And a happy Friday to you! It was all fortuna, no tuna, this week. Just now I changed out of my pajama pants into my yoga pants, and I’m working in bed. I am grounded for the day because Damien got up revoltingly early to drive the girls to the train station, whence they (including Damien) are headed into NYC to see famous J-Hope’s famous solo concert; and they are spending the night. But while we were on our way to school, the universe, sensing that my husband was out of town, playfully lit up all the lights on my dashboard
I’m no expert, but I interpreted this as “turn around and go home,” so I tried to, but the car started losing power, so I turned on the hazards and tried to go to the mechanic, but it died at the fence company which is just down the road from the mechanic and also from our house and which, in fact, GPS claims IS our house. Like Instacart will send groceries there and everything, unless I make a really big fuss.
So Damien called AAA from the train in NY and I called Elijah at home, who is driving Damien’s car because his car is broken and Damien drove Sophia’s car to the train station, and I emailed the schools and said we were having a Fisher Flop-out, and I begged for an adoration substitute, and eventually everyone got where they belonged, but not before I vented a little emotion at the poor tow truck driver, and expressed how frustrating it was to break down so close to the mechanic. I said I considered pushing my car, but seeing as it was uphill, I didn’t think I would make it; and he said, and I quote, “Pawbly nawt.”
But I’m on a gratitude kick lately, so I thanked God that I had remembered my phone (which I forget about half the time), that it wasn’t horribly cold out, that we had AAA, and that Elijah was home so he could rescue us, and that I had decided to change out of my robe and into a jacket this morning, so when the fence guy came out to find out why we were parked there, I only looked like a partial nutcase. (On the fact that I was still wearing my fuzzy pink flowered pajama pants, I was prayerfully nuetral.)
Anyway, poor old lady. Off she goes.
It may be the alternator. But it may just be the battery! Pawbly it’s the battery.
Well, here’s what we ate this week. And please note, we’re not really great at eating simply and frugally for Lent. We have other skills, like accumulating cars. We now have six cars parked in front of the house most days, and you’d think that would mean we always have a way to get where we need to be!
AND YET.
SATURDAY
Lasagna, cannoli dip
On Friday night, Damien made a stupendous lasagna, following this labor intensive but incredibly rewarding recipe from Deadspin. Look at this gorgeous beast.
He also made a mini lasagna for Millie.
(It’s not actually as tiny as it looks here!) The lasagna was a delayed birthday dinner for Elijah. SO GOOD.
and let me tell you, I made an attempt to calculate the calories for this thing, but my phone started shaking and sweating, so I just called it a day.
Eljah requested cannoli for dessert. Actually he requested Cosmic Brownies, but I said he could aim a little higher for his 21st birthday dessert. (Recall he had a cake last week, on his actual birthday.) Then I couldn’t find cannoli shells anywhere in town, so I got cannoli chips, ricotta cheese, AND cosmic brownies. (This is important later.)
I blended together what cream cheese I could find, a bunch of ricotta, a bunch of powdered sugar, and some almond extract, and served that in ramekins with the cannoli chips, along with maraschino cherries and rainbow sprinkles. I swear I took a picture, because I arranged it nice and fancy-like, but it has vanished.
SUNDAY
Leftovers featuring lasagna; taquitos
Sunday we had probably half the lasagna still left over, so that was the star of the show. I also bought frozen taquitos and the served a few leftovers, but mainly we were all there for Lasagna, Continued.
I brought Millie’s lasagna over and she gave me a bowl of bread pudding with raisins in it.
It tasted exactly like the bread pudding my mother used to make, and I haven’t tasted it since I was a kid. This gave Millie much delight, and me too! It happens that this is a few days after the fourth anniversary of my mother’s death, so if you think of it, please send up a prayer for her. With raisins!
In the afternoon, on a whim, I decided to make bagels. I have only tried making bagels once before, and I grievously misread how much water to use when boiling them, so they turned out pretty rough. But I did get from that day one of my favorite pictures ever:
Just . . . look at us. The chair with the back broken off. The laundry basket full of pots and pans. Something that appears to be an inflatable foil rocket on the floor. And the toddler who is having the BEST DAY OF HER LIFE, AGAIN. It just needs a chunky couple making out in the corner and a dog furtively lapping out of a mug of beer, and it could be one of those Flemish peasant paintings where people are doing whatever the hell they want.
This batch of bagels, we didn’t have QUITE that much fun with, but they turned out somewhat better. We followed the King Arthur Baking recipe, except I had light brown sugar instead of dark. You make the dough, let it rise for 90 minutes, cut it into lumps,
let those lumps rest for half an hour,
and then shape the bagels and boil them,
add toppings, and then bake them.
