Tuesday, 8/30/22

 When asked for any last dinner requests for before he left home, Carter picked spaghetti (specifically spaghetti! Not some other pasta) with meat sauce. Then he wasn't home for dinner! But then, it isn't like he sits down to chat anyway. He was content to eat his dinner warmed up after Ultimate. Jason and I also had leftover caponata and flatbreads plus tomatoes because Jason brought home MORE tomatoes even though I warned him not to.

Monday, 8/29/22

 Jason and I had a late, large lunch in Brattleboro. Why I just picked a random pizza place for my birthday, I don't know. And then ordered a calzone? Sigh. It wasn't bad at all, I just should have set my sights higher. At least my sundae from Herrell's was A+. It was too hot for the walk we had planned.

So anyway, dinner was a chaat spread, with potatoes, chutney's, chick peas, etc. Something was missing, but I can't put my finger on what. Dessert was a caramel tres leches cake from Costco that I have had my eyes on for a while. It's good, but we all agreed that the tuxedo cake is a little better. But now my curiosity has been satisfied, so that's good!

Sunday, 8/28/22

Carter and I had a a nice hike and lunch out (Taco Bell and Poke, sitting in the car, just how we like it); it was his early birthday present to me. To be clear, I bought lunch; simply spending time with his old mother was the gift. Where did I go wrong with that one?? Corrina is fine!

Anyway, even though Carter did not request tots with cheese (totchos?) for dinner, I knew he would like them. He did, and even ate some tomato on my request. 

Saturday, 8/27/22

I had made a big batch of caponata, because Jason is relentless with the eggplants, so we had that, along with some hummus that I made and fresh pita. Also pickled peppers.Oh, and yet another tomato-mozz salad. I am going to miss summer produce! 

Friday, 8/26/22

 Wine, snacks, pizza, bad movie. Ideal Friday night, although maybe a good movie would be better?

Thursday, 8/25/22

 Corn fritters (Paula Deen recipe: as usual I added a hefty teaspooon of baking powder, and, this time, some diced jalapenos), tomato mozzarella salad, kielbasa. Say what you will about Paula Deen, but those fritters turn out perfectly every time.

Wednesday, 8/24/22

 Another round of flatbreads, and farro with feta, tomatoes, olives, and corn. No recipe, I just kind of thought it up. Farro cooks up nicely in the rice cooker, and is pleasantly nutty and chewy. Carter was only meh on this combo, but he ate it. I bet he is looking forward to all that dining hall bounty at UMass!

Tuesday, 8/23/22

 Open faced provolone and tomato sandwiches., plus some corn. This coudn't be easier, except I was on the porch using our new burner to grill the provolone, and it was a little slow. Also, getting brown, melty cheese off a skillet and onto a slice of bread neatly is not easy! Anyway, a delicious use for peak tomatoes and Jason bread.

Monday, 8/22/22

 Jason's rice and squash dish again. It isn't the most delicious thing in the world, but it is fine and certainly very thrifty. He is proud of himself for thinking it up.

Sunday, 8/21/22

 Eggplant parm, but in the deep fryer! Still a big old pain to bread it all, but the frying is much easier, faster, and less burning. Jason is tickled, because he can take over the frying, AND save his precious stove from use. I also fried up a few cheese sticks for the hell of it. There is a small part of me that would always rather be eating fried cheese.

Saturday, 8/20/22

The delayed pizza (as we say every week, "I think this was the best one so far!". Except that one that was too salty). I also made another batch of peanut butter bars: cut back the graham crackers, don't stint on the peanut butter, and make a ganache instead of just melting chips.

Did I mention that we visited Ramona and her parents?

Entranced by his tiny niece

Friday, 8/19/22

Dinner with Jen and John. Jason made garlicky flatbreads AGAIN (they are delicious), plus we brought tomatoes and corn and watermelon from the farm. Made a Blue Apron with rice , broccoli and chicken with miso. After dinner we were sad to realiz that there was no dessert, so Gus gamely biked to the store for ice cream. Fun evening as always.

