Happy Friday! I have had a week full of strange and not strictly necessary projects, and now I’m getting ready for a CAT scan for hernia surgery. Hoping they take a look inside and immediately realize I have a deviled egg in my carburetor, and that’s what’s been causing . . . everything.
In the mean time, here’s what we ate this week!
SATURDAY
Pork ribs, mashed potatoes, salad, apple pie
Clara’s boyfriend Wesley came over to tear down our porch! Which wasn’t actually the plan for this month, but when someone offers to tear down your porch as a favor, you don’t say no (if your porch looks like our porch did, anyway).
Here is the before:
and here is the after:
I am now working on plans for a new porch, which I’m currently thinking of as an unheated lean-to sunroom with a brick floor and possible stained glass window accents, but talk is cheap. We shall see. I don’t think there will be any building until spring; we’ll just cover up the scars for the winter.
Anyway, the least we could do was make a nice meal, so Damien slow-cooked three racks of ribs in the oven, and I made a salad and mashed potatoes, and a few apple pies.
This is his method for cooking ribs in the oven:
Slather them with mustard, and cover that with a sugar rub
Turn the oven to 250 and put the ribs in, covered with tinfoil. Cook for three-and-a-half hours. Baste the ribs with BBQ sauce (I think he used Sweet Baby Ray’s), turn th oven up to 400 and cook, uncovered, for half an hour. Then turn on the broiler, baste on more BBQ sauce, and finish the ribs to a slight char.
Absolutely magnificent. The meat just dropped off the bones.
I made a ton of pie crust and made two apple pies. One was a basket weave with little squares and stars on it. I was going for a sort of American quilt look, but it didn’t quite come off.
The other one was more successful. I made a braided edge, then added a bunch of roses and another braid down the middle, and then some leaves made with a wiggly vegetable cutter, and tiny balls of dough here and there.
If you see it from the top, it looks a tiny bit like the back of an alpine maiden’s head, which isn’t really what I was going for! It was fancy, though.
I made the filling with a mixture of Empire and Macintosh apples, sugar, cinnamon, a little salt, and some flour, and then dotted with butter. I also glazed the top with an egg wash and sprinkled it with a little sugar. I think I baked it at 425 for ten minutes and then at 350 for another 35 minutes or so, but my memory is hazy.
Fine pies.
I like Macintosh for the flavor, but Empire keeps its shape, so the pie doesn’t collapse. Cortland is also good for this.
SUNDAY
Leftover buffet, peach crisp
Sunday after Mass I went shopping, and then we had our customary weekend leftover buffet, plus pizza pockets.
I had already taken a bag of frozen peaches out of the fridge yesterday, before I decided to make apple pies; so I was more or less forced to make some peach crisp. I made the King Arthur cheater’s streusel again (a box of cake mix and most of a stick of melted butter, scrunched into clumps and spread in a pan and baked for twenty minutes or so. For this one, I added in some cinnamon before baking), and I mixed the peaches up with uhhhhhhh I think brown sugar, vanilla, maybe cardamom, butter, and cornstarch? It seems like so long ago. I simmered and stirred it until it was thickened up, poured it into ramekins, and topped it with the streusel, and then baked it for . . . I’m going to stop pretending this is a recipe. I baked it until it was done
and served it warm with vanilla ice cream.
Stupendous.
MONDAY
Kofta meatballs, Jerusalem salad, yogurt sauce, pita
My memories of Monday are vague at best. I do remember making a ton of meatballs, and thinking, “This is too many meatballs” but being unable to stop.
The plan was koftas, which are supposed to be on sticks and are supposed to be roasted, but I couldn’t find any skewers, so I just made meatballs more or less following this recipe
Jump to Recipeexcept not really. I just dumped in an insane amount of za’atar, sumac, aleppo pepper, cumin, and then I forgot how far east I was going and put in some garam masala. And salt. No regrets! They were absolutely delicious.
I made some yogurt sauce with lots of fresh garlic and fresh lemon juice, and a Jerusalem salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, flat leaf parsley, fresh mint, lemon juice, salt, and a little olive oil.
and we just had store-bought pita.
Excellent meal. Really tasty and fun.
Also on Monday, I made my first attempt and hanging up gourds to dry and cure them. This was neither tasty nor fun, and I shall never forget the look my three teenage daughters gave me when I tried to pick up the wire rack with seventy gourds dangling off it on rubber bands, while they were trying to watch TV. Anyway, now we have gourds all over the house and I don’t care.
