Wednesday, 4/28/21

 Breakfast for dinner, semi-successful. The good: Aldi breakfast sausage links are excellent (especially when you don't accidentally buy the maple flavored). The meh: I overcrowded the oven with tater tot crowns and some of them were a little burnt. The disappointment: I tried to combine two tricks I have read for scrambled eggs: mix them in a blender, and salt them a few minutes before cooking them. I should add here that my regular old egg-scrambling technique works fine! I just add a little milk and sriracha and scramble them in a nonstick pan with butter. The biggest variation seems to come form how busy I am and how much attention I am paying. Anyway, these stupid eggs stuck like anything and had an unattractive look. Jason and I had mushrooms, onions, peppers and queso fresco in ours, and they were (literally) a hot mess. Oh well, it tasted fine. I won't try to get scientific again.

Tuesday, 4/27/21

 I accidentally saved a bunch of vegetarian recipes from the NYT, and I was deleting them, one for "Cheesy Smoky Black Beans " caught my eye. This turned out to be an extremely quick, economical and tasty dinner! I only changed a couple of things: added some onion, and skipped pepper flakes in favor of chiles in adobo (I could have added more, but didn't want it to be too spicy). Served with avacado, queso fresco, lime and corn chips, plus another Caesar salad. I used canned beans as per the recipe, but dried would also be excellent. Will definitely make again.

Monday, 4/26/21

 Fairly simple dinner of stovetop macaroni and cheese (from Serious Eats), plus a Caesar salad. Both were OK; I think I prefer the more traditional baked macaroni and cheese, but you can't argue with the ease of this recipe. Maybe a more exciting cheese blend would have helped.

Sunday, 4/25/21

 After a lot of hemmong and hawing about what to have for dinner, I finally decided on a tofu scramble with peppers, onions and mushrooms. I added some queso fresco, cilantro and a Goya seasoning packet, and it was surprisingly good! It was actually a little better than homefries, which is what I was going for. The crumbled tofu got nice and crispy in a way that I have trouble with getting potatoes to do. We also had french toast (at Jason's request) which was fine. So a slightly better than I expected dinner, which is good since I went into it with a bad attitude.

Saturday, 4/24/21

 Just leftover broccoli fritters and orzo (which didn't re-heat super well. Too dry). I also made a coffee coffee cake (not a typo) from "Dessert Person". A regular coffee cake with coffee flavors; I like it well enough but Jason was very grumpy that I deviated from my usual Richard Sax recipe. I have to be me!

Friday, 4/23/21

Dinner was (again) a little late, since the baked orzo with spinach and feta took longer than I realized. At least it was a Friday night, so Jason was able to drink a little Scotch and eat some chips so the poor little fellow wasn't starving. The orzo was all I served, since it had eggs, pasta, cheese and vegetables. It was tasty enough, even without the called-for bacon.

Thursday, 4/22/21

 What should have been a very quick dinner (bread, cheese and deviled eggs)  was delayed when I decided to also make broccoli fritters (from SK). Nothing like a hungry, grumpy husband pacing around the kitchen! So we just sort of ate in phases. I thought the fritters were excellent, even if everyone else would have been happy with plain broccoli. The bread was fine, and Carter devoured the eggs, so that was dinner.

Wednesday, 4/21/21

 Dinner with Jason's family (Beuno y Sano). We brought caramel matzoh crunch. Actually pretty fun, although I should have insisted that Carter come.

Tuesday, 4/20/21

 Quick dinner of American style tacos and burritos. I had meant to make something more vegetable-forward after yesterday's birthday bacchanal, but I was too tired. No complaints.

Monday, 4/19/21

 Happy Birthday Carter!

He wanted:

Take-out breakfast from Johnny's Roadside Diner

Lunch from Popeye's and KFC (chicken sandwich comparison)

Dinner from Bruno's Pizza.

