Author: simchajfisher

Doing one thing at the same time

You might remember a song from the ’90s called “Lucky Night,” by Björk’s unserious pre-solo band, the Sugarcubes. It starts, “I’ve tried a lot, and most things excite me; but what tops it all is doing two things at a time.” Björk and Einar then take turns listing possible pairings that she describes as “charming.”

Einar just sing-songs pairs of nouns:

Life and death, Glass and water
Rock and roll, wash and dirty
Christ and Jesus, time and hours… 

But Björk describes activities. You think maybe she is going to say something sexy and transgressive, but actually it’s very normal activities that apparently thrill her: 

To drive a car and listen to music.
To read a book and ride a train…

Sugarcubes’ songs are not designed to be analyzed, so I won’t do that. But for some reason, this one stuck in my head, and I can’t help thinking about how it wouldn’t just be a trifling little song today; it would be nonsensical. I never do only one thing at a time. It is always something—plus a phone. 

To drive a car and be on your phone
To listen to music and be on your phone
To ride a train and be on your phone
To fall in love and be on your phone
To not sleep and and be on your phone
To watch TV and be on your phone
To cuddle and be on your phone

Or in Einar’s mode:

Watch and phone
God and phone
Hammer and phone
Babies and phone

It is not something I try to do so as to make one plus one equal three, as the song promises; it is just how it is. I have my phone with me in the bathroom, in the car, while I’m cooking, while I’m eating, while I’m cleaning, when I’m working, while I am allegedly sleeping. When I am at church, I do turn my phone’s ringer off, but I sure don’t leave it at home. I would never.

Obviously, my phone isn’t all bad. I use it to listen to music, to identify birds and flowers, to be in touch with my kids in an emergency, to chat with my friends and my husband, to find recipes and instructions and helpful advice, and to take photos and videos of wonderful things that other people enjoy seeing. But overall, “Life and Phone” has not been an improvement, to put it mildly.

My phone’s omnipresence sucks the life out of whatever else I am doing. It always drains something from the other thing, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. It is like a needy infant that requires constant heightened attention, even when it is asleep; but unlike an infant, it never stops being hungry, and unlike an infant, it offers so very little compared to what it snatches away. 

That is what my phone does to me, a middle-aged mom from New England who is at least trying to be good and not waste my life. We don’t have to imagine what it does to foolish young men who are hungry for meaning, hungry for praise, hungry for clout, and who have their phones with them all the time, pouring poison into their faces morning, noon and night, sucking away their power to see humanity. We know what young men plus phones adds up to, more and more often. There is no non-dramatic way to put it: It tells them to kill, and to etch little phrases from memes on the bullet casings. Expect to see more of this.

Don’t quit; rest

Today I did my normal 20-minute workout routine, and, having some energy left over, I decided to shake things up by trying a new dumbbell workout, which was also only 20 minutes. 

Or, as I did it, five minutes, and then four minutes, and then four minutes, and then four minutes, and then three minutes, with panting, sweating, and mild cussing in between. It was harder than I was expecting! It turns out routines specifically designed for middle-aged women are easier than routines that are not. Guess which kind this one was! 

But I did it. Eventually. With lots of rests.  

My ten-year-old gets some perverse pleasure out of watching me struggle, so as she lounged on the couch, I took the opportunity to give her one of my favorite mini TED talks: Don’t quit; rest.  

I told here there will be lots of times in life when things get really hard, and you’re going to want to give up. You will feel like you just can’t go on anymore, and you just want to stop. And that will be okay! You can stop.  

But don’t quit; just rest, and then see if you can start up again. I told her that getting in the habit of taking a break, rather than giving up entirely, will serve her through every aspect of her life. (I waved my arms around a bit, at this point. EVERY ASPECT.) 

I wish somebody had told me that when I was ten, because it’s taken me 50 years to figure it out. There are very few things in life that absolutely have to be a full-bore, all-out, no breaks, start-to-finish push. But there are quite a lot of things that you really must not quit altogether, but which have room for some rest, so you can get yourself together and then keep going.  

This rhythm of work and rest and work again is really baked into how we’re designed. It’s how we give birth, with the contractions coming in waves, with rest in between. It’s how we get through the week, with five or six days or work, and then a sabbath – not so we can quit, but so we can rest. It’s how our bodies and minds are made. If we do not ever sleep, we really will quit: We will die.  

“Rest” doesn’t always mean stopping completely. Sometimes it means lowering your standards. 

