Thursday, 7/28/22

Return of the oppresive heat, so I just made rice in the rice cooker with some Goya seasoning, heat up some black beans and voila: taco bowls. Leftover zucchini, salsa, pickled jalapenos and cheddar rounded out the meal. We all love a customizable meal.

Wednesday, 7/27/22

We have a fridge full of snack-y leftovers, so Jason baked a loaf of bread and we had cheese, hummus, pickles etc. More s'mores for dessert.

Tuesday, 7/26/22

Jason's parents brought over Popeye's which was pretty nice of them (no biscuits, sadly, but Jason was happy with all the french fries). They requested a salad, but we didn't have any lettuce. So we grilled zucchini and onions instead. Carter was civil....heck, even Jason and I were civil!

Monday, 7/25/22

 Jason reluctantly fired up the oven to make his postponed pan pizza. It was as good as ever, though a bit salty. All I can say is that it's good that I eat vegetables at lunch!

Sunday, 7/24/22

 Leftover BBQ, of course. And toaster oven S'Mores for dessert. 

Saturday, 7/23/22

 So, it would have been nice if it wasn't 95 degrees, right? But it wasn't so bad in the shade, with a little breeze. What Corrina and I learned from the catered food: get FAR fewer ribs and double the macaroni and cheese. Everything was tasty, though. So many leftovers! The BJ's cake was better than I though it would be, at least. We could not have done this without all my aunts swooping in!

Looking so cute! Thanks, Donna!

Dinner was steak, baked potatoes, corn, tomatoes and zucchini at Deb & Donna's swanky Airbnb. Jason and I had a super enjoyable evening laughing, talking and playing a silly board game. I am one lucky niece.

ps: note from Corrina: Never throw another party

Friday, 7/22/22

 Busy day shopping and getting ready for Corrina's party! Dinner was at my dad's. The aunts brought tons of tasty appetizers and snacks (plus there was pizza). I am sorry to say that it was too hot to bake so we brought cookies from the store. I was hoping that BJ's would at least have a nice Pepperidge Farm assortment, but alas, no. It's always a fun time when the family is in town!

Thursday, 7/21/22

 Rice and lentils in the rice cooker; I don't like cooking them together like that but Jason does so.... fine. It needed a lot of condiments in my opinion (luckily, we have a LOT of condiments!). I think we also had some grilled summer squash but that might have been Wednesday. Doing everything we could not to heat up the kitchen.

Wednesday, 7/20/22

Still too hot to cook. I knew Jason wouldn't bite on take-out, so I refused to make anything but nachos. And not even fancy ones. Microwave nachos. I can't say I feel good about it, but it (along with a hefty glass of cold white wine) was a pretty satisfying dinner.

Tuesday, 7/19/22

 To make it up to everyone for the blah tofu, I made salisbury steaks with onion gravy, mashed potatoes and salad. Much more enthusiasm. We did the meat on the grill and used the Instant Pot for the potatoes to try not to heat the kitchen up quite so much. 

Monday, 7/18/22

 Really unmemorable tofu, rice & broccoli. The tofu crumbled all up, and the teryaki marinade (from Aldi) that I used was only fine. That's what I get for cheating and using a bottled marinade.

Sunday, 7/17/22

 After a very lazy day, I finally got around to making the postponed pupusas. I didn't make the curtido, but I did serve them with some pickled peppers that I made. I don't know what I did differently from the last time I made them, but they turned out really well! I  put a tiny bit of extra salt in the dough, added some green chiles to the filling, and cooked them nice and slow. Anyway, I was pleased with the results. More work than nachos, but not by a lot.

Saturday, 7/16/22

 Back to Jodi's. This time we had more of a plan: bread from Jason again, a brown sugar cake from me, and Jodi picked up the ingredients for tempeh-onion-pineapple skewers. In retrospect we ought to have marinated everything, but it was still quite good (with various sauces on the side). Tempeh still isn't my favorite but it is pretty unobjectionable.

Friday, 7/15/22

 An unexpected dinner invitation from Jen meant that we took our show on the road and baked our usual pan pizza over there. Jason made some chocolate chip cookies and we stayed out way too late.

Thursday, 7/14/22

 We went over to Jodi's to keep her company. We just has some pasta (with some unknown, but tasty, fake meat); Jason brought some bread and cucumbers.  It was nice out on their deck instead of in our hot little kitchen.

Wednesday, 7/13/22

 I had a late meeting that provided pizza; I think Jason and Carter had spam and ramen? I don't know when Carter last ate a vegetable but he appears pretty robust.

