Monday, 9/27/21

 I should have known that I would be the only one truly excited to eat a dish called lemony ricotta pasta. Carter ate it uncomplainingly; Jason had notes. In truth, I wouldn't bother to make it again. Ricotta is never as delicious as I want it to be, and I didn't even eat the kielbasa that I served with it. For that matter, I didn't even eat any of the lackluster salad I made. I do feel a bit guilty about that but I just wasn't in the mood.

Sunday, 9/26/21

 Tried a chicken recipe from "Simply Julia" called sticky chicken, which was not unlike a recipe from the NYT featuring stir-fried chicken pieced with a ketchup based sauce that I made many years ago (and didn't love so why make it again??). I used tomato paste instead of ketchup, and punched up the sauce a bit. It wasn't my favorite, but it was fine. Carter liked it even though it was a little too spicy for him (me and my heavy hand with sriracha. Sorry, kid). Cabbage with leeks and rice to go with.

Then Jason and I went to his parents again to finish the cake and yawn our way through some card games.

Saturday, 9/25/21

 I had an ill-conceived plan to make a chopped salad for dinner (ill-conceived because I neglected to buy several of the ingredients and because I knew Carter wouldn't like it). Luckily, by the time  Jason and I got home from our beer/cider crawl through Florence and Northampton, we weren't hungry for dinner (we got hefty snacks at the last couple of stops). So we picked up some McDonalds for Carter, drank a bunch of water and called it a day.

Friday, 9/24/21

 I was glancing through Food52 and the words "halloumi", "eggplant" and "pasta" caught my eye (of course). Stir fry with eggplant, garlic and ginger, with a soy based sauce. The halloumi was my favorite part; overall I found the dish very heavy and a bit gloppy. The good news is that it magically transformed itself overnight and made an excellent lunch the next day. The bad news it that it made a mess of the kitchen.

Thursday, 9/23/21

 Pizza and a Costco cake at Jason's parents. Nothing to object to there, especially since it was the end of my work week. That Costco tuxedo cake is shockingly good.

Wednesday, 9/22/21

 I had a cauliflower soup with turmeric croutons on the docket. But I just had a feeling that since I couldn't get enthused about it, the rest of the family was going to be even less excited. So instead I made a kind of cauliflower chana masala, served with basmati rice. This was only marginally more popular, but it was quick and easy in the IP, and it produced enough leftovers for a week of fast lunches for me.

Tuesday, 9/21/21

 Quesadillas with pepperjack and some leftover grilled chicken. Jason and I also had sautéed spinach on ours (funny how a whole bag of spinach can be gone in an instant). So at least it felt healthier? Nice and quick, so that's good.

Monday, 9/20/21

 I had Jason make bagels, I made some cream cheese, and then I splurged on some smoked salmon from Trader Joe's. This ended up being a surprising treat of a meal: also had red onion, capers, and tomatoes. Who knew bagels could be such a fancy dinner?

Sunday, 9/19/21

 Quinoa bowls with sweet potato, grilled chicken and a tahini vinaigrette. Carter was NOT a fan of the sweet potatoes, tolerated the quinoa, was vaguely dissatisfied with the dressing...but he liked the chicken! Jason and I liked it fine and it certainly sounds healthy.

The vinaigrette from  Julia Turshen is a real keeper: equal parts olive oil, cider vinegar, tahini and soy sauce. Couldn't be easier. 

Saturday, 9/18/21

 We had a busy day, and I was tired, but I mustered up the energy to make a potato-leek soup with a little ham that was pretty good. Jason had made some bread so we had that with it (and then went to bed early).

Friday, 9/17/21

 Donna and Walter came up, and so we had a big get together. Donna brought an enormous spread of cheese, salami, dips, etc... Then we ordered pizza and BBQ (that honestly felt extraneous at that point). I made a spice cake with penuche frosting (from Food52. Fine). The best part was seeing everyone again.

Thursday, 9/16/21

 I was going to make coconut rice with greens, but I just didn't feel like it. I do feel slightly bad about having tater tot nachos with leftover chili instead. But only slightly.

Wednesday, 9/15/21

 Sushi bowl, with all the usual players (tuna, surimi, avocado, cucumber, wasabi...). No leftovers and very appreciated by the boy.

Tuesday, 9/14/21

 Just leftovers (mostly macaroni and cheese).

Monday, 9/13/21

 Tofu, sauteed with the usual suspects (ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sriracha). I briefly marinated the tofu in sraracha, soy sauce and brown sugar, and Carter actually complimented it! He could taste the sweetness and felt it was a good addition. Easy enough, little guy. Laso had cabbage sauteed with leeks and was surprised at the subtle differences between leeks and regular onions.

Sunday, 9/12/21

 First Sunday back at work in 18 months! Celebrated with Korean rice cakes (my latest obsession, obviously) cooked with ground pork and some broccoli. Only Korean-ish but still so good. Didn't deviate much from the recipe, and since broccoli was in it, that was all I served.

