Much delayed smoky, cheesy black beans, served with tortilla chips. I added cherry tomatoes, jalapenos and avocado to round out the dish. Two regrets: I forgot to add the chipotles in adobo that I made Jason go to three stores for last week, and I have a slight cold that is impacting my taste buds. I also made a lemon pudding (more eggs! more milk!) from the Spruce Eats and while it has a pleasing texture, I honestly can't say I tasted the lemon.
Saturday, April 29, 2023
Wednesday, 4/26/23
Leftover soup and popovers (the egg situation here is utterly out of hand. Jason is hoarding them). Not a big week for innovation.
Tuesday, 4/25/23
Chicken soup with egg noodles (made from our leftover Costco chicken) I believe we had this with some of Jason's many loaves of leftover bread.
Monday, 4/24/23
MORE leftover baked pasta. I also made a batch of Indian pudding while I was home for lunch ( from Yankee Magazine, I think?). This is a remarkably unappealing looking dessert, and Jason thought it would be better without molasses (which is a shame since molasses is the primary flavor). I kind of liked it, but it won't be going into regular rotation. Used up a lot of our milk though, so that's a good thing.
Sunday, 4/23/23
Leftover baked pasta, plus some fiddlehead ferns that sauteed with garlic and butter.I profess to not like fiddleheads that much, but they are actually pretty nice (see: garlic and butter).
Sunday, April 23, 2023
Saturday, 4/22/23
I somehow made a hilariously large batch of baked ziti with mushrooms, red peppers, spinach and meat sauce. We could easily have fed 8 people and now we are doomed to leftovers for several days. Will I ever learn to scale down? It's not looking good.
Friday, 4/21/23
Dinner at Jay and Jodi's...Jason made corn tortillas and we had tiny soft tacos with black beans. We had also picked up an enormous watermelon from Aldi and brought some of it. I wasn't sure if it would be any good this time of year, but fortunately it is nice and sweet.
Thursday, 4/20/23
Pizza and sugar cookies with frosting. I was too lazy to actually make the cookies, so I spread the batter out and made bars. Moderately successful (the corner pieces are significantly better than the middles). I used the Giant Sugar Cookie recipe from Martha Stewart which is fine but I am thinking of auditioning a new one.
Friday, April 21, 2023
Wednesday, 4/19/23
Leftovers again, this time the pasties. I tried mine with mustard this time and was a good addition.
Tuesday, 2/18/23
Busy busy day at work so I was glad to have leftover macaroni and cheese for dinner.
Monday, 4/17/23
An unplanned trip to Costco meant that we ended up with a rotisserie chicken for dinner. Served it with some of the excess bread that we had hanging around, and some creamed spinach. I didn't like creamed spinach as much as I thought I would, given the ingredient list. Maybe I just didn't do it well; I cobbled a recipe together from a couple of sources. If I made it again I don't think I would use a roux.
Monday, April 17, 2023
Sunday, 4/16/23
Stovetop macaroni and cheese, from Serious Eats. I added a small head of broccoli, some leftover cooked spinach and a small can of green chilies. I also used up a package of smoked pepperjack, and unlike smoked paprika, it really added a smoky taste. This isn't quite as delicious to my mind as a baked macaroni and cheese, but it is certainly much quicker and a lot less dishes.
I also made a batch of cookies from "Midwest Made" that are like a mashup of chocolate chip, oatmeal and snickerdoodles. I think I would like them better without the chocolate chips, and I ought to have made my cinnamon sugar more cinnamon-y.
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Another fun thing that happened today was a hike with Carter up Mt. Tom |
Saturday, 4/15/23
Cornish pasties with a smoky cheddar crust, from a cookbook I have brought home before, "Midwest Made". I made this a couple of years ago, and took my own advice to make eight instead of six, and to add extra smoked paprika to the dough. I didn't have any ground pork, so doubled the beef. Well, the smoked paprika still didn't do anything, flavor-wise, so I think it could be omitted. And making eight was a great idea in theory. However, I forgot to pull two of the little individually wrapped packages of dough out of the fridge and we inadvertently only made six anyway! I was wondering why I had leftover filling this time. Anyway, they are very tasty but the crust is so, so rich. I had one and a half but honestly one would have sufficed.
ps: Made cheese straws out of the leftover dough
Friday. 4/14/23
Roasted tofu (I tried to get fancy and coated it in a spicy honey-soy glaze, which sounded delicious to me but started to burn fairly quickly; I rescued it just in time) and cauliflower, rice, peanut sauce. I was only meh on this dinner, but ended up really enjoying it. I think it was the peanut sauce.
