Tuesday, 9/29/20

 Sushi bowl with surimi, tuna, mango and many condiments. I do love a meal that can be so customizable! Plus, no leftovers and pretty easy to put together (which was good because it was a tiring day at work).

Monday, 9/29/20

 Potato-leek soup (in the Instant Pot, no recipe) that turned out very well! I no longer puree it, because I realized I do not care for a thick, creamy soup. So this was more like a chowder (come to think of it, corn would have been a good addition). Jason made a loaf of bread, we had some Irish cheddar (not sharp enough, in my opinion), and a tiny pea shoot salad. Nice easy dinner for a Monday, since I made the sup Sunday afternoon.

Sunday, 9/27/20

 Carter, when asked what he would want for dinner, said he loved eggplant parmesan, but was wondering if anything else could be given that treatment. Silly boy! So I told him about chicken parm (and that's what we had). Sreved with broccoli and some tiny dinner rolls that I toasted (I should have made garlic butter but I was too lazy). Fine, even though I fear I may never truly master pounding out a nice flat chicken cutlet.

Saturday, 9/26/20

 Jason (out of the blue) requested that we make enchiladas for dinner. Since Carter is not a fan, it seemed like a good time to try. I filled them with onions and cheese (a blend of pepperjack and queso fresco), and did half with store bought red enchilada sauce, and half with homemade salsa verde. I was not super impressed with the results. The whole thing got soggy (I blame inferior corn tortillas), and I think I should have used even more cheese. The flavors were fine, though. I also made a batch of mexican rice to go with it (plus a sliced tomato that looked lovely but was disappointingly mushy).

On the bright side, I made (yet another) butterscotch cream pie that turned out well. This recipe used white sugar (weird) and added some molasses. That definitely gave it the dark flavor I have been looking for, although I think that next time I will use some brown sugar and a tiny bit less molasses. Also, I don't know if it was because the recipe was using a smaller pie pan, or if it was because it called for a meringue topping, but my filling did not come nearly up to the top of my crust. It looked so sad! But whipped cream took care of that. I am  sorry to say that Jason and I made quite a dent in it in just one night.

Friday, 9/25/20

 The fridge was filling up damn fast, so it was just leftovers for Jason and me.

Thursday, 9/24/20

 Jason and I shared a tray of nachos and guacamole for dinner, since Carer was working. Threw on some hot peppers, black beans and tomatoes, so it seemed like a full meal.

Wednesday, 9/23/20

 Spaghetti with meat sauce, for my boy Carter. I knew better than to use the Instant pot for tomato sauce, but I tried it anyway....I thought if I carefully deglazed the pan and used a little water...but no, I got the dreaded burn notice. I was able to pull it out in time and is was (luckily) fine. Served with garlic bread and creamed spinach.I love cooked spinach but I am always dismayed to see that big bag that I carefully picked through turning into this tiny bowl. It was a good meal, but the leftovers are starting to pile up.

Tuesday, 9/22/20

 Jason made a batch of fried dough, at Carter's request. He actually followed a recipe; it was semi-successful. It wasn't a yeasted dough, but more biscuit-y? Very, very rich. I made lentil soup with tomato and lemon (sort of from the Times). A nice light accompaniment to the heavy dough (you don't think of lentil soup as light, but this one is).

Monday, 9/21/20

 I made a chicken curry (just the regular old American style, with carrots, potatoes, peas and my fancy Vadouvan curry powder) in the Instant Pot. No recipe. Carter was disappointed that it didn't taste as good as it smelled while cooking. He is a tough crowd. But it is a nice, comforting meal (and easy since I made it the day before). Not authentic, but that is OK.

Sunday, 9/20/20

 Zucchini pizza from SK. I wonder if Jason will ever catch on that I am making pizza for dinner, not focaccia? If I said outright that I was making pizza, he would be offended, but this seems to fly under his radar. And why not? It is crispy and delicious! No sauce, just grated zucchini, some Gruyere cheese and breadcrumbs. We also had a tomato-mozz salad (the season is almost over!) and some chili-cheese smoked sausages (those where mostly for the benefit of Carter and Jason, but I tried one and it was actually pretty good).

Saturday, 9/19/20

Jason and I made a nice batch of blintzes; the only sad thing was that a few leaked (but they of course still taste fine). We tried baking them instead of frying (which has apparently worked before?), but I felt they could have used longer or hotter, as they did not get a lot of color. Sausage for Jason, but I was fine with just the blintzes. I experimented with a savory topping (some oven roasted Roma tomatoes) on some of mine and it was a nice change from jam. 

