This week of food started off with a bang, courtesy of Damien’s cooking, and then quickly resumed whimpering, courtesy of mine. Here’s what we had this week:
SATURDAY
Chicken cutlets with basil and provolone
Part II of Clara’s birthday meal. She couldn’t decide if she wanted chicken soup with matzo balls or this amazing chicken dish, so she got both, eventually.
It’s a truly wonderful dish. You pound the chicken flat, bread, and fry it, then top each piece with a basil leaf and a slice of provolone, then pour a scoop of hot marinara sauce over the top, which melts the cheese into a lovely little envelope for the basil. The panko bread crumb crust holds the sweet, chunky marinara sauce very well, and it’s just fabulous.
Very time consuming, but, as I always tell Damien while he’s doing all the work, totally worth all the work.
He follows the Deadspin recipe and it comes out slightly different every time, mostly due to the sauce, but it’s always excellent.
SUNDAY
Burgers and chips
Oh, we went apple picking on Sunday! Perfect weather, sunny and cool, with the trees at their absolute peak of color. Lots of reds this year. We love Wellwood Orchards in Springfield, VT for apple picking. It’s up in the mountains, and they carry wagon loads of people up into the orchards — pulled by a tractor, but I remember they used a horse when I was little. There is a giant glacial rock to climb on, and they keep a nice little petting zoo.
A few of the kids were too cool for apples, so I called them on the way home to get them to prep the burger patties. So there!
MONDAY
Roast beef sandwiches
I had three lovely roasts, which Damien seared and then cooked slowly with lots of onions and garlic, then sliced. He made a nice pot of jus, too, using soy sauce instead of Worcestershire, and it was mighty tasty.
I virtuously had an apple instead of chips
and then unvirtuously dunked my salad in the jus.
It’s jus the way I am.
TUESDAY
Nachos
Maybe the worst nachos I’ve ever had. I was basically sleep walking, and managed to both burn and underseason the meat, so it was pretty, pretty delicious. Anyway, they ate it.
WEDNESDAY
Omelettes, hash browns
You never know what you’re going to get when you set out to make eleven omelettes. Will they miraculously fold into tidy, fragrant, fluffy, eggy envelopes with tasty secrets inside? Or will you get a slobbery heap of singed yellow rubber? No one can say!
Wednesday was a lucky day (and I did use a huge amount of butter with each omelette, so that probably helped), and they turned out pretty good.
Even the ones with lots of fillings more or less held together. This one has sausage, red onion, scallions, mushrooms, and mozzarella.
THURSDAY
Bowls of things!! and hot dogs
On Thursday I didn’t even remember to take the hot dogs out of the freezer. So I ended up boiling them, admitting there weren’t really enough, and hastily throwing leftovers into the microwave, plus we had some Chex Mix. It was actually a pretty popular meal.
I would honestly serve leftovers every day, except at some point you have to, you know, make the food to be left over.
FRIDAY
Fish tacos
For the fish tacos, I have flour tortillas, batter fried fish from frozen, shredded cabbage, avocado slices, sour cream, salsa or hot sauce, lime wedges, and cilantro.
Most of the avocados were okay this week, anyway. So we’ve got that going for us.
P.S. It turns out I already titled a post “Salvation is from the jus,” but that was like 150 food posts ago, and I assume everyone who remembers it is dead now.
I actually thought “wait, wasn’t there another post by this name?” Ha ha! I need to make Bowls of Things! a menu item in my house.
I have not eaten an apple in a long time.