Sunday, 1/28/24

 Gumbo, to use up some of the chicken and kielbasa from the freezer  (and, TBH, because Carter likes it). The nice extra smoky kielbasa we got from BBA Market was a good substitute for andouille. I basically followed the recipe on Serious Eats, and debuted the new fancy Lodge dutch oven (worked great!). I took my own advice and added hot stock to the roux and avoided the greasy layer on top problem, so thanks, former self, for keeping decent notes. The only change I might possibly make is to cook the roux even a bit longer.

Saturday, 1/27/24

Dinner with Jay and Jodi and Jason's parents. Just bread and pasta and salad, with ice cream for dessert. It's not the same without all the boys, but we had fun.

Friday, 1/26/24

 Japchae, from Maangchi. I was glad I deferred this until Friday, because there is SO MUCH CHOPPING. I followed the recipe pretty closely, just substituting thinly sliced pork instead of beef (fine). The whole house smelled like Goten, in a good way. For dessert I made sugar cookies from Martha Stewart that we ate with leftover frosting, because cookies+frosting is the best. I didn't have the called for sour cream but Greek yogurt worked just fine. Note that the 20 minutes cooking time is about 5 minutes too long.

Thursday, 1/25/24

 I asked Jason to make the pizza one night early and he kindly obliged. Happily, it used up another freezer item (previously made fried eggplant slices) and was very delicious. Work was very tiring this week so I was glad to come home to dinner already made. Pepperoni for Carter which he grudgingly said was pretty good.

Wednesday, 1/24/24

 I was super tired from Cleaning Day at the library (and the post-work cocktail with some colleagues) so I was glad that dinner was so easy: burrito bowls with pinto beans that I had made the previous evening. Nothing ground-breaking; just salsa, cherry tomatoes, cheese and avocado. It would have been better had I not dropped my first serving on the ground, shattering the bowl and sending beans flying all over the kitchen. Sigh. At least there were no leftovers.

Tuesday, 1/23/24

 I felt sorry for the little meatloaves that I made a while ago. I wasn't happy with how they turned out so I stuffed all the leftovers into the back of the freezer. But then I thought that the sauce was mostly to blame, so maybe I would like them better with gravy. Success! Almost anything is better with gravy. I made a giant bowl of mashed potatoes to go with it (I usually use a hand mixer and I tried the Kitchenaid with the paddle attachment instead. Worked great) and some roasted broccoli. Well, plain steamed broccoli for Carter and roasted for me and Jason. Another freezer item used up.

Monday, 1/22/24

 Lentil soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (bread courtesy of Jason). We used the waffle iron to make the sandwiches, panini-style. The soup was just your garden variety lentil soup, hearty and plain. No recipe.

Sunday, 1/21/24

 Laurie brought back treats from her trip to Italy and kindly invited us to share. Jen and John hosted (and picked up salami and prosciutto), and Jason made a loaf of bread. So we just had very fancy Parmesan, olive oil and Balsamic vinegar for dinner. So good! The 5 of us ate the whole loaf of bread. I made an angel food cake for dessert that we had with some pear-caramel sauce.  Such a nice night! And the fireplace is an added bonus.

Staged by Laurie

Saturday, 1/20/24

 Dinner with Jay and Jodi. We made spring rolls and it was interesting how different theirs are! First they use these super thin rice paper sheets (which are cool but tricky to work with), seitan, brown rice and sautéed carrots. On paper this doesn't sound great but they were very tasty. I like seitan but I am dismayed that it costs as much as beef. We brought peanut sauce, pizzelles and Nutella  and Jodi actually ate dessert! We totally pandered to her love of Nutella.

Friday, 1/19/24

 A repeat of the ricotta-artichoke heart-caramelized onion pizza (since we had leftover ricotta). Jason added more onions this time, and I added some thin slices of red pepper. I also made a batch of basbousa, and it was the best one yet. Not sure why.

Thursday, 1/18/24

 "Sweet chili tofu grain bowls", from the NYT. Right off the bat I said no to the catsup and used tomato paste instead; I am not sure if that is why but the sauce (tomato paste, chili crisp,soy sauce, fish sauce, oil and rice vinegar) wouldn't stay emulsified, but it didn't really matter. You are supposed to roast the tofu and some Napa cabbage on the same pan, but I bought regular cabbage instead and I wasn't sure if it would cook at the same rate, so I just sauteed it and added some of the sauce. Next time I would cube the tofu and toss it in the sauce instead of painstakingly brushing each little slab. After all that I wasn't even sure how it would be, but we liked it! The sauce was quite flavorful, and the cherry tomatoes (that you toss with more chili crisp and salt) were a really nice add-on. So I guess I would make this again, and if Carter wasn't home I would use quinoa instead of rice.

Wednesday, 1/17/24

 Sushi bowl. The only thing different was that I marinated the tuna for a while and I think it was an improvement. I should remember to do so for longer next time.

Tuesday, 1/16/24

 I made a pot of sort-of minestrone over the weekend, mostly to use up the large quantities of chicken stock in the fridge. Nothing special: kidney beans, pasta shells, vegetables. Somehow it tasted just like canned soup, which I guess isn't a bad thing? Jason and I added fresh spinach to ours.

Monday, 1/15/24

 Chicken tikka masala, from "Indian Instant Pot". Similar to her butter chicken recipe, but I thought it was better. More flavorful and less sweet. Jason made a bunch of dosas; this was only semi-successful as the saucy chicken just leaked through and made a mess. Still, they tasted pretty good. I also roasted some cauliflower and had fresh jalapeno, cashews and tamarind chutney to liven everything up.

