Friday, 1/28/22

 Dinner with Jen and John and Laurie. Jason's bread was exceptionally tasty, Laurie made a nice bourbon cocktail, and I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ermine frosting from Food52. I struggled with it, which was partly my own fault; I have never mastered temperature control when it comes to frosting. I also picked the recipe partly because it used cocoa powder instead of chocolate and I think it wasn't as richly chocolate-y as I would have liked. Anyway, they were still pretty good.

Dinner was a doctored up Blue Apron: chicken with peanut sauce over rice, with a carrot/radish sort of slaw thing. As usual, did not disappoint.

Thursday, 1/27/22

 I somehow didn't plan anything for dinner; fortunately our freezer is a veritable cornucopia of food. So it was egg rolls and broccoli with garlic sauce. The egg rolls reheated beautifully which is good as we still have another giant bag of them.

Wednesday, 1/26/22

 Grilled cheese with various cheeses (sharp & mild cheddar, provolone) and condiments (hot pepper jelly, tomato jam, pesto). Happily, this used up most of a loaf of bread from the freezer. They were, however, almost too buttery. I didn't think those were words I would ever say.

For dessert I made something called a "cinnamon flop cake". Basically just a coffee cake with a cinnamon crumble on top. I don't know if the topping was supposed to sink down into the cake the way it did (maybe that's the flop part?) but I didn't love it enough to make it again.

Tuesday, 1/25/21

 Black beans (in the Instant Pot) and boxed yellow rice, with various condiments. Nachos for an appetizer. I also intended to make a salad and feel pretty guilty that it didn't happen. Do diced tomatoes and jalapenos count as a vegetable? Not really.

Monday, 1/24/22

 Some freezer maintenance: pierogies and kielbasa. Plus some cabbage that I sauteed with garlic instead of onions for an exciting change. This was all tastier than I expected it too be, so that was nice. Kielbasa is still not my first choice, though.

Sunday, 1/23/22

 Curried butternut squash soup (fine) and popovers. As usual, it is a giant batch of soup and nobody but me will eat the leftovers. Served it with spiced pecans and feta cheese; necessary to break up the monotony of a creamy soup.

Saturday, 1/22/22

 Went to Jay and Jodi's for another go at dumpling making. We did a steamed vegetable dumpling this time (I think Jodi has still not recovered from the shock of the previous fried ones) and they were largely successful. I just used a random recipe from online (but it was very similar to the one in my Andrea Nguyen book). I think people were happy with the results!

I brought along a double batch of "cinnamon toast popcorn" from the NYT. Should have made a triple....it was devoured. I knew Jodi would like it.

Friday, 1/21/22

 A big pot of spaghetti and meat sauce. I wanted meatballs, but two out of three people in our house inexplicably prefer meat sauce. Fine. Used a mixture of beef and ground pork, but a couple of spoonfuls of the nduja, for spice. Jason made a very nice loaf of bread, and sadly, I forgot to make a vegetable. Meant to make a salad but it just didn't come to pass.

Thursday, 1/20/22

  Why I needed to try out another macaroni and cheese recipe, I don't know. But I was intrigued by the method! You add chopped broccoli, pasta, milk and water to a big pot, cook until the pasta is done and the sauce had thickened, and then add cheese. This really could not be easier and it did turn out nicely. I liked having the broccoli cooked right in (and wish I had added more) and one pot is a plus. A keeper from the NYT.

Wednesday, 1/18/22

Chicken korma, from "Chetna's 30 Minute Indian". This was almost as good as my usual korma recipe, and has the advantage of no whole cloves and cardamom pods (that I have to painstakingly pick out prior to serving). My rendition came out quite saucy and I wished I had made rice to go along with it. My reasoning (that we had had rice yesterday) was not terribly sound. Jason did make nice nice pita bread, though. Also had roasted cauliflower with lemon and tahini. Drizzling a little tahini produced dramatically tasty results, but my cauliflower was not crispy as advertised. Sigh, it never is.

Tuesday, 1/18/22

 A broccoli and tofu fried rice from the NYT that was entirely ho-hum. Partly my fault, as I think I used too much rice. While the technique of sautéing tofu with a little sugar, soy sauce , garlic and ginger and serving it on top was good, the rest of the rice was fairly bland. Needed more soy sauce and hot sauce at the table. Plus poor Carter somehow got a large bite of jalapeno (sorry, kid) and was traumatized. Would not bother with again.

Monday, 1/17/21

 Straightforward spinach quiche, to use up a crust I had in the freezer. Mostly followed proportions from an SK recipe, though I skipped cream cheese and added more cheddar. It was great, if I do say so myself, and I was sad that I didn't get any of the leftovers.

Sunday, 1/16/22

 Dinner with Jen and John: bread from Jason, SK cocoa brownies from me. I made them more festive by melting thin mint candy on top to make a minty frosting. Dinner was John and I collaborating on chicken rice soup, which was very cozy and nice.

