Monday, 4/25/22

 Since I was STILL out of work I had time to go to Costco and buy a rotisserie chicken, and make okonomiyaki (Japanese vegetable pancakes) for dinner. Both were nice with a little wasabi mayo and some hoisan sauce. The pancakes are kind of like a very eggy vegetable latke? Anyway, easier that I anticipated.

Sunday, 4/24/22

 Chicken and sweet potato stew, from Melissa Clark via the NYT. I have made this a few times before; I followed the recipe pretty closely, using most of a cut-up whole chicken. We served it with basmati rice and while I was probably the biggest fan, everyone ate it willing enough. I think this is also the night I made pudding chomeur, from SK. I have made a different version of this excellent maple biscuit thingie before; the only change I made was to do the whole thing in one pan instead of individual ramekins. Rich & sweet. Jason and I ate way too much of it.

Saturday, 4/23/22

 I went into a fugue state of cooking this morning and basically made every meal for the week. Today was a broccoli and cheddar quiche, plus a loaf of bread from Jason. I mostly use the filling ratio from SK's spinach quiche, swapping in sour cream (or omitting altogether) for cream cheese. It's a damn fine quiche if I do say so myself.

Friday, 4/23/22

 The by now predictable pan pizza and salad. I least I made some dessert, a reliable old chocolate pudding from SK.

Thursday, 4/21/22

 Black pepper tofu, with rice and broccoli, slightly adapted from Ottolenghi via Epicurious. I never have shallots laying around, so red onions filled in.  And I didn't have any scallions so I skipped them. Still delicious, but the butter is probably why. If anyone else in the house knew how much butter goes into that dish....

Wednesday, 4/20/22

 Since Carter was too full to request his birthday dinner yesterday, we had it tonight: Bruno's pizza, plus some garlic bread. Nice for me, right?

Tuesday, 4/19/22

 Happy Birthday Carter! Poor kid, it wasn't an exciting one: the weather was crappy, he had a doctor's appointment first thing in the morning, the place he wanted breakfast from had equipment failure, and he was too full from lunch (Five Guys) to want to get dinner. So I just made some tater tot nachos, and we all enjoyed the hell out of them. Better luck next year, kid!

College bound!

Monday, 4/18/22

 Finally got around to making Singapore noodles, which have been on the docket for a couple of weeks. Kind of like fried rice, but with noodles? And curry powder? I don't know what drew me to this, since the reviews in the NYT were only meh. Anyway, they were only fine, but I attribute that to some user error: I nearly burned the curry powder (the house still reeks of it) and the rice noodles we had were on the chewy side. Still, everyone ate it, and I used up some odd bits of vegetables lurking in the crisper. 

Sunday, 4/17/22

 I accidentally made ham on Easter, but in my defense we have a LOT of ham in the freezer. Served it with mashed potatoes and a salad. My mashed potatoes turned out nearly perfect this time; it's always a bit of a crapshoot.

Saturday, 4/16/22

 Dinner with Jen, John and Laurie. Our oven conked out, so Jason had to bring a loaf of bread we had stashed in the freezer and heat it up there. This turned out to be a plus, as everyone liked the warm crustiness of it all. I made a meringue dessert from SK (that was secretly a Passover dessert). Mini meringues filled with lemon curd and whipped cream. Delicious and not that difficult, either. Would definitely make again, as the combination of chewy/crispy meringue and tangy curd was excellent. Plus we always seem to have a lot of eggs hanging around.

Dinner was a Blue Apron with chicken breasts baked with a kind of pimiento cheese/panko topping. The taste was great but I overcooked them just a little. Only I really cared and it was quite tasty. A fun evening!

Friday, 4/15/22

 Why yes, we did have another pan pizza! And it was glorious. Who knows how long we will keep this up, but for now it is still popular. My only quibble is that I never get any of the leftovers (but maybe that's for the best?) I actually did make the salad this week. It was a quasi Greek style, at Jason's request, with feta, red onions,  pepperonicinis, and cherry tomatoes. Another delicious pizza.

Thursday, 4/14/22

 I had Jason make me some black beans in the Instant Pot (he is getting to be an old hand at it) and some rice (not as successful as he uncharacteristically forgot to start the rice cooker) and we had burrito bowls for dinner.Nothing new: some cabbage  (lightly pickled with lime ), cotija, cherry tomatoes, salsas. Nice easy dinner for the end of a long work week.

Wednesday, 4/13/22

 Jason went to watch Carter play Ultimate, so I was home alone for 90 glorious minutes! I used this time to make dinner---so indulgent of me. Hey, at least I could salt the pasta water as much as I wanted with Jason grousing about it. An old favorite: SK's broccoli pesto pasta, with extra broccoli. Some leftover sausage to go with it for my hungrier boys.

Tuesday, 4/12/22

 Yeasted waffles from SK, plus breakfast sausage and bananas. Yeasted waffles are one of my few exceptions to my "I don't like breakfast for dinner stance". They are so light and crispy, and the yeast gives them such a complex flavor.

