What’s for supper? Vol. 472: In which I (Persephone) have high hopes

Happy Friday! I hope spring is being good to you. We’re supposed to get down into the 30’s the next couple of nights, but HIGH thirties, so I’m just gonna throw some blankets around in my garden and hope for the best. I had a wonderfully outdoor week and got tons of yard work done, and took a bunch of things too personally, and made some very good food, and some that was just okay, and now I’m gonna tell you all about it. 

SATURDAY
Pancakes, sausage, OJ

Saturday after shopping, I went to pick up one of those gliding benches that someone was giving away. It needs work (new seat slats, sanding, and painting), but nothing hard or expensive. 

Will I ever get around to this? Impossible to say. But I might! I think it will be great down by the stream. 

Damien drove over to go fishing with Moe and got back late, and I took the opportunity to make breakfast for dinner. We used to go through an entire box of pancake mix for our family, but our family is so teeny tiny these days, I figured we’d only need half. Then I realized pancake mix boxes have also gotten teeny tiny, oops. So an entire box was just barely enough! It’s also possible I ate more raw batter than I realized. I am truly a freak for raw batter, and nothing that can be done about this. 

SUNDAY
Leftovers and pizza pockets

The shopping kid chose pizza pockets for her fun food to supplement the sad leftovers, which was a tactical error because part of the leftovers included last Saturday’s pizza pockets.

But somehow we survived, and right after supper I badgered everyone into driving to Westmoreland, where there was going to be a free summer event of some kind. The details were a little skimpy, so I tried to keep expectations low. 

But even if I had hyped everyone up, I don’t think we would have been prepared for . . . EL PULPO MAGNIFICO.

As you can see, it is a giant flaming octopus! It’s tentacles, eyes, and mouth move, and the man inside the octopus manipulates the flames (which also come out of the top of its head) in time to the music he was playing. It. was. tremendous. I loved it so much. Here are some pics of the evening,

 

and I also shared a few videos on Facebook and Instagram.  One of the videos got — let’s see, 46,000 views on Instagram, and I got a bunch of followers who . .. . might have the wrong idea about what kind of account this usually is (ducklings).  

MONDAY
Hamburgers, potato salad, con on the cob, chips; strawberry rhubarb crisp

Monday was, of course, Memorial Day, so we had the day off school. I have been desperately in need of more exercise. I can feel my joints rusting together day by day. But my stupid arm just won’t get better, so I can’t really do yoga or weights or any of my regular things. So I resorted to taking a WALK, like a CHUMP. 

It actually turned out really nice.

Of course it did. Walking is nice, and I live in a nice place. This hill is up behind my house, so I didn’t have to go anywhere to get there. Got home and discovered that it was exactly one mile, half uphill, so a pretty perfect workout. I decided I would start every day this way, with a pleasant, invigorating walk.

Then I didn’t do that even one more time. But I might! 

New Hampshire is it is full of mossy stone walls meandering through woods. You might wonder why they bothered to build walls between trees, but of course they did not. A hundred years ago, they had felled all the tree, and this was all pasture — mostly for sheep. There were way more sheep than people, and NH exported fleece and wool all over the world. Then someone figured out how to mass produce cotton, and that was pretty much the end of the wool boom. The trees grew back in the pastures, the farms fell down, and all that is left is the stone walls. On my walk, I did spot some stone foundations left from the houses that used to stand off the road. Sometimes you will also spot daffodils in the middle of the woods, and that is a sign that some human once lived there. 

Anyway, the weather was wonderful all week. We have started putting the baby ducks outside during the day. They’re big enough that they don’t need their heat lamp all the time, and they love marching around in the grass, fighting with buttercups, and struggling in and out of the little wading pool. And they still like being whistled too. 

 

Then it was parade time! Our town was founded in 1776, so we’re having a big anniversary along with the country itself. I mean, relatively big. This is the biggest memorial day parade I’ve ever seen here. Also the cutest. 

Only Benny and Corrie and I wanted to go, and we were rewarded with free ice cream afterward. (Again, quite an exceptional thing for this little town!) 

Got home and made some potato salad. The last few times, I made a version that seemed extremely yummy to me, but the kids felt very different indeed! It’s not like I put raisins in it or something, or capers or something, sheesh. Anyway, I made the dressing with mayo and cider vinegar, a little olive oil, salt and pepper, celery, and hard boiled eggs. 

Then I started prepping dessert. My beloved rhubarb plant is having a wonderful year, although I have concluded that I have an evergreen rhubarb, and it’s just not going to turn red. Some of them are like that. Slightly disappointing, although the flavor and texture are great. I more or less followed the Smitten Kitchen recipe. Here it is before I put the topping on:

I baked it right before supper, so it would still be warm when we ate it. 

Elijah came over, Damien cooked hamburgers and corn on the cob on the grill, and we had a lovely, chill dinner. 

After supper, I whipped up some heavy cream, and dessert was lovely. 

If I had one rhubarb-related wish other than for redder rhubarb, it would be that I could get my crumble topping to brown up better. It always turns out pale, for some reason, and I don’t know why. Anyway, it tasted good! 

I think I will cut up a bunch of rhubarb and freeze it, so I can make a compote or something at some point. That seems like the kind of thing I would be happy to suddenly remember I have in a few months. 

That evening, I started a big pork shoulder brining with a cup of salt and a cup of sugar. 

TUESDAY
Bo ssam, lettuce, rice, pineapple

Tuesday was chock-a-block full of appointments and whatnot, which is why I planned bo ssam, which is very hands-off. I was up early and cut up some pineapples. Then I got a little sidetracked, because I keep seeing reels about propagating pineapples at home. You’re supposed to twist the tops off and then peel off the bottom leaves to expose the root nodes. I had no idea these were under there! Here is one unpeeled, and one peeled:

Look at those root nodes!

I had no idea. Anyway, I trimmed the rest of the fruit off and set the tops in water, and now we’re waiting for roots to develop. 

Dreaming about the day when, a mere four or five years from now, I might get another, very small pineapple or two from these tops.

Then I remembered I was actually really busy, oops, so I got started on stuff I actually had to do. Threw the pork in the oven around 12:30, and then had some appointments, and when I got home, I got my pumpkin seeds into the ground in my hugelkultur bed, and then made a spot for cucumbers and dill next to it. I dragged a torn trampoline mat over to keep the weeds down, then filled eight pots with compost and set them up in front of Damien’s trailer office. 

Then I planted a dozen sprouting potatoes in one bed, and then weeded and composted another bed and got most of my corn in! 

SATISFYIN’.  I think Tuesday was the day I cut things so close, I didn’t have time to take a shower before going out, so I just washed my hands feet and put on a long skirt to hide my grubbiness. By the time I got home, I just had to start some rice cooking in the Instant Pot, and then put a little extra sauce on the pork for the last ten minutes or so. I finally made up a recipe card for my cheater’s version of bo ssam, so here’s that: 

Jump to Recipe

The pork came out gorgeous and tender, juicy and wonderful, as always. 

Probably could have left it in the oven a little longer to crisp up the top some more, but I was HONGRY. 

Tasty meal, productive day. This “being outside” thing is great. 

The older I get, the more pronounced becomes the difference between winter me and summer me. I love New Hampshire, I love the ice and snow and those brilliant, glittering winter skies, and I’m deeply wedded to the idea that having real, distinct seasons is existentially important, and spring and summer are all the sweeter because of how fleeting they are. 

At the same time, phew, I am SO much happier when it’s warm out. Here is a real question, specifically for people who have moved from a cold climate to a warm climate. Does the euphoria of being able to be outside all the time wear off? Or do you get used to it, and stop appreciating the sunshine after a while? I never though I’d even consider living anywhere besides New England, but the idea is creeping in, and the Persephone thing is getting kind of old. It does help to take vitamin D and get exercise throughout the winter, but it’s a struggle still. Winters are really getting hard, and we just kind of shut down. I don’t know. 

Well, on Tuesday Damien had to go cover some kind of event, and he was gone all afternoon and evening, boo. After clean-up, I sat the kids down and started reading the new encyclical to them, so there. On Tuesday, we read the introduction, and I liked it, and they did not. 

WEDNESDAY
Not sure what to call it but wow it was good

Wednesday the plan was some kind of bi bim bap situation. But I utterly succumbed to Being Outside, and just did that all day. I must have been doing gardening and yard work, but I was so wrapped up in it that I didn’t even take pictures; so just imagine a lot of green, green, green. I think I mostly did weeding and organizing, because I was getting mad at myself for working so hard on growing beautiful flowers, and then having my own view ruined by tubs of garden tools, old tarps tumbled and flapping around, heaps of scrap wood, chairs on their sides, etc. My phone says I walked over two miles just trotting back and forth in my yard making things look better, so that tells you how much crap was lying around!

I think I also potted a bunch of stuff in the front yard — a big, deep purple lupine, some double impatiens, a clump of dahlia tubers, and two holy basil plants to frame the door. Last year I planted some cinnamon basil in my herb garden and I kept pinching the flowers off and the plants got huge and bushy. Then discovered I don’t like the taste at all, so I demoted them to a decoration and moved them to the front door. Every time we went in or out, we got a little whiff, which was very nice (I like the smell, just not the taste)! So I hope they will do as well this year. The ferns and hostas are thriving, and the daisies and alliums I put in are blooming just as the tulips and daffodils die off, so I’m pleased. 

It’s still a baby garden, but I have high hopes. 

By supper time I was tired and starving and sweaty, and truly did not want to cook. So I just cut up a watermelon I meant to serve on memorial day, and some broccoli I meant to roast on Tuesday, and then I found some leftover rice and leftover pineapple, and I cut up the leftover bo ssam real thin. And it looked very promising. 

I served everything cold. I put my plate together and then threw some bottled yum yum sauce on top, and then sprinkled some furikake over that, and went outside to devour it like a goblin. 

My heavens, it tasted like the best food possible. Just wonderful.  I may serve this exact combination of foods on purpose next time. 

After supper, I noticed that my biggest lupine is blooming! This is from the plant I dug out of Millie’s garden last year. 

As it turns out, this is the one year-anniversary of the day she died. Say a prayer for dear Millie! She would be very proud of me for my garden this year. There are actually lupine seedlings all over the place this year, front and back of the house. I don’t know if they’re from the plants I put in, or if it’s just a lupinous kind of year, but I’m not mad! 