Now here’s the important part….

Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

Image: Siesta By Vincent van Gogh – Musée d’Orsay, Public Domain

What’s for supper? Vol. 440: Thank you for your attention to this batter.

Happy Friday! We had so much yummy food this week, and I can’t wait to tell you about it! So I won’t! I mean I won’t wait! Here’s what we had: 

SATURDAY
Leftovers and pizza pockets for kids, steak dinner for adults

Saturday Damien and I went tent camping! It wasn’t that far from home, but it was rural enough that there was no cell phone or internet service. So I put my phone in my purse and I didn’t take it out again for twenty hours. (If you felt a disturbance in the universe, that’s probably what it was.) So I have zero pictures, and zero regrets about that. 

It was glorious. It felt like my brain was being bathed in cool, refreshing water. We just slowwwwed down and did very little. Well, I did very little. Damien did all the packing and made all the arrangements and blew up the air mattress and set up the tent, and he also shopped for and cooked a wonderful meal: Good cheese and good bread and fresh berries for starters, and then he cooked two steaks over the fire. We had some good sharp ginger beer along with it. After we ate, we just sat and stared at the fire, and then we walked to the nearby field and looked at the stars for a bit, and then we went to bed. Magnificent.

The only sour note was the way acorns kept falling from the trees. I know that sounds like a very basic bitch thing to complain about (very “scenery is not breathtaking”), but these were the biggest acorns I have ever seen, and they were firing down from the trees like artillery. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I was genuinely afraid of getting hit. The weirdest thing was, I couldn’t figure out which tree they were coming from! We were surrounded by maples and evergreens, but there was still this invisible oak tree trying to kill us all night. It was truly alarming, and it actually woke me up about fifteen times. But even so, the first thing I thought in the morning was, “We have to do this again soon.” I really love sleeping outside, even if I barely sleep. 

Last time we went camping, we brought the coffee machine, but the battery pack turned out not to be strong enough to power it. This time, we brought a little propane camp stove and a French press, and Damien made coffee and toasted some bagels and fried some bacon over the fire, and brought me a lovely breakfast in tent. 

These are campsites that you park at, and there are other sites fairly close by. The guy across the road from us, for instance, was chopping and sawing wood when we arrived, and he continued to chop and saw wood for hours. And hours. He just kept chopping and sawing and stacking wood, chopping and sawing and stacking wood. Sometimes he would take a break for a while, and then we’d hear the saw start up again. So of course every time, we muttered, “He’s at it again!” and “Lass ihn, lass ihn!” but it was just weird. We figured maybe he promised his wife they could absolutely talk about The Thing, definitely, babe, as soon as he got some wood chopped. Just gotta chop some wood first. What, does she want them to freeze? Then she wakes up the next morning and the entire forest has been felled, and he’s still chopping. 

Anyway, we were thinking next time we might go to a more remote spot. They have campsites with platforms and I think maybe even pit toilets, but you have to hike to them — so no backing up to your site and unloading a million supplies onto a picnic table, but you have to carry it on your back. I think we can do it! Probably won’t be bringing fresh blackberries and a french press, but maybe we will. 

SUNDAY

So we went to Mass at a local church, and the kids at home were all sick, so they stayed home. We were both pretty tired when we got back, but Damien did a million jobs anyway — he did some work on some rotten soffits, and I think he worked on someone’s car,  winterized the pool, set some traps, and yes, he chopped some wood. For the wood stove in his office! Just a normal amount of wood. 

I got busy with the pressing task of rearranging my skeletons. I had an ambitious idea of setting them up on one of those see-saw swings, suspended from a tree, but blah blah blah it was harder than I thought; so I ended up just perching three of them together up in a tree, and they do look like they’re having fun. This year’s new skeleton, Mortadella, I arranged on top of one of our defunct cars, with a young skeleton on his shoulders. I’m not completely happy with them right now, so I’ll probably rearrange them. Anyway, Instacart never has trouble finding our house anymore. 

I truly forget what we had for supper. Oh wait, it was chicken quesadillas. I bought a rotisserie chicken for this because I figured we’d want something quick and easy, and I was right! 

MONDAY
Ziti with sausage and Alfredo sauce

Monday I made my very first Alfredo sauce. I can’t understand how it is that I’ve never made it before, but wow, it is delicious and easy. I followed this recipe from Sip and Feast, and all you do is put butter, cheese, and cream in a bowl (the cream makes it not 100% authentic, but oof it was good), dump your cooked pasta on top of it and mix it up with a little reserved hot pasta water. 