Friday, 9/18/20

 Dinner with Jen and John (Blue Apron, tomato tart, mozzarella salad). Jason brought bread, I made a banana cake with penuche frosting. Good but not awesome (see previous notes from other times I have made it); the frosting is very sweet. Anyway, it was a fun evening; they now have a big old TV screen on their deck, so you can sit outside and watch TV (albeit bundled up on this chilly evening)!

Thursday, 9/17/20

 I took advantage of the fact of Carter being at work to make a tofu dish I knew he wouldn't be crazy about. I  roasted the tofu with gochujang and honey, and then made a stir-fry with baby bok choy and noodles, with a sauce with garlic, brown sugar, ginger and more gochujang. Jason and I both like the slightly funky, spicy flavors. I hope Carter found something more to his liking at work.

Wednesday, 9/16/20

 Dinner with Jason's parents (Pita Pockets). Jason made some chocolate chip cookies, but they surprised us with a Costco chocolate cake (delicious).

Tuesday, 9/15/20

 I just cannot get excited about pancakes for dinner, even if I made a batch of cinnamon honey butter to go with them. But hey were fine, the boys were happy, and it used up the box of pancake mix so maybe Ill be off the hook for a while. Carter and Jason also had sausage, which I skipped. The problem with a sweet dinner is that it makes me want to snack a lot afterward.

Monday, 9/14/20

 Since we switched the day we grocery shop from Friday to Tuesday, I had to stretch out the groceries a bit, so I made scrambled eggs and toast (from a cheese loaf Jason made last week) for dinner, plus a tomato and fresh mozzarella salad. Not exactly a hardship. It wasn't so much that we were low on food (hah), more that I was out of ideas.

Sunday, 9/13/20

 I was listening to Sameen Nosrat's podcast, and she and the cohost were raving about an Indian dish called "sabudana kichdi" and I had to make it (luckily, she wrote a column about it for the NYT. Man, people have a LOT of opinions on how it should be made, but I stayed pretty close to her version). It has large tapioca pearls, potatoes, peanuts, cilantro, ginger, chilis and lemon, and it was really hard to stop eating. I didn't have raw peanuts, but roasted worked fine. I love things with a lot of flavors and textures, and this didn't disappoint. It took me a while to put together, but I would be able to streamline things next time (as long as I remembered to start soaking the tapioca well in advance). I didn't know what else to serve, but rummaged around in the freezer and found some tilapia filets. I just put them on a pan, covered them with some salsa verde I made last week, and baked for about 15 minutes. I was nervous: I always seem to under or overcook fish, but it was good!

It's nice to have a dinner that is so out of the ordinary for us. It looked so pretty, with my nice pink potatoes, but the picture I took was too awful to use.

Saturday, 9/12/20

 Since Carter was working, Jason and I ate the rest of the pizza and watched tv. For dessert I made a batch of maple-pecan squares. They are gooey and delicious (Carter said they were good enough to eat two!), but I wished I had taken the advice of the commenters and baked both the base and the bars a little longer. I substituted bourbon for the maple extract because who has maple extract? Not New Englanders.

Friday, 9/11/20

 Many years ago, a blogger I love (I miss you, Tipsy Baker) mentioned a dish called Vadouvan Macaroni and Cheese, which is a pretty straightforward mac & cheese recipe (basically Martha Stewart's) with the additional of a spice blend called Vadouvan curry. I have been wanting to try it forever, but never could find Vadouvan locally. I finally splashed out and bought some from Amazon, so, all these years later, I made it! 

The recipe made too much cheese sauce, but otherwise it was delicious! I made a half batch, but secretly wish I had made the full thing. It's a good basic recipe anyway, but the curry blend makes it more interesting, The pan I used made crispy edges that were pretty irresistible. So I would say success. Served with a simple tomato-parsley salad that was a nice bright accompaniment.

Thursday, 9/10/20

 Jason made us 4 pizzas. We enjoyed: caramelized onions with goat cheese and walnuts (possibly my favorite), fresh mozzarella and tomato, provolone with salami and pepponcinis, and one with spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, red onion and roasted red peppers (not as gloppy as I feared it might be). I ate way too many slices, but in my defense, these are fairly small pizzas. It's weird not having Carter home for dinner, although it isn't like he sits around to chat, anyway. I had made another coffee cake (from Classic American Desserts), tweaking the recipe ever so slightly: adding a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg to the crumble, and tried baking it in a tube pan. Worked fine!