Benny helped me shape the bagels, which you do by rolling the dough into a ball, poking your finger through the center, and then twirling them around in the air. We quickly learned that it is possible to twirl them too long, and/or too violently! Luckily, the floor is spotless. Just kidding, we threw that one away.
We made a double recipe and made sixteen (well, fifteen) bagels, poppy seed, sesame seed, plain, and salt.
They were not as puffy as I would have liked — hard to imagine slicing these to make a sandwich! —
— but still pretty great piping hot from the oven. I love doing a little baking on a Sunday afternoon.
You can see they were fairly flat, but the texture inside and out was great, and everybody liked them and said I should make them again. Not sure how to make them puffier. Any ideas?
MONDAY
Kielbasa, potato, brussels sprouts sheet pan dinner, oatmeal bread
For supper, we had an easy peasy one pan dish with red potatoes, brussels sprouts, and kielbasa. I cooked it halfway, then drizzled it with a sauce made of honey, mustard, minced garlic, and red wine vinegar, and finished cooking it. This is two pans’ worth heaped into one pan:
This looks faintly Flemish, too, come to think of it.
I usually just serve one-pan dish on its own, but for some reason I felt it really needed a side dish, so I made this quick oat bread, which I chose because it was simple, but which you could make if you’re looking for gluten-free recipes (it uses ground-up oats instead of flour). It was . . . fine.
I undercooked it (the missing chunk in the middle is where I cut a piece to see if it was done), but for some reason decided to finish it in the microwave instead of the oven., which . . . worked . . . but there is a reason people don’t do that. But I don’t know how much better it would have been if I had baked it properly. Pawbly would have been decent with some butter or jam on it.
Honestly, I look back on this week and it’s like watching an old home movie, and you watch your past self careening around and you’re like, “oh, wow, look how crazy and silly we were back then!” Except this was four days ago. I’m not complaining! It’s been so beautiful out, with a thaw every day, and I’ve been getting fresh air and feeling pretty lighthearted, actually.
But I’m not being . . . streamlined, in my activities. Not streamlined at all.
Anyway, you really can’t argue with hot fresh bread, and it was a decent meal.
Monday is also the day we discovered we had several desserts in the house. See, usually we have dessert on Saturday and Sunday, but in Lent, we just have it on Sunday, and spend the extra money bumping up the food pantry donation. But we got confused and bought two desserts for the weekend, and then we realized Elijah needed a birthday dessert, and then I also bought those previously mentioned Cosmic Brownies as a birthday bonus. And then we forgot to eat them. So there we were on a Monday with Klondike Bars, some kind of ice cream things, and Cosmic Brownies in the house, in Lent.
So I told the kids if they could come up with a liturgically plausible reason, we could just eat it anyway. So Lucy looked up some saint that starts with a C, I forget who, and then they ate Klondike Bars. It’s called the Domestic Liturgical Living and it has ice cream in it.
TUESDAY
Vermonter sandwiches, fries
Everybody likes Vermonter sandwiches! Roast chicken breast, thick slices of sharp cheddar cheese, sliced green apple, bacon, and honey mustard dressing. The kids like this on ciabatta rolls, but they didn’t have any, so we had sourdough bread. You can see I was in a bit of a hurry because I was so hungry, so I kind of clobbered mine together, and also skimped on the honey mustard, sadly.
A tasty freaking sandwich.
Then, incredibly enough, it was St. Seraphina’s day or something. Here is Benny, making the case.
So obviously they had ice cream cones.
WEDNESDAY
Gochujang pork ribs, rice, sesame broccoli
I knew Wednesday was going to be a busy day, so I actually got those pork ribs marinating on Tuesday; and then in the morning on Wednesday I cut up the broccoli and set up the rice in the Instant Pot. So Wednesday afternoon, I got home late and just pushed the rice button, started the ribs roasting, and threw the broccoli in the oven right at the end, and everything finished cooking at the same time. Just about every other single thing in my life is out of control, but gosh darn it, I know how to plan a meal.
The ribs were marinated in gochujang, honey, brown sugar (why both? I forget), roughly chopped garlic, and soy sauce. The broccoli was soy sauce, sesame oil, and sesame seeds. Good freaking meal.
Wednesday evening, Irene pointed out it was the one-week anniversary of Ash Wednesday, so we had Cosmic Brownies. Listen. It’s a fine balance.
THURSDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips, raw veg
Thursday I took Millie to the eye doctor and the DMV so she could get her license renewed. She is 92 and not the worst driver I’ve encountered, not by a long shot. The worst driver I’ve encountered is from Massachusetts. Really just anyone from Massachusetts.
I had made some kind of mistake when buying bread, and we only had a little sourdough, so I made half the sandwiches with sourdough and half with regular sandwich bread, and then also I used pre-sliced Aldi provolone, forgetting that that ish just does. not. melt.