I cooked up a bunch of sausages and added those in with the pasta, and it was fantastic. Totally worth grating some cheese fresh while the pasta is cooking. (Those wedges of parmesan from Aldi have changed my life in a minor but undeniable way.)

Note, I was eating outside with a book. I have been trying to prolong the no-phone brain-rinse effect as much as possible. 

The kids were not impressed with the Alfredo sauce, and I anticipated this, so I made a pound of plain pasta and set aside some plain sausages and grated cheese. And all was well. 

Also on Monday, I finally managed to finish cleaning the pot I burned last Saturday making applesauce! I soaked it for the longest time and attacked it with every tool I could get my hands on, but it still looked like this:

so I dumped in a bunch of baking soda and water and dish soap and let that simmer for several hours. I actually forgot about it and it cooked itself dry, so I ended up having to scrub the baked-on soapy baking powder as well as the burned-on applesauce, but I did it. 

Phew. I really liked that pot. I got it on the side of the road, along with two other very big pots. The only thing I don’t like about them is that they’re so big, it’s hard to find a spot for them. WHICH IS NO LONGER A PROBLEM, AS YOU WILL SEE. 

TUESDAY
Pulled pork, tater tots, roast butternut squash rings

Tuesday I got a pork butt cooking in the morning for pulled pork.

Jump to Recipe

Cut it up, heavy salt and pepper, sear it in a pan, and then dump it in the Instant Pot with cider vinegar, apple cider, cumin, ground cloves, jalapeños, red pepper flakes, and a quartered onion. I think I cooked it for 18 minutes on high and then let it just keep warm the rest of the day.

When it was close to suppertime, I pulled the meat out of the liquid and shredded it in the standing mixer

 

and then added back a little bit of that savory broth it was cooking in. 

My knock-off Instant Pot (I think it’s called Potastic or something) is doing great, by the way. And now the silicone ring smells permanently like cumin and onion, so it’s officially mine. 

I made a few bags of tater tots and a pan of butternut squash rings. It being squash season, I will remind you that it’s way way easier to peel and cut butternut squash if you cut off the ends and/or jab it all over with a fork, and throw it in the microwave for three minutes. Comes out way more compliant!

So I cut the peeled squash into circles and rings (I sliced it into rings first, and then  removed the seeds and pulp by pressing them hard with a mason jar ring), laid them on a pan on parchment paper, and drizzled it with honey, olive oil, cumin, cinnamon, and salt. I just roasted it under the broiler, and it came out lovely. 

I also indulged in some incredibly vulgar jarred cheese product to top it all off. So I had a heap of tater tots, shredded pork on top of that, and topped with BBQ sauce and hot cheese sauce, with squash on the side. 

It was so good. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to eat it out of a little cardboard boat with a plastic fork. I did eat it outside, anyway. Getting as much outdoor time as possible as the temperatures drop. 

The squash was great, too! I do love squash, ever since I ate it for the first time in the hospital a few hours after giving birth to Corrie, who also loves squash. 

WEDNESDAY
Nachos

You know it’s gonna be a top notch meal when I defrost The Chub.

You know which one: The one with the opaque wrapper with a photograph of meat on the outside, and a picture of a cow.

I made two trays of what I am recklessly calling “nachos” — one with just tortilla chips, unseasoned ground beef, and shredded cheese on top, and one with chips, seasoned meat (salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, paprika, chili powder), jalapeños, shredded cheese, and the rest of that horrible yellow cheese sauce.

They were magnificent nachos, just like 7/11 used to make. 

I think it was also Wednesday that I suddenly got really mad and cleaned out the refrigerator. It was truly foul, and it’s so unnecessary for it to get that way! I have this wonderful system where all the jars and bottles go in the two tubs in the bottom (I long ago replaced the cracked and shattered original vegetable drawers with plastic bins from Walmart), and all the vegetables and herbs go in the door. IT’S SO EASY. Everything is visible and accessible, and I have one tub for dairy products that come in cartons, two tubs for cheese, and one for deli meat; and I let them put leftovers in ZIPLOCK BAGS. Could not be easier. But they insist on putting tops on halfway and laying things diagonally on top of a bag of spaghetti, so everything drips and drools and oozes downward, and the bottom of the fridge slowly fills up with a sticky, unspeakable sludge. Oh, I was so mad. I’ve been mad about this for almost thirty years, and I’m not done yet! Anyway, I cleaned the fridge. 