TUESDAY
Chicken quesadillas, chips and salsa
Tuesday was, of course, election day, and I have nothing to say about that. Well, except that I was about 80% ready to vote American Solidarity Party, but I’d been having more and more qualms all week, and then when I got into the voting booth, I suddenly realized I’d have to write them in and I couldn’t remember the candidate’s name. I AM VERY TIRED. So I voted for Harris and then went home and made a nice hot meal, which. At least we have that.
I did prep in the morning. I heated up some oil and thickly seasoned some boneless chicken thighs with Tony Cachere’s seasoning (again with some geographical confusion) and slowly pan fried the chicken until it was done. I had my quesadilla with chicken, cheddar cheese, and spinach and it was delicious.
WEDNESDAY
Beef stir fry and rice, pineapple
Wednesday was the first day the dump was open, so Damien did a ton of rubble clearing, and I did something or other, I forget what. This whole week has been so full of weird tasks and confusing errands, I just don’t even know. Oh, I think I finally go the bulbs in the ground. I ended up with KIND OF A LOT OF BULBS, so I planted them all together dumped white pepper in the holes, covered them, doused that with red pepper, and then put cedar mulch on top.
Let’s see ’em make a canoe out of that!
I got home super late and hadn’t done anything but start some rice cooking in the Instant Pot, so threw together the world’s most distracted stir fry, and it honestly turned out a little weird, but it wasn’t bad.
I had Corrie partially brown up some sliced beef while I made a sauce.
I heated up some sesame oil and browned some fresh minced garlic and ginger, then added some brown sugar and whisked that until it darkened. Then I added some mirin, then a roux of corn starch and soy sauce. I whisked this all together until it was thick, then added it to the meat, and threw in some broccoli and water chestnuts and cooked it until the meat was done and the broccoli was lightly cooked.
It really was too sweet, and I wish I had added more soy sauce and less corn starch, but it was hot and truly not bad.
THURSDAY
Pizza
Thursday morning I rented a cargo van and Clara and I drove a few towns over and picked up eight enormous windows! This was so nice, because what happened was, this woman on Facebook marketplace was offering windows and doors and frames from a solarium, which of course I wanted. But I was so tired, I told her I would come the next day, instead of the day we agreed upon, and someone beat me to the materials. But a few days later, she messaged me to say she had more windows, and wanted to give me first shot at them! Wasn’t that nice? So I went over speedily and picked them up . . . less speedily. Mofos were heavy. They are 77-3/4 by 48 inches, and had two layers of glass.
I threw as much padding as I could think of into the van: Yoga mats, cardboard, styrofoam, and towels, plus ratchet straps, and gloves and masking tape, which I did not end up using. We hoisted the glass up into the van and stored them on end, with padding in between, and strapped the whole thing together, and it didn’t budge an inch all the way home.
I used a roller to help get the glass back out of the van,
LOOK HOW BIG THESE WINDOWS ARE.
So now they’re propped up against the house waiting for me to do something amazing, which may or may not ever happen, but at least we have glass now!
That evening, Elijah was working and Damien drove Sophia, Lucy, and Irene to an Orla Garland concert, so I found myself alone in the house with Benny and Corrie, which rarely happens! I took the opportunity to make exactly the kind of pizza we all wanted, which turned out to be plain cheese for the girls, and Hawaiian for me. Then we watched old Mickey Mouse cartoons and yelled at each other until bedtime.
FRIDAY
French onion pasta
The recipe I was going to use is on a supermarket website that is down, and I had to do an interview and now I have to go see if my abdomen is haunted or what, and MAYBE this isn’t the best possible day to try a new recipe anyway. But when did I ever [gestures to giant stack of glass and wire rack full of dangling gourds for no apparent reason] claim to be a good judge of that kind of thing?
Oh, I forgot, one more thing: We did have BLTs last Friday, it being All Saints Day, which is a . . . Solemnmeaty. Pretend I didn’t say that. Anyway, I tried that trick for making lots of toast in the oven in one batch, where you put the two oven racks close together, put a pan on the bottom one, and then prop the bread through the top one. Like this:
And it. . . sort of worked, basically. The problem was that, when I slid the racks into place in the oven, some of the bread slithered down from between the wires of the rack and lay flat on the pan. But it was still somewhat better than just laying them down on and remembering to flip them over before they burnt, and definitely better than making round after round of toast in the toaster, so we’ll call that a success. We’ll call it all a success!
