Friday, 1/27/23

  I unearthed an old potato soup recipe from Food52 and was inspired to make it again. So simple: just onions, potatoes and roasted poblanos. I like it because it isn't thick or creamy but has tons of flavor. Jason made some dinner rolls, and I made a butter pie (NYT) for dessert. The pie is super-sweet and I should NOT have had that second slice, no matter how tiny it was. 

This felt like a very decadent and fancy dinner for just the two of us, but I guess that is what kicking the kids out is like.

Thursday, 1/26/23

A couple of pizzas: salami and onion-goat cheese. That and some popcorn with sriracha were a nice start to the weekend.

Wednesday, 1/25/23

Fried rice, using some of the endless ham and leftover broccoli. Fine.

Tuesday, 1/24/23

 Pepperoni pasta, from the NYT. This couldn't be easier: saute chopped pepperoni with red pepper flakes, garlic and tomato pasta, toss with cooked pasta and some parm and voila. It's super delicious and quick. Carter didn't have much to say but he did take seconds so that's a win. I also made a salad but only out of guilt.

Monday, 1/23/23

 Tomato soup (from Martha Stewart) with grilled cheese. Carter was super enthused, which was nice. He ans I both agreed that the soup was a touch too acidic, so on it's own it was a bit much, but with the grilled cheese it was good.

I also made a couple of loaves of butternut squash bread (from Food52). I compromised with Jason by only using the glaze on one of the loaves, but wish I hadn't...to me it was the best part. I probably won't bother to make this again as cooking and pureeing the squash isn't worth it when a can of pumpkin works just as well.

Sunday, 1/22/23

 In an all too familiar scenario, the package of pork shoulder that I pulled from the freezer was actually ham. And to make matters worse, it was the pack that was mostly bone. Oops. So I pivoted from pulled pork sandwiches to ham and biscuits. I also threw our giant butternut squash into the Instant Pot for a side dish. Well, this all took a very long time. Dinner wasn't on the table until almost 7!  AND I thought the squash was bland and watery. Luckily I don't really like ham so there was barely enough. I just nibbled dejectedly on some biscuits. At least they are predictably good.

Some notes: 

Just roast butternut squash. It doesn't take that much longer 

Use the larger cast iron pan for biscuits!

Maybe consider labeling stuff in the freezer? Just a thought...

Saturday, 1/21/23

 Beef and bean burritos....am I pandering to the college boy? Maybe a little. I can't really compete with his dining hall, but I can at least make some of his favorites.

Friday, 1/20/23

Macaroni and cheese (from Martha Stewart by way of SK). I cut the recipe in half but it is still a lot. This version came out particularly well, I thought. The cheese blend is always a crapshoot of what we have, so I guess I got lucky. I added a bunch of broccoli and used panko instead of cubed bread, but otherwise as written. Never fails.

Thursday, 1/19/23

 Pizza night...one plain, one pepperoni. Jason wasn't happy with it but it was fine by me.

Wednesday, 1/18/23

 Another dish that I prepped over the weekend---chicken korma. Again, only fine (to me). I threw in a lot of green beans which I thought was a pretty good addition. Served with basmati rice and the last of some pita Jason made.

Tuesday, 1/17/23

Mushroom and farro soup, which seemed tasty enough when I was making it over the weekend. I just wasn't into it and I don't know if it was me or the soup. We also thawed a loaf of Jason bread from the freezer and had that with goat cheese. I was looking forward to soup so it was a little disappointing.  The goat cheese tasted weird to me, too, so it is probably just me.

Monday, 1/16/23

 Thanks to a burst of activity on Saturday, I had a lot of tonight's dinner prepped already. I just threw the marinated tofu into the oven and then made some noodles with garlic, ginger, scallions and spinach. I was happy that Carter liked it so much (I still can't really taste things all that well), but I thought the tofu was a little too crunchy and not in a good way. Stll, it felt like a nice wholesome dinner. After over a week of being sick, that's a win.

Sunday, 1/15/23

 I was confident that by the time this evening rolled around to have dinner with Jay and Jodi that I would be perfectly well again. No.

Fortunately soup (broccoli-leek) was on the menu so that eas good. Jason made a couple of loaves of bread and we made many grilled cheeses. It was a nice time even with me coughing coughing coughing.

