Behold, the week that was eleven years long.
SATURDAY
Meatball subs, chips, root beer floats
Saturday was number 1 son’s birthday! Here he is in his happy place:
[img attachment=”102799″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”moe meatballs” /]
Sorry about the blurriness. He’s fourteen; lots of things are . . . unclear.
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SUNDAY
Stuffed shells with meatballs, garlic bread, salad, croissants, cookies, eight pizzas from Dominos, and a stained glass cake.
On Sunday we finally had my daughter’s First Communion.
[img attachment=”102814″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”lucy first communion” /]
Poor kid was the only one making her First Communion that day, so Monsignor made a big fuss over her. This is not, as you can see by her expression, her favorite thing ever. But she survived!
We were unsure, up until the last minute, if we would have three guests or 17. I am not sure what the actual final headcount was, but we had a blast! Thank you, norovirus, for forcing us to postpone things until family was in town for college graduations. Six of the eight Prever siblings were there, and everyone brought food and beer and puppies and kids, and it was just great.
[img attachment=”102813″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”6 siblings” /]
I more or less followed this recipe for stuffed shells, but I added some nutmeg to the cheese.
The cake was a box mix of angel food cake. Then I iced it with royal icing and let it dry. Royal icing is what you want to use if you care more about having a flat, dry decorating surface than you care about the taste.
I used a recipe that was just egg whites and confectioner’s sugar. If you get nervous with raw eggs, there are varieties with cream of tartar or powdered egg, but we’re daredevils and just go with egg whites. To separate eggs, I just pluck out the yolk with my fingers and let the white drop into a cup. Is that disgusting? My hands are clean. It’s way more efficient than any other method.
When the icing was completely dry, I used store-bought black icing to make a design that I copied off the internet.
[img attachment=”102802″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”cake white” /]
Then I let that set for a while, and then used a little spoon to fill in the shapes with different kinds of jelly that I whipped up with a little water.
[img attachment=”102804″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”cake color” /]
I was in such a rush, you can’t imagine, so it’s pretty sloppy; but I do like stained glass cakes for sacrament parties. In the past, I’ve done more Eucharistic designs of grapes and wheat. I feel like one year I made a cake version of the Holy Spirit window at St. Peter’s, but that may have been a fever dream. I feel ooky about making a cross or a Host out of icing. I don’t think it’s a moral issue; it just makes me feel ooky.
Then, for some reason, I told the birthday boy that, for his upcoming party, I could definitely make an Aladdin Sane stained glass cake, just to keep that cycle of ambition and regret perking along.
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MONDAY
Leftover stuffed shells, English muffin pizzas
[img attachment=”102805″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”mini pizzas” /]
I had run out of sauce, so we made these with sliced tomatoes, pepperoni, black olives, and cheese. Always popular. With me, anyway.
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TUESDAY
Pulled pork sandwiches with red onions on kaiser rolls, spicy fries, cole slaw, salad
[img attachment=”102806″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”pulled pork sandwich” /]
Again with the blurry pictures. Probably if I got a clear view of the way this week is headed, I’d just go back to bed anyway.
I guess this will have to do for sandwich of the week, even though it’s not a new recipe. I covered the pork with an IPA and salt and pepper and let it cook for several hours at a low temp, and it was mighty tasty.
The cole slaw was the perfect contrast in that it was almost tasteless. Don’t ask me how I screwed up cole slaw, but there it is.
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WEDNESDAY
French toast for the kids; mental health steak for me and Mr. Man
Date night! My husband gets home around 7:30 at the earliest most days, but the rest of us eat at 6. If we’re planning to go out for dinner, I have the worst time not eating while I’m waiting for him to get home, because I am five years old and I can’t deal with not having a full tum tum at all times. So I end up noshing on whatever the kids are eating, and then when we go out, I feel like a pig eating all over again.
This time, I was determined not to ruin my appetite. The upshot was that I broke down in tears on the way to the restaurant, 95% because I was hungry. And no, it doesn’t help to tell yourself, “What if you were in a concentration camp, eh? Don’t you think people in a concentration camp get hungry, too? But they don’t cry; they smuggle in Bibles and encourage each other! Boo, you.”
Anyway, we had some excellent steaks cooked by excellent Mexicans, and life seemed worth living again. The margaritas did not hurt, either. They were so good it didn’t even occur to me to take a picture. My husband did get a shot of this fine artifact on the restaurant wall, though:
[img attachment=”102801″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”aztec picture” /]
By coincidence, this is exactly how my husband and I met.
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THURSDAY
Grilled chicken, salad, tortilla chips and salsa
This was the first time in my life I sprung for skinless, boneless, pre-cut chicken tenders. Worth every penny. I mixed the meat up with lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and a ton of fresh garlic, and threw them under the broiler. Yum.
[img attachment=”102811″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”chicken salad chips” /]
This was of those rolling salads that we’ve been eating half of and refreshing all week since Sunday. I guess it’s about time to retire it. Those tomatoes look pretty weary. Or maybe I’m projecting again.
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FRIDAY
Korean-style tuna rice bowl
Gonna try this recipe today. And I have some asparagus and some seaweed. But I am going to skip the egg yolk, because I am just too white.
