Wednesday, 3/29/23

 Just leftover beef stroganoff.

Tuesday, 3/28/23

 Nachos, with an avocado salsa (basically un-mashed guacamole), refried beans and tomatoes.

Monday, 3/27/23

 "Beef stroganoff", how my mom used to make it, with ground beef and egg noodles. Jason had never had it, and he was a fan. I think it could have been a little saucier, and I ought to have cooked the onions a little longer, but overall successful. Salad to go with it and we are still plowing through the gulab jamuns.

Sunday, 3/26/23

Just leftover lentils. 

Saturday, 3/25/23

 Fish and chips (fish filets from Aldi in the air fryer; only fine) and a salad. Not as good as I was hoping, plus I tried to make some tartar sauce for Jason and did not totally succeed. It can be difficult for me to produce recipes for things that I don't actually like. Another batch of gulab jamun that were a borderline failure (greasy dough, heavy end product). I am not sure that I am willing to try another batch.

Friday, 3/24/23

 Dinner at Jay and Jodi's; B & J brought take-out from Miss Saigon (note to self: that vermicelli bowl is really good) and a Costco tuxedo cake. 

Thursday, 3/23/23

 Drinks, snacks, pizza, Biscoff cookies. It was all a bit much but a fun evening nonetheless. We are still tinkering with pizza (Jason makes enough to feed a crowd); this weeks offerings of spinach/feta and goat cheese/caramelized onion were a little overcooked if flavorful.

Wednesday, 3/22/23

 Jason made some pita, and I made a tomato-feta-cucumber salad; we also had some hummus to go with it. I think I cooked so much meat last week when Carter was home that we have been skewing more vegetarian this week.

Tuesday, 3/21/23

 Rice and lentils (from Made in India), with half a bag of spinach added. No shocker: I could have easily used the whole bag. This seems like something I should know by now! We also tried the air fryer to cook a few samosas from the freezer. Not quite as good as the deep fryer, but much, much easier.

Monday, 3/20/23

 Tofu and peanut sauce, with a bag of frozen green beans thrown in for good measure. Served over rice....no recipe. 

Sunday, 3/19/23

Bread and cheese (we had a loaf that Jason made earlier in the week). I supplemented with a couple of recipes from "Snacks for Dinner". The smoky sweet potato was unloved by Jason, but I thought it was good. But the real keeper is an onion jam that was simple and had so far been shown to be good on any number of things. Jason made a cake mix for dessert and I made a simple American buttercream for it. We are animals.

Saturday, 3/18/23

 Late (and fabulous!) lunch at the North Village Smokehouse with my dad, Liz, Zac and Corrina, so we weren't hungry for dinner. We played Monopoly and snacked on grapes and chips instead, which was actually a very pleasant way to spend the boy's last night at home.

All poor Ramona got for lunch was a single pickle

Friday. 3/17/23

 Dinner with Jodi and Jay. Bread & corn tortillas from us....black beans, cheese, and whatnot. Sorry that Carter didn't join, but it was nice to see Zack and Sam and I think people appreciated the homemade tortillas (Jason made them onsite). A fun evening.

Thursday, 3/16/23

 Pizza night....Jason wasn't happy with his efforts: the dough puffed up in a weird way. Carter wasn't impressed with the addition of broccoli. I thought it was pretty good but maybe had a few too many onions. Not bad, though!

Wednesday, 3/15/23

 After thinking about and rejecting many ideas on what to do with chicken (I just didn't feel like making kung pao), I settled on Instant Pot chicken Alfredo. Eh, it's fine. I added some leftover broccoli. We also had some terrible brussels sprouts (through no fault of Jason's cooking technique in the air fryer); they just had a nasty funky taste. Carter liked the pasta, at least.

Tuesday, 3/14/23

 Snow day, so there was plenty of time to make Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes for dinner. No recipe, just some proportions for the gravy. I rushed the potatoes so they could have been a bit softer, and there is nothing to say about plain broccoli. Still, everyone seemed happy enough.

I also made a coffee cake from Classic American Desserts that I have made many. many times, but for some reason it came out dense and flat. It tasted OK, but I was mystified and disappointed. Of course Jason insisted he liked it that way.

Monday, 3/13/23

Sushi bowl, since Carter is home for the week. The usual stuff: mango, avocado, surimi, tuna, cucumber, etc.  I have taken to adding edamame, but I am not sure I like them. Still, more vegetables can't hurt.

(Carter did enjoy it).