Thursday, 8/18/22

 Macaroni and cheese (Serious Eats stovetop recipe), corn, tomatoes. Nice enough. Carter ate his dinner utterly without comment (in his defense, he had just gotten home from Ultimate and was probably starving).

Wednesday, 8/17/22

 Since Carter was at work, I made a batch of chicken buldak for Jason and my enjoyment. It wasn't quite as spicy as I would have liked.....I guess you really can put in an entire 1/2 cup of chili flakes. My kimchi of a few weeks ago was a good add on. I just wish I had made rice to soak up some of the sauce.

Oh, and this happened

Perfect little Ramona Katherine!

Tuesday, 8/16/22

 Ugh, I spent WAY too long making black pepper tofu and eggplant, only to have it be fairly unattractive and only fine. Mistake 1: trying to cook all of the eggplant at once instead of batches. Too mushy as a result.  2. Let Jason see how much butter and soy sauce go into this dish (funny how he always likes my cooking until he sees how it is made. Why did he think it was so tasty??) Anyway, the kitchen and I were both a greasy mess and I need to find a way to keep Jason out of the kitchen. Tough when your downstairs is all one room.

Monday, 8/15/22

 So it turns out that our new hot plate takes a long, long time to boil a big pot of water, so what I thought would be a quick dinner did take a bit longer than I hoped. Oh well. Anyway, pasta with creamy broccoli sauce, plus some fresh tomatoes. Worth the wait.

Sunday, 8/14/22

 Two BBQ's. First, a birthday party for Jason's farm boss, Bill---we were only able to stay for a bit (which is a shame, because everything looked pretty tasty) before we headed to Jay and Jodi's for a family dinner. Burgers plus we brought watermelon and zucchini & eggplant to grill. Jason, if you are reading this: I TOLD you we should have grilled them at home. Doofus. So they weren't what I would have hoped but whatever. Fun to see Jay & Jodi and the boys.

Saturday, 8/13/22

 We had a big lunch (burgers and fries at some random place in West Springfield), so didn't really eat any dinner to speak of. I think I had some tomato-mozzarella salad and watermelon and Jason had some cottage cheese and cantaloupe?

Unmemorable, apparently.

Friday, 8/12/22

 Pizza. That is all.

Thursday, 8/11/22

 Jason had a vision of a rice and squash dish, with cashews. So why not?  we had an acorn squash just sitting there, so we Instant Potted it, cooked up some rice, and gave it a try. Pretty good! We added some shredded parm mixture at the table; I also went with sriracha while Jason added raisins and provolone to his. The cashews were a fancy touch...a good sort of tabula rasa. Carter didn't say what he thought, but he ate it. So that's something. Also more tomatoes.

Wednesday, 8/10/22

 I tried a controversial dish from the NYT, a celery and chicken salad with a wasabi/tahini dressing. Despite all the whiners on the comment session, I did not find this too spicy at all. Who just blithely adds two tablespoons of wasabi to a dish if you don't love spicy food? The only change I made was to grill the chicken rather than poach it. Since Jason was grilling up another delicious flatbread (two, actually, since we devoured the single earlier in the week) it was just easier to have him grill the chicken too. Anyway, this was fun. Probably would not repeat; if I really want a chicken and celery dish I will make that Persian stew. Served with the aforementioned flatbreads and some tomatoes.

Tuesday, 8/9/22

 Aldi finally restocked the frozen tuna, so it was the return of the sushi bowl. I missed avocadoes, but it was otherwise normal: delicious and no leftovers.

Monday, 8/8/22

 The tomatoes from Jason's farm are finally starting to come in (and be actually good), so we had a tomato-mozzarella salad for dinner. I bade Jason  make one of his garlicky flatbreads, and that really stole the show. We ate the whole thing with dispatch. it is so good when it is still warm from the grill. More watermelon and peanut-butter bars.