Monday, 4/11/22

Korean rice cakes with beef and Chinese broccoli. I didn't have the called for ground pork; beef made an acceptable stand-in. The recipe (from Bon Appetit)  is somewhat basic as written, but it's easy enough to play around with the flavors. My love for rice cakes abides.

Sunday, 4/10/22

 Pan pizza again, baby! I know I say it every time, but this was the best one yet. I don't know what Jason did differently, but the edges were crisp and cheesy, the sauce was flavorful and the whole thing was excellent. I was supposed to make a salad. Whoops. So just  pizza and more cake for dinner.

Saturday, 4/9/22

 Big late lunch, so we just had bread and butter & cake for dinner. We splurged on a Costco Tuxedo cake, cause we are very fancy people.

Friday, 4/8/22

 Dinner with friends Sue & Elliot, plus Jay and Jodi. Chili and salad for dinner; I made another brown sugar cake. I didn't want to bust anything new for a first time dinner invitation. They kept the leftovers, so I think it was a hit.

Thursday, 4/7/22

 Chick peas, butter chicken style, in the Instant Pot. I (very unimaginatively) added spinach at the end, and also roasted some cauliflower. Cauliflower and Indian food are just bonded in my mind, I guess. I thought Carter might go for this because of the rich and tasty sauce, but he informed me that chick peas are only good in hummus. I think Jason secretly agrees. I don't care! I thought they were great. We also had pita (Jason) and basmati rice.

Wednesday, 4/6/22

 Corned beef and cabbage. I couldn't be bothered with anything complicated, so I just followed the directions on the beef package and used the spice mix that came with it. Added potatoes and carrots during the last hour or so. Maybe a touch stringy, but let's face it, the potatoes and carrots are why I was there. I had some leftover gravy hanging about;  it was a good addition.

Tuesday, 4/5/22

 I didn't want to make my planned pasta-lentil dish, so we just had deviled eggs (meh), bread and cheese. There is no fighting it when I really don't want to make something. For dessert I made a Jello no-bake cheesecake and I have no regrets.

Monday, 4/4/22

 Sushi bowl (tuna, surimi, mango, cucumbers, avocado). There is never much to say about it and we always love it.

Sunday, 4/3/22

 Jason and I were sad to miss our Friday night pizza date, so we had it on Sunday, instead. He keeps refining the pan pizza to be ever tastier. Our boy came home tired, sore and limping.

8 and 0!

Crazy over-saturated color

Saturday, 4/2/22

 Dinner with Jen and John (curtailed when we realized Carter had to be at ARHS at 5:30 the next morning). Group effort tacos, Jason made bread, and I made an old favorite, brown sugar cake.  Always a winner.

Friday, 4/1/22

 Jason got invited to a birthday party through his farm people, so we traipsed up to Sunset Avenue with a loaf of bread. Pleasant enough, except neither of us ate quite enough dinner. There was live classical  music and a croquembouche, though. So that was interesting.

Thursday, 3/31/22

 Stovetop macaroni and cheese, broccoli. The fact that I make this often (from a Serious Eats recipe) doesn't make it any less tasty or easy.

Wednesday, 3/30/22

 I had a drinks date with work friends, so I left split pea soup for the boys, and had Jason make dinner rolls. I still don't like split pea soup; too thick and goopy. Could be my technique, though.

Tuesday 3/29/22

 The picture in the NYT of tacos dorados with a potato filling looked so good that I just had to try them.So I made the potato filling the night before, assigned Jason to make corn tortillas and stuffed and fried away.

What a pain in the ass. The tortillas were a bit too thick (not Jason's fault) and didn't want to stay closed; the potato filling leaked out and burned; it took forever....Jason liked them, Carter ate them, I thought they were OK but not worth the work. I wonder how it would be to just buy taco shells, fill them and then throw them in a hot oven for a while?

Monday, 3/28/22

  Tater tots with gravy and cheese, at Jason's request. I also made a salad (guilt again) but honestly, when there are fried potatoes, gravy and cheese on your plate, salad can only be an afterthought. Carter thought we should have this every week. I guess we could if I, too, was a teenage boy.

Sunday, 3/27/22

 Jason made bagels for Jodi for her birthday, and he made enough so that we had some for dinner. Sadly Aldi was out of smoked salmon, but there were plenty of other fun toppings (onions, olives, jalapenos) to make up for it.

Saturday, 3/26/22

 Birthday dinner for Jodi at her place. Jason's parents brought Bueno y Sano, so that was nice, and Jay made a couple of angel food cakes. So I did exactly nothing, which always feels wrong

Friday, 3/25/22

 Pan pizza again. I am loving this tradition, actually. We also had salad, because it makes me feel less guilty about the pizza. For dessert I experimented with making floating islands. I got the recipe from Food52; it claimed to be two servings but it was a ridiculously large amount. This is not going into dessert rotation: the meringues were weirdly textured, and the whole thing was SO SWEET, even after I cut the sugar in the creme anglais by a half cup. I may have been too heavy handed with the drizzle of caramelized sugar on top? We gamely ate it but then I had to rush upstairs and brush my teeth.