To clarify: I do clean it more frequently than every thirty years. You know what, let’s move along. 

I also picked the last of the peaches. They were so ripe that I didn’t have to blanch them to pull the skins off. I cut the flesh into chunks, threw it in the blender, and then simmered the pulp. Oh, what a color!

Then I realized I’m really big on burning things these days, so I transferred it to the slow cooker and set it to keep warm, and let it cook the rest of the day.  This will be for today’s dinner.

And that’s the end of peach season! It’s definitely a B year for my peach tree. Next year I expect to have a whole lot more fruit. 

Oh, I also cut up the second pork butt I bought (I forget the exact number, but it was a heck of a sale) and started it marinating for Thursday. 

THURSDAY
Banh mi

Thursday morning, I was like, “Okay, stupid, it’s time to put away that wood that’s been sitting on the dining room table all week. You had your chance to finish building those shelves, and you’re clearly not gonna do it, so just put the freaking wood away.” But then I was like, “But, let’s just see.”

And it turns out I finished building the shelves! Hooray! 

This looks very grimy and broken-in because I used wood we already had lying around. That’s right, I DIDN’T GO TO HOME DEPOT. I made some clownishly scalloped edges and absurdly crooked screws, but! this is a space that was once just a musty, greasy void, where springform pans and sifters went to die, and now it’s a three-layer built-in shelf that goes all the way back

so it’s not gonna fill up with irretrievable measuring spoons and onion skins and candy thermometers. And I finished it in time to pick up the kids who had a half day. So I feel pretty great about it all. 

The top shelf is very narrow because it’s just for pizza pans and cutting boards, which tend to get lost; and the bottom shelf is very tall because it’s just for my beloved giganto stock pots. Hope springs eternal! I also attached the bottom shelf with just a few screws, so we can take it out if there’s a leak or something, and we need to get in there. Eventually I will line the shelves with linoleum or something, and I’m gonna sand and stain the wood. In theory. Why rush? Maybe I’ll just think about it for thirty years. 

So the day before, as I said, I had made the marinade and sliced up the pork for banh mi.

You can see that I double bagged it, because it has a lot of garlic, onion, and fish sauce in it. I was actually a little short on fish sauce, so I supplemented with soy sauce, but didn’t notice any difference.  Still plenty stinky. 

Here’s the recipe for that: 

Jump to Recipe

In the afternoon, I made a big batch of quick-pickled carrots

Jump to Recipe

chopped up a bunch of cucumbers and cilantro, and sliced a bunch of baguettes. I took the meat out of the marinade and spread it on a pan on parchment paper, and shoved it right up under a hot broiler. It doesn’t take long to cook, because it’s cut thin and I had marinated it over night. 

Oof, it was so tender and so savory. I put out jalapeños and mayonnaise with the carrots, cukes, and cilantro, and toasted the buns in the last few minutes as the meat finished cooking, and hoooo boy. What a sandwich. 

I probably won’t be making this again for quite a while, because some family members really truly do not like the smell, and we all gotta live here. But I enjoyed that sandwich. 

FRIDAY
Peach waffles, eggs, OJ

Today, we’ll be having homemade waffles, which — dang, I thought I had made a recipe card, but I guess not. Well, it’s basically this

and for anyone who wants it, I will make peach-filled waffles. I mean anyone who lives here, sorry.

You grease the waffle iron, put a thin layer of batter on, then add the filling

then top it with a little more waffle batter and close the iron. This is a picture from  last year, made with what was basically peach pie filling;

This time, I just have the cooked-down peaches, and I didn’t add anything, because they’re so sweet. Sweet and fleet! That’s peaches. 

I bought a huge amount of eggs, and I can’t remember why, so I guess I’ll make a big batch of scrambled eggs for supper, and orange juice. 

Speaking of eggs, one of our newbie duckies has started laying! Did I already tell you that? I’m not sure if it’s Shaq or Tulip, but we got three eggs in one day, and there are only two adult females (Annie and Ray), so there you go. See if you can guess which egg was laid by the beginner. 

Ducks so crazy. 

Well, I also have some very cool news to tell you about, but it’s not 100% official yet, so I’ll hold off! But you know what, God is being really sweet to me this week. There have been at least three separate things that I’ve been like, “Ughhhhh, I have to do this hard thing. Okay. Okay. I can do it. I’m gonna do it, in a minute. But it’s harrrrd!” and then suddenly I get a little help, something that makes me want to do the thing. Amazing! 

