Dinner in Whately. Blue Apron from the kids: tilapia with a lemon caper sauce, plus orzo with peppers and zucchini. We brought some extra fish to it bulk up, and Corrina had some extra orzo, so it was enough to go around. We also brought the leftover S'Mores cake, which still tasted pretty good, but looked sad since all the marshmallow frosting deflated.

Sunday, 3/3/19

A big sale on corned beef led Jason to request it for dinner. Turns out he didn't really know what corned beef was. He was sort of expecting pastrami? But anyway, I made my best attempt (having never tried before). I brined the beef with the little seasoning packet it came woth (plus extra salt and water) for a couple of days, and then just braised it on the stovetop. I added carrots and little potatoes, and sauteed cabbage with onions on the side. I didn't know if one traditionally serves gravy with corned beef and cabbage, but figured what the hell, I'm not Irish anyway and I love gravy, so I made some using the cooking broth. To my utter surprise, this was delicious! The carrots and potatoes soaked up all the nice beefy flavor, and the beef was tender and tasty, if a bit fatty. I would definitely make this again. With gravy. And maybe some soda bread?

This picture makes it look like it was mostly vegetables.

Saturday. 3/2/19

Jennie and David: bread and cake. The bread was super delicious (onion and sesame), and the cake was a S'More cake from the first SK cookbook. Thanks to Jason for the torching:

Friday, 3/1/19

Since Jason won't take me to IKEA, I brought IKEA home. Or a facsimile of it, anyway. Swedish meatballs with gravy, buttered egg noodles, green beans. Carter said it was excellent; his only complaint (and I agree) was that the green beans were a little underdone.
Meatballs + gravy always = win.

Thursday, 2/28/19

Saw a recipe for "buffalo roasted tofu" somewhere and liked the idea What I DIDN'T read was that you were supposed to marinate the tofu all day. Oops. Anyway, I cubed the tofu, tossed with cornstarch and roasted it, and then mixed it with Frank's red hot and butter. Served over white rice, with a nice salad on the side. It was good, but the buffalo flavor wasn't very pronounced. Next time I'll try the marinade.