Damien had another long dumb event to cover, and he was gone most of the day again, alas. Wednesday evening, we sat down and started to read chapter one of the encyclical, and then I basically quit mid-word. I thought it would be a good project because I know they care about AI, and the pope is no nice and whatnot, but phew, it just wasn’t landing.

Then I mildly horrified the kids by getting a little emotional while I explained my struggles in getting them educated as adults in the faith, and we ended up agreeing that I will open a new Word document and they will be added as editors, so they can anonymously contribute questions or complaints about religion, and we can start from there. WHAT CAN ONE DO. I was gonna say I am doing my best, but I don’t know if that’s true. Anyway, I’m trying somewhat, sometimes. What can one do. Tricky times. 

THURSDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, salad

Thursday I had nothhhhhhhing on my calendar. I actually did some writing for once, and then back outside I went. I cut down a bunch of saplings from the woods and got some twine and a staple gun, and made a trellis for the cucumbers to climb up. 

I also planted some dill seed in each pot. They are supposed to be good companion plants for cucumbers, and by the time the cucumbers grow, the garlic should be ready to harvest. Corrie and I plan to make pickles! 

Then I did this and that, and dumped out some old pots of soil and repotted a few things and weeded and whatnot, and, feeling competent and optimistic, I decided to finally start prepping the hill behind the patio for a big wildflower garden. I knew some wild blackberries had popped up again, and I was feeling a little grim about that, but I knew I could deal with it.

THEN
I
FOUND
SOME
BITTERSWEET. 

In my backyard, which is supposed to be my little haven. My deal (with who, I don’t know) was that bittersweet can be a menace in the front yard, and I will fight it and stay vigilant, but I will accept that it will always be with us. But this was in the back.

 
I didn’t cry, but I felt like my insides had turned to clay. Oh bad. Bad bad bad. I sat for a while, and then complained to Damien for a while, and then I found my Round Up and gloves and clippers and did what I could. I need something with a higher concentration of glyphosate, but it’s a start, anyway. BOO INVASIVES. Very boo. 

Obviously I couldn’t do any more gardening in that spot, because the herbicide was still fresh. So I showered good and made supper, which was grilled ham and cheese and salad.

I was a little nervous about serving sandwiches without chips or fries, which is pretty de rigueur around here, but nobody said anything.

I ate outside, and had the wonderful consolation of realizing that my peach tree, which yielded something like eleven peaches last year, is absolutely LOADED with tiny little fruitsies this year. 

I was hoping that would happen! Big year, little year, that’s how it goes. But I didn’t want to count on it. But yeah, we’re off to a fine start!

At some point during the day, I went to Home Depot and got some long, flexible PVC pipes, which I intend to use for grape arbors in some way. The details in my mind are still foggy, but PVC is cheap. Maybe I will paint it green or something, maybe not. I have some tall T posts and some zip ties, and all the clearance grapes from Walmart that I shoved in the ground are putting out leaves already, so I don’t see how this can fail. The vision is a tunnel of leaves at the entrance to the boardwalk over the marsh. I’m trying not to slip into “maybe they will accidentally lobotomize me at the end of the summer, but at least I will leave a grape arbor as my legacy” thinking, but it’s possible some of that has been happening, who can say. Anyway, PVC is cheap.

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

I really really need to finish up some essays I started, but I want to be outside! Wah! Boo! I actually already got a considerable amount of writing done this week. But I also have a bunch of mystery bags of gladiolus bulbs I bought for a song at the town garden club sale, and it occurs to me that a long line of glads in front of the house would be gorgeous. Possibly not enough to make up for the fact that the kids saw a bunch of paper bags on the table and thought someone had brought pastries, but still, very pretty. 

This Sunday, we’re expecting a visit from an enterprising young man who went door to door letting people know he hauls junk. What it was that brought him to our door, in particular, it’s impossible to say; but I’m hoping that (a) he’ll give us a quote that’s about the same amount as the money I’m expecting to get from the guy who’s going to haul the Yukon away as soon as we get the replacement title, and (b) I have the emotional fortitude to tell him to haul away ALL the junk, and that I won’t be a crazy little freak and try to hold onto a bunch of it because it might come in handy.

Damien has to cover RFK Jr. coming to NH and talking about Lyme disease. I am crossing my fingers that a giant tick comes and eats him live on camera, but I would settle for . .. . well, I’ll settle for whatever I can get, I guess. Ain’t that the way. 

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bare bones bo ssam

If you really want to knock people's socks off, look up My Korean Kitchen bo ssam, and make all the sauces and sides. This is a pared-down version, and I use this meat in many ways. Mostly, I just serve it with lettuce and rice and some kind of simple fruit of vegetable for a side, and it's fabulous. Start it the night before, let it cook all day, and you get maximum flavor for minimum effort.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup salt
  • big pork shoulder, preferably with a a bone and a nice fat cap
  • 7 Tbso brown sugar
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 2 tsp cider vinegar

Instructions

  1. Mix together the cup of sugar and cup of salt, and rub it all over the pork. Let this brine at least six hours. I usually do it overnight, and put it in a ziplock bag in a bowl in the fridge.

  2. Turn the oven to 300. Put a double layer of tin foil over a pan, to make clean-up much easier. Set the pork on the pan, fat side up, and cook it, uncovered, for about six hours.

  3. Combine the brown sugar, cider vinegar, and Tbsp of salt. In the last ten minutes of cooking, crank the oven up to 500, take the pork out, and spread the brown sugar mixture on top. Put it back in the oven and cook it until it's got a glistening crust.

  4. Serve with lettuce and rice to make little wraps.

What’s for supper? Vol. 471: Tag yourself! I’m the community goat

Happy Friday! I’m parked in the shade outside the chapel, about to down a frozen mocha coffee. That’s three or four migraine triggers in a single cup. All I can say is I woke up feeling so fuddled and monstrous, I didn’t think I could feel worse, and the craving for this one particular gas station drink was so very strong. If I can still form complete sentences by the time I get to the end of this post, we’ll know I got away with it. 

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Leftovers and pizza pockets

Saturday morning I had set my alarm, which I am privileged enough to not usually have done on Saturdays! A customer was coming to pick up a number of mini cheesecakes and mini pies; and Clara’s boyfriend was coming to patch up the siding in front of the house where the porch used to lurk.

Here is what the front of the house looked like two years ago:

and here it is now:

Poor old house! In between these two pictures, it acquired a terrible scar, over which we stapled plastic. So believe me, this is better. The patch is white because we live in Maison De Nonstandarde, so of course they don’t sell that color of siding anymore. So I need to paint, and obviously do a power wash. But that’s an improvement! She’s getting there. The little rock garden in front is filling out nicely

with more things budding. 

So then we went shopping, and in the afternoon, Clara came by with pastries, including this magnificent one, which was spicy tomato and olive with saffron.

Actually, there were two of these, and guess who didn’t want any? Everyone but me! So guess who ate both??? Only me!!! No regrets. They were incredible. If you’re ever in Keene, Fire Dog Breads makes nothing but delicious food. 

It was so nice and warm out, we took the ducklings outside and let them run around. They get a little silly, especially since their leader, Lego Johnny Cash, is half black Swedish, which is the breed Daffy Duck was modeled after. LJC gets VERY daffy sometimes. But the four of them have a strong drive to stick together, and it turns out they all enjoy being whistled to. 

What silly, lovely creatures they are. 

Also, wow, I sit weird. (Yes, I know a prolonged habit of w-sitting is associated with autism. I think what happened is, because I was born in the 70’s, I’m not autistic, but most of my kids are. It happens!)

SUNDAY
Chicago-adjacent hot dogs, chips

Sunday after Mass, I mowed a big swath of the back yard. It’s crazy how quickly it goes from “oooh, we’re finally getting some touches of green back in the world” to “I know my shoes are out there somewhere, but they belong to the jungle now.”

Then I drilled out the remaining holes (there is something existentially wrong with that phrase, but you know what I mean) for the clothesline base, and put in the rest of the bolts; and then I conscripted some big kids into dragging the whole thing over to the side leg of the back yard.

I have to attach the washers and nuts to the underside of the base, and obviously replace the ropes, but it’s getting there. I feel a little bad, because it’s in a spot that has been overgrown for several years, and now when the people in the apartment house look out their window, instead of seeing wild green, they’ll see my fatass pants flapping in the breeze. However, they (the neighbors, not my pants) invariably fill the air with pot smoke and/or cotton candy vape stink every time it’s nice out, so I guess we’re even. 

In the afternoon, Benny asked me to show her how to make flower crowns, and then Corrie came out and Benny showed her. So we all had crowns and were happy princesses of the springtime. 

For dinner, we had Chicago-style hot dogs, more or less. I couldn’t find pickled peppers and nobody really likes pickle relish, so we had them with chopped onions and tomatoes, pickle spears, mustard, and celery salt.

Gotta say, these really are excellent hot dogs. Wish I had sprung for better quality buns, but they were very yummy. As far as I know, this is the sole reason for the existence of celery salt. 

MONDAY
Pizza

Monday morning, I went to pick up a kayak someone in town was giving away!

It does have a crack, but it’s on the top, and we can use plastic welding to make it watertight again. I super enjoyed my short trip out into the dirt road part of town. 

Nothing but birdsong going on. So lovely. 

I don’t really know what I did all the rest of the day. It suddenly got hot (high 80’s, which I realize is not hot for some people in May, but we are still getting frost warnings here!). I do remember weeding around St. Joseph and fretting because I hadn’t planted any summer-blooming perennials there — and then discovering some lupine seedlings. 

So that’s settled! Probably they are purple, but I don’t really know where they came from, so they could be any color. 

For supper we had pizza. I made a mere two pizzas, one plain cheese, one pepperoni. 

TUESDAY
Buffalo chicken drumsticks, pasta salad

Tuesday I did a whole bunch of weeding in the backyard, and there are all kinds of things popping up that I forgot I planted. Then it got REALLY hot. You know how candy thermometers have markings on them — soft ball, hard crack, and so on. (And of course fish donut, for my long-time readers.) Well, if I had a personal thermometer, when it gets up past 85, it would be marked “no brain.” Or possibly Wise Men of Chelm. 

What happened is, I was laying some chicken drumsticks out on a pan and thinking about clean up. I’ve been hounding the kids to do a better job cleaning, but the soft-hearted part of me feels bad about making messes they have to clean. So first I thought to line the pan with tin foil, but sometimes meat sticks to the tinfoil. So I thought parchment paper, but I knew I was running a little low. So then I thought, oh heck, I can just cover the pan with a second pan! Then it will stay perfectly cl—

oh, wait. 