Sunday, 8/7/22

 A new experiment: a cold noodles salad, from The Department of Salad newsletter. I used Korean sweet potato noodles (fun and bouncy!); the sauce is made with chopped kimchi, gochijang, sesame oil and rice vinegar. Topped with hard boiled oggs and cucumbers. A couple of notes: 8 minutes in the pressure cooker is too long if you are looking for medium cooked boiled eggs. Try 6 minutes. I made my own kimchi, which is fine, but I only made it on Saturday, so it didn't really have time to develop those funky flavors. This was pretty spicy! I drizzled mine with some hoisin which added a nice sweetness.  I also grilled (well, Jason did) some flank steak to go with it. I think I am the only one who really likes flank steak, but it was really flavorful. Jason is just too lazy to chew.

Dessert was some no-bake peanut butter/chocolate bars. Kind of like peanut butter balls but WAY easier. The only thing I might change is making a ganache for the topping instead of straight melted chocolate. Still, no-bake FTW (from a cookbook I checked out called "Celebrate with Babs"). 

Saturday, 8/6/22

  We bravely made pan pizza, in spite of the heat. Another delicious pizza! There should be a betting pool to see how long before we get tired of it. And how will we know? Will we eat a slice, look at each other, and shrug? "Meh. I can take it or leave it". But for now, it is still a thumbs up.

Friday, 8/5/22

An unexpected dinner invitation meant that instead of having our usual pizza night, we went to Jason's farm friends house for lobster. Fancy! It was a big mess, of course. There was also cole slaw, potato salad, tomato-mozzarella salad, bread and pie. Quite the summer feast! Jason made an appetizer of his garlicky flatbread that was well received. I think I prefer a lobster roll, on balance.

Thursday, 8/4/22

 I found a "recipe" for cooking pasta in the Instant Pot. It was not an unbridled success. Burn notice! The bottom layer did burn and stick, but there was plenty that was salvageable (and actually perfectly cooked). More water, I think?

Anyway, I tossed the pasta with some grilled eggplant and peepers I had made on Sunday, plus some tomatoes and parmesan cheese. Jason and I liked it, but Carter categorically refused to try it. He only likes eggplant when it is in eggplant parm, I guess. Anyway, it was good, although I think feta or fresh mozzarella would have been a nice add-on.

Wednesday, 8/3/22

 There were enough leftover components to make Caesar salad again (and Carter was at work), so that's what I did. Looking forward to someday being allowed to use the stove again, although I fear that even when it isn't too hot, Jason will find some other reason why I can't use his precious, clean stove.

Poor Carter just keeps getting random meals (I think tonight was chicken nuggets?). He will be happy to get to college and eat at the dining hall.

Tuesday, 8/2/22

 Since Jason won't let us cook, I reheated some egg rolls from the freezer (well, some were fried spring rolls and some were those taco filling ones) and served that with tomatoes and pickles. I was impatient with the toaster oven, so they weren't as crispy as one might like. Farm watermelons are coming in and they are gorgeous, so dessert was way too much watermelon.

Monday, 8/1/22

 I grilled extra chicken over the weekend in order to have some leftover for grilled checken Caesar salad. Turned out very well except Jason made sauteed breadcrumbs instead of croutons. He is so weird and stubborn sometimes! Anyhow, the dressing was good and it was a quick dinner (that didn't heat up the kitchen).

Sunday, 7/31/22

 Instant Pot pasta Alfredo, which, to be clear, is just very rich macaroni and cheese. Plus Jason made us get more Big Y corn (for the record, it's fine, but I don't understand why we can't go to a farm stand like normal people) and a tomato from the farm. I added extra cream and chicken broth in order to make a full pound of pasta: nice filling leftovers for the teenager.

Saturday, 7/30/22

Grilled chicken sandwiches, plus some watermelon that Jason and I lugged home from the farm. I find seeded watermelon a little frustrating, but they were definitely superior to the Aldi ones I have been getting.

Friday, 7/29/22

Pan pizza, of couse. Better than last week: less salty and a fluffier texture. I wonder when we will get tired of it? What will be the tipping point?