Wednesday, 6/26/24

 Cheese and crackers, plus a salad with some kind of vinaigrette I had hanging around. Aldi double smoked cheddar and some extra sharp Cabot cheddar was not the most well-rounded cheese selection ever, but they were still tasty.

Tuesday, 6/25/24

 It was a very, very busy day at work, so I was glad that I had made a batch of broccoli-cheddar soup over the weekend (no recipe; 6 minutes in the IP). Toasted up the last few slices from a loaf of bread that Jason made last week to go with it. My only quibble is that the Aldi sharp cheddar was very blah.

Monday, 6/24/24

 Burgers and home fries. I did the burgers the way Carter likes them (onions, soy sauce and sriracha mixed in) and the skillet did it usual excellent job on the potatoes. Watermelon and grapes to round things out.

Sunday, 6/23/24

 Jason's parents took us to Priya for his birthday, so we weren't hungry for dinner. We just had some popcorn and I made Carter a bowl of pasta with some of the leftover grilled chicken.

Saturday, 6/22/24

 Grilled chicken and pasta salad...the two dishes weren't exactly cohesive, but both good in their own way. The chicken had a yogurt marinade, with Indian spices, while the pasta salad had a basil vinaigrette  It also had grilled zucchini, roasted red peppers, cherry tomatoes and feta. Carter mildly grumbled about the zucchini (but ate it anyway) but was a fan of the chicken. Still eating hot fudge and ice cream for dessert.

Friday, 6/21/24

 Leftover falafel, which honestly wasn't as good as the first time. Oh well.

Thursday, 6/20/24

 Black beans and rice, with cheese, tomatoes and the pineapple salsa. I had cooked the black beans in the Instant Pot the day before, and Jason made the rice so it was quick and, of course, didn't use the oven. We have been on an ice cream with hot fudge kick (see: not heating up the kitchen). We started off all fancy with Tillamook, dropped down to Friendly's and will soon resort to the Big Y brand. Luckily the homemade hot fudge (SK original recipe, which I prefer to her "improved" one) covers a multitude of sins.

Wednesday, 6/19/24

 Took advantage of the midweek day off to go up to the DAR with Jen and John and Corrina, Zac and Ramona. Perfect for a little one...no waves, nice and shallow, lots of rocks and dirt to play with.

Enough with the sunscreen, Mom!

We kept it simple for dinner with grilled cheese and watermelon. I added some pickled peppers to the grilled cheese because I was feeling wild.

Tuesday, 6/18/24

 What started off as grilled tuna steaks with rice ended up being sushi bowl, since those tiny little tuna steaks just didn't seem like enough food. But with the addition of a cucumber salad, surimi, and a pineapple salsa it became an ample and festive dinner. No leftovers.

Monday, 6/17/24

 Hamburgers, chips, watermelon and grapes. At Carter's request I doctored up the hamburger (soy sauce, sriracha, dried onions). I am not sure what factor had the most influence (Big Y beef, which I think is superior; grilling technique, seasoning?) but these were so good. I was a little jealous of Carter and Jason who got two each.

Sunday, 5/16/24

 Falafel (basic instruction from the NYT). I add a lot more herbs and spices but otherwise the recipe works well. It also helps to grind the chickpeas separately. Jason fried them up outside AND made pita on the grill. I made some sweet and spicy pickled peppers to go with it, along with a tahini-yogurt sauce, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and feta. Big hit all around.

Saturday, 6/15/24

 Back to pizza. We had a lot of chard hanging around, so I cooked that down and made it into a cream sauce base for the pizza, which also had mozzarella, mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes (essential for the hit of sweetness and acid). That wasn't my all time favorite (too much cream sauce for me this week?) but I was pretty happy to use up that chard. Jason experimented with making the pizza on the grill and it still needs some tweaking.

Friday, 6/14/24

 I forgot that we were supposed to be having leftover pizza (we have SO MUCH leftover pizza and more in the hopper) and instead just served chicken and pasta leftovers. Oops. I did at least make a dessert of SK strawberry cake which was excellent as always. In case you were wondering, Lace, you used your bigger round cake pan. You're welcome.

Thursday, 6/13/24

 Chicken cutlets with a cornflake-parmesan breading, from the NYT. Their recipe called for baking, but in a shocking departure from the usual comments from readers (who are always insisting on baking things instead of frying) I shallow fried them in the skillet. I thought they were pretty good, although the cornflake flavor wasn't as pronounced as I might like. To go with it I made linguini with lemony cream sauce with broccoli. Ice cream for dessert (our favorite brand, Tillamook, was on sale finally).

Wednesday, 6/12/24

 Pancakes with bananas and scrambled eggs with cheese and scallions. The electric skillet turned out to be the perfect vessel for scrambled eggs, but it could also have been the copious amounts of cheddar I added. We experimented with using the big cast iron griddle on the grill for the pancakes and I was pleased that it worked out. You can fit 4 or 5 modest pancakes on there at a time, which make everything go pretty quickly. Yes, I am fully back to cooking in my "Summer Kitchen", aka the porch.