So they were not the world’s greatest sandwiches, but friend-os, when you are counting calories and it is dinner time, even the worlds not-greatest sandwich tastes pretty freaking good. Also, pickles don’t count. Have some pickles!
I also made a big vegetable platter which I don’t think anyone even touched.
It looks pretty good to me right now, though. Do I recommend processing a bunch of food photos on a Friday in Lent? Not really! Well, it depends what your goals are, I guess.
Thursday night I more or less finished a captive ball carving. I didn’t make measurements or anything, but just winged it, so the “ball” is pretty blobby-shaped, but the kids were impressed anyway. It makes a pleasant “slock-slock” noise when it slides back and forth. I cut myself three times and had to sand a blood stain off part of it, so you could say the whole carving thing is going pretty well.
FRIDAY
Pancakes?
Damien, Sophia, and Lucy, as I mentioned, are off living the high life (?) in New York and won’t be back until late Saturday, so I figured no one could stop me from making pancakes for supper. I guess maybe I could make waffles.
The timing is a little silly because I don’t have any good maple syrup in the house, but I hope to later this weekend! Sonny and I have been collecting sap every afternoon and should have at least twelve gallons by Saturday, which should boil down to about a third of a gallon of syrup. Nights below freezing and days above freezing are when the changing barometric pressure really pushes the trees to start getting their sap flowing.
This is five gallons of sap:
It tastes like water, but you can discern the sugar if you focus!
Damien dragged his old wood stove out of his office for me before he left
and yesterday, on the way to pick up the kids from school, someone had put three pots on the side of the road with a “free” sign. Really BIG pots, all with lids! Note the seltzer can for scale.
So they just need a good scrubbing and I’ll probably use the smaller two for boiling sap. I am not sure what the biggest one with the heavy duty spigot was used for. Any ideas? I’m thinking of turning it into a heated water dispenser for the ducks, but I haven’t decided yet.
In closing, yes, Corrie fits inside the big pot
and yes, she still looks like Baby Hermes.
Well, goodbye!
One-pan kielbasa, cabbage, and red potato dinner with mustard sauce
This meal has all the fun and salt of a wiener cookout, but it's a tiny bit fancier, and you can legit eat it in the winter.
Ingredients
- 3-4 lbs kielbasa
- 3-4 lbs red potatoes
- 1-2 medium cabbages
- (optional) parsley for garnish
- salt and pepper and olive oil
mustard sauce (sorry, I make this different each time):
- mustard
- red wine if you like
- honey
- a little olive oil
- salt and pepper
- fresh garlic, crushed
Instructions
-
Preheat the oven to 400.
Whisk together the mustard dressing ingredients and set aside. Chop parsley (optional).
Cut the kielbasa into thick coins and the potatoes into thick coins or small wedges. Mix them up with olive oil, salt, and pepper and spread them in a shallow pan.
Cut the cabbage into "steaks." Push the kielbasa and potatoes aside to make room to lay the cabbage down. Brush the cabbage with more olive oil and sprinkle with more salt and pepper. It should be a single layer of food, and not too crowded, so it will brown well.
Roast for 20 minutes, then turn the food as well as you can and roast for another 15 minutes.
Serve hot with dressing and parsley for a garnish.
Three things:
1) About two and a half years ago I was in New Zealand to visit my sister who lives there (with her husband (who is from there!) and— wait, I’m counting— five, of their eight, children) I ran into a problem where the GPS sent me to a COMPLETELY FICTITIOUS grocery store. And I was on foot. And not only was there no grocery store there, but it appeared that there never HAD been a grocery store there, and it was a residential neighborhood, and it was stupid to even claim that there was one, and I was so frustrated about it that I looked up how to submit corrections to GPS maps.
Anyway, that’s how I know you can submit corrections to GPS, and Apple Maps even sends you a nice note saying, “Hey! We figured out you’re right!” or something along those lines once they decide to incorporate your correction.
2) Speaking of visiting siblings in far-off lands, I just returned from my Sort-of-Annual Trip West, which this year included stops in California, Utah, and Idaho, the latter two of which (at least the parts I visit) are very close to a mile high. And the relevant part here is that I can use the exact same pancake recipe at my sisters’ houses as my own and I come up with MUCH fluffier results at the higher elevation. And I kind of don’t care, because I like both regular and extra-fluffy pancakes, but point being I’m guessing that if you make a “low-altitude adjustment” for your bagel recipe, you might come up with results that please you.
Which adjustment is: take out a little flour. High altitude adjustment for a boxed cake mix is to add a tablespoon or so of flour, but I have no idea how much flour is in your bagel recipe, so I’m not sure how much you should take out. But I do know that when I make my specialty artisan accidentally-secret-recipe bread (I keep trying to teach others how to make it and keep failing), when the dough is extra-wet, it comes out gorgeously risen.
