Jason experimented with a new bread (walnut and cranberry; not really very different from walnut raisin but still good); we had that with cheese and tomatoes. Gotta eat those farm tomatoes during this brief golden time. Then we met up with Jeff and Sue for ice cream since they were in town helping Asa move. My blueberry soft serve was so big it made me a little grumpy but Jason lied hi graham cracker flavor. It was a beautiful night, though, and it was nice hanging out with J & S.
Took the day off for my birthday; we picked up Ramona from daycare and dragged her all around (and got her chocolate ice cream with sprinkles because: grandma). Dinner was North Village Smokehouse with the children. Sitting outside was nice and it was basically good, but all the fried components were a little underdone (the leftovers were great in the air fryer, though). Fried cheese, a through line of Lace birthdays.
Leftover macaroni and cheese, and the last of a corn and black bean salad I had been eating for lunch (from the NYT; definitely worth repeating).
Green chili macaroni and cheese (from Serious Eats; 12 ounces of pasta instead of 8 but could use even more; skipped the chicken) with homemade salsa verde and tomatoes from the farm. I followed a salsa recipe from Rick Bayless and honestly it is much better than my usual efforts. Nice that there is such a good tomatillos harvest this year.
Birthday dinner at Pap and Liz's for all the birthday girls. Pizza, salad, mozzarella sticks, and, best of all, a confetti cake from Atkins! Very delicious and Ramona was certainly delighted by her present from Bubbe:
We had Jodi over for tofu, coconut rice with peas, a meager little kale salad (to use up the last of the kale), and animal crackers (Jason's odd request). Jason was very anxiety ridden at having company, but it's just his own sister!
Nice hike (and my favorite soft serve!) with Jason and Carter in the afternoon, then dinner with Jen and John. I made a half-assed pesto (they have no blender or food processor; the immersion blender was basically useless), plus the flatbread Jason forgot to bring Saturday, and some nice tomatoes and so-so corn. It was a lovely night to sit on their porch and catch up.
We celebrated Ramona's birthday at the lake, with pizza, corn, salads and cake. Jason made his little flatbread (which I thought was superfluous anyway; I should have made a cake) but realized upon approaching Kevin's that he had forgotten it. Oh well, there was plenty to eat but I felt bad arriving empty handed. It was a nice day and Ramona really enjoyed it, I think.
I had intended to make a sort of spring rolls inspired salad with steak, but since we needed to go to the Asian grocery store anyway, I decided to pick up wrappers and have actual spring rolls, Rice noodles, grilled steak, cabbage, nuoc chom, and a peanut sauce. Good but very messy (at least mine were).
Pizza night, with a not super exciting combo of mushrooms, onions and banana peppers. It reheated well.
Happy Birthday Corrina! Jason, she and I had lunch at Bombay Royale and then did a little walking around Historic Deerfield. Dinner was tomato/dumpling chili crisp salad from the NYT. Not too heavy, a little odd, and surprisingly good. The electric skillet is perfect for cooking the potstickers.
I wasn't in the mood to produce dinner, so Jason made burgers and french fries. My contribution was slicing up some cherry tomatoes to go with it. These burgers we got from Aldi aren't the best but the wedge cut fries are good.
Finally got around to making a version of tteokkbokki (it kept getting bumped), with a side of eggplant sauteed with garlic. It wasn't authentic, but it was tasty. Served with some Korean melon that one of Jason's farm pals grew.
It was Jason's turn to pick a pizza place to try, but through a series of blunders (not our fault! Restaurants should update their websites when they are going to be closed!) we ended up at his third choice and not until at least 1pm. Luckily, Bella Roma was quite good, but by then we were so hungry that we ate an entire large cheese pizza and quite a few french fries. So no dinner, except some popcorn and a no-churn ice cream I made from the NYT. It was just really just whipped cream with dulce de leche folded in, so it is very, very rich. I of course loved it, but it was too much for Jason.
Farm dinner; Jason made bread but it was a potluck with tons of sandwiches so it was a bit redundant. Highlights were salsa verde from farm ingredients, an olive focaccia and Atkins sheet cake. It was outdoors and we all had to huddle in the shed during an unexpected rain, but that was nice, too.
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| A rainbow so faint that you can't really see it |
Dinner with Jay and Jodi...stir fry with eggplant and Napa cabbage, pita and hummus from Jason, and grilled chicken. Actually nice enough to sit out on the deck.