Oh, if you happened to notice everything was on red plates this week, that’s because I bought a big package of them for Benny’s Hellboy costume, and we had a lot of leftover plates. I tell you, this is why you come here: For gripping narratives like this.
I will leave the final word with Corrie, who didn’t like the kofta meatballs or the jerusalem salad, but she did make this:
and that has made all the difference.
sugar smoked ribs
the proportions are flexible here. You can adjust the sugar rub to make it more or less spicy or sweet. Just pile tons of everything on and give it puh-lenty of time to smoke.
Ingredients
- rack pork ribs
- yellow mustard
- Coke
- extra brown sugar
For the sugar rub:
- 1-1/2 cups brown sugar
- 1/2 cups white sugar
- 2 Tbsp chili powder
- 2 Tbsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp paprika
- 2 Tbsp salt
- 1 Tbsp white pepper
Instructions
-
Coat the ribs in yellow mustard and cover them with sugar rub mixture
-
Smoke at 225 for 3 hours
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Take ribs out, make a sort of envelope of tin foil and pour Coke and brown sugar over them. close up the envelope.
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Return ribs to smoker and cook another 2 hours.
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Remove tinfoil and smoke another 45-min.
-
Finish on grill to give it a char.
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
-
Freeze the butter for at least 20 minutes, then shred it on a box grater. Set aside.
-
Put the water in a cup and throw an ice cube in it. Set aside.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
koftas
Ingredients
- 5 lbs ground beef
- 3 onions
- 1 head (head, not clove) garlic
- 2 bunches parsley
- 5 slices bread
- salt and pepper
- 1.5 tsp nutmeg
- 2 tsp paprika
- 2 Tbsp zataar
Instructions
-
Put the wooden skewers in water to soak for about thirty minutes before you plan to form the kebabs.
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Put the onions, garlic, and parsley in a food processor and chop it.
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Put the meat in a large bowl and add the chopped onion mixture to it.
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Toast the bread, then put it in a bowl with warm water to soften it. Squeeze the water out and add that to the bowl with the meat.
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Add in the seasonings and squish it up with your hands until all the ingredients are well combined.
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Using your hands, form logs of meat around the skewers. They should be about an inch and a half in diameter.
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Grill over coals if you can. If they fall apart too much, you can cook them on a hot oiled griddle, or broil them. Turn to brown all sides.
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Would you possibly consider coming over to Bluesky? I’ve left X, which is kind of my Shien/Temu stance, except not really because it’s so good for my heart. But I miss seeing you in my feed, so…
I have thought about it! I just couldn’t get away from p*rn on Twitter, and I’ve heard BlueSky is much better with that.
The next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, but I actually thought youd have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you could fix if you werent too busy looking for attention.
Wow. Way to kick somebody when she’s down.
You don’t have to read it. You don’t have to like it. But it’s just mean to say so and offer no constructive criticism.
I think . . .this may be mean spam? Like a nasty bot trying to get engagement? I don’t know! Anyway, thanks for sticking up for me. I don’t even remember what I was complaining about!
You’re very welcome! I enjoy your columns. Hope you and Damian do another podcast soon — I miss them!
Ha ha – this bot or person definitely is not reading Simcha b/c Simcha is a fix-it-herself wonder woman! I read that comment, and I was like wait a sec! Simcha is the queen of getting down to business and fixing stuff!
The pies, the ribs – everything in this blog post looked so, so good that I felt like climbing through my laptop to try it all! Something about fall and food is so enticing. French onion pasta sounds intriguing, too. I hope your scan and medical issues go well!!!
Yeah, fall food is great. Better than winter food, although it’s a fine line between them. The French onion pasta was DISGUSTING. I don’t know if I messed it up or it’s a bad recipe, but pee-yew.
Clara’s boyfriend just increased your property value by 10’s of thousands! God bless him. Good luck with your sunroom!
I hope the pepper works. Our dog keeps most critters out of our back yard, but we’ve tried lots of things to keep the friggin’ deer from eating our front yard flowers. Nothing works. We live in an urban neighborhood, but the deer don’t seem to care. They go around in gangs like the Crips and the Bloods, staring us down, daring us to do something about them. My only solace is that in case of complete societal collapse, Philadelphians will be able to survive on venison long after the rest of the country has perished.
Prayers for a good outcome on your CT scan and hernia.
Did you try begonias? In my parents’ neighborhood, the deer mafia are out in force, but they seem to leave the begonias alone.
Praying that they find something very easy to fix with regard to your hernia, something even easier than a deviled egg in your carburetor. It is never fun to be an interesting case.