Saturday, 9/11/21

 Made the green-chili chicken macaroni and cheese, from serious Eats. And for the first time in a while, I basically completely followed the recipe. True, I swapped in cotija cheese instead of American, and added more pasta than the recipe calls for (12 ounces instead of 8), but otherwise had all the ingredients! as good as I remembered. I guiltily steamed up some broccoli at the last minute. Don't want the boys getting scurvy on my watch.

Friday, 9/10/21

 I had vague plans of cooking something more elaborate since it was my first Friday off in 18 months, but it just didn't pan out. Jason made some pita to try and use up all the baba ghanoush I made, and I made...Mozzarella sticks. I had a hunch that Aldi string cheese sticks would work well, and they really did. Messy and so worth it.

I did bake something! I made a couple of loaves of apple-swirl bread (from Sally's Baking Addiction). Nice sweet bread in the vein of banana bread.

Thursday, 9/9/21

 One of my cooking projects over the weekend was ersatz pierogies. Jason thought we should try using dumpling wrappers instead of making the dough. It worked fine, although I still prefer the thicker wrapper you get from making it yourself. I didn't have time to shop for farmers cheese, so I used cottage cheese which was a so-so alternative. Even after draining for a couple of hours, it was still a bit wet. But...sauteed with onions and butter, there were no complaints. Roasted cauliflower to go with it.

Wednesday, 9/8/21

 Jason made us a few pizzas: cheese, mushroom/salami, pepper/onion, and goat cheese. I was starving so they were extra delicious to me.

Tuesday, 9/7/21

 I made a batch of chili over the weekend, anticipating that my first day back after vacation would be tiring (spoiler: it was). No recipe, just 10 minutes in the IP. Jason made a Jiffy cornbread, because you almost can't make it better from scratch. we also had a pie that I had been eyeing in the NYT for a while: honey custard with a cornflake crust. There were some issues: too many cornflakes: the mix didn't hold together, even with the copious amounts of butter, plus it would have overflowed my pie pan. The custard was fine, but the honey didn't really stand out, flavor-wise. Plus the crust got unpleasantly soggy. Not sure i would repeat, but if I did I would cut the cornflakes back by a cup and make sure I had enough people to eat the whole thing. The recipe also called for sliced nectarines, but I think bananas would have been good.

Monday, 9/6/21

 I basically forced Corrina to invite us over for leftovers. I regret nothing!

Sunday, 9/5/21

 Simple dinner: off-the-cuff minestrone, plus a loaf of rye-ish bread from Jason. Comforting and good (I noticed that Carter carefully avoided the zucchini).

Saturday, 9/4/21

 Corrina's wedding! I must say, the food was great. Steak tips, really good dinner rolls, tasty green beans... The sad thing is always of course that the bride and groom spend all this time planning and then hardly eat anything.  The cake (lemon, from Atkins) was also delicious.

Tiny bridal party

Friday, 9/3/21

 Jen was kind enough to offer her house for Corrina's out-of-town guest dinner (there was no rehearsal, so not technically a rehearsal party). Just chips & dip, pizza and drinks, but it was a beautiful evening in a beautiful setting. I made SK cocoa brownies (excellent) and Fanny Farmer blondies (dry, through no fault of their own)

Thursday, 9/2/21

 Half batch of macaroni and cheese (Martha Stewart via SK); I didn't quite half the pasta and it was still plenty saucy. Used a mixture of cheeses (whatever I had). This recipe never fails, and since Jason wasn't paying attention to the amount of cheese and butter that went into, he was perfectly happy. Just some almost the-end-of-the-season sliced tomatoes to go with it.

Wednesday, 9/1/21

 Marinated grilled chicken,  pita bread from Jason, baba ghanoush, tomatoes.  The yogurt marinade (from the Times) ensured nice, not too dry chicken (for once). The baba ghanoush recipe also came from the Times, and it is quite tasty, but I made SO much. I wonder if you can freeze it?

Tuesday. 8/31/21

Instant Pot Chana masala, from the Ministry of Curry website. I accidentally made it a little too spicy (why can't I learn how hot our cayenne is??)  and a bit too salty (new brand of salt is throwing me off) but overall is was good, even with the canned chickpeas. Threw in spinach for a vegetable and over basmati rice. I made a salsa verde that doubled as cilantro chutney, and a cucumber raita (https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/raita-recipes-biryani-pulao-kababs/#Cucumber_Raita) that I made just to use up some yogurt and cucumbers, but ended up really liking.

Monday, 8/30/21

 Burgers, corn, tomato-mozz salad. I was in charge of burgers (for once!) so I doctored up the beef with onions, soy sauce, egg, bread crumbs, sriracha. Carter said they tasted a bit like meatloaf and he wasn't wrong. The corn was only fine, but the tomatoes Jason brought home from the farm were A+.