Wednesday, 9/9/20

 I remembered that I had a bag of sweet potato noodles, and decided to make a variation of japchae (from the Maangchi blog). Had to take some liberties: substituted tofu for beef, skipped the mushrooms and the spinach, added zucchini. For all that, it was really quite nice. The recipe calls for a little sugar, which is something I rarely use when I am cooking, so it was a welcome change of flavors for us. And it comes together in about 20 minutes if you spend a lot of time in the morning julienning everything.

Tuesday, 9/8/20

 Burgers and tots. Whatever. Jason had a small plain salad, I had some watermelon and Carter had...ketchup. No actual complaints; I mean, tots are delicious. I just long to take over burger production.

Monday, 9/7/20

A reprise of black beans and rice, plus a batch of tortillas (from Serious Eats). The only mistake I made was not making the whole pound of beans: we ended up with a lot more rice (which is actually fine). Served with some homemade salsa verde and sliced tomatoes. I have only two packs of that Goya seasoning left and I will face a moral dilemma when I run out.... 

Sunday, 9/6/20

 Meatballs (what a surprise! I am such a sucker for meatballs) from the NYT. The draw for these was that they were pan fried with a peach sauce. The meatballs themselves were fine if nothing amazing (our pork was not especially fatty); the sauce was nice but it felt a little silly not to just  eat those beautiful fresh peaches. Grown how many other delicious meatball recipes I have, I don't think I would bother with these again. Served with rice and a sauteed chard/spinach combo.

Saturday, 9/5/20

 Smitten Kitchen raved about her corn soup, so I decided to give it a try while corn is still good. You make a corn stock with the cobs (I used the Instant Pot for that) and make the soup with the corn, onions, garlic, coconut milk and lime. Several sub-recipes: pickled shallots, fried shallots (we already had some from the Chinese market), chili oil. Jason made a beautiful load of raisin-walnut bread, and I busted out the fancy cheese that sweet Corrina gave me for my birthday (It was excellent).  Jason really liked the soup, but I found it really, really sweet. Maybe SK doesn't have  our superlative Valley corn? I kept adding more cilantro, shallots and chili oil to try to balance the flavor. It didn't help that I forgot to serve the pickled shallots. Maybe the leftovers will be better (not that it was bad, per se!). The next corn project will have to be fritters.

I made a regular old coffee cake from Classic American Desserts as well. For something with no nuts, or cinnamon or anything fancy, this is such a delicious cake.

Friday, 9/4/20

 I have been putting off making rice and beans for a while. tonight's digression was homefries with a whole bag of spinach (for health, duh) and pepperjack, plus fried eggs. The potatoes we get from our farm share have such a pretty pink hue that doing anything to them at all seems like a waste. Nonetheless, Jason and I polished off the whole skillet.

Thursday, 9/3/20

 Carter's first night of work! (Spoiler: he didn't love it)

Anyway, I made a pasta with with chicken, mushrooms, lemon, cream and broccoli rabe for Jason and me. Not lemony enough but otherwise fine.

Wednesday, 9/2/20

 Went to Jason's parents for dinner and ate too much pizza. I made a batch of pecan sandies from Food & Wine that were pretty underwhelming. They could have been a bit sweeter, maybe. But mostly, I should have thought to toast the nuts first. Oh well, B & J seemed to like them.

Tuesday, 9/1/20

 Since pancakes were Jason's idea for dinner, I thought he would make them, but no dice. AND he made me use bacon fat which is fine in theory but I just don't love it. Anyway, they were fine. What can you say about a boxed mix? A good vehicle for maple syrup? The boys had sausage, but I stuck to watermelon. I will never understand the appeal of breakfast for dinner. Unless it involves homefries with a lot of melted cheese.

Monday, 8/31/20

 I made a batch of chili in the Instant Pot on Sunday, so it was a quick dinner. No recipe; just 18 minutes at high pressure. I was worried that I had overdone the cocoa powder, but it was fine in the finished product. Did you know that you can slide quite a lot of diced chard stems into your chili and no one will notice? Just saute them up with the onions and peppers.

Served with watermelon and Frito's (but I should have made cornbread).