Sunday, 1/14/24

 Dinner with Jen and John....Jen made a wild rice and butternut squash casserole, her go-to vegetarian dish (Eve was visiting and is now inexplicably vegan although she will eat cheese?). We all collaborated a bit, actually. It turned out pretty well! She also made a yellow cake and I made a batch of SK chocolate frosting for it. I was giving their silly little 8x8 pan the side-eye but it worked out. Oh, and Jason made more bread, of course.

Saturday, 1/13/24

 Dinner at Jay and Jodi's; Jason made a rye bread and they proposed reubens. I bravely did not mention that I find them disgusting since everyone on else was on board. I was tickled that they made their own corned beef and Russian dressing! I just had grilled Swiss and corned beef, but Jay, Carter and Jason had the whole shebang and really enjoyed it. Carter even requested that we make them at home. 

(We also made some cinnamon kettle corn)

Friday, 1/12/24

 Jason came up with a new pizza idea, and it was a good one: ricotta, mozzarella, caramelized onions and artichoke hearts. Nice combo, Jason! Dessert was a box cake (whatever), but I did make a nice batch of ermine frosting (from King Arthur flour). I appreciate the light and creamy texture, and it's much less sweet than American buttercream (and much less fussy than Swiss or Italian).

Thursday, 1/11/24

 I somehow didn't plan anything for dinner, so we used up some "fancier" chicken tenders from the freezer, and I made a creamy pasta with chili crisp and lots of spinach. Not bad for a last minute effort! I didn't need the chicken, but any time we can get something out of the freezer it's a good thing.

Wednesday, 1/10/24

 Another night, another bowl. This one was a little more to Carter's liking (at least he deigned to eat it): basmati rice, chickpeas, mango, roasted cauliflower, feta, cashews, cucumber raita and tamarind chutney. Making the chutney ahead of time made this another quick dinner, and it was somehow even better as lunch leftovers. My plan of lots of bowls for dinner this year is going pretty well.

Tuesday, 1/9/24

 "Egyptian Barley Bowls", from a cookbook named, aptly, "Bowls".  Broiled marinated eggplant (lemon, mint, garlic, capers and olive oil), barley, feta cheese and pomegranate molasses. I also added cherry tomatoes. Carter again just looked at me like I was crazy, but this was good! And really pretty quick to put together (I made the eggplant over the weekend). I think the molasses was the only thing that made Egyptian, though.

Monday, 1/8/24

Jason baked a loaf of raisin-walnut bread, and we had that for dinner with fancy cheese and a salad. Nice quick dinner. The Aldi version of Unexpected Cheddar was the dark horse favorite of the cheeses.

Sunday, 1/7/24

 Nice snowy day...work ended early so I had time to do some food prep, most notably a giant pan of macaroni and cheese for Carter. I used a recipe from Preppy Kitchen I think it is only OK. The bechamel was too gloopy and one pound of pasta was lost in there. Still, how bad can it be?

For dinner we just had leftovers, though.

Saturday, 1/6/24

 Thanksgiving, the Revenge. We do a high low mix: homemade dinner rolls, mashed potatoes, apple pie, butternut squash and gravy, followed by doctored-up boxed stuffing, canned cranberry sauce, green bean casserole recipe right off the onion can and a Costco chicken (that was new this year: pros: cheap, tasty and easy; cons: Costco is insane and there weren't a ton of leftovers). I spread this out over a couple of days so it was pretty easy. minor complaints: my squash was a little too sweet, I should have made more gravy and the pie crust was too thick. But overall we were pretty pleased with ourselves. I think it is Carter's favorite meal of the year.

Friday, 1/5/24

 Dinner with Jay and Jodi. We made 5 pizzas (spinach/broccoli; onion/pepper; fake bacon and pineapple; pepperoni, and plain cheese) and played a silly board game. A good time was had by all, even poor Zack who was recovering from wisdom teeth surgery.

Thursday, 1/4/24

 Just leftovers

Wednesday, 1/3/24

 I liked John's NYT artichoke heart and spinach chicken that I made it myself. I only deviated a tiny bit from the recipe: skipped the dill, served over rice, and added the lemon and parm at the end. I also added an entire bag of baby spinach instead of the called-for frozen. I really like the flavors in this; it has a tanginess that is a little unexpected, and the crushed red pepper adds a respectable kick.

Tuesday, 1/2/24

 Barley and broccoli bowls, long postponed. I basically made up the recipe: barley, broccoli roasted with zaatar, feta cheese, dates and a sweet gochujang sauce. Carter just looked at me incredulously and had leftover pizza. Jason and I really liked it, though! A little spicy, a little sweet, salty from the feta....A success.

Monday, 1/1/24

 Our family get-together was postponed because of various colds and illnesses, so I figured on another quiet night in. It was not to be...Jen and John invited us over for chili and games so Jason baked up the raisin/walnut bread, we grabbed some of the chex mix and our new trivia game and headed over. So another fun night with friends and now I think we need several days to recuperate from this social spell.

We did have a decadent lunch....mozzarella sticks and homemade cinnamon rolls (from the NYT, made exactly as written because why mess with a good recipe?).

Sunday, 12/31/23

 Another wild New Years Eve...we made pizza and furikake chex mix. Asleep by 9. The pizza was a standard if well-executed mushroom-pepperoni. 

Saturday, 12/30/23

 Farm potluck in the late afternoon. Jason made a loaf of his rye that people really liked (he is always happy when new people like his bread). My favorite thing was roast beef which I ate an unseemly amount of. 4pm start meant a nice early evening.