Sunday, 3/12/23

 Bagels (from the freezer; we had so many up there) with cream cheese and smoked salmon. I added as many accouterments as I could round up:

Saturday, 3/11/23

 Dinner with Jay and Jodi (chicken and bean burritos); Jason made a loaf of onion/fennel bread that he was very pleased with. I made peanut butter cookies (from SK, omitted the chocolate chips). I thought the cookies were great, but they didn't go fast. More for us. Then off to the ARHS spring musical, Amelie. A fun, if late, night.

Friday, 3/10/23

 We coerced Carter into taking us to the dining hall before spring break. Highlight for me was bulgogi with rice and spinach (the Indian food seems better at Worcester than at Berkshire). Very filling and left me thirsty through the night.

Thursday, 3/9/23

 Pizza night (mushroom pepperoni) and the leftover caramel corn.

Wednesday, 3/8/23

 More leftovers? Why yes, it was back around to the minestrone (BTW, no recipe for that) and bread. To brighten our sad meal I did make some caramel corn and we ate a shameful amount of it.

Tuesday, 3/7/23

 Leftover macaroni and cheese (I made it for lunch on Saturday). I used the Smitten cauliflower gratin recipe, switched out roasted broccoli for the cauliflower, added some peas for more vegetables, and added orzo (so, nothing like her recipe except for the cheese sauce). It was delicious out of the oven on Saturday, less so microwaved as leftovers.  But we bravely ate it anyway.

Monday, 3/6/23

 This will be a boring week since it is planned leftovers all week. Tonight was leftover pizza.

Sunday, 3/5/23

 Minestrone (meh) and bread from Jason. I liked the soup fine, but Jason really liked it. Weird.

Saturday, 3/4/23

It was crappy weather and a good day to stay inside and cook. So I made minestrone for later in the week,  gulab jamun, samosas, and cilantro chicken (from Made in India). I just found a random recipe for gulab jamun on the internet, but they are all very similar. I was having a very bad day for dough (is our house too cold?) and I could feel that it just wasn't going to be right. My dough was crumbly and greasy, and they fried up craggy, not smooth. I think the syrup also cooked too long and was too sticky to penetrate well? Anyway, Jason professed to love them, but I think there is a lot of room for improvement. 

My other tricky dough, for the samosas, was so stiff and difficult to roll out that Jason ended up using the pasta machine! They weren't pretty, but fortunately fried up nicely (thank goodness; I was getting very tense) . I had made cilantro and date chutneys the day before (also Made in India) and the chicken was quick and easy. All in all a successful meal. Except for those damn gulab jamuns.

Friday, 3/3/23

 Pasta and rye bread with Jay and Jodi. Jason had to make the bread on short notice, so he wasn't happy with the crumb, but I don't think anyone else noticed. Carter came with us, which was a nice treat. We brought cinnamon popcorn for dessert....I wanted to make caramel corn so we flipped a coin and I lost. Jason won't admit it, but I think he won't let us bring caramel corn anywhere is because he doesn't like to share.

Thursday, 3/2/23

 Pizza night. Since I am still a little off pan pizza, we just did one big pizza with mushrooms and onions. Jason felt it needed more sauce (I always like extra sauce) and that he should have broiled it for a big, but I thought it was good. 

Wednesday, 3/1/23

 With all apologies to Smitten Kitchen, I just didn't feel like making her soy glazed tofu with crispy rice. I don't know why. Maybe because I was out of scallions? After stewing for a while on what to do instead I decided to make saag paneer, but with tofu instead. Perfect! I should have used some more spices, but otherwise I thought this was a nice use for tofu. I would also like to try it with feta cheese, as the book I used (Indian-ish) recommends. More disgraceful rugelach for dessert.

Tuesday, 2/28/23

 Snow Day! We stuck to our plan of leftover chicken with peanut sauce, but I did use the time to make some dessert. After spending an inordinate time thinking about my choices, I settled on some fancy rugelach that I had made a few years ago. My notes mentioned that they were labor intensive and that the filling leaked a lot, but man. What a mess...all the filling leaked and they dissolved into (tasty) puddles. Don't bother again! I don't even really like them when they are done well because the cream cheese dough has an unpleasantly tangy taste to me.

How it started

How it's going

Monday, 2/27/23

 Our experiment with creating and eating more leftovers begins in earnest this week, so tonight it was a reprise of the lentils and rice. Sadly, there are still MORE leftovers of it. I haven't mastered cooking for two!

Sunday, 2/26/23

 A recipe from from the newest Melissa Clark book (something about one pan dinners? Everyone is obsessed with one pan dinners these days) for chicken in peanut sauce. The peanut sauce needed a fair amount of tinkering: added some tahini, and sriracha and lime, etc, but the end result was really nice! I was careful sautéing the chicken and for once it stayed tender. The snap peas I sliced too thin so they got a bit lost in the sauce, and the intended rice may be a better accompaniment than the noodles I used but overall successful.