Saturday, 1/14/23

 Leftover pizza; I have nothing to say about that.

Friday, 1/13/23

Return of Friday night pizza! Two with black beans, tomato, jalapenos and cheese, one plain cheese. I am liking these thinner crust pizzas again. 

The big excitement was that we used our new-ish hot-air popper to make a double batch of Cinnamon Toast Popcorn (NYT). Worked perfectly and much easier than making it on the stove. I always thought those poppers were weird, but I have grown fond of ours. Even if I couldn't really taste the popcorn, it was pleasantly crunchy.

Thursday, 1/12/23

 Jason made a mixture of lentils, rice and ramen noodles in the rice cooker. He was pretty excited about it. I felt compelled to finish my uneaten rice and beans from Monday. I meant to have some of the caulflower that Jason roasted, but my heart wasn't in it.

Still have a cold.

Wednesday, 1/11/23

 I think Jason and Carter had leftover spaghetti? I nibbled on a piece of garlic bread. It was odd seeing the garlic right there and tasting nothing. Ugh. I will be glad whn this cold is over.

Tuesday, 1/10/23

 Spaghetti and meatballs (meatballs and sauce both from Aldi). To me this tasted like less than nothing, but Carter and Jason seemed happy enough. I blame the cold...nothing tastes good.

Monday, 1/9/23

 Black beans and rice, with cheese and salsa. I must say that I was in the throes of a bad cold and could barely eat any, but Jason tells me it was good.

Sunday, 1/8/23

 Broccoli-cheddar sooup, from SK. As I was adding the broccoli, it looked like it was too much, so I didn't use it all. I ought to have. Still really good, though! I feel like we had some kind of starch with it but can't remember what.

Saturday, 1/7/23

 Pupusas, from the NYT. I had Jason form them while I pan fried and that worked out really well. Skipped the traditional cabbage curtado for just some salsa and have no regrets. These turned out really well! Two things: add a bit of extra salt to the dough, and pan-fry low and slow so they get melty and crispy. Served with some roasted sweet potatoes.

Oh! And I made a batch of cookies! I used the recipe for spicy molasses cookies that I got from Maggie. They came out perfectly.

Friday 1/6/23

 Dinner with Jay and Jodi: pasta and salad, dinner rolls (Jason) and games, plus this:

Things got a little silly

Thursday, 1/5/23

 Jason's deep dish pizza. ham and pineapple edition. I wasn't overly enthused about the combo, bit was not bad. I like the pineapple more than the ham.

Wednesday, 1/4/23

We had a leftover loaf of bread in the freezer, so we just had that with various leftover cheeses. Nothing else that I recall.

Tuesday. 1/3/23

 I had planned to make a version of Cravings sauce pork and cabbage over noodles, but somehow we were out of spaghetti! I know, I was also shocked. So it went over rice instead which was fine. I didn't have any of the Thai chili sauce called for, but my homemade (too runny) pepper jelly made a fine substitute.

Monday, 1/2/23

 Broccoli cheddar quiche, using up a pie crust from the freezer. I more or less follow the proportions from SK's spinach quiche, although it needed a little more baking time than called for.  Carter and I particularly like quiche; I think Jason is only meh. It looked a little sad sitting there on the plate all alone, but I figured it had protein, starch, vegetables and dairy....plus I didn't feel like making anything else.

Sunday, 1/1/23

 Happy New year! We celebrated at my dad's with Maggie and her gang. Lots of fun appetizers (the usual suspects: shrimp, chips, cheese and crackers, little hot dogs...) plus Maggie made black-eyed peas and rice (so good!). I brought some caramel blondies that were fine if a little bit dry. It was so nice to see everyone.

Too full for dinner.

Saturday, 12/31/22

 A festive New Year's eve dinner at Laurie's with Jen and John.. She made cheese fondue with a lot of fun things for dipping: bread (from Jason), tortilla chips, roasted cauliflower and broccoli, sausage....Delicious and absurdly filling. And that was before the chocolate fondue with fruits and pound cake (that was from me: a recipe from Food52 that had glowing reviews, but mine fell and was pretty dense. I may never perfect pound cake). Throw in a couple of cocktails, prosecco and fancy Bailey's and you have quite a night. Well, how wild can a night that wraps up by 9pm be? Anyway, we had fun.