Saturday, 1/15/22

 I had planned to make empanadas, but Jason requested egg rolls, so why not. We made a LOT (about 50). Used up the spring roll wrappers from last week, plus some egg roll wrappers we picked up. I prefer the wheat ones (less greasy), but they both turned out well. I realized two things: 1. I forgot to buy Thai chili sauce when we were at Mom's House and 2. You can easily make your own Thai chili sauce! I made this batch a little bit too spicy, but the recipe is basically a keeper. I used a recipe from a random website called the Daring Gourmet and it worked well.

Friday, 1/14/22

 I had a gift card that could be used at a fancy wine/food store in Amherst, so Jason and I had very expensive butter, two delicious cheeses (note to self: if you are ever feeling particularly flush, buy this again  https://thecheeseatlas.com/cheese-profiles/vacherousse-dargental/), some nduja (spicy!) and bread by Jason. Very decadent! Especially with pecan bars from the NYT for dessert. Plus an unseasonal but lovely rose.

Thursday, 1/13/22

 Jason's request, tots with cheese and gravy (not that I had to be strong-armed into it). We also threw on the rest of the roasted pork. Of course it is delicious. Cabbage on the side so we at least had a vegetable.

Wednesday, 1/12/22

 Just leftovers from our groaning fridge.

Tuesday, 1/11/22

Tried another dish from "Dinner then Dessert": chicken wrapped in fresh jalapenos and bacon, then baked. A lot of flavor from not many ingredients and we all liked it. I would start with flatter chicken breasts (or use the suggested chicken thighs) and flip then halfway through cooking, though. The bacon didn't want to cook on the top. Served with mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans.

Monday, 1/10/22

 Roasted pork sandwiches (that I have made a couple of times). Even after a lot of time in the oven, our pork wasn't exactly falling off the bone tender, but it was tender enough, and has a nice flavor, thanks to the mango-garlic-rum marinade. The accompaniments (roasted garlic, pickled jalapenos and caramelized onions) are what really make the dish. 

Sunday, 1/9/22

 I made a giant batch of potato/white bean/cauliflower soup over the weekend (talk about monochromatic); we had that with some bread from Jason. I forgot to buy chives for the garnish, but the suggested sour cream really did add a nice tangy flavor to an otherwise fairly forgettable soup. We also had S'Mores cups from a cookbook I brought home ("Dinner then Dessert). As I was making the graham cracker layer I was thinking that there were WAY too many graham crackers, and I was right. You could cut it by a third. Nonetheless, they were a tasty and easy variation on S'Mores. Even Jason to admit he liked them.

Saturday, 1/8/22

 Stupid temporary filling came out of my stupid tooth (and then I must have swallowed it, ew) so I couldn't eat the Tyler Kord broccoli subs I have planned for dinner. So I ate mine in a bowl, gingerly. I love the weird flavors in these sandwiches (pickled lichis!), but I think I am the only one. Didn't even try it on Carter this time around.

Friday, 1/7/22

 Had to have a root canal in the morning, so I was casting about for a dinner that wasn't too crunchy. We settled on kushari. I broke up the steps so it wasn't too much all at once (lentils, pasta, fried onions, rice, tomato sauce...uses ALL the pots), and having a rice cooker helped. I roasted some brussels sprouts and a lone sweet potato to go with it. Then we went to Jay and Jodi's for a drink and some ping pong. For someone as bad as I am at ping pong, it was surprisingly fun.

Thursday, 1/6/22

 Tofu (marinated and baked) with noodles and peanut sauce (from SK). Carter tried peanut sauce again and while he wasn't wowed, he said it was OK. This was a perfectly adequate meal.

Wednesday, 1/5/22

Pizza and pizza cups, since Jason is on a pizza cup kick and Carter is only meh on them. Taco pizza & cheese; goat cheese/onion and  spinach/ricotta for the cups. They are pretty cute, and it makes him happy so who am I to complain? We also made a batch of pecan cookies, mostly for Jason's benefit as I don't care for those Mexican wedding style cookies.

Tuesday, 1/4/22

 Burgers (which we had not had in a long time) and french fries. Fine. Carter was happy.

Monday, 1/3/22

 Another soup made over the weekend, cream of broccoli (from Smitten). I only added the cheddar at the table, to make for better re-heating. And Jason made dinner rolls so that is always nice.

Sunday, 1/2/22

 I was very happy to come home to the chicken and sausage gumbo I had made, and not just because it was so easy. I used the Instant Pot with a recipe from Serious Eats. I won't repeat my recipe notes since they should be in the archives, but it was worth buying the andouille. I also had Jason skim off the layer of oil that accumulates. Man, that is one good soup (even without okra and file powder). A couple of notes: use a little more chicken, and dice the peppers a little bigger,

Saturday, 1/1/22

 Spent the morning cooking for the week, since I suspected work would be tough after a week off (spoiler: it was). Since our dinner plans with Jen and John were cancelled (thanks, Omicron!) we just had bread and cheese and apples for dinner.

Friday, 1/31/01

 As usual, we had another wild New Year's Eve. To be fair, we did have fun: went to Jay and Jodi's and made spring rolls together. They were hit or miss; I may have bought the wrong style wrappers, and some weren't rolled tightly enough and exploded. But they were tasty and the gin and tonics smoothed out any worries. Then we bounced on the trampoline which might become my favorite new New Year's tradition!