Sunday, 3/29/26

 It was game night, so we were a bit rushed; luckily I had had time on Saturday to do a fair bit of prep, so  we didn't have to eat in the car or anything. Another recipe from my trusty favorite, "I Dream of Dinner": blistered peppers with chick peas, fresh mozzarella and croutons. Definitely giving panzanella. Super easy: I just roasted the peppers and chick peas in a bunch of olive oil  with whole garlic cloves, red pepper flakes and smoked paprika. I made croutons from Fridays bread, and tossed everything together (her plating was more layered and fancy but this worked great). I didn't bother to toast any nuts but did top with some chopped smoked almonds I found in the freezer. I loved this dish so much...the spicy crispy chick peas, the toasty croutons, the sweetness of the peppers. It was a meal unto itself and I will be sure to make it again. I really ought to buy that book.

Saturday, 3/28/26

 Chicken with asparagus, turmeric, honey and black pepper, from the NYT. I liked the asparagus a lot, but the overall effect was a little gloppy. Probably my fault...maybe I dredged the chicken with too much flour? We were getting tired of rice so we had angel hair instead. I basically liked these flavors but maybe wouldn't use flour at all if I made it again. My favorite part of dinner was a batch of oatmeal cookies (also from the Times). Even though I have similar recipes, I was helpless in the face of : chewy, glazed and cinnamon. Jason didn't want icing on his and as usual he is wrong. I thought they were great.

Friday, 3/27/26

 After a somewhat fruitless and irritating appointment of H & R Block, it was nice that dinner (bread and lentil soup) was already prepared. Just a usual recipe from the times. Jason accidentally overcooked his bread but it was fine.

Thursday, 3/26/26

 Farewell pizza dinner for Sam, who was headed back to college. We made 6 so I will be hard-pressed to say what was on all of them. One was definitely scallions, cream cheese and jalapenos; several had various sausages, some had mushrooms; there were peppers and onions and pineapple. All in various configurations. Jason's parents brought an angel cake since it was also Jodi's birthday. I made her her own jar of hot fudge (SK's "improved" recipe which I used because I had extra cream; I stand by the opinion that the older recipe is better).

Wednesday, 3/25/26

 I still had all the ingredients, so I made another batch of Japanese curry. The good: par-cooking the potatoes and carrots was the way to go (although I made too much of both). The bad: I accidentally added way too much black pepper. You never really think about how spicy black pepper is until you are hit with a blast of it.

Tuesday, 3/24/26

"Green rice with singed feta" from I Dream of Dinner. Mine wasn't particularly green since I used finely chopped broccoli instead of greens, and my feta was more lightly charred than singed, but still very good. I used basmati rice, the broccoli and some parsley and cilantro. Don't skip the lemony radishes on top. 

Monday, 3/23/26

 Creamy cauliflower pasta from the NYT. I changed a lot so it's a bit unfair: chopped up and roasted the cauliflower, used onion instead of shallots, and added peas and the remainders of cherry tomatoes (not really an asset) and sun-dried tomatoes (too few left in that little jar to notice in the end product). As I noted last time I made this, the breadcrumbs are key. Could also have used more lemon.

Sunday, 3/22/26

 Gimbap, but with marinated tofu instead of beef (plus carrots, egg, pickled radish and cucumber). These definitely  needed more oomph, but it was a workday and I was in a hurry. I should have: seasoned the rice, baked the tofu, and maybe used more radish? These were good but not our best. I am getting pretty good at rolling them, though.

Saturday, 3/21/26

 Baked ziti (well, campanelle) with hot Italian sausage, peppers and zucchini. I followed a recipe from SK just for some proportions, but you don't really need a recipe. But maybe you do since this turned out particularly well?

Friday, 3/20/26

 Had some of the leftover pupusas, with more roasted cabbage and a pineapple salsa that I was inspired to make after buying the sweetest pineapple I have ever encountered. This must be what life is like for Hawaiians.

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

Thursday, 3/12/26

 I took the day off, so we took a little trip to the Mt. Holyoke bulb show in the morning and then had a leisurely afternoon with snacks, drinks and video games. Dinner was easy: bread and cheese (Aldi had some nice choices in stock) plus roasted cabbage with spicy fish sauce vinaigrette (the runaway hit of the meal). I just sliced the cabbage into thick slabs and roasted it on a pretty high heat (425) and it really was quite good.

 

Lots of tulip inspiration

Wednesday, 3/11/26

 Lentils diavolo (NYT), with orzo and roasted sweet potatoes. I didn't have much feta to garnish it with, so I made a little yogurt sauce with lime, cumin and chipotle pepper. This was great, except that the lentils took a long long time to cook (why didn't I remember to pre-soak them??). Jason was raving about them, having no memory I guess of the previous two times that I made this dish.