Which reminded me of The Wise Men of Chelm, a story which can be found in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories, which is masterfully illustrated by the great Maurice Sendak. In one story, it snows in the village of Chelm, and the elders believe silver, diamonds, and pearls have fallen from the sky. Their money troubles are over! But they soon realize they must warn the villagers not to come out of their homes and trample the treasure.  What to do? 

Silly Tudras had an idea.

“Let’s send a messenger to knock on all the windows and let the people know that they must remain in their houses until all the silver, all the pearls, and all the diamonds are safely gathered up.”

For a while the Elders were satisfied. They rubbed their hands in approval of the clever idea. But then Dopey Lekisch called out in consternation, “The messenger himself will trample the treasure.”

The Elders realized that Lekisch was right, and again they wrinkled their high foreheads in an effort to solve the problem.

“I’ve got it!” exclaimed Shmerel the Ox. “Tell us, tell us,” pleaded the Elders.

“The messenger must not go on foot. He must be carried on a table so that his feet will not tread on the precious snow.”

Everybody was delighted with Shmerel the Ox’s solution; and the Elders, clapping their hands, admired their own wisdom.

The Elders immediately sent to the kitchen for Gimpel the errand boy and stood him on a table. Now who was going to carry the table? It was lucky that in the kitchen there were Treitle the cook, Berel the potato peeler, Yukel the salad mixer, and Yontel, who was in charge of the community goat. All four were ordered to lift up the table on which Gimpel stood. Each one took hold of a leg. On top stood Gimpel, grasping a wooden hammer with which to tap on the villagers’ windows. Off they went.

Click through for the picture of me figuring out how to keep my pan clean. 

Anyway, I put down some parchment paper and roasted the chicken with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, then glopped some buffalo sauce on it, cooked it a little longer, glopped on some more and cooked it some more. 

Then I made some pasta salad. I used radiatori, and I looked it up, and it is indeed named after radiators.  I rinsed the cooked pasta to cool it down, then added . . . let’s see, olive oil, white wine vinegar, asparagus tips from my garden, chopped olives, bits of pepperoni, leftover tomatoes and onions from the hot dogs, salt, pepper, oregano, and garlic powder, leftover red pesto from Mother’s Day sandwiches, chopped sugar snap peas, leftover feta from who knows what, and some grated parmesan. 

We had some appointments in the afternoon, and the receptionist at one place said to me, “You ARE dressed for the hot weather!” Why did she say that? At first I felt bad, because why did she say that? Then I felt good, because I’m not the only one out there yapping weird stuff.

Then we came home and had cold buffalo chicken and pasta salad, and it was a very good hot weather meal. 

Looks like I ate outside, either because it was cooler outside than inside, or possibly it was so hot I didn’t want to be with anyone, so I went outside. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken burgers, raw vegetables

Wednesday Clara took me out for lunch! We had a delightful meal at the Fresh Day Cafe, which is an Eastern European-themed spot in Keene. I had avocado toast on a wonderful dark, seedy bread, with fresh cheese and pomegranate seeds, and Clara got pierogies with bacon and scallions. We both had Turkish coffee, and everything was absolutely delicious. A VERY pleasant spot, run by the absolute nicest people. 

After lunch we did a little thrifting, and both talked ourselves out of numerous foolish purchases. I did come away with two table fans and a peach pitter, which I NEEDED. 

Supper was chicken burgers, leftover pasta salad, and a bunch of raw veggies. 

This looks like such a sensible, restrained plate, except then I went back and has seconds and then thirds on pasta salad. I just find that radiator shape irresistible. 

THURSDAY
Butter chicken, rice, flatbread, kachumber salad, mango

Thursday it finally cooled down, which was good, because the last thing on the menu was butter chicken, which I was looking forward to, but I really didn’t wanna cook it (or eat it) on a hot day.

In the morning, I did all the prep. Not exactly mise en place, but I assembled the gang

and more or less followed the recipe from RecipeTinEats. I had a bunch of driving to do during the day, so I started the chicken marinating, and right before I left, I made some dough for flatbread, using this taboon recipe I have settled on.

Jump to Recipe

I hurt my arm sometime in the past few weeks, and it’s gotten worse and worse, so I was smart enough to realize I would not want to be crouching over a pan flipping naan; but butter chicken really wants some kind of bread. When I got home, I started some rice cooking in the Instant Pot. I thought I had a big sack of basmati rice, but it was actually jasmine, oh well! Then I started the butter chicken cooking, and then I made something new to me: A kachumber salad. I read a few recipes and then wung it. 

This is a mixture of chopped-up tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, cilantro, salt, pepper, a bit of fresh minced jalapeño, white wine vinegar, fresh lemon juice, a lot of cumin, a medium amount of dark chili powder, and I think that is it? It is essentially Indian pico de gallo, and wow, it’s wonderful. 

“Kachumber” comes from the Hindi word kachumbar, which means shredding or chopping. It is not, to my sorrow, related to “cucumber,” which is etymologically mysterious. I did learn this:

In 1790s the pronunciation “cowcumber” was standard except in western England dialects and “coocumber” was considered pedantic, but 30 years later, with the spread of literacy and education “cowcumber” was limited to the ignorant and old-fashioned.

To think! We could have been putting cowcumber in our choppy-choppy salad all along, but for the snobbery of nations. 

LOTS of cultures have some variety of this dish, and I’m so delighted to have found this one. Damien loved it, too. I think next time, I will try a little amchur powder and mint. Hoo de hoo hoo! I put it together just before supper, because I didn’t want it to get soggy. 

I was nervous about the bread, because usually I make taboon in one big slab, and serve a juicy chicken dish on top of it. But this time I separated the dough into eight pieces and stretched them into rounds, then dimpled them with my fingers as usual.

I had no idea if they would meld into one piece, or shrink up, or what. I baked them and they turned out so good! They kept their size and shape, but puffed up nicely (like spongy bread, not separating into a pocket like pita), and were just lightly browned on the bottom. Here they are baked, with one flipped over:

I could have brushed them with butter and given them maybe a sprinkle of herbs or something, but they were great as they were. A little chewy, quite salty, and a happy addition to this meal. 

I had some extra chicken, and because most of the kids are not crazy about butter chicken, took the extra and dusted it with flour, salt, and pepper, and fried it up in butter. Something for everyone. I also found some mint chutney and some tamarind chutney, and everything was delightful. 

Also on Thursday evening, SOMEONE TOOK THE ACADIA AWAY. This terrible, terrible car has been giving me tsuris for years now, long after it stopped running. And now it is gone! Hooray!

FRIDAY
Quesadillas, tortilla chips and salsa, salad

I picked up the kids with the half day, stopped at the thrift store for more fat pants, stopped at the town garden club sale for some dahlia tubers, went to adoration, got the kids, stopped at the store for a birthday present, picked up some prescriptions, and now I am home, feeling great. Looks like the curse of the frozen mocha missed me this time! I’m not going to tempt fate and try these all the time. But next time I’m feeling like garbage and my body is trying to convince me that all I need is a gas station drink, I guess I’ll listen! 

Print

taboon bread

You can make separate pieces, like pita bread, or you can make one giant slab of taboon. This makes enough to easily stretch over a 15x21" sheet pan.

Ingredients

  • 6 cups bread flour
  • 4 packets yeast
  • 3 cups water
  • 2 Tbsp salt
  • 1/3 cup olive oil

Instructions

  1. Mix the flour, salt, and yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer.

  2. While it is running, add the olive oil. Then gradually add the water until the dough is soft and sticky. You may not need all of it. Let it run for a while to see if the dough will pull together before you need all the water. Knead or run with the dough hook for another few minutes.

  3. Put the dough in a greased bowl, grease the top, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm spot for at least an hour until it has doubled in size.

  4. Preheat the oven to 400. Put a greased pan or a baking stone in the oven to heat up.

  5. If you are making separate pieces, divide it now and cover with a damp cloth. If you're making one big taboon, just handle it a bit, then put it back in the bowl and cover it with a damp cloth. Let rest ten minutes.

  6. Using a little flour, roll out the dough into the shape or shapes you want. Poke it all over with your fingertips to give it the characterstic dimpled appearance.

  7. Bake for 10-12 minutes until it's just slightly browned.

Can you de-monetize that?

I still cringe when I remember this one conversation from years ago. A friend was showing me photos of some of the incredible cakes she had made—gorgeous cakes with exuberant, witty designs, skillfully executed. She made them for family and friends, and she loved the work and loved making them happy.

You know, you could sell those, I said. You could sell them and also make a book about it and sell that, too! She was polite and listened to all my ideas. But as far as I know, she is still giving her cakes away.

I wasn’t wrong, of course. But my friend did not pursue my ideas because she was already doing what she wanted to do and wasn’t looking for advice about how to monetize her talent.

At the time, the idea of simply creating things for pleasure didn’t even occur to me. Instead, figuring out how to monetize skills was a constant habit. This was necessary because my family was broke and even a little bit more cash made a big difference.

What’s for supper? Vol. 470: Glory to God in the pie crust

and peace to His people of girth. 

Happy Friday! I started off this week determined to eat sensibly and serve vegetables every single day.

That! Did not happen!

Here’s what we had: 

SATURDAY
Cuban sandwiches, fries, lemon meringue pie

Saturday, Moe was in town to see some of his friends graduate, and in the evening, we belatedly celebrated his birthday. In the morning, I made a couple of pie crusts, and made them pretty decorative while I chatted on the phone, completely forgetting what happens when you bake meringue on top of a pie. I made one crust with a braided rim and roses and leaves, and the other with overlapping discs. I amazed myself by cutting out a random number of discs, and then discovering I had made exactly the right number!

I always manage to know exactly what’s going on when it matters the least. 

I don’t remember what recipe I used for the curd filling, but there is not a lot of variety among recipes, really. I did use duck egg yolks, which are the most wonderfully yellow things in all of creation.  Then I made the meringue and piped it over the top, and, as I mentioned, of course it puffed up in the oven like it’s supposed to. 

almost completely obscuring the crust. I consoled myself by thinking about the monks who would carve beautiful details even in the backs of pews, because that would be for God alone to see; but the truth is, I also forgot to refrigerate the pie crusts before I blind baked them, so there was less secret, exquisite beauty that gives glory to God, and more just blobby, shapeless pie crust under meringue. Which gives glory to God in its own way, because it’s pie. 