Thursday, 4/13/23
Pizza, with spinach, cherry tomatoes and feta. It was a little spinach-heavy, but that wasn't a bad thing.
Wednesday, 4/12/23
A sad day, going to my Aunt Marge's funeral. Late lunch meant we just had some popcorn for dinner.
Saturday, April 15, 2023
Thursday, April 13, 2023
Monday, 4/10/23
We had a lot of bread on hand, so grilled cheese for dinner. I put cherry tomatoes and onion jam in mine, Jason had his with bacon. A little heavy.
Sunday, 4/9/23
Japchae, from the Maangchi blog, followed basically to the letter. I even added the dried shiitake mushrooms this time! My only advice to future me is go ahead and add the whole bag of baby spinach, and maybe try chicken instead of steak. A lot of stir-frying, but I did most of the chopping in the morning before work, so if came together quickly, if messily.
Saturday, 4/8/23
Sedar with Jason's family; Jason insisted on making his own matzoh. I was not enthused about this project but everyone else seemed impressed enough (or just polite?) so I would say it was a success. Otherwise perfectly OK time: some chicken casserole thing, matzoh ball soup, cauliflower, etc. Everyone moslty behaved.
Sunday, April 9, 2023
Friday, 4/7/23
Late invitation to Jay and Jodi's for pizza with Michael, Mercer and the parents. Way too much pizza which is partly my fault because I okayed 3 party size. Oops. And then Jen asked if we wanted to come to dinner and since our first event was so early, we headed to Northampton after. Jason made a garlic flatbread (and a brownie mix) and we hung out and Laurie came over. A lot of socializing and a late night, but so fun!
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Not sure why Jason looks so harried? |
Thursday, 4/6/23
Pizza and pecan bars (from the NYT). Mushroom and pepperoni again this week and still a favorite.
Thursday, April 6, 2023
Wednesday, 4/5/23
Kale, potato and bacon hash, with lots of sharp cheddar (adapted from a Blue Apron recipe). It's just hash browns for dinner, with enough kale in there to make you feel OK about it. The original recipe calls for baking eggs on top but I didn't feel like it.
Tuesday, 4/4/23
I have been holding on to this recipe for "pico de gallo black-eyed peas salad" in my inbox for months. Then when Jason discovered a bag of black-eyed peas downstairs (I KNEW we had some!) I decided it was time. The recipe is from the Emily Nunn Department of Salad newsletter and I followed it pretty closely (the lime vinaigrette became lemon vinaigrette as I ran out of limes). I added queso fresco and served it over rice to make it into another bowl. Black-eyes peas (cooked in the Instant Pot with some onion and a jalapeno), roasted poblanos, cherry tomatoes, red onion, the vinaigrette and an avocado crema (just avocado in the food processor with lime, sour cream and a little garlic). This was far better than I expected (the peas I thought tasted pretty blah on their own). I was very glad that I finally got around to making it.
Monday, 4/3/23
Second bowl: black beans, sweet potatoes, quinoa, queso fresco. This was great if a little salty (the roasted sweet potatoes, oops). And quick (see: tons of meal prep on Saturday).
Tuesday, April 4, 2023
Sunday, 4/2/23
Did a lot of prep on Saturday....this week's menu features mainly bowls. Tonight's was rice noodles, tofu roasted with gochujang, carrots, cucumbers, cilantro and peanuts, with a lime-fish sauce vinaigrette. So sort of a deconstructed spring roll. we also made (ANOTHER) batch of caramel popcorn. We can't get enough.
Sunday, April 2, 2023
Saturday, 4/1/23
Not an April Fools! First dinner in Jen and John's renovated kitchen. There are still some loose ends to tie up (like putting the fridge back in place), but we were too excited to wait. Potato-leek soup and grilled cheese, plus caramel popcorn and (of course) cocktails. So fun!
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Not a great shot but you get the idea |
Friday, 3/31/23
For some reason Jason started three different loaves of bread this week? So we had a loaf of raisin-walnut to get started on. I made a tuna salad that was like an 80's menu exploded in it: olives, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, olive oil...everything but some raspberry vinegar. I was afraid Jason wouldn't like it but he was a fan. We also had some broccoli roasted with zaatar and some cheese, and onion jam. Fun mix and match dinner.
Thursday, 3/30/23
Mushrooms, pepperoni and pepperoncini pizza. Tipsy Jason insisted I take a picture of it:
This was one of the best we have had in a while. Go Jason!