Tuesday, 7/12/22

 Aldi had some smoked knockwurst that Jason liked the look of, so I grilled that, along with some summer squash. Fine. I also made homefries, but I wasn't happy with their lack of crispiness. I blame it on not using the cast iron pan. They tasted pretty good, though, as potatoes and onions basically always will.

Monday, 7/11/22

 There was so much leftover fried stuff. We just threw it in the toaster oven and had it again. Then I felt a bit gross but managed to eat some ice cream anyway.

Sunday, 7/10/22

 For some reason Jason wanted to make egg rolls with unusual fillings? So I made a taco meat and pinto bean mixture and we wrapped those babies up. Ersatz taquitos? Alt-eggrolls? While we had the fryer going we also did up a couple of zucchini and some onion rings. All this took a long time and made a big mess. This is why people just go to TGI Fridays, I guess. There was a ton of food and most of it was cold by the time we sat down. So we'll have the leftovers tomorrow, properly warmed up in the oven.

Saturday, 7/9/22

 Family dinner at Jay and Jodi's. Jason's parents brought Bueno y Sano (I liked my burrito bowl just fine, but Carter and Jason found their choices to be only meh), plus a tuxedo cake from Costco. Pleasant enough evening (especially because of the pre-gaming?).

Friday, 7/8/22

 Yes, it was pizza, and yes, it was delicious. So good that I had a third slice instead of dessert.

Thursday, 7/7/22

 A loaf of bread, some cheese, a salad and deviled eggs (me and Carter) and egg salad (Jason). I make the egg salad but never taste it, so I have no idea how it is. Jason eats it happliy enough, though. More s'mores for dessert.

Wednesday, 7/6/22

 Another weekend project, sloppy joes (basically via Pioneer Woman). I added carrot and celery, but didn't have any bell peppers. I think that they actually add that "sloppy joe"  taste, so I kind of missed them. The usual summertime salad with a basil vinaigrette. Toaster oven s'mores for dessert, using some hot fudge in lieu of the chocolate. Since the fudge is so firm when it is cold, that worked out well. Altogether a very messy meal, though.

Tuesday, 7/5/22

 I made a batch of Instant Pot butter chicken over the weekend, so we had that with basmati rice and cauliflower. I used the Ministry of Curry recipe, but skipped the coconut milk altogether, opting to go the butter/cream route. It was only OK when I tasted it on the day I made it, but benefitted from the sitting and re-heating. Ice cream with hot fudge for dessert.

Monday, 7/4/22

 Nothing says Happy Fourth of July like....another zucchini-ricotta tart. Well, I needed to use up the rest of my homemade ricotta AND it is undeniably delicious. Carter was off playing soccer(?), so he just ate some macaroni and cheese when he got home (of one several things I cooked in the morning, along with sloppy joe mix and butter chicken for the week's meals).

Sunday, 7/3/22

 I finally convinced Jason to go to Bombay Royale only to have it disappoint a little bit. The chaat station is my favorite part and they don't have it anymore, I guess. I need to remember that and just make the effort to assemble my own at home. The upshot is that we were still too full at dinnertime for the (already postponed once) zucchini galette. So Jason had snacks and I had a watermelon salad with feta. We bravely mustered up the appetite for dessert, though (ice cream with hot fudge). I made a different hot fudge sauce from SK, and though she claims it is better than the other one (that I made a couple of weeks ago), I disagree. Her older recipe, with unsweetened chocolate, had a bitter edge that was an improvement, I thought.

Saturday, 7/2/22

 Went to Jay and Jodi's and there was no real dinner. Thankfully, Jason made some garlic flatbread to bring so we didn't starve. I TOLD him it wasn't a dinner invitation! Anyway, we had a fun time playing board games and then went home and ate some of Carter's leftover pizza.

Friday, 7/1/22

 After a very busy day running with Jen, picnicking by a lake, exploring the Savoy area and hiking up to High Ledges, we finally got home in time for Pizza Night. Jason is dismayed that the technique that produces the best results also produces a mess on the bottom of the stove, but it's worth it (well for me, certainly. I don't clean the stove).

Hoosac Tunnel

Thursday, 6/30/22

 Impromptu camping trip with Jen and John! Burgers, sausage, s'mores and maybe a bit too much wine. We stayed in a very cool cabin up in the Savoy State Park. Would definitely do again.

Cozy!

Wednesday, 6/29/22

 I had every intention of making pupusas for dinner; even going so far as to replenish our masa harina. But somehow I just didn't feel up to it. So it was nachos with black beans for dinner, plus a salad. I'll make those pupusas eventually, maybe just not on a weeknight.