I saved out one lemon, cut it in thin slices, and candied it , and left the slices to dry while I went out and did a bit of shopping. Came back and made the Cuban sandwiches. I was running very late, so I just heavily seasoned a boneless pork loin with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and roasted it. Maybe I put some cider vinegar in there, I don’t remember. I let it cool a bit, cut it up, and made them sandwiches: Bread, mustard, swiss cheese, pork, ham, pickles, more cheese, more mustard, bread. I fried them in lots of butter.

We haven’t had cubans for a long time, and they are deeeelicious. Here’s a non-Instagrammable picture of our festive dining room table these days.

Ketchup and ducklings, baby. It’s a good life. (It got even better the next day, because I requested that, as a special mother’s day act of service, they drag the loveseat out onto the side of the road. Nobody took it for several days, and now it’s been rained on three times, but one can’t have everything.) 

By dessert time, the candied lemon slices were still pretty sticky (they really need to dry overnight) but oh well. Also, I forgot that I ran out of lemon and candied some lime, but they’re so sweet, I don’t think you could tell the difference. 

Poor Moe was too tired to stick around and make us watch a musical, which we were absolutely ready and even enthusiastic to do, but it was nice to see him!

SUNDAY
Italian sandwiches, Doritos, Italian ices

Sunday was, of course, mother’s day. We went to Mass and Corrie made me a mother’s day hat out of the prayer card, which I allowed because I think it was an AI image. Take that, robuts!

I got home and ate a donut and then a cinnamon bun and then another donut, and then pursued my heart’s desire, which was something in my garden, I forget what, but I did take this picture of my beautiful compost heap

and THEN, Damien and Corrie and I got the floor joists up for the tree house! They were already screwed onto the tree, but I had finally gotten the right drill bit and washers, so we screwed holes and attached the wood with nice big lag bolts. The next thing to do will be to box it in and add some diagonal supports, and then I will be able to climb up there and work on it, and it should go a lot faster. (Here one must imagine my grandmother muttering, “kenahora, kenahora,” and spitting three times to ward off the evil eye.)

I don’t have a pic of the work we got done, but here is a picture of me and Corrie being absolutely useless while Damien uses power tools. 

Well, I guess I’m not in this picture, except in that Corrie let me take a picture of her solely because it was mother’s day.

Nice spot for a tree house, though, right? 

We had yummy Italian sandwiches for supper

and the kids gave me excellent, thoughtful presents — a flower pot with a water reservoir, a wooden lazy susan I can use in cake decorating, a glass hummingbird feeder, a copy of one of my favorite movies, Moonstruck; and a Swiffer Wet Jet, which I have been loudly and repeatedly pining for. Lena crocheted me a long garland of beautiful white and gray stars, and Elijah painted me a picture of an old man confounded by ducks. I also got a mug that said it was from my favorite child, which came with a mystery card with messy coloring and strange misspellings, that was signed only with a dog’s paw print. We are still trying to figure out who did this! 

They also gave me lots of candy, which I ate immediately. Then we had Italian ices and watched some Daffy Duck cartoons and I went to bed happy and absurdly full of sugar. Another wonderful mother’s day. 

MONDAY
Leftovers and potato skins

Monday I kinda had to go shopping, which I hadn’t done over the weekend, but luckily I still had the previous week’s leftovers banked. So we had that, plus stuffed potato skins. 

Those terrible frozen potato skins are really good, dang it. 

TUESDAY
Salad with chicken, strawberries, feta, almonds

Tuesday morning, the weather was clear, so I got to work on my clothesline. There were four bolts I wasn’t able to unscrew, so I buzzed away at them with the reciprocating saw, then whacked what was left with a sledgehammer, until they succumbed.

Highly satisfying.

I dragged the parts (two U-shaped pipe arrangements, and two long wooden boards) over to the swingset to prop them up while I reassembled them, and that is how I discovered, maybe for the fourth or fifth time, that there are four pipes held down with four bolts each. Last time I counted them, this made twelve bolts total; so I had gone to Home Depot and bought ten. Why? No idea. Sometimes I will spend money, spend money, spend money, spend money, and then suddenly cheap out over two bolts. That is probably what happened.

But of course, if you have been following closely, you will know that even if I had bought the “right”number, that would have brought the total up to twelve, and I really needed sixteen.

So I said a long string of Yosemite Sam things and put my tools away for the day. Good thing I can cut out exactly the right number of pie dough discs without counting them, though. 

In my defense, I did manage, with great effort and concentration, to NOT bolt the clothesline together in such a way that it could not be removed from the swingset that was propping it up. I was pathetically proud of that, too. 

The rest of the day was chock-a-block full of errands, and I didn’t really leave enough time to roast some chicken for the salad, so I put it (it was bone-in breasts) in the Instant Pot with some salt, pepper, lemon juice, and water, and pressed the “poultry” button. Did it come out delectable? No. But it was fully cooked and tasted faintly of lemon, and it wasn’t dried out, so there you go. 

Mixed greens, strawberries, crumbled feta, toasted almond slices, and crunchy fried onions. 

Looks like I had mine with ranch dressing. Oh, and I made some leftover hot dog and hamburger buns into okayish croutons. I drizzled them with olive oil and seasoned them heavily with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and just shoved them in a hot oven until they were crunchy. I usually use butter, and I usually toast them slowly in a low oven, but these were fine. 

We also had more lemon meringue pie, because I had made two pies for eight people.

WEDNESDAY
Bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwiches

Wednesday, the only thing on my calendar is Ascension vigil (Ascension Thursday is still a holy day of obligation in our diocese! One of the few places where Jesus doesn’t obligingly hang around until Sunday), but the only thing I can remember about the actual day is that we were so busy and exhausted, there was no way we were gonna do that. It was raining all day, and I do remember getting a bunch of writing done, so that was good. 

For supper, I got out a bunch of cheese, then fried up a bunch of bacon and toasted a bunch of bagels, and kept those warm while I fried a bunch of eggs in some of the bacon fat. Look how tidy they turned out! 

I have gotten very good at compensating for how tilted my kitchen is.  (These are just chicken eggs from the store. The kids do not like duck eggs.) This is also the moment where I was like, huh, I guess we’re not eating a lot of vegetables this week after all. What with the eggs fried in bacon fat, and the no vegetables. 

Maybe I was just super hungry, but I thought these were the greatest sandwiches ever. 

Or maybe I just haven’t had bacon in a while. 

THURSDAY
Rainbow noodles and cheesecake

Thursday we lurched off to Mass in the morning, and then some kids felt sick and needed to get home, and Irene had a dentist appointment, and I was so confused and off schedule by the time we got back, I completely screwed up the rest of my day. I basically just ate everything I could find, and eventually ejected myself from the house purely so as not to eat the furniture.

I thought some errands would bring me up to the time I needed to pick up Corrie, but they did not. So I ended up going to like eleven different places, including two pharmacies and two thrift stores. I was pretty proud of myself for not buying anything at the thrift stores. I did find two new packages of reusable beeswax food storage covers, and carried them around the store for a while, but then pictured myself constantly finding reusable beeswax food storage covers wadded in random places around the house with dog food and kid hair stuck to them, and that helped me decide that someone else could have them.

I also talked myself into and then out of a citrus juicer which is slightly nicer than the one I have, but not that much nicer. I also took a picture of this item

but was not even tempted to buy it. Looked it up at home and it’s a watermelon cuber. I am glad I did not spend a dollar on that!

Anyway, Damien had to be in Concord all day, and by the time I got home and thought about supper, which was supposed to be buffalo chicken drumsticks, baked potatoes, and peas, it was late enough that the realization that the chicken was still frozen felt pretty insurmountable. Much like that sentence. Go ahead, try to mount it. I’ll watch. 

I consulted with the kids, and we settled on noodles with butter, plus a mother’s day cheesecake that nobody had bought, due to man’s inhumanity to man. I was a little bummed that it didn’t sell, because it was a cute cheesecake, and also looked like it was just plain on the outside, and you don’t see the chocolate until you cut it. 

Secret chocolate! It looks underbaked in the middle, but that’s just because I’m bad at cutting stuff. Except for rusty bolts. I’m good at that. 

FRIDAY
Tuna boats, popcorn

Speaking of cheesecakes, before I go to adoration, I have an order to fill, yay! Three mini chocolate swirl cheesecakes, one mini plain, plus three mini pumpkin pies and one mini apple pie. I’m so curious about what occasion this order is for, but I’ll probably never know. Just gonna make the cheesecakes and pies.

Damien took Corrie to TWO appointments this morning, and this afternoon, he is chaperoning her and Benny at a coding competition. I hope he gets a mug for father’s day! I think he’s earned a mug. 

Print

Basic pie crust

Ingredients

  • 2-1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1-1/2 sticks butter, FROZEN
  • 1/4 cup water, with an ice cube

Instructions

  1. Freeze the butter for at least 20 minutes, then shred it on a box grater. Set aside.

  2. Put the water in a cup and throw an ice cube in it. Set aside.

  3. In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Then add the shredded butter and combine with a butter knife or your fingers until there are no piles of loose, dry flour. Try not to work it too hard. It's fine if there are still visible nuggets of butter.

  4. Sprinkle the dough ball with a little iced water at a time until the dough starts to become pliable but not sticky. Use the water to incorporate any remaining dry flour.

  5. If you're ready to roll out the dough, flour a surface, place the dough in the middle, flour a rolling pin, and roll it out from the center.

  6. If you're going to use it later, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. You can keep it in the fridge for several days or in the freezer for several months, if you wrap it with enough layers. Let it return to room temperature before attempting to roll it out!

  7. If the crust is too crumbly, you can add extra water, but make sure it's at room temp. Sometimes perfect dough is crumbly just because it's too cold, so give it time to warm up.

  8. You can easily patch cracked dough by rolling out a patch and attaching it to the cracked part with a little water. Pinch it together.

Real men are everywhere

Yesterday, I fell in love with my husband again. We’ve been married for 29 years. I was standing in the dining room, clearing the table for dinner, and he came in with a stuffed rabbit and showed it to our youngest. 

She said, “Oh, that’s better, Daddy.” It turns out he had already washed her rabbit once, but it got mixed in with some red fabric and took on some pink dye. So he washed it again, with stain remover, because it’s not supposed to be a pink rabbit. It’s supposed to be white and he knew that mattered to her.  

My husband does the laundry at our house. He is also the main breadwinner, and he also fixes cars, does plumbing and carpentry, lifts weights, watches football, grills meat, and shoots stuff.  

