Thursday, 3/19/26

 Dinner with Jodi, Sam (home for break) and Carter. Sam made a very nice curried tomato soup with chick peas and paneer, and Jason made pita and we brought some kind of cream cheese hot honey dip that we found at Aldi. I think that was Carter's favorite part.

Wednesday, 3/18/26

 Our pizza night got pushed ahead since we suddenly had Thursday plans. Jason tried some new crust method on a different pan that I didn't pay attention to all the details of, but it was very good. We hadn't really thought too hard about toppings, so it was just pepperoni, provolone and pepperoncinis. 

Tuesday, 3/17/26

 Did we have corned beef and cabbage? We did not. We had the last of the fried eggplant from the freezer, with pita, feta, various little vegetables and a not very good yogurt-tahini sauce (I don't know what went wrong but it was unpleasantly bitter).

Monday, 3/16/26

Still a LOT of cheese in the house, so it was another night of bread and cheese. I made a little cucumber-cherry tomato salad to at least get some vegetables in our diet. On a whim after dinner I took all the leftover rice in the fridge and made an ad hoc rice pudding (heavy cream, an egg, cardamon, cinnamon and vanilla). Surprisingly good in the day that something with that much heavy cream would be.

Sunday, 3/15/26

 Cheesy pinto beans and rice, with green chiles, red peppers, zucchini and cherry tomatoes. I cooked the beans in the Instant Pot for I think 40 minutes? They got a tiny bit too soft but that was my fault. We were out of salsa so I doused mine in taijin.

Saturday, 3/14/26

 I almost bailed on pupusas for dinner and made nachos instead, but with Jason's encouragement and help soldiered on and made them. I used some of the leftover rotisserie chicken, some cotija,  mozzarella and a healthy shake of taijin for the filling. Jason fried them up on the porch and honestly it was just as easy as nachos (but maybe not quite as cheesy and delicious?). Served with another fruit plate. I was feeling fancy this time:

why I didn't go into garde manger

Friday, 3/13/25

 Ramona day! We had lots of fun with the kid, and as a bonus picked up a rotisserie chicken in Chicopee while we were there dropping her off. I used it to make a quick ramen soup that wasn't really like ramen at all, but it was so good that  who cares. You make a quick stock with onions, garlic, soy sauce, and cilantro stems, then cook the noodles (angel hair in this case, because that's what we had) in the stock. Add some chicken to your bowl and you have a super cozy flavorful dinner. I thought the vibes were more like pho, so I served it with sriracha, lime, hoisin and scallions. Great use for the chicken. Fruit plate in lieu of vegetables.

Fun in Aldi