So that's what we did! The "Complete Breakfast" ended up being enough for all three of us for breakfast, since it had eggs, pancakes, toast, homefries and bacon. I can't remember which sandwich he liked best, but I think he enjoyed them both. I should also mention that Jason, Corrina and I also shared some Arby's roast beef sandwiches (surprisingly good). He was almost too full for dinner, but rallied. Even though he isn't a dessert guy, I thought he would enjoy one of those trashy Jell-O no-bake cheesecakes. Of course, we all liked it. It was that kind of day.

Sunday, 4/18/21

 Pasta primavera with asparagus and peas, from the NYT. Sadly, it was only fine; certainly no better than what I could have just improvised. Luckily, we had made a batch of fresh pasta, so that redeemed it. Lots of chopping:

Saturday, 4/17/21

 Helped Jason fulfill his dream of making Spam and tofu musubi. They are kind of like oversized sushi rolls, I guess? You pan-fry Spam with sweet-ish sauce made with soy sauce and mirin, and then pack rice back into the empty can to make a mold, top with the Spam (or tofu, in our case) and wrap in nori. I didn't try the Spam version, but the tofu was pretty good.Served with steamed Chinese broccoli, which was a nice counterpart. Mostly I was there for dessert, eclairs. Not all of my pate choux puffed as much as I would have wanted, but they are still good.

Friday, 4/16/21

 Tired from the work week, so we just had leftovers of the grilled chicken. Still fine.

Thursday, 4/15/21

 Grilled chicken sandwiches, plus grilled zucchini. Perfectly tasty, but not much to be said about it.

Wednesday, 4/14/21

 I just love it when Carter appreciates dinner so much. A repeat of Salisbury steak. I would say that I used the recipe from Pioneer Woman, but it was just a jumping off point. Seasoned bread crumbs? Worcestershire sauce? Dry mustard? Don't have 'em. Ketchup? Ew. So in went panko, soy sauce, sriracha and some dried onions. A quick onion gravy, egg noodles with butter and parsley and some peas and voila.

Eat your heart out, Swansons:

Tuesday, 4/13/21

 Ricotta gnocchi and roasted asparagus, which is somewhat ambitious for a week night. Everything turned out pretty well, except that in my hurry, the gnocchi weren't as pretty as they could have been. Next time I'll make more of an effort. No recipe, just add a couple of eggs, some parm and as much flour as needed to get a workable consistency.

Monday, 4/12/21

 A tour of the frozen appetizer section of our local stores: tiny samosas from Maple Farms, scallion pancakes from Trader Joe's, and mini eggrolls from Aldi. The good news is that this was a ridiculously easy dinner, and full of fried deliciousness. The bad news is a lingering sense of guilt. But the scallion pancakes also had carrots!

Sunday, 4/11/21

 Dinner with Jen and John. The Blue Apron du jour was a tofu bahn mi. Luckily, we had all the ingredients on-hand at our house to extend it 9much to Jen's surprise). It was easy-ish and super flavorful :you roast marinated, crumbled up tofu, quick pickle some carrots and cucumbers, and make a sauce and a another sauce (one with mayo and sambal oelek, the other with a ton of stuff like ponzu, hoisin, soy sauce and a lot of other things. It felt like they were just throwing all the Vietnamese flavors they could think of in there). Anyway, we all enjoyed it.

Dessert was another batch of lemon brownies. sadly, Jason and I are now tired of them.

Saturday, 4/10/21

 No real dinner again, since we went to Laurie's for drinks and snacks on the porch. Jason brought some soft pretzels (a hit) and I got to have a margarita, while sitting outside and enjoying the warm weather.

Friday, 4/9/21

 Quick early dinner, since Jason had a 6:30 vaccine appointment! So just leftover bread and cheese. I reprised my open-face broccoli, provolone and caramelized onions. The fridge is nearly bare, except for the usual ridiculous amount of condiments, sauces and other weird shit.