Will we ever run out of crab rangoons and little calzones? Not yet! Well, actually, we finally finished the rangoon, but there is still another serving of the mini calzones. My biggest takeaway from that project is it is worth the tedium of making so many at once, since they heat up well in the air fryer, and that I hope I can remember how I made that dipping sauce (apricot jam, ginger, garlic, pepper flakes and ?). If we had anything else, I don't remember what it was.
Leftover pasta with sausage, and a pared down kale Caesar with the leftover dressing.
Another salad, this one from the NYT. I don't know why I wanted to make a kale Caesar pasta salad, hen I could plainly see that the dressing contained a full cup of mayo (yuck). But nevertheless...
Anyway, I cut the mayo down to maybe a quarter cup? and added olive oil. This was actually really good, what with all the parm and garlicky, lemony breadcrumbs. As a dinner, it was a little light; some grilled chicken or fish or something would be a good add on. But eating a half a bag of kale has to count for something.
I made the latest recipe from SK, a salad with grilled chicken, avocado, charred corn and a cilantro-lime dressing. This was SO good. I wish I knew of a way to remind myself to make it again! The only changes I made were: I used chicken breasts instead of thighs (because that's what I had), and I marinated them in the dressing. I also cut the corn off the cob first and just threw it in a hot pan. Don't skip the Fritos.
https://smittenkitchen.com/2025/08/grilled-chicken-salad-with-cilantro-lime-dressing/
Priya for lunch=not hungry for dinner. We just sat around, ate Pringles and watched TV. So wholesome.
Jason was inspired by a sale on Italian sausages at Big Y; so I threw those into the slow cooker with an onion, two cans of tomatoes and some butter (a la Marcella Hazan's famous tomato sauce recipe) and just let it cook all afternoon. Served with pasta, some leftover salad and bread sticks from the freezer. The only thing that wasn't great were the bread sticks, but what can you expect from packages of breadsticks that they throw to you at a parade? Nice easy dinner.
Pizza with ground beef that I cooked with a sort of Korean sauce with gochujang, soy sauce, garlic, ginger and a little brown sugar. Topped that off with mozzarella, scallions and sesame seeds. A little heavy but good! The only change I would make is to add the scallions and sesame after cooking next time.
Snacks at Jennie and David's; Jason made bread and between one thing and another it was enough to constitute dinner.
More salad, bread and cheese. This time it was a spinach salad with a curry-yogurt dressing, loosely adapted from the NYT. I was only meh on the dressing, but it was fine. Really just here for the triple-creme cheese.
Big salad, raisin-walnut bread and delice de bourgogne cheese from Trader Joe's. The extra creamy cheese was perfect with the bread.
We went back to Jay and Jodi's to help them finish all the pasta salad (spoiler: we succeeded!). Jason made pizza and Jay grilled up some sausage to round things out. Then for dessert we made tiny tiny s'mores with mini marshmallows, chocolate chips and Teddy Bear Grahams using candles. Silly and cute.
Dinner with Jen and John....Blue Apron with steak, broccoli and mashed potatoes; we augmented with some cauliflower from the farm. Jason made a rye bread and I made another Instant Pot cheesecake. The only thing I don't like about it is the soggy crust. Seems like you could just skip it altogether (we used Nilla wafers instead of graham rackers this time because we are wild).
Made the sweet and sour eggplant from the NYT again while it was fresh in our mind and farm eggplants were in good supply. Jason thinks we could skip the fried garlic chips and I tend to agree. It would certainly streamline things.
Dinner with Jay and Jodi-----bread from Jason and no bake chocolate oat cookies (NYT) from me. The cookies couldn't be easier: just melt together butter, peanut butter, oats and cocoa. A bit sweet but certainly tasty. And did I mention no bake? For dinner we all collaborated on a giant pasta salad with sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, roasted chickpeas, bell peppers, feta and a bunch of herbs from the garden.
Used the rest of the chicken to make the standard BBQ chicken pizza with red onions and smoked cheddar. Always a good one.
We had Carter over for burritos. I used some of the rotisserie chicken I bought over the weekend and added tinga sauce from the freezer. Then it was just the usual accouterments and some guacamole.
Pepperoni potato salad, from the NYT. I skipped sage and thyme (didn't miss them) and used scallions instead of shallots. Let's face it, this was all about potatoes and pepperoni and I thought it was delicious. I feel like we had something else with this, but I can't remember what. I guess it didn't make an impression. Maybe some rotisserie chicken?
