Tuesday, 11/28/23

 A couple of bags of Aldi smoked mozzarella ravioli (highly recommend!) with sauce we had on hand. I also pulled a out a bag of frozen cauliflower that we got from who knows where and meant to roast it, but it looked weird and freezer burned. Jason insisted on cooking it anyway (boiled gross looking frozen cauliflower, yum!) and claimed it was fine, but I opted to risk scurvy instead.

Monday, 11/27/23

 How could I resist something called hash brown casserole? I couldn't. From the NYT; I made a few changes (more like additions). I added peas, a can of green chilis, a yellow pepper and some sriracha. I also sauteed the onion and pepper instead of using them raw. It's pretty much a veloute, a bag of frozen hash browns and a bunch of cheese. Apparently you can make it with a can of cream soup but this was easy enough and hard to stop eating, in a Midwestern kind of way.

Sunday, 11/26/23

Lazy Sunday dinner of nachos. Tomatoes, jalapenos and avocados are going to have to do, vegetable-wise.

Saturday, 11/25/23

 Another round of dosas (we both blended the batter more and let it sit longer...not sure how big a difference that made) with a repeat of the NYT potato filling. I also made paneer but it wasn't super noticeable added to everything else. I would say Jason has the cooking down pretty well. Now he will never take me out for Indian again 😟. Dessert was also from the NYT: namoura (or basbousa, depending on your country of origin). I made a couple of minor changes to very good results: the first time I made this I cut down on the sugar; this time I used the full amount; I used sour cream instead of yogurt because that is what we had, and I used a larger pan. The result was a denser (in a good way) product with more of the delicious syrupyness. And very very easy to make. I also didn't bother with the slivered almonds which weren't bringing anything to the party.

Friday, 11/24/23

 Jason's parents kindly treated everyone to Beuno y Sano for dinner at Jodi's (note to self: spicy BBQ chicken bowl FTW). We were tired from two social days and so it was an early night.

Thursday, 11/23/23

 Thanksgiving at Jay and Jodi's. I brought pecan-maple shortbread (from the NYT) that is pretty much pecan pie bars; Jason made a couple of loaves of bread and I made gravy. The turkey was my favorite part, followed by brussels sprouts that were roasted with parmesan (it created a delicious crispy cheesy layer) and macaroni and cheese from Kristen. I also ate much more than my fair share of the cheese plate. It was fun seeing everyone and nice to go home to a quiet house.

Wednesday, 11/22/23

 Pre-Thanksgiving get-together at Jen and John's. Jason made many, many pizzas and Jen had a couple of pumpkin pies. News flash: even though I was rooting for the Costco pie (so economical!) the Pie Bar one was better. I guess that is what something like 3x the price will get you.

Tuesday, 11/21/23

 Since we were picking Carter up from school, we had dinner at the dining common. I didn't make the best choices (cold french fries are so sad) but the sushi and spring rolls were good.

Monday, 11/20/23

 I was flipping through a book I brought home (A Splash of Soy) and was inspired to make tofu-rice bowls. I didn't really follow the recipe; more the spirit. Roasted tofu, carrots, cucumber, a gochujang sauce and a scallion vinaigrette (from SK who took it from David Chang). This was kind of a riff on bibimbap and it turned out really well. I wished I had had avocado, but otherwise a nice light feeling meal (with no leftovers).

Sunday, 11/19/23

 A desire not to create more leftovers (with the fridge about to fill up with various doughs) meant that we just had leftover pizza and a spinach salad. That pizza is good but very heavy. What do you expect with mashed potatoes and kielbasa on it, though?

Saturday, 11/18/23

 We finally had the time (we needed to start the ingredients soaking and whatnot the day before) and all the ingredients to make our homemade dosas. I made a potato filling from the NYT, tamarind chutney from "Made in India" and a not-very-good cilantro chutney from various sources. I think the late harvest cilantro from the farm was to blame, but it also could have been user error.  So, the dosas. The first few were a bitch to get off out fancy new pan, but after a couple it got easier. The texture was very close; I think we could have blended the batter even smoother but it wasn't bad. They didn't taste quite right to me, but with the filling and chutneys it was close enough. I would call it basically successful (Jason, of course, thought they were great). Jason got the recipe from some YouTube guy (who made it look so easy!)....I am wondering if I bought the wrong kind of lentils, maybe? Anyway, much better than my first attempt years ago.  We also had roasted broccoli (fine) and had to eat standing at the island as the dosas came off the tawa.

Friday, 11/17/23

  Dinner at Jay and Jodi's; Jason made a loaf of bread and I made a double batch of cinnamon popcorn from the NYT (devoured). Just pasta and sauce, as usual. Plus drinks and games and talking about all our boys coming home next week.

Thursday, 11/16/23

Pizza with onions, kielbasa, provolone, cheddar and leftover mashed potatoes. Yes, it sounds weird, but it worked. My notes: cook the onions longer, almost to caramelized; use a sharper cheddar, slice the kielbasa thinner. Otherwise I liked it, especially with our fancy double smoked sausage from the Polish market.

Wednesday, 11/15/23

 Chana dal, from "Made in India". The only change i made was to add a lot of spinach (that, typically, didn't even seem like much in the finished product). Dal is so homey and economical; I can see why an entire continent has it all the time. Of course I made way too much so the fridge is filling up again.

Tuesday, 11/14/23

 A totally serviceable dinner of eggplant parm grinders (more stuff gone from freezer!). The only excitement was that I had time to make dessert, a Middle Eastern semolina cake called basbousa or mamoura, depending on whether you are from Egypt or Lebanon. I used a recipe from the NYT and it's a simple batter of semolina and yogurt that is topped with a rosewater and orange blossom scented simple syrup after baking.  I am glad I heeded the comments and checked it early, as it was done a good 10 minutes before the baking time. It was good but I am thinking that sitting overnight will improve it.

