Tuesday, 5/30/23

 Leftover pizza: I was scared of overcooking it again. and so of course it was undercooked and a little floppy. Better than burnt and the pesto was still 100%.

Monday, 5/29/23

 On my shopping list/meal plan for today I wrote "potatoes and eggs?"... I have no idea what I meant by that. So I made cheesy homefries and scrambled eggs with scallions. I don't know if it what was I planned, but it was good, even though my potatoes, infuriatingly, would not get crispy. Cheese hides a multitude of sins.

Sunday, 5/28/23

 Two engagements! Lunch (and parade) in Whately....bread and salad from us, fun snacks from the Whately folks (deviled eggs, chips and dip, pigs in blankets, meatballs and cheese). My favorite kind of meal.

Then dinner with Jen and John. Bread and caramel popcorn from us again. Jen got the ingredients for pasta with ricotta, asparagus and lemon and I am afraid it wasn't my best work. I blame the fancy ricotta (and maybe also needed more of it?) but I also think I just could have done a better job. It didn't stop us from having fun anyway.

Saturday, 5/27/23

 Dinner with Jodi: bread and caramel popcorn from us, then we made rice and beans. Fun time with just the three of us (plus Bella of course).

Friday, 5/26/23

 Leftover lentil soup and garlic rolls. Eating that soup is more of a duty than a treat.

Thursday, 5/25/23

 Pesto pizza, once again delicious. Rhubarb pie.

Wednesday, 5/24/23

 Brought the boy home, and then convinced him to go to the dining hall one more time, which he did with minimal grace. I had ramen, sushi and Moroccan chicken (with rice and tahini-harissa sauce) and Jason said  his fish tacos were worth the long line. The child ate some pizza and then was slightly grumpy until we dropped him off at the high school for some Ultimate thing. Welcome back, kid!

Tuesday, 5/23/23

 I was planning another recipe from I Dream of Dinner ( a broccoli skillet pasta) but Jason made me feel like I should use up the block of tofu that has been in the fridge, so I did a broccoli-tofu pasta thing instead, with a kind of Cravings sauce but I felt that the whole thing was subpar. It just needed more something or maybe I was just picturing that other dish but in any event Jason liked it and it was certainly edible. Another rhubarb pie for dessert that somehow took almost two hours to bake! We were yawning and trying to stay awake to eat it. I have no idea what the trouble was.

Monday, 5/22/23

 Leftover pizza, sadly warmed up a little too long and overly crunchy. Unfair fate for this delicious pesto pie but we bravely (and in Jason's case, grumpily) ate it anyway.

Sunday, 5/21/23

 On Friday I made a laughably large pot of lentil soup with cabbage, carrots and celery. Sadly, Jason rarely eats leftover soup and I was only meh on it. The good news was that Jason made another batch of pizza dough garlic rolls and they were even better than his last outing. Crispy and full of buttery goodness.

Saturday, 5/20/23

 Falafel (from the NYT), pita bread (Jason), condiments (tahini-yogurt sauce, pickled turnips, lettuce, tomato, hot peppers). The first batch went kaput in the fryer, so I hastily threw the mix back into the food processor and added a bit of flour. Success! Leftovers for days. My only quibble was that I forgot that pickled radishes typically also have a beet in there (plus I ought to have made them sooner). No real complaints, though.

Friday, 5/19/23

 Yet another I Dream of Dinner recipe: herby rice with singed feta. You cook rice with lots of spinach, herbs and radish tops, then top with slices of feta and broil. And then add a little radish/lemon topping.

 This was so good. Anything with broiled feta is a 100% in my book and the rice was good on its own. I may need to buy this book.

Sheet cake with leftover buttercream for dessert.

Thursday, 5/18/23

 Pizza, but with an exciting new topping! Homemade pesto with farm basil, plus Roma tomatoes. This was so good! I wasn't even sick of the mushroom/pepperoni yet, but this was a really welcome change.

Tuesday, 5/16/23

Dinner with Corrina, a sort of annual Mother's Day tradition. The restaurant I picked (Vespa) turned out not to be open, so we had a fancy cocktail at the Archives (Corrina has a delicious concoction called The Bridge of Flowers; I had a Corpse Reviver #2) and some potato salad dip (it tasted just like potato salad, duh) with potato chips. Then burgers at the new burger place (good, although mine was on the dry side) and then Insomnia Cookies. Such a fun night with my best girl!

Wednesday, 5/17/23

I think we had leftover rice or possibly leftover pizza. I am not entirely sure. I know I made another pie this week, anyway.

Monday, 5/15/23

 A rice dish from I Dream of Dinner: cherry tomatoes baked with basmati rice, onions and chiles in adobo (I also added a can of chick peas to round it out a bit). Good but I would have liked even more cherry tomatoes (or less rice?). You serve the whole shebang with peanuts and lime. Tasty! I was cautious with the chiles and could have added a bit more.  Another keeper.