Tuesday, 6/11/24

 I had marinated some tofu and the marinade (with chili crisp, soy sauce, lemon and a little maple syrup) was so tasty. Sadly, the finished product was blander than you would expect. I just sautéed the tofu and served it over rice, with a side of roasted broccoli. I was unimpressed by the whole shebang.

Monday, 6/10/24

 I had made a red sauce with Italian sausage on Saturday, so we had that with pasta and leftover antipasti. My favorite part was actually the sesame bread that Jason made.

Sunday, 6/9/24

Corrina and took a trip up to North Adams and stayed at the Porches for a late Mothers Day celebration. We enjoyed culture high (two museums!) and low (HGTV). The best place for dinner in North Adams (Public) isn't open on Sundays, so we tried an Italian place called Grazie which was fine . We shared antipasto, gnocchi with short rib and a Capri salad. In retrospect I would have stopped at the fancy grocery store in Williamstown and had a room picnic instead, but at least Jason and I enjoyed the leftovers. A very fun trip with my best girl!

Art!

Saturday, 6/8/24

 I tried to recreate the flavors of a chopped salad in pizza form (provolone, cherry tomatoes, banana peppers, pepperoni and olives) but it just ended being not all that exciting. maybe the red sauce was a mistake, I don't know. However, it wasn't bad! And since it was a relatively cool day, I was permitted to make a banana cake (NYT) for dessert, so we had that to fall back on.

Friday, 6/7/24

 Dinner with Jay and Jodi. Jason made pita on their grill (it was excellent: slightly charred, soft and puffy) and hummus. Sam made roasted tofu with pasta and vegetables. It's fun to see what good cooks those Watson-Stevens boys are becoming!

Thursday, 6/6/24

 Leftover salad and pizza, plus ice cream with rhubarb sauce. How lucky for me that the Tillamook went on sale at Big Y!

Wednesday, 6/5/24

 A hot night=big salad. Romaine, pepperoni, provolone, cherry tomatoes, banana peppers, cucumbers...everything I could find. We had the last of the garlic flatbread with it. My vinaigrette was only meh because I was lazy.

Tuesday, 6/4/24

 Another dish I made over the weekend---a version of mattar paneer (with feta), with the addition of potatoes and some spinach. Not as good as the first time I made it, but good enough. I was short on cashews this time and added some almonds and I don't think they added the same richness. Too bad cashews will probably never go on such a good sale again.

Monday, 6/3/24

 One of the many things I was juggling on Sunday was the filling for sloppy joes. Surprisingly popular. I used a recipe from Pioneer Woman again (figuring she is the queen of midwestern classics), eliminating the brown sugar, adding apple cider vinegar and cutting the catsup by half. Served with kettle chips and a salad, it was a quick Monday night dinner.

Sunday, 6/2/24

 My love for Ali Slagle meant that I was willing to make her tahini-parmesan pasta salad for dinner even though the reviews in the NYT were mixed at best. I figured everyone else was just a bad cook, maybe? Arrogant! Anyway, they were right: the sauce did need a fair amount of tweaking (a bunch of lemon juice, some sambal oelek,  a pinch of MSG). The other problem was that we were using the Instant Pot to cook all kinds of things, with limited success. So the pasta itself was a bit overcooked and I also had no pasta water to thin the sauce. This to me is the real problem with the Instant Pot: you can't easily check things along the way. So this is how I also overcooked potatoes and cauliflower all in one day. It was fine. Could have used something else in there, like leftover chicken or something crunchy. Carter ate it but I can't say enthusiastically. Luckily, Jason made some garlic flatbread on the grill and it's quite good freshly cooked like that. Now we have a ton of leftover so-so pasta salad.

Saturday, 6/1/24

 Lunch with Jason's family at Bombay Royale meant that Jason and I weren't so hungry for dinner. So yes, we had chips and a beer. Sue me. I also don't know how my (still underage) son was able to bring home a 12 pack of beer from work but the cops haven't shown up yet. I swear I will do some cooking tomorrow.

Friday, 5/31/24

 One thing we have plenty of in this house is spinach. Jason keeps bringing home giant bags of it from the farm (despite me begging him to stop). So spinach artichoke pizza for dinner. No one will ever say this was a nice light pizza: I made a little cream sauce and kept adding more and more spinach until I had used up a whole bag. We added a little provolone and mozz, plus some cherry tomatoes on top for brightness. A little rich, but hey, we got plenty of iron!

Thursday, 5/30/24

 Still didn't want to make rice and beans. But there was actually plenty of beef and bean filling left from burritos, so Carter had a few burritos and Jason and I had leftovers in a bowl with rice and salsa. So I guess technically we did have rice and beans.

Wednesday, 5/29/24

 OK, I did not do a good job planning dinners this week. Aldi keeps being out of tofu, and Jason is once again scared of using the oven.  I think I was going to fall back on rice and beans but just couldn't muster up the enthusiasm. So I had Jason make some pita and hummus, and I made a small batch of deviled eggs and a lackluster salad. I will do better next week!