3) Ok, last thing. This movie is extremely niche and I’m not at all sure if you would be in to it, BUT. There is a movie called *His Name Is Green Flake* about the enslaved (at the time) Black man who was the one who drove the first wagon in to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. And it did win approximately a gajillion film festival awards, but more than that it truly is an uplifting story about faith in unlikely circumstances. The film writer asked himself “why didn’t he run?” and this movie is his answer to that question.
My review:
Despite its drawbacks, it’s pretty good. It IS a story of faith, and it’s a story about making active choices in the face of extremely limiting circumstances, and I loved that aspect of it. “If he could do that, I can face my own life” seems to be a common reaction to this movie, and it was definitely mine.
(The drawbacks: the plot is a bit episodic and, for me, a history geek who is the daughter of a history geek, hard to follow. I actually sort of wondered if the plot would be easier to follow if you weren’t constantly trying to figure out how it fits with the rest of the known history. Also, not trashing anyone but being honest: you can tell it was made on an indie film budget. But the acting is darn good, and I probably care too much about scenery anyway, and honest to goodness it really was pretty good.)
Anyway, like I said, maybe it wouldn’t appeal to you, but since so many of the (presumably non-religious) film festival folks were impressed with it, I was hoping you at least wouldn’t mind my suggesting it.
And thanks as always for writing a blog that is SO funny and so uplifting that I, your devoted non-Catholic has-IBS-so-I-literally-can-eat-neither-beans-nor-a-great-number-of-other-things reader, never miss a post.
I’m well aware that it sucks to be poor and I’m not trying to say otherwise, but you kind of live my dream life: married to a kind human, raising your own kids, and genuinely following Jesus to the best of you ability in a way that is public enough to let your light so shine, but not so public that you are doing it to be seen of men. At least I can attempt that last one without needing to magic up a nonexistent spouse.
Happy Lent to you! or, er, whatever the expression is.
I put my assembled grilled cheese sandwiches into the microwave for a bit before grilling with lots of butter. I make some American (yuck) and some cheddar. I find that by having the cheese partially to totally melted before they go onto the griddle really speeds up the process and I get a non burnt sandwich with completely melted cheese inside. We always use Aldi cheeses, but we do splurge for white Pepperidge Farm bread $3 per loaf at Sam’s…anyway-it took me decades to discover the microwave hack—but it’s my preferred method now. Thanks for still writing about your weekly meals. I’m still in awe of the meals you come up with and am nowhere close to your level as a creative chef!! I wish I could eat at your house. We eat chicken nuggets, baked salmon, beanie weanie, frozen pizza, grilled cheese—I can’t think of anything else right now … (Longtime reader, haven’t commented in years)
If the bagel recipe called for sugar, sounds like they’re intended to be more of a Montreal-style bagel than a New York-style bagel — which are *supposed* to be fairly flat/dense, and a little sweet. Better and more authentic yet if you can bake them in a wood-fired oven….. and now my mouth is watering, and I recall that I still have a few bagels left in my freezer from the last time my husband was at a conference in Montreal — huzzah!
So sorry about your car troubles. It seems like you’ve had more than your share these last few years.
Is that an Odyssey? Over the last decades, we’ve owned a few Odysseys and Pilots, which I think have similar engines. Just an FYI: experience tells us that the alternator and water pump on those Hondas are on the same time line, give or take three months.
We used to make syrup every spring–well, late winter–and I always roll my eyes when people wax rhapsodic about drinking the plain sap. Even Laura Ingalls Wilder gets all worked about about drinking the “cold, sweet sap.” To me it always tasted like water. It is not sweet. BUT. After it has reduced for a little while, THEN it tastes like cream soda. Yum. Helpful tip: Large surface area is your friend when you’re trying to reduce that sap quickly, so if you can get a large, shallower pan rather than pots, it will go much faster. We used those metal cafeteria pans that they keep food warm in. The only tricky part is pouring the hot syrup out of the hot pans.
My husband took all four of my children to visit family in Arizona this week, so I have been cooking for only myself. It’s so strange. I’ve been eating the same chicken soup and barbecue meatballs all week, because I don’t mind repetition and that’s what I made at the beginning of the week. It’s so interesting to me to hear the answer to this question, so here it is for you (and anyone else who wants to answer): What do you–or what would you–eat if you were eating alone?
There is, incidentally, an entire book about this called “What We Eat When We Eat Alone,” but Deborah Madison, and it’s great.
Starving and salivating on Friday at 11 AM. EEK! Friday in Lent, I guess a protein drink for lunch? I have nothing good in the house, wahhhh. I can have a delicious, sweet orange after my drink….That’s something.
I just had some instant grits with spinach cooked into it. Maybe it’s the Friday in Lent talking, but it tasted great