But he does laundry because I need help keeping up with household jobs, and also because he’s good at doing laundry. And also, because his identity isn’t so fragile that he’s afraid that pushing a button on a washing machine is going to make him less of a man. 

I’m telling this story because my country seems to be struggling, once again, with the idea of what it means to be masculine. Or, worse – not struggling but falling headlong for the grossest parody of masculinity without even a fight. 

I am not going to try to get into gender theory here or try some extensive analysis of cultural norms. I did actually write an essay called “The Myth of the Macho Christ,” and it’s pretty good, so feel free to read that!  

All I want to do today is remind people that, when we’re looking for examples of masculinity, we have lots and lots of guys who get it wrong. Some of it is just silly and will appeal mainly to the young – like the influencers and looksmaxxers who make a living crouched in front of a lighted mirror, pleading with their own faces to look more manly. We can at least hope that most guys will grow out of this.  

But some parodies of masculinity are too dangerous to wait out, because man-parodies have the power to destroy nations, and they’ve made it clear that they might do so if it makes them feel strong.  

If you think I’m exaggerating, just listen to our “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth, proudly saying the things that only comic book villains used to say. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight,” he says. “We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.” Or, “America is winning, decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy.”  

That’s not masculine. That’s monstrous.  

But that is not the whole picture. There are also plenty of guys who are getting it right, and the more you look for them, the more you find. Here are some who have caught my attention this week …  Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Jesus doesn’t recycle

Usually my husband takes the family trash to the dump, but he was sick, so I made the drive. I actually kind of enjoy this chore. Trash gets hurled into one dark hole of a bin, but there are several others waiting to receive plastic, glass, metal, and paper. What happens next, I don’t really know; but they say it all gets recycled somehow. I don’t think too hard; I just throw stuff into the right hole and trust the process.

Like so many Gen Xers, I have a complicated emotional relationship with recycling. We grew up absolutely flooded with exhortations to recycle, and saw many, many illustrations of the process: A smiling child tosses a juice bottle into a green bin, and it smoothly emerges seconds later as two elegant wine glasses. Or sometimes the global nature of the system was emphasized: A rising tide of grimy, tattered, worthless trash threatens to swallow the earth, until it’s collected and crushed into formless potentiality. Then a cloud hides it from our sight, and it is all reborn as tidy stacks of sparkling, desirable consumer goods. Recycling will save the world.

I still recycle, and I definitely still think it’s worthwhile to reduce and reuse as much as possible; but I’m way more cynical about what actually happens when we toss something into a recycling bin. Some of that transformative magic does happen, especially with metal and glass. But a lot of it is more complicated. There’s a lot of waste, a lot of fraud, and a lot of inefficiency, and I don’t blame people for wondering if it’s not all just a giant scam, especially with plastics. Much of the push to recycle, it turns out, was really a push to use plastic.

But wow, the imagery in all those optimistic PSAs was compelling. Sometimes the recycled trash would straight up transmogrify into a flower — usually some kind of daisy, a clean, white blossom adorably stretching its leaves like a child waking up from a dream. A yawn, a stretch, and a pop! Beauty, fresh and new, sprung forth from a heap of what was once refuse.

That image is so nice. Isn’t it nice? Wouldn’t it be nice if things really worked that way?

Oh friends, have I got good news for you.

Every time we take a sin and give it to God, he makes it into something good. Every time we take our suffering and pain and sorrow and offer it up, he makes it into something beautiful. This is a foundational truth of our faith, of human life: Nothing needs to be wasted. Everything can be transformed. All you have to do is give it to Jesus.

Thus endeth the part of this essay that can easily be read in a youth minister voice.

What Jesus does is not recycling. … Read the rest of my latest column (and recipe) for The Pillar. (Note: The full column is for paid Pillar subscribers!) 

Image by Jan van der Wolf via Pexels (creative commons) 

What’s for supper? Vol. 469: Loveseat! That’s where we eat!

Happy Friday! Every year, May takes me by surprise with how incredibly, bounteously, tenderly gorgeous it is, and also! with how many freaking events we have to go to!

Happily, both cars are currently running, so we are able to do that! And it is just swooningly beautiful out there. My peach tree burst into bloom this week, there are daffodils and tulips swaying in the breeze, the birds are hysterical with love, and the skies are the bluiest bluesty blue I’ve ever seen. I thought I saw a little patch of ice in the stream, but it turned out to be just bubbles.

Shortly after I wrote last week’s post, the ducklings started hatching in earnest! Only one had totally emerged by the time Damien and I went to bed,

so we moved the incubator into our room overnight, for fear of the cats. I did fret about them all night, but this is what we saw in the morning:

Totally exhausted, poor things, but very healthy. These are all pekins.

One more, half pekin and half Swedish black, eventually muscled its way out of the shell the next day. Two did not make it, but the remaining four are doing absolutely great. Everyone got to see at least one baby emerging from the egg, which is dramatic and excruciating, thrilling and ridiculous, just like many other births. I posted a few videos on Facebook. This is seven minutes of hatching compressed into one minute of video;  this is the poor Swedish black trying to hatch while being repeatedly trampled by its three half siblings; and this is their first living room rodeo. 

They grow insanely fast, and they are now living happily under a heat lamp in a tub on top of the dryer, gobbling up their food, thrashing around in their water dish, and wearing themselves out and falling asleep in a fluffy pile. 

Sonny is pretty resigned to having these peeping little maniacs dashing around his living room in the evening

but he does clearly feel like it’s one of our dumber life choices. He’s not necessarily wrong! But they are so lovely. 

SATURDAY
Shawarma, pita, cream puffs, strawberry ice cream 

On Saturday, Lena came over for a belated birthday celebration! It was great to see her. I made chicken shawarma 

Jump to Recipe

and yogurt sauce, and also gave people one final shot at the toum. The shawarma turned out great, although I overcooked the meat a tiny bit because the pita too so look to cook. I use this recipe for pita, and I made a double recipe but just make really big breads. It turns out yummy, but I always underestimate how long it will take to cook eight breads for six minutes each, even though my father did sit me down with flash cards in third grade and I did finally learn my multiplication facts. Next time, I will get two pans going. 

Anyway, it was worth the wait, and it was all very tasty. 

For dessert, I had made strawberry ice cream

Jump to Recipe

and some extremely messy cream puffs. 

The cream puffs were actually from a Bridgerton-branded kit that was on clearance at Walmart, and they definitely made me realize that, from now on, I will be making cream puffs from scratch. They’re actually really easy. A choux pastry is very simple to make, and once you know how, you can make all kinds of fancy stuff. I really wish I had made an actual cream filling, instead of the mix stuff from the package, which had a bland, oily taste. At least we had something to stick candles in, though! Nobody complained, and we had a nice evening. 

SUNDAY
Leftovers, pizza

I moved leftover day to Sunday, and supplemented it with Aldi pizza.

Those empanadas make great leftovers! It’s crazy to me that the rest of the family isn’t in love with everything pie-like. To me, that is just the standard, baseline desire of humanity: To want to be eating some form of pie. 

MONDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, potato puffs, steamed broccoli

On Monday, I made the first inquiry into my compost heap. I don’t do any of the perpetual turning or sprinkling or layering you’re supposed to do for compost; I just dump organic stuff in one spot and let nature take its course, and then in the spring, I see what I’ve got. It works well enough for my purposes! I dug up four wheelbarrows full of dark, rich soil and dumped it on top of the new garden bed I made in front of Damien’s office. 

The idea is to give it couple of weeks to get rained on, and think about what it’s done; and then by the end of May, which is when it’s safe to plant in this zone, it should be ready for seeds. I saved tons of seeds from that one gargantuan pumpkin last year, and that’s what this bed will be for.

Then I made one final offensive push against the blackberries, and dumped them in the pool so they could think about what they’d done. The liner is torn, so right now it’s just a big drying area, and you have to dry out wild blackberry canes before you dispose of them, or else they’ll just start over again. 

Supper was grilled ham and cheese, tater tots (or possibly potato puffs. These are separate things, but I don’t know which is which), and steamed broccoli.

Corrie thought this was a hilarious combination of foods, for some reason. I forget she is still young enough that everything we do (for instance, eating chips and raw vegetables with grilled ham and cheese) gets registered as The Way It’s Done, and any other way looks absurd. 

TUESDAY
Tacos al pastor

It was Cinqo de Mayo, which, as I understand it, is Mexican Arbor Day or something? So obviously we had tacos al pastor, to honor our Lebanese ancestry, which is the best we can do since we don’t drink anymore. I cut the pork up thinly and sorta kinda followed this recipe for the marinade. Then I cut up a couple of pineapples, chopped up some cilantro, and sliced up a few red onions and set those to pickling. I believe I used cider vinegar, pineapple juice, salt, sugar, and hot pepper flakes. 

Then I turned my attention to . . . other things. 

I don’t know if I’ve ever favored you with the Sad Tale of the Wrong Loveseat. We had this loveseat that fit our tiny living room perfectly, and even though the room is small and kind of shabby, I was really happy with how cozy and harmonious it was. But then a child accidentally saturated it, down to its bones, with a smelly lotion which gives me migraines. So we threw it out, and I’d been hunting for a replacement on Marketplace.

We did find one, and the kids loved it, because it was so spacious and comfy and plushy.

IT WAS TOO SPACIOUS. It was about eight inches longer than the people said it would be. But I pride myself on being able to tetris furniture into compliance, so we can make room for whatever we need to make room for (hence the ten children). WELL, I could not, could not figure out how to make this dang loveseat fit. And also, it was grey, and the rest of the room is warm colors.

Also, it’s not really a loveseat, but actually just the orphaned short end of a sectional. 

So I started looking for another loveseat again, and I finally I found one! and this one is the right size, and it was free! It’s not, like, an amazing piece of furniture? 

But it fits, and it’s brown, and I was able to put the room back the way I like it. I’m very happy. And very grateful that Damien goes along with my dumb furniture struggles. 

So, but now we have the old loveseat on its end in the dining room. We couldn’t put it out on the side of the road because it kept raining. But in the meantime, the cats discovered that it’s the greatest spot in the world to fulfill their true destiny: Being High Up. 

SO, I didn’t want to take that away from them. But I also didn’t feel like we needed a sideways couch in the middle of the living room. So I started looking at cat trees so I could throw out the loveseat, and I looked at a few, and I was like, HECK, I COULD MAKE THAT. So I did!