Monday, 11/13/23

 I am glad to note that this was much better than Sunday's dinner. A simple chicken and rice soup (made with the rest of the rotisserie chicken), dinner rolls from Jason, and a delicious spinach salad with roasted butternut squash, feta, tomatoes and candied pecans. I scoured all my various sources and couldn't find how I made spiced nuts in the past, so for the record I just sizzled some pecans in butter, added brown sugar, salt and cayenne, and tossed it around until the sugar was melty and the nuts were toasted. I know I have a real recipe but damned if I know where.

Sunday, 11/12/23

 Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, broccoli. All, in my mind, disappointing (it's at times like this that I am glad Jason is so unfussy about food). The mashed potatoes were a tiny bit lumpy (I was in a hurry), the broccoli was overcooked and I just didn't like the meatloaf, even though I have made the recipe (from SK) before with good results. Maybe it's because what I thought was ground pork in one of the packages was ground beef? Maybe I just needed to keep tinkering with the glaze? I was grumpy about this whole thing.

Saturday, 11/11/23

 A sort of last-minute trip up to Williamstown to watch Carter play Ultimate meant that we got home in the late afternoon, cold and hungry. So we just had leftover pizza (and hot showers).

Friday, 11/10/23

 We had a fun day just doing errands with Corrina and Ramona. We picked up a rotisserie chicken in our travels, and so changed our pizza plans to include that. Jason made a second, superfluous pizza as an experiment in a new pan we bought: the BBQ chicken pie was excellent; the other one (with mushrooms, pepperoni and pepperoncini) needs some adjustment. Less dough, maybe. It reminded me of a pan pizza which wasn't what we were after.

Thursday, 11/9/23

 I had an afternoon appointment at UMass, so Carter swiped us into the dining hall. I hadn't been to Franklin before---it has a homier feel than the newer, shinier DCs.  Sushi rolls and nachos with some kind of pulled pork were the highlights.

Wednesday, 11/8/23

Chicken tenders in the air fryer, leftover rice, and cauliflower. The cauliflower, oddly, was the only thing I was really looking forward to: I roasted it with dates, almonds and feta. That could have been my whole meal. Those fancy Aldi chicken fingers are pretty good, but not as crunchy as I hoped. 

Tuesday, 11/7/23

 Doggedly still plowing through the contents of the freezer. At least tonight the mini calzones we expected were in fact mini calzones. They heated up nicely, although I wish there was less sausage and spinach and more onion and mushroom. 

Monday, 11/6/23

Another night of freezer stupidity (and yes, we have resolved to start labeling everything).  So, we originally planned to have kielbasa plus pierogis from the freezer, but on closer inspection Jason felt that they were dumplings. I made a little ginger-soy dip, heated up the leftover broccoli, and Jason made rice. But when I started to par-boil the dumplings, Surprise! They were samosas. So once again there I was with inappropriate sauce, not to mention soggy weird samosas. I gamely went ahead and boiled them, then threw them in a hot skillet like a potsticker. Not bad, actually! Some tamarind chutney would have been nice, but the meal wasn't a total disaster.

Sunday, 11/5/23

What we thought was a weird ersatz stromboli  was, in fact, a weird ersatz Cornish pasty. So the tomato sauce we heated up to go with it was not an asset. As I recall, this was better with the original (smoky cheddar) pastry crust. And gravy. But a little mustard helped and now that's another mysterious freezer object gone.

Saturday, 11/4/23

 Chicken buldak, with broccoli on the side. Spicy, cheesy and a little funky....my only sorrow is that I didn't get to have the leftovers because I was having salad all week. Flan for dessert which was a nice creamy counterpoint.

Friday, 11/3/23

 I was lucky enough to watch Ramona all day, so I didn't have time to plan much dinner. I could have made macaroni and cheese, but in the end the simple tastiness of nachos won out. If I put tomatoes and olives on them they are basically a salad.

Thursday, 11/2/23

 Pizza with hot Italian sausage, mushrooms and red peppers. Nothing too innovative this week, but the crust was good and the toppings were in perfect proportion.

Wednesday, 11/1/23

 Leftover baked ziti from the giant batch.

Tuesday, 13/31/23

 Saag paneer (from Indian-ish) with rice and leftover pita. I made my own paneer (while I was making ricotta) and used two full bags of spinach. This is not a light dish (despite all those greens) but it is really flavorful and good. Add more cumin seeds next time.

Monday, 10/30/23

 Black bean soup from "I Dream of Dinner". This was an interesting variation; the black beans were mostly left whole, and a hefty dose of chilis in adobo really provided a fun, smoky flavor. And quick to make with canned black beans. She recommended that you serve it with Fritos and it was a good choice. I made green beans to go with it and I never  knew Jason was anti green beans. Now I know. 

Sunday, 10/29/23

 I made SO MUCH baked ziti that you would thing we were a family of 10. I even froze a third and there is still so much. I felt that adding extra sauce was an improvement; there was also sausage, peppers, spinach, mushrooms and homemade ricotta (milk was so cheap that it was less expensive to make my own). I felt bad that there were only two of us to peck away at it.

Saturday, 10/28/23

 Pizza at Jen and John's including a dessert pizza with apples. Honestly, Jason and John are still struggling to get that damn Ooni right. The dessert ones, being the last of the night, turn out the best. Anyway, it was still a fun time.