Friday, 9/6/19

I roasted a nice big chicken (with some carrots, onions and mushrooms), made potato pancakes, and reheated the brussels sprouts. I also made a quick gravy (to me, the real reason for roasting a chicken). I more or less followed a recipe from Ina Garten, stuffing the cavity with lemon and garlic (but no thyme sprigs because I a. didn't have any b. don't really like it). Came out fine, but I am not convinced that the lemon adds any flavor to speak of. For the potato pancakes, I had a vague recollection of a recipe that used instant potato flakes as a binding agent instead of flour. I get the concept, but I think flour does a better job.

Thursday, 9/5/19

I was planning on chicken for dinner, so I asked Carter if he had a preference. Surprisingly, he did! So, chicken parm, spaghetti and roasted brussels sprouts. He sniveled a little about the use of provolone ("Is this the cheese you normally use?") but ate everything up nonetheless.

Wednesday, 9/4/19

Corn chowder, tomato-mozzarella salad, and warmed up fougasse that Jason made earlier in the week. I didn't have a recipe for the chowder---just bacon, corn, potatoes and milk. Nice summer meal.

Tuesday, 9/3/19

Another exciting Instant Pot experiment.......burgers! We mixed dried onions, garlic and cheese into the patties, wrpaped them in foil and steamed them. I was expecting them to be a little more tender, but they were quite flavorful. Maybe cook for one minute less? I liked how melty the cheese got. Tater tots (what else?) and broccoli rounded out the meal. See, there was a vegetable!

Monday, 9/2/19

Dinner in Whately turned into lunch in Whately. Jason had to stay home to wait for the Comcast guy, but the rest of us picked up burgers and hot dogs from Tom's (well, I had half of an enormous meatball grinder). We supplemented with corn and some of the blondies from Sunday. Dinner was leftover meatball grinder for Jason and nachos for Carter and me. I swear we will eat vegetables soon.

Sunday, 9/1/19

We were supposed to go to the beach with Jen and Gus today, but the weather was uncooperative. So instead we went to IKEA. Not the same. We stopped for a picnic lunch on the way, with cheese and crackers, deviled eggs, chips, watermelon and blondies. I doubled the Fannie Farmer recipe, browned the butter and baked them in a 9x13 pan. A little underbaked, but good cold. For dinner we did something very unusual---Jason, Jen and I went to Joe's for dinner and left the boys at home! We gorged on meatballs, cheesy garlic bread and pizza while Carter and Gus bravely went to KFC. Hurray for kids who can look after themselves!

Saturday, 8/31/19

Dinner with Jennie and David---a regular bread from Jason and I made an apple pie, using a recipe from SK (and many pounds of apples). I made a little more pie dough that usual, and that made it easier to roll out (and Carter likes the scraps baked up with cinnamon sugar). This recipe has you slice the apples extra thin (so tedious!) and let them sit with the sugar and spices for a couple of hours to macerate. It is a super tall pie, and I was pleased that the crust didn't collapse down as the apples cooked. The only issue was related to my poor crimping skills. Next time I will be more vigilant.