I found a dry tree in our little woods, and cut it up, and screwed the ends to a piece of wood I’ve been saving for just such a purpose. Then I used leftover pool deck spindles to make supports for the tree parts. Then I added some wooden rounds left over from some craft projects, and made little platforms; and then I used a broken drawer piece for the top platform. And it was not bad!

Level and sturdy. Then I cut a bunch of fabric off old loveseat #1 and stapled it on to the little platforms. Then we kind of forcefully placed a cat on it, and Behold: A cat tree. 

Of course we still haven’t dragged loveseat #2 out of the house yet. So now the dining room looks like this:

and I think it goes really well with the ducklings in the laundry room. 

But anyway, by late afternoon, I had this wonderful marinated meat to cook. I decided to broil it in the oven while cooking the pineapple on the stovetop. I just heated up some olive oil and then sauteed the pineapple until the edges browned up a bit. 

Cooked pineapple is SO sweet and wonderful, and amazing with cilantro and spicy meat. So we had tortillas with sour cream, cilantro, pineapple, pickled onion, meat, and hot pineapple, with lime wedges.

Oh my gosh, you guys. This was the most delicious thing ever. I was definitely hungry from my cat tree project, but also it was just amazing food. Definitely returning to this recipe, and definitely adding pickled onions to more things!

WEDNESDAY
Hamburgers, chips, veggies and dip

Wednesday began rather whimsically with our very first fairy egg.

It’s not a true egg; sometimes a duck’s plumbing gets irritated and then it’s like, oh, I guess we’re making an egg! and builds a shell around the irritant. Because a duck’s insides are not any smarter than its outsides.

I haven’t cracked this fairy egg yet, but it is probably all egg white inside; but there may be a tiny yolk. I am going to try to blow the insides out so I can save it to decorate. 

I don’t even remember what we did all day, but we had hamburgers with the last of the mysteriously cheap ground beef I stocked up on a few weeks ago. Gobbled up my burger, did not take a picture.

Oh wait, I did take a picture of my veggie platter.

Food styling is my passion. 

Oh, I had leftover pickled onions on my burger, and it was YUMMO. 

Wednesday night, I made pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting for staff appreciation day. We’ve been sending our kids to this school for . . . I don’t even know how many years. Ten kids’ worth, anyway, and I DO appreciate the staff, so very much, but I’ve never had my act together enough to make muffins. Until this year!

Here’s the muffin recipe

Jump to Recipe

and I used this simple recipe for the frosting: Just 8 oz. of cream cheese, 1/3 cup of sugar, and 1/2 tsp vanilla. I made a triple batch of frosting, which was more than enough, so I, uh, ate the rest. (In my defense, it was over the course of three days.)

They turned out great, and for once in my life I thought to buy disposable trays to carry them in. 

I was also immensely pleased and gratified to have a separate little fridge to keep them in overnight. This is one of my great satisfactions in middle age: I have my very own mini fridge which is exclusively for baked goods I don’t want anyone to touch. 

THURSDAY
Pork rice bowls

Thursday I had some cheesecake orders for Mother’s Day, and LET ME TELL YOU. I did nothing but make mistakes all day. Not even just with the cheesecakes, but with every little thing, just one dumb thing after another. I ended up having to make the cheesecakes twice, because I lowered the temperature in the oven too dramatically, for no reason, and they all cracked. 

Just for fun, I did make one extra one, which turned out pretty cute: 

This is about 6.5 inches in diameter and actually has a secret chocolate center. Which reminds me, I need to put up an ad and see if someone wants to buy it!

Anyway, the plan was pork quesadillas, but I forgot to buy cheese, so I just made kind of spicy pulled pork. I cut the pork into chunks and browned them in oil with salt and pepper. Then I put it in the Instant Pot with the last of the pineapple juice, some jarred jalapeños and their juice, some garlic powder, a bunch of cumin, and bunch of that Valentina’s salsa picante. I let that cook all day, and then before supper I made a truly terrible pot of rice. How do you mess up rice? I don’t know, but it was that kind of day. 

But actually it was a decent meal, considering it was forged in sheer panic. I had mine with sour cream, cilantro, and lime.

Not bad at all. I may start keeping pineapple juice in the house! Very handy. 

Damien has had to be out of town covering various hearings and whatnot this week, and then Benny had a fundraising event in the evening, and when I got home, I still had to remake those cheesecakes, so I switched kitchen clean-ups with Irene, made the cheesecakes, cleaned the kitchen, Damien picked up Benny, and then I fell asleep on the couch, phew. 

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

I just remembered that, when I went shopping for cream cheese, they had everbearing strawberry plants for $3 each, so I bought six. Yay! I forgot about that. My strawberry bed got all eaten up by varmints over the winter, so it will be nice to stock it up again. Maybe I will go back for another six plants. I’m solidifying my vegetable garden plans for the year, and have pretty much settled on corn, pumpkins, potatoes, basil, and eggplant. Might do butternut squash on an arbor this year, if I can get around to rigging it up. 

I slept in this morning while Damien got the kids to school and brought one to an appointment, and then some of them had a half day, and then he’s going to cover adoration while I get one kid to her new art class, and then pick up the rest. And then we shall have spaghetti! And maybe drag the loveseat out of the dining room. Because it is chilly as heck today, but it is NOT raining. And guess what, the surgeon just called and I have a surgery date. August 20, which is absolutely perfect. We’ll have a nice summer, I’ll get my head fixed, and we’ll all be in good shape by Christmas. 

For dessert, it just so happens we have a bunch of cracked cheesecakes in the house. Mom in a heart, indeed. 

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Chicken shawarma

Ingredients

  • 8 lbs boned, skinned chicken thighs
  • 4-5 red onions
  • 1.5 cups lemon juice
  • 2 cups olive oil
  • 4 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 Tbs, 2 tsp pepper
  • 2 Tbs, 2 tsp cumin
  • 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes OR Aleppo pepper
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 entire head garlic, crushed OR bashed into pieces

Instructions

  1. Mix marinade ingredients together, then add chicken. Put in ziplock bag and let marinate several hours or overnight.

  2. Preheat the oven to 425.

  3. Grease a shallow pan. Take the chicken out of the marinade and spread it in a single layer on the pan, and top with the onions (sliced or quartered). If you kept the garlic in larger pieces, fish those out of the marinade and strew them over the chicken. Cook for 45 minutes or more. 

  4. Chop up the chicken a bit, if you like, and finish cooking it so it crisps up a bit more.

  5. Serve chicken and onions with pita bread triangles, cucumbers, tomatoes, assorted olives, feta cheese, fresh parsley, pomegranates or grapes, fried eggplant, and yogurt sauce.

 

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Pumpkin quick bread or muffins

Makes 2 loaves or 18+ muffins

Ingredients

  • 30 oz canned pumpkin puree
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup veg or canola oil
  • 1.5 cups sugar
  • 3.5 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1.5 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/4 tsp ground ginger
  • oats, wheat germ, turbinado sugar, chopped dates, almonds, raisins, etc. optional

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter two loaf pans or butter or line 18 muffin tins.

  2. In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients except for sugar.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix together wet ingredients and sugar. Stir wet mixture into dry mixture and mix just to blend. 

  4. Optional: add toppings or stir-ins of your choice. 

  5. Spoon batter into pans or tins. Bake about 25 minutes for muffins, about 40 minutes for loaves. 

 

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Ben and Jerry's Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

For the strawberries

  • 1 pint fresh strawberries
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1-1/2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

For the ice cream base

  • 2 eggs
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 cups heavy or whipping cream
  • 1 cup milk

Instructions

  1. Hull and slice the strawberries. Mix them with the sugar and lemon juice, cover, and refrigerate for an hour.

Make the ice cream base:

  1. In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs for two minutes until fluffy.

  2. Add in the sugar gradually and whisk another minute.

  3. Pour in the milk and cream and continue whisking to blend.

Put it together:

  1. Mash the strawberries well, or puree them in a food processor. Stir into the ice cream base.

  2. Add to your ice cream maker and follow the directions. (I use a Cuisinart ICE-20P1 and churn it for 30 minutes, then transfer the ice cream to a container, cover it, and put it in the freezer.)

I have a suggestion for God

I’m not trying to tell God how to do his job, but I do have a few pointers.  

Let me back up. Yesterday, I spent a full 20 hours without even touching my phone. This magnificent feat of self control came about because I lost my phone.  

It’s a long story, and it involves a tragically stupid string of bad choices on my part, but where it ended was me ripping open a bag of wet dirt and bits of broken glass, and not finding my phone in there, and then hoisting that up and ripping open a second bag of wet dirt and bits of broken glass that was under the first one, and there, buried in the dirt, was my phone. It still turned on, and I was glad to have it back. Mostly.  

I do need my phone. I really do. But I need it for far less than I actually use it, and it was a nice 20 hours without it. I didn’t read a single headline about the president. I didn’t get in any fights with strangers over things I don’t know much about. I didn’t scroll miserably past hundreds of ads for things I couldn’t afford. I didn’t watch any videos of morbidly obese people getting yelled at or of hoarders weeping over their dirty junk. And it was easy to say my prayers, because I didn’t have my phone making the case that it, and not God, deserved my attention first. 

Without my phone, I sat outside in the morning sun and slowly drank my coffee. I listened to the birds and tried to figure out who they were without the aid of an app. I went down to the stream and collected some pretty bits of porcelain that had washed up and lodged in the banks. I fed the ducks and collected their eggs; I washed my hands; I prepped dinner in peace. And then I went back outside and made one last-ditch effort to find my phone. And then I found it.  

This is a long way of telling you that I know very well, and have known all along, that I use my phone too much. I know what it’s doing to me (making me dumb and mean and boring and sad) and to my life (making it hard to get anything done). But it’s also doing enough good things, and desirable things, and habit-forming things, that it’s super, super hard to put it down.  

So yesterday, God yoinked it right out of my pocket and buried it in trash where it belongs, and then he left me to draw my own conclusions.  

This is a good start! But I think He could take this approach further, because I have a lot of other bad habits I could use some help getting ahead of. I think he may not realize how dumb I am and how devoted to ruining my life. He gives me too much credit, and believes I have free will, and that it would be more valuable for me to decide to build virtue, rather than being forced into it like a rabid raccoon into a cage.

I’m not telling God how to do His job. But I do have a few pointers.  . . . Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Image: Adam and Eve by Jacob Jordaens via Wikipedia Commons

What’s for supper? Vol. 468: In which we feel the (freezer) burn

Happy Friday! The world hasn’t ended yet, so let’s talk about food. 