Thursday, 4/8/21

 Grilled cheese, with bread from Jason. Wouldn't you know that on a night when we were making grilled cheese, his bread achieved those big holes he is always striving for? Anyway, I made mine into broccoli melts; used a combination of provolone, sharp cheddar and Manchego. Carter didn't say whether he liked them or not, but since he ate everything I assume they were OK. Of course, he had just biked home from two hours of Ultimate...

Wednesday, 4/7/21

 A chicken stir-fry (from the Times), served over rice. Nothing too new: you sauté chicken, matchsticks of ginger and scallions, plus soy sauce,. a pinch of sugar and a robust amount of cilantro. I added leftover broccoli to round it out, and everyone liked it! Cutting the chicken up nice and small was key, so it browned up quickly. Would repeat.

For dessert I made a recipe that caught my eye somewhere: lemon brownies. They are only called brownies because of the texture, but they are nice bars with a lemon glaze, easy to put together and pleasantly chewy. Much easier than traditional lemon bars. 

Tuesday, 4/6/21

 Sliders and broccoli. I was not super enthused about this meal, but Jason was excited, so...

Anyway, my main complaints are that the beef we bought was too fatty, and the those little Hawaiian buns are too sweet and rich. Carter and I both secretly think we could make better burgers. And what can I say about plain broccoli? Nothing.

Monday, 4/5/21

 On Sunday while I was doing other cooking projects, I also put together a green chile pozole with chicken from Serious Eats; no real changes except I charred the vegetables in a hot oven before adding them to the chicken and stock. I also used more poblanos. It probably could have been done in the Instant Pot but didn't seem necessary. This necessitated trips to several stores (for poblano peppers, tomatillos, pumpkin seeds, etc) but I think it was worth it. I had made this a few years ago and Carter didn't care for it, but he ate it uncomplainingly (although no compliments were forthcoming). Served with queso fresco, lime and avocados; Jason made a batch of pita bread. I don't know why I don't cook more Mexican food; probably the aforementioned trips to several stores factor.

Sunday, 4/4/21

 I mashed together a few recipes to make chana masala with the addition of spinach and fresh paneer. Served with Basmati rice and some adorable tiny samosas that we picked up at Maple Farms market 

I should have put something here for scale

Saturday, 4/3/21

 Repeat of a Blue Apron pasta that we had at Jen and John's: roasted cauliflower, capers, lemon, breadcrumbs. I ramped up all the flavoring ingredients and added some parsley, but otherwise no changes. Just as good as I remembered. Would also be nice with some Italian sausage.

For dessert I made a loaf of cinnamon crunch bread, from Sally's Baking addiction. A white bread dough that comes together beautifully, with a cinnamon swirl in the middle and sort of a streusel on top. Not as sweet as I was expecting, and I would make more "swirl" next time, but even so, I wish I had made two. It didn't last long.

Obligatory bad pasta photo:

 

Friday, 4/2/21

A simple fried rice, with cabbage on the side. Nothing spectacular, but quick for an end of the week meal. Plus Jason loves fried rice. Lot of vegetarian meals this week, although not by design. 

Thursday, 4/1/21

 Broccoli cheddar soup (from a SK recipe; I used the Instant Pot, but found that 7 minutes was too long. 5 would have done it), plus dinner rolls from Jason. We nearly killed the dinner rolls which is embarrassing, considering how rich they are.

Wednesday, 3/21/21

 Carter has been on a chicken sandwich kick, and asked me to try and make them at home. So I picked up some chicken, some Hawaiian rolls (cuter than the brioche he requested) and gave it a whirl. I found a recipe for a likely-looking batter at Leite's Culinaria, and it fit the bill perfectly. Lots of cornstarch and some baking powder ensured crispiness, and plenty of black pepper and cayenne added flavor (although I should have used a little more salt). While we had the fryer hauled out, I went ahead and battered some onions and some of the zucchini I was planning on grilling (I did grill the rest, though. I'm not a monster).

Success! Carter's complaints were minor: a bit too much pickle, and he was skeptical of the tiny buns. But it was undeniably tasty. Worth the pain-in-the-buttness of deep frying.