Chicken and barley soup, plus some leftover rye-ish bread, toasted. I made chicken stock in the Instant Pot, which took an unexpectedly long time, so dinner was on the late side considering we were home all day. The barley was a nice change from rice or noodles, as it stays pleasantly chewy. Jason and I also made a batch of pizzelles, using the recipe from the little book that came with the maker. One of these days I will finally prevail and we will add anise to the dough!
Saturday, February 26, 2022
Friday, February 25, 2022
Thursday, 2/24/22
A pasta dish that was inspired by one that Jason used to make: caramelized onions, ricotta, walnuts. Of course I tinkered with it a bit: I added red pepper flakes, some lemon juice, capers, and I toasted the walnuts. I also threw in the leftover roasted cauliflower. Delicious! Knowing that Carter hates it, I just gave him boxed macaroni and cheese with broccoli.
Wednesday, 2/23/22
Another not terribly inspiring dinner: tofu, broccoli, rice. I mean, it was tasty enough (I made the Cravings sauce, but added a little too much Thai chili sauce) but hardly novel. No complaints, though.
Tuesday, 2/22/22
Regular old burritos. Well, Jason and I had more like soft tacos, to use up the homemade corn tortillas from last week. Jason and I made a large batch of rice pudding (my old Epicurious recipe) to use up some accidentally purchased milk, but I was still working on the weekend's blondies and didn't try it.
Monday, 2/21/22
We found these "hash brown sticks" at Aldi (honestly, they are just tater tots in a different shape) so that plus scrambled eggs with cheese and onions was dinner. Oh, and Jason made a loaf of regular old white bread. Good for toast.
Sunday, 2/20/22
I recreated the lentil dish from Saturday's Blue Apron, only omitting zucchini (and probably adding sriracha). I was really there for the aloo paratha, from a recipe I found in Cook's Illustrated. The potato filling was so good that I will probably save the recipe for that alone (would be great in a samosa). Easy enough to make, with Jason rolling them out and me cooking them on the stovetop. I also roasted up ahead of cauliflower which was not as exciting.
Carter is growing weary of lentils.
Saturday, 2/19/22
Went to Jay and Jodi's, where we made a vegetable stir-fry with tofu and rice. Well, I mostly made it which defeats the purpose of a group cooking thing. But it's so much easier that way!
Anyway, it was fun. but since we had also had lunch in Whately I was done socializing for the weekend.
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
Friday, 2/18/22
Dinner with Jen and John: a Blue Apron that featured lentils with yellow curry and peanut butter (weird but good) topped with sauteed zucchini and carrots and fried eggs. This would have been enough dinner, but we also had grilled cheese and little flatbreads that Jason made. Dessert was chocolate cookies (Jason) and caramel blondies (me, of course. The usual David Lebowitz recipe with the addition of some white chocolate I had hanging around).
This was really quite a lot of food.
Thursday, 2/17/22
Cabbage and lentil soup, which I just concocted (onions, tomato, garlic, carrots). It is pretty tasty if a bit gruel-ish; but the real star of the evening was dinner rolls from Jason. It's a wonder I don't request them every week. Probably for the best.
Wednesday, 2/16/22
Another round of one pot broccoli macaroni and cheese from the NYT. This is really quite a bit of reward for not much work, and since the broccoli is already in there you don't even need a side dish.
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Monday, 2/14/21
Smoky, cheesy black beans, from the NYT. I had Jason make beans in the Instant Pot, and basically followed the directions (adding onions, chipotles in adobo, and some cotija cheese). Carter looked at it with dismay (even though he ate it last time). Jason made some corn tortillas, so it was kind of like freeform nachos. Jason and I had sweet potatoes, too, but I figured that was pushing my luck with Carter.
More successful than white beans, for sure.
Monday, February 14, 2022
Sunday, 2/13/22
Bread, cheese, deviled eggs. Plus I made egg salad for Jason (we will take his word for it that it was good). I was out of dijon mustard, and the mustard I used instead was too sweet. Efforts to correct the flavor were in vain. Oh well, Carter ate them anyway.
Once again I meant to make a salad and just.....didn't.
Sunday, February 13, 2022
Saturday, 2/12/22
Back to Jodi's for pizza with Jason's parents. Serviceable pizza from Athena's (Jason kindly advocated for a small section of plain cheese for me). Jason made another batch of tapioca (I added a little half & half and it was an improvement. Creamier and less bouncy) and I made a caramel bourbon sauce that could cover a multitude of sins. A quick card game and home to bed. Left Carter with a frozen pizza which is what he gets for being unsociable. Then again, he likes it (the frozen pizza and the solitude).