This week we found ourselves in a bit of an Oops No Money situation, so I cleaned out the freezer and built my menu around what I found, which is good practice anyway, from time to time. It was a little weird, and the predominant flavor of the week was “freezer,” but it was not terrible overall, and I’m happy to have more space in my freezer!

Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY
Leftovers, Hot Pockets

On Friday, I had gone to try to pick up a free clothesline set-up someone was giving away. I’ve been wanting a new clothesline situation for a while! I love hanging up clothes to dry in the warm weather, but I’m a little fed up with my current set-up, which is rope stretched from the swing set to the apple tree, with involvement by the grill. So that Fresh Linen scent always had a faint undertones of Old Hamburger. 

Here is the one I was picking up. 

Nice, right? I’m going to set it up in the spot way off to the side of the yard, where we used to have a garden. That was back when we had a bunch of little kids, and my main priority was keeping the main yard clear so they could run. That spot has since returned to weeds and brambles, but a good mowing should clear it fine. 

I brought some lubricant spray and a set of socket wrenches, but was not able to get it taken apart, except for sawing the wood base off. So I sprayed the joints again and promised to be back the next day. 

On Saturday, I went shopping and then went back for the clothesline, with an obliging Damien, who brought more tools. He couldn’t get it apart, either, but realized it would actually fit on top of the car, if’n we don’t drive too fast. So that is what we did. Yay! 

SUNDAY
Hamburgers, chips, peas

Sunday a bunch of us were coughing too much to go to Mass, so I slept in, and then tragically dragged myself over to the Area of Broken Dreams, I Mean Glass. Spent a couple hours vacuuming. Got glass in my hands and feet.  Eventually decided the ground was glass-free enough for the likes of us, and turned my attention to the remaining blackberry canes between the patio and the house. I did something I rarely do: I used Round Up. It was a sunny, breezy day, and I kept it far away from anything we or the animals might eat, and it was very satisfying! Sometimes you just have to get the jug of poison out. 

I also managed to lose my phone pretty early on in the day. I am a shameful phone addict, and it was very disconcerting! Everybody was looking everywhere, and we just could not find the thing, which was crazy because I hadn’t gone anywhere, except trotting back and forth and back and forth in the yard. I knew the ringer was on because I had been listening to music. The screen is pretty badly cracked, so by the time I went to bed, I assumed that even if I eventually found it, it would be a goner. 

But I had a really nice afternoon because Elijah came over, and he sat and chatted with me while I murdered blackberries. It’s awfully nice when your big kids come back and chat. 

MONDAY
Fish or shrimp tacos, chips and salsa

Monday morning I made one last futile search for my phone, and, just so I could say I looked everywhere, I ripped open up a bag of wet dirt and broken glass. It was, of course, not in there.

Then I dragged that out and ripped open a second bag of wet dirt and broken glass underneath the first one, and . . . there was my phone. AND IT STILL TURNED ON. It’s not even in a case! I am very impressed. 

It was April vacation this week for most of the kids, so after I got some work done in the morning, Benny and Corrie and I went to the park. This is a lovely park with a playground, and also big rocks to scramble around on, a fishy pond to look at, and, to my sorrow, a big hill with an intriguing area at the top.

So we went up the hill and got a neat view of the town, and discovered there is some kind of secret grassy amphitheater situation up there. I had no idea!  We goofed around a bit and took turns trying to roll a tire all the way down and up again without it tipping over. I’m describing this because these world-weary children, alas, will not let me share pictures of them anymore. But we had fun, and it was sunny and lovely, very late April. 

Came home and made some guacamole, heated up some venerable frozen fish, and then I sauteed some rather elderly frozen shrimp. I guess I minced up some garlic and sauteed that, then added the shrimp and I’m guessing lemon juice, salt, hot pepper flakes, and it looks like some cilantro. 

I don’t remember, but it was tasty. 

I had mine with shredded cabbage, more cilantro, guacamole, and lime juice. I really love shrimp tacos. Yum yum. 

Then Damien got the glass out of my foot, phew. The number of things he has gotten out of my foot, my word. 

TUESDAY
Pork empanadas, cassava fries, rice

Tuesday we had an appointment in the morning, and we were running late because I had to take a phone call just as we were leaving. Then my car wouldn’t start! This stuck in my craw a bit because we had just gotten it back from the garage, where we had dropped $840. It’s just sad, that’s all. Oh well. Oh well! oh well.

I was already fretting a bit because the upshot of the phone call was that a big story I’ve been working on fell through. Blah. But I had to go, so I took Damien’s car, and when I got home, I moped a bit, and went down to the stream to see what I could find. The water is low, and there’s all kind of interesting stuff lodged in the banks. 

I have a growing collection of porcelain and interesting glass, and absolutely no plans for it. I just like collecting it. Check this thing out: 

I don’t know what it is, but it’s clutching a marble!

Then I prepped supper. First I started thawing the frozen cassava, then I cooked up some ground pork for empanadas. 

I myself would have gone for a version with olives and capers, but I was hoping to not be the only one in the family who ate supper, so I stuck with a more tame version. I kinda based the seasoning off this recipe, but I didn’t have everything, so I just wung it. I rolled out each dough disc a bit, added a couple of spoonfuls of seasoned meat and a little shredded mozzarella (because that is what we had! Don’t @ me!)

wet the edge of the dough and crimped it shut. I made 18. Then I cut up the thawed cassava into fries and rolled them up in a towel to get them really dry. 

I was feeling a little argy bargy about various things, so it seemed like a good time to throw together a new garden bed. This is a spot that gets a good amount of sun, but I’ve never tried to grow anything here before, and I really didn’t feel like digging. So I decided it would be a hugelkulturish garden. I lugged over a bunch of fallen trees and scrap wood for a border, then laid down some cardboard on the weediest spots and piled on some old logs and branches

then a bunch of dry stalks from last year’s sunflowers, and then I cleaned out the duck house. We have been doing the deep litter method over the winter, which basically means you just keep adding fresh layers without cleaning out the old ones, and then clear it all out a few times a year. So let me tell you, the smell was SPECTACULAR. 

So I heaped all that shit up on top of the other material, and I think if I dump a little soil on top, I should be able to grow something here. 

My original plan was to plant corn there, but I think that will need a more stable base to support tall corn stalks, so I will probably do pumpkins instead, or something else that doesn’t mind lying down. 

I couldn’t quite bring myself to take a shower before deep frying, so I just changed my clothes and washed my arms real good, and starting deep frying the empanadas. They did turn out crisp, flaky, and yummy, 

and the cheese inside was melted. They did end up tasting unexpectedly Italian. Disconcertingly similar to Hot Pockets, really. But I thought they were pretty good. I served them, and then used the same hot oil to fry all the cassava.

I have never eaten cassava, don’t know how to prepare it, and don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like. I still don’t! These cassava fries were . . . fine. They tasted somewhere between potatoes and, I don’t know, zucchini. Very fibrous and starchy, without much flavor. I salted them when they came out of the pan, but the salt just kind of bounced off. I ate it because I had gone to the effort to make it, but I think my relationship with cassava ends here.

Anyway, it was definitely hot food, and I sure was hungry. 

Then I took a shower! Phew. 

WEDNESDAY
Penne with meat sauce, garlic knots

Wednesday the tow truck came to drag away my poor old car. I had another meeting, so I took Damien’s car and got back feeling fairly argy-bargulous again, so I assembled some tools, and Corrie and I managed to get most of the old bolts off the clothesline base, and then knock the remaining rotten wood off with a sledgehammer I think I will need to cut the remaining three bolts off, and I do need to buy new bolts, so that was as far as we could get for the day.

Then I turned my attention to Corrie’s tree house, which so far consists of some pieces of wood stuck to a tree.

I made an attempt to drill some holes so I could secure the planks with lag bolts, but the drill bit was very warped, and I didn’t get anywhere. 

Instead, I got a shovel and started digging up some stuff to fill in my garden in front. It’s less shady than it used to be, because the porch is gone, but it’s still in shadow a lot of the day. I got some false hellebore, two kinds of ferns, and a patch of pretty pink and white wood anemone and crammed them into the ground. The lupines I planted last year made it through the winter, and I think this will be a really pretty spot in a year or so!

For supper, I just cooked up some more pork (I forget why I had so much ground pork in the freezer, but I sure did) and threw it in some jarred sauce, and cooked up a bunch of penne.

I also found a stray ball of pizza dough, so thawed that and made it into garlic knots. I baked them and then tossed them with melted butter, garlic powder, salt, and parmesan cheese. 

They were a little rubbery, but who the heck knows how old that dough was, so it was whatever. They got et. 

That night, the kids asked if they could have a fire, and I told them I had used up all the firewood to make my garden, and also felt incapable of getting up. So they went into the woods and gathered more wood, and built themselves a fire, roasted marshmallows, were nice to each other, and even presumably put the fire out afterwards! 

THURSDAY
Pork ribs, roast butternut squash

Thursday, you’ll never guess, I had a meeting, for which Sophia kindly let me borrow her car. And I just did not get a lot else done. I was really, really tired. Damien was out of town all day, and Sophia took Lucy to a job interview and Benny and Corrie to the movies. I thought I was alone in the house, but just spent my wild and precious hours of solitude eating pop tarts like a goblin and making trouble on Facebook, and sort of slogging around getting very small things done, like filling my weekly pill box and moving clutter around. I feel bad it was such a boring, at-home vacation, but at least the weather has been nice. Whatcha gonna do. I did fix Corrie’s swing. Oh, and she gave herself an amazing haircut, and then her sisters helped her dye it blue. 

For supper, I defrosted and roasted some butternut squash from ages past, and then I roasted some pork ribs with salt and pepper. Damien got home and we ate dinner together, at the table. Then I realized that, oops, Irene has been home all this time. She was just upstairs. All afternoon I was remarking to myself, boy, those cats are so noisy up there, and you would think it was actually a person up there, boy! Sorry, Irene. 

Thursday evening, Damien noticed all six duck eggs were starting to crack! Very exciting. It’s hard work and takes a long time, and there was not much progress by bedtime, so we moved the incubator into our bedroom, because it would be a shame if the only ones there to welcome them when they hatched were a couple of naughty cats. 

FRIDAY
Mac and cheese and broccoli

No duckling action yet! Today is day 28, but as anyone who has waited for a baby knows, these things run on their own schedule. The cracks are a little crackier this morning, and Damien and Benny have both heard some muffled peeping. Just gotta be patient. 