Tuesday, 3/10/26

 Yes, it was tofu, broccoli and rice again. But! It was still interesting! I braised the tofu in a skillet with a gochujaru sauce (thanks to Cook's Illustrated for the tip of not squishing the tofu for better sauce absorption) and served it as tofu bowls, with some lightly pickled cucumbers and pickled daikon. I didn't even resent cooking out on the porch since it was over 50 degrees and the whole Valley is losing their minds.

Monday, 3/9/25

 Smoked mozzarella ravioli (from Aldi) with tomato sauce from the freezer and a spinach salad (cherry tomatoes, roasted tomatoes, dried cranberries, feta, oil and Balsamic vinegar). Easy, quick and no leftovers.

Sunday, 3/8/26

 I had been wanting to try Japanese curry for a while; a recipe in the NYT that we had all the ingredients for (except for the curry bricks that I picked up at Mom's) sealed the deal. Super easy (sauté ground beef, onions, carrots, potatoes, ginger and garlic; add water and curry), except that next time I will par-cook the potatoes and carrots, as they took a long time to get done. had over rice and we both loved it. I used the "hot" variety of curry bricks and have no regrets.

Saturday, 3/7/26

 Dinner with Jodi; Jason made another round of soft pretzels (making them two days in a row resulted in a very nice looking batch since techniques were fresh in his mind), and we brought some hamantaschen that we made in the afternoon. My usual 1.5 Bon Appetit didn't yield as many as usual, probably because our new cookie cutters are a little bigger than the old ones. Half date, half dulche de leche. For dinner we scrounged around and found some pumpkin soup in the freezer; we ate that with roasted broccoli and feta cheese.

Friday, 3/6/26

 Super fun day! Took a trip to IKEA with Jen (Shake Shack for lunch...I can't get the crispy Korean chicken and caramel-gochujang shake out of my mind), then Blue Apron for dinner. Pork loin and roasted broccoli with fennel and apple, with a sort of spicy Calabrian chili, marmalade  and mayonnaise sauce. Pork tenderloin isn't my favorite, but it was fine. Jason started us off with some sot pretzels so we wouldn't starve to death.

Thursday, 3/5/26

 Dinner with Jennie and David. The usual cheese, read, olives, nuts. Jason and I came home and polished off the last of the banana cake from the weekend. I will add that Jason's bread turned out really well, with a particularly nice crust.

Wednesday, 3/4/26

 Pizza night (a day early since some plans shifted around). The leftover slow cooker chicken, oven roasted tomatoes, pepperjack and mozzarella. This totally redeemed the chicken; it may have been a little stringy but it made an excellent pizza. The oven roasted tomatoes added a ton of flavor and moisture, as well. No notes!

Tuesday, 3/3/26

 A reprisal of Taijin slow cooker chicken, with a couple of little changes. I used chipotle chilis instead of green chilis, and I skipped pinto beans altogether. We served it over rice (too lazy to make tortillas) and had roasted zucchini to go with it. The flavors were good but I used chicken breast instead of thigs and the result was a little stringy.

Monday, 3/2/26

 "Salt and pepper dumplings" from the NYT. I was too tired and busy over the weekend to do any prep, so I was dismayed to look at the recipe when I got home and realize that one of the key ingredients was 5 Spice powder (spoiler: we didn't have any). I had most of the components and just winged it, but I am sure it wasn't the same. I also didn't have green beans but roasted cabbage was fine instead. I liked these well enough, but I think for my taste there are better dumpling applications out there. served with rice and some chili crisp vinaigrette for a bit more kick.

Sunday, 3/1/26

 Dinner with Jen and John. Plain bread from Jason, a chocolate banana cake (SK) from me. The cake was pretty good, but would have been better had I not have to make it the day before, and if I had baked it for a couple of minutes less. It warms up well, at least. Dinner was two Blue Aprons: a tofu/cauliflower rice bowl and chorizo enchiladas (excellent). Always a delight.

Saturday, 2/28/26

 We didn't really have dinner, because we were out all day with Jen and John and Laurie; we stopped a somewhat lame "Winterfest" in Worthington that had really good french fries, at least. Then we went to Black Birch Vineyard and had pink champagne and pizza. Two bonus pizzas this month! These were Neapolitan style and very good! They were probably even better right when they came out of the oven but we didn't quite understand the pick-up system and they sat for 15 minutes. Oops. Anyhow, it was a beautiful, nearly warm, day and very fun.

Vineyard Cat

Up with the snowmobilers in Worthington

Thursday, 2/26/26

 Just leftovers; soup and bread, I think? 

Friday, 2/27/26

 Cheesy tots and gravy, plus I made myself a small spinach salad. Quick dinner because it was game night.