Friday, 2/11/22
We took our pasta making show on the road to Jay and Jodi's. Jason told me to make the dough (because mine turns out well because I follow a recipe) and then backpedaled because it uses egg yolks....what a weirdo. I was tired of this fight, so I just used whole eggs and hoped for the best. The dough was a bit soft, but fortunately, it rolled out basically OK and cooked up nicely. I think everyone really liked it! We brought some thawed pesto (I was glad to finally use it) and Jodi had some jarred tomato sauce that was fine. I wanted to make and bring a tomato sauce but of course that was a whole other argument.
So to recap, we just had pasta for dinner. And booze.
Friday, February 11, 2022
Thursday, 2/10/22
Nachos, with repurposed chicken from the other night. Obviously this was a vert tasty dinner with no leftovers.
Thursday, February 10, 2022
Tuesday, 2/8/22
Poached chicken in a gingery broth, with a sweet soy sauce. This is from the Times; I made it a couple of years ago and really liked it, but this time my chicken was tough and chewy. Maybe my simmer was too aggressive? Previously I served it over rice; this time I used angel hair, which was fun but doesn't soak up the sauce in the same way. I added spinach to this one, too. Too lazy to cook another vegetable and it is so unobtrusive.
Jason made a batch of tapioca in the Instant Pot. Bouncy! But good with some leftover caramel sauce. It seems that I always have some leftover caramel sauce.
Monday, 2/7/22
Another recipe from "Weeknight Vegetarian", this one slightly less successful. Cheesy bean bake, with panko. White beans in a tomato sauce, topped with provolone and bread crumbs. The flavors are ok, but eating a big bowl of beans gets monotonous. I added spinach to round it out; easy enough, but unlike the tofu/eggplant dish, I probably wouldn't make this one again, at least as written.
Tuesday, February 8, 2022
Sunday, 2/6/22
Carter was very dubious of tonight's tofu and eggplant dinner, from "Weeknight Vegetarian". But then he ate the whole bowl in one go, so I guess it was OK? The tofu and eggplant are cubed and roasted separately, then served over rice with a sweet-chili sauce (which turned out to be basically wing sauce. Not a bad thing). Nice new way to serve tofu, which I appreciated.
Saturday, 2/5/22
I was supposed to make ricotta gnocchi last Thursday. Then today, but I finally gave in and admitted that I didn't want to. So instead I made a batch of focaccia (from SK) and made it into delicious sandwiches. 'Nduja, ricotta, artichoke hearts and roasted red peppers, spinach and tomatoes. Much better and less frustrating than gnocchi.
Friday, 2/4/22
I wanted to make a dish from the NYT: farro and mushroom gratin. I made Jason drive all over looking for farro, to no avail. I bought barley instead, and I think it was a fine substitute. Nice and pleasantly chewy. I also didn't have mascarpone, so made do with ricotta. Overall, the flavors were good, but it could have been a bit creamier (the mascarpone probably would have helped). Served with cabbage slow cooked with garlic for a nice hearty snow day meal.
Wednesday, 2/2/22
Pizza from Jason, with my personal favorite, provolone-hot pepper-salami. Also plain cheese (excellent) and pizza cups: pepperoni, spinach-feta, caramelized onion-goat cheese and ....hot dog. The hot dog had mustard, onion and pickles. I wasn't a fan, but gamely tried it (he is so sensitive). It wasn't terrible.
The pizza was really good, though!
Thursday, February 3, 2022
Monday, 1/31/22
Tofu with rice and green beans. I had a couple of different recipes running through my head (kung pao and the tofu fried rice from the NYT) and sort of combined them? Tossed the tofu with cornstarch before stir-frying it, then made a sauce with light and dark soy sauce, a little black vinegar, brown sugar, and the usual suspects: ginger, garlic, scallions. Lots of green beans. Not groundbreaking, but pleasant.
Sunday, 1/30/22
Jason has been nagging me to use a box of angel hair pasta that we have, so I finally remembered to think up an appropriate pasta combination. Italian sausage, garlic and cherry tomatoes, with a fair amount of olive oil fit the bill. Then, in a hilarious turn of events, it turned out that we didn't actually have angel hair! It was just thin spaghetti. Still pretty tasty, but I promised we could pick up a box of the wretched angel hair. He just doesn't understand that it is too thin for most of the sauces we have. Sigh. I see pesto in our future.
But the sausage/cherry tomato combination was quite good.
Saturday, 1/29/22
It was a snowy, blustery day, so I thought I would make a more elaborate dinner. We had chicken cutlets (excellent), roasted potatoes (from SE; OK but we were in a hurry and they could have roasted longer) and broccoli. All would have been lovely except Jason insisted that we try "bread sauce", a completely inoffensive British sauce made with (you guessed it) bread crumbs. milk and onions. It added nothing to the meal, unlike the lemon butter sauce I was planning. This was quite a point of contention.
Anyway, dessert was a caramel-apple skillet crisp from the NYT. Would have been better with more apples, but that's my fault.