Damien just fixed the kitchen sink pipe, and next on his list is the water heater and a third thing, I forget what. I still don’t have a surgery date. The axolotl is healthy and happy. I think we will have lots of peaches and lilacs this year. And that’s-a my story! 

What’s for supper? Vol. 4SIX SEHHHHHHVEN

Happy Friday! A couple of days ago, I thought of a really witty pun title for this week’s post. Then I thought, “I don’t need to write that down. It’s so good, there is no way I will forget it.” Then a great river went rushing through my mind, and left behind 

–okay, now here I broke away for a bit to try and hunt down an authentically ancient description of what it looked like when the Augean Stables got cleaned out, and I got as far as people singing “ting-a-ling” in praise of Herakles afterward

and I decided it wasn’t really that funny. So please just imagine that my mind is sparkling clean, and also quite empty. And I have a middle schooler. So that explains the title. 

Well, here is what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Leftovers and pizza pockets(?) 

I remember being super busy on Saturday, but I can’t remember why. 

SUNDAY
Hamburgers, chips, steamed broccoli

Sunday after Mass, I did part 2 of cleaning the kid room that needed a drastic overhaul. This is the project that’s been preventing me from getting anything done outside! This task has been looming in my mind, so it’s a huge relief to get it done. We are hoping to paint over April vacation. 

I have soooo many projects I have to get to outside. Gotta build Corrie’s tree house, prep the gardens for planting and start a new spot for corn, replace the grape arches that fell down over the winter, plant the new grapes I got on clearance at Walmart, maybe build a second brick step/stoop in front, finish the duck pond, finish the garden I started building on the side of the back steps to maybe prevent people from dropping crap there, and, less glamorously, finish up the new roof we put on in the fall, and take a million pounds of trash and scraps to the dump. And fix the mailbox. But knowing that bedroom inside was such a wreck was making it impossible to commit to anything outside. So now I can!

Well, the truth is, I am waiting to hear back about if I will be having surgery soon or in several months, so everything is very much up in the air. But a girl can dream. 

So then we had hamburgers, chips, and steamed broccoli for supper. 

I’ve been on a huge steamed broccoli kick lately. Just something very satisfying about the two different textures in each bite Nobody else is that crazy about it, so I’ve been eating leftover all week for a snack, and that is how I keep current with my fart schedule. 

It snowed. 

MONDAY
Turkey bacon wraps, hot pretzels, fruit salad

Monday I had a meeting and then a boring pharmacy adventure, and then it snowed. I compensated by making a very bright and cheerful dinner, kind of 90’s brunch style or something. Deli turkey and bacon, tomato, lettuce, cheese, and honey mustard wraps, hot pretzels, and fruit salad. 

While the bacon was cooking, I started making the fruit salad, and it was so pretty in layers, I left it that way, rather than mixing it. 

Color! Must have color! 

I absolutely love this kind of meal. It’s like something your grandparents would buy you at a hospital cafeteria. 

Possibly you will even get to pick out an eraser shaped like an ice cream come at the gift shop, if you are good. 

TUESDAY
Spaghetti and meatballs, salad, hearth bread

Tuesday I got some lab work done on the way home from the school run, and I was so reluctant to do anything else when I got home, I ended up making a slightly more elaborate meal than I had planned. It was just meatballs,

Jump to Recipe

but I usually bake them in the oven on a rack, because it’s so much easier and less messy. This time I browned them in a pan, and it did take quite some time!

I also made King Arthur Hearth Bread. Last time I made this recipe, it was decent, and had a nice crackly crust and chewy inside, but didn’t hold its shape, and was much flatter than the picture in the recipe. So I tried it again, paying closer attentions to the rising time, and the exact same thing happened. But I did recall that you can improve the appearance of a weird loaf of bread by serving it already cut in pieces, so that is what I did. 

Made a little salad with the leftovers from the wraps

and it was a yummy meal. Ground beef was $2.99 a pound, for some reason (usually that’s Superbowl prices), so I bought as much as I could fit in the freezer 

WEDNESDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips, veggies and dip

Wednesday is when I had to admit to myself that I was really sick. I was hoping it was just allergies from the dust I stirred up while cleaning, but really I had succumbed to the respiratory ick that is circulating around the family. I really hardly ever get sick anymore since I started taking big doses of vitamin D for the dark months of the year! But this one got me. I slept most of the day and we had grilled ham and cheese for supper, and I did not take a picture of it. 

THURSDAY
Bibimbap sort of 

Thursday I was still sick, but I was so mad about being sick when the weather was finally warming up, I decided to pretend I wasn’t sick. This usually doesn’t work, but I got away with it this time.

It was sunny and breezy, so I hung out a bunch of laundry to dry, then started picking at the broken glass debacle in the back. To refresh your memory: Through a completely avoidable bit of stupidity on my part, one of these windows

now looks like this

and after spending two good long sessions gloomily cleaning, there are still millions of bits of broken glass on a probably 4×8′ area that is covered with small rocks that you can easily move, and large rocks that are fully embedded in the ground, and every day that passes makes it harder to clean up the glass because things are starting to grow in the cracks. The good news is, all of this is entirely my fault, so I can think about that while I clean! 

I have now tried every  conceivable method for cleaning up this glass, including using different sizes of soup spoons, and nothing was getting me anywhere. The only thing I know would work is if some friendly mice and sparrows got busy and, with a rush and a twitter, made it spic and span for me in no time. But I would have needed to start that several months ago (i.e. leaving treats for them so they would befriend me and come to my aid in my hour of need), and while it is true that, in a certain sense, we do routinely leave snacks for the mice, the overall tenor of our relationship remains hostile. So that was out. 

So I bowed to my fate and inquired about a used shop vac on Facebook Marketplace. Then, because I had sort of done something about the glass, I felt clear to tackle the blackberry bushes that are encroaching on the spot between the patio and the house, which is where I want to plant wildflowers.

Every time I mention getting rid of wild blackberry, somebody goes, “oohhhh, I wish I had that problem!” Fine! I believe you! Please come and get them. Take all you want. We have 423 million of them, and they have sent root systems snaking around all over the property, and the one thing they hate is for anything else to grow. But maybe I’m wrong, and it’s actually quite nice to have them. Like I said, come on over. 

But it really was incredibly satisfying to sit in the dirt and dig and scrabble and uproot, even knowing that it was only slowing them down at best. I listened to the last two parts of The Rest Is History series on the KKK, and started on their series about Samurai before I had to call it quits for the day.

Got a quick shower, got a CT scan (this was to confirm that I don’t have an aneurism and that the schwannoma is not strangling my carotid artery, and I’m happy to say that I don’t and it isn’t), picked up the shop vac, and went home to make supper. I was extremely proud of this supper, because I really had only a concept of a plan, and it turned out very tasty. 

First I got some rice cooking in the Instant Pot. Then I started broiling some pork ribs with salt and pepper. While the first side was cooking, I made a thick sauce from brown sugar, corn start, soy sauce, garlic powder, and some hot chili paste. I flipped the ribs over and brushed the sauce on the other side and let them finish cooking. I found some spinach and crunchy noodles. and quickly sauteed some mushrooms. Then I started some eggs frying and called people to supper, and by the time everyone was assembled, the food was all hot 

Ribs turned out great! The sauce was really good and sticky. Of course I didn’t write down the proportions, except that I used way more sugar and corn starch than I meant to, so that was probably the secret. 

It was warm enough to eat outside — first time this year — so I had a lovely meal while my companions, the ducks, happily rooted around in the compost heap.

The table doesn’t super duper have a top yet, but it has enough decorative wrought iron that you can use it if you don’t move around a lot. Whatever, it’s on my list. Anyway, I used up the last of the fresh eggs that lady gave me in exchange for my excess toum, and it was a tremendously yummy meal. 

FRIDAY
Tuna sandwiches or broiled salmon

Last Friday I ended up making tuna sandwiches for the kids, Instant Pot risotto

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for everybody, and sesame-crusted ahi tuna for me and Damien. It was very tasty, although I was sad to see that the cheapo sack of ahi tuna from Aldi now only has three pieces of tuna in it, rather than four. 

As far as I can recall, I marinated the tuna in sesame oil and soy sauce for about ten minutes, then pressed them into a mixture of sesame seeds, brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt, and then seared them in oil. Served it with the risotto and really needed a vegetable, but the closest I could find was some furikake.  So we had that, and it was yum dot com. 

I ended up sort of flaking the tuna into the risotto, and it all melded together deliciously. 

So tonight we have some equally cheapo frozen salmon, and I’m not sure what I will do with it. Maybe just broil it, and serve it with, like, potato chips and an old apple. Maybe some friendly sparrows will come and help me. Maybe!

Oh, I forgot! We got an axolotl.

This is Benny’s pet. Lena knows someone who works for a vet, and they found themselves with that common problem, Too Many Axolotls, so obviously Damien went and got one. Benny is currently calling him Mordred, but she originally suggested “Ravioli,” and I like that much better, because it scans exactly like axolotl:  ˘˘/˘.  He’s a nice little guy, very chill. 

I haven’t tried my new shop vac yet, because if it doesn’t work, I just don’t know what I’m gonna do. Pave the whole back yard, maybe. Or reroute a river and just wash the whole thing away. Ting-a-ling! At least that’s what it says here. 

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Meatballs

Make about 100 golf ball-sized meatballs. 

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs ground meat (I like to use mostly beef with some ground chicken or turkey or pork)
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups panko bread crumbs
  • 4 oz grated parmesan cheese (about 1 cup)
  • 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400.

  2. Mix all ingredients together with your hands until it's fully blended.

  3. Form meatballs and put them in a single layer on a pan with drainage. Cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes or more until they're cooked all the way through.

  4. Add meatballs to sauce and keep warm until you're ready to serve. 

 

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Instant Pot Risotto

Almost as good as stovetop risotto, and ten billion times easier. Makes about eight cups. 

Ingredients

  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground sage
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 4 cups rice, raw
  • 6 cups chicken stock
  • 2 cups dry white wine
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • pepper
  • 1.5 cups grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Turn IP on sautee, add oil, and sautee the onion, garlic, salt, and sage until onions are soft.

  2. Add rice and butter and cook for five minutes or more, stirring constantly, until rice is mostly opaque and butter is melted.

  3. Press "cancel," add the broth and wine, and stir.

  4. Close the top, close valve, set to high pressure for 9 minutes.

  5. Release the pressure and carefully stir in the parmesan cheese and pepper. Add salt if necessary.