More rhubarb pie.

Sunday, 5/14/23

 Another recipe from "I Dream of Dinner": pasta with walnuts, rosemary, asparagus and feta. I liked this a lot, but would reduce the walnuts and increase the rosemary. I also used extra feta (to use up an open package) and have no regrets. I am really enjoying this book!

Saturday, 5/13/23

 Dinner with Jen and John: a reprise of pizza and brown sugar cake. The over was still giving Jason a lot of trouble; maybe we should stick to stovetop meals. But we managed to have fun anyway....the wine probably helped.

Friday, 5/12/23

 Dinner with Jay and Jodi....rice and lentils plus Jason made garlic pizza rolls. We didn't tell Jodi about the butter. They were pizza rolls only in that they were made with pizza dough...I was trying to channel Bertucci's (RIP). I also made a double batch of cinnamon crunch popcorn for Jodi, who had a rough week.

Thursday. 5/11/23

 Pizza night. Sticking with the mushroom/pepperoni/pepperoncini for now as we are still enjoying it.

Wednesday, 5/10/23

 Another recipe from "I Dream of Dinner" and it may be my favorite yet. Pork with green chiles sounds so simple and it was! Just ground pork, mild green chiles (cubanelles and poblanos, in this case),spinach, garlic, cumin and lime, served over crispy rice. I added some cilantro because we have a lot. This was so easy and so flavorful. I could have eaten all of it. You don't even have to roast the peppers. Would definitely make this again. 

Tuesday, 5/9/23

 Bread, again. The man won't stop. I made some egg salad for Jason and some deviled eggs (accidentally too salty) for myself, plus some nice cheddar and more of the watermelon. I had made a rhubarb custard pie (from Spruce Eats) in the morning, so that was nice. Rhubarb season is just beginning so I see a lot of them in our future.

Monday, 5/8/23

 Leftover pizza; we have been making an effort to eat it so we don't have double leftovers when Thursday rolls around.  Plus a salad with the first of the lettuce from the farm.

Sunday, 5/7/23

The delayed dinner from Friday, finally. White beans "French onion soup" style, with lots of caramelized onions and Swiss cheese (I was too cheap to spring for the gruyere which would have been a little better). I was happy to use up a half bag of white beans that I had hanging around, as well as some of the everlasting bread. Jason really liked this, although I thought it needed something; more acid? Watermelon in lieu of a vegetable. This was another recipe from "I Dream of Dinner" which has some very interesting ideas for not a ton of work.

Saturday 5/6/23

 Happy Pride! Spent the day in Northampton catching up with friends, snacking, hanging out with Corrina and Ramona and finally having pizza at Jen and John's. Jason was having oven troubles so the pizza wasn't perfect, but it tasted great! Who knew fiddleheads would make a good topping? I made a brown-sugar upside down cake that turned out well; warming it up a bit in the oven was key.

Two of my favorite people showed up

Friday, 5/5/23

 I was happily cooking away when my dad called to see if we wanted to try the new burger place in town (Amherst Burger Co.). So I threw everything into the fridge and off we went. The burgers and fries were excellent, but we were headed to UMass to see Into the Woods, so we had to rush. I would definitely try it again! Thanks Dad and Liz!

Thursday, 5/4/23

 Usual mushroom/pepperoni/hot pepper pizza. It was excellent. The latest exciting development is slicing them into triangles instead of squares!

Aldi Easter cookies for dessert that are EXCELLENT. So that means they will all get snapped up next year. I knew I should have bought more.

Wednesday, 5/3/23

 Pasta with lemony cream sauce (from the NYT) ; I followed the recipe basically as written (used the microplane zester) and added roasted broccoli and some parm blend. Not overly creamy, which was actually good. I also sauteed some panko in garlic and butter as a topping; that added a very pleasant crunch. Jason also had some ham, but I was OK without it.

Tuesday, 5/1/23

 Jason made MORE bread, so we had that with some hard-boiled eggs, cheese and leftover cabbage. It was an excellent bread; I just wish we didn't always have so much of it.

Monday, 5/1/23

 Just leftover pizza (although it heated up quite nicely).

Sunday, 4/30/23

Impromptu dinner with Laurie, Jen and John.Laurie made tomato-leek soup, Jason made garlic flatbread and J & J brought local asparagus. My favorite things: spontaneous plans, friends, and good food. Also, Laurie has new kittens so that was a bonus.

Saturday, 4/29/23

 Fry-day on Saturday....french fries, fish and apple fritters (plus some coleslaw I made for Jason and some sauteed cabbage, neither of which we fried). The apple fritters are from a website called Served from Scratch and were fine, but maybe not crispy enough. We were going for the bakery style ones that are more donut-y; this recipe used all ingredients that I had on hand which is why I picked it. The inside is nice and the apples really came through but they weren't quite what we were hoping for.  The glaze was delicious, though.