And now, Damien’s covering adoration for me so I can get caught up on writing. So that is what I’m gonna do! Smell ya later. 

Print

Clovey pulled pork

Ingredients

  • fatty hunk of pork
  • salt and pepper
  • oil for browning
  • 1 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 2/3 cup apple juice
  • 3 jalapeños with tops removed, seeds and membranes intact
  • 1 onion, quartered
  • 2 Tbsp cumin
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 2 tsp ground cloves

Instructions

  1. Cut pork into hunks. Season heavily with salt and pepper.

  2. Heat oil in heavy pot and brown pork on all sides.

  3. Move browned pork into Instant Pot or slow cooker or dutch oven. Add all the other ingredients. Cover and cook slowly for at least six hours.

  4. When pork is tender, shred.

 

Print

Pork banh mi

Ingredients

  • 5-6 lbs Pork loin
  • 1/2 cup fish sauce
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 minced onion
  • 1/2 head garlic, minced or crushed
  • 2 tsp pepper

Veggies and dressing

  • carrots
  • cucumbers
  • vinegar
  • sugar
  • cilantro
  • mayonnaise
  • Sriracha sauce

Instructions

  1. Slice the raw pork as thinly as you can. 

  2. Mix together the fish sauce ingredients and add the meat slices. Seal in a ziplock bag to marinate, as it is horrendously stinky. Marinate several hours or overnight. 

  3. Grill the meat over coals or on a pan under a hot broiler. 

  4. Toast a sliced baguette or other crusty bread. 

Print

quick-pickled carrots and/or cucumbers for banh mi, bibimbap, ramen, tacos, etc.

An easy way to add tons of bright flavor and crunch to a meal. We pickle carrots and cucumbers most often, but you can also use radishes, red onions, daikon, or any firm vegetable. 

Ingredients

  • 6-7 medium carrots, peeled
  • 1 lb mini cucumbers (or 1 lg cucumber)

For the brine (make double if pickling both carrots and cukes)

  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 cup rice vinegar (other vinegars will also work; you'll just get a slightly different flavor)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 Tbsp kosher salt

Instructions

  1. Mix brine ingredients together until salt and sugar are dissolved. 

  2. Slice or julienne the vegetables. The thinner they are, the more flavor they pick up, but the more quickly they will go soft, so decide how soon you are going to eat them and cut accordingly!

    Add them to the brine so they are submerged.

  3. Cover and let sit for a few hours or overnight or longer. Refrigerate if you're going to leave them overnight or longer.

 

 

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 439: We put the “disgrazia” in . . . everything.

Happy Friday! Today’s post will be about food, and gardens, and home improvement projects, and that’s it. 

SATURDAY
Leftovers

Especially lavish leftovers, since, incredibly, we still had some steak from last week. I’m struggling mightily to cook less food now that we only have seven people in the house, but, like I said, I’m struggling. 

While I was out shopping, Corrie made two loaves of banana bread. She’s getting really great in the kitchen! It turned out scrumptious, tender and moist. 

Here’s the recipe. 

Jump to Recipe

Sophia has also been baking more, now that the cooler weather has arrived. She made some really intense apple cider muffins with cider buttercream topping later in the week, but I forgot to take a picture. But three cheers for kids who bake! 

I myself made some pretty lousy applesauce. We had these lousy apples 

from our elderly apple tree, Marvin, which the kids feel sentimental about, so every year I make applesauce.

I washed all the spiders off, cut the apples in half, and cut out as many bad spots as I could manage. I took this picture:

because this was an especially large and pristine specimen. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to this tree to produce better apples. I’ve tried nothing, and I’m fresh out of ideas. 

I put the apple halves in two stock pots with about 3/4 cup of water and set them to simmer. Then I burned one! But I did not burn the other. I let it cook until the apples were soft, and then I put the pot in the fridge. (This is not a necessary step in the recipe; I just didn’t feel like dealing with it anymore that day.) 

Oh, also on Saturday, I fulfilled my end of a contract and dyed Corrie’s hair bright pink. She’s happy with it, but less enthusiastic about having her photo online all the time (sorry, kids. I have regrets), so I will just show you a photo of the dye we used

It is Lime Crime Unicorn Hair, and the color is “Juicy.” The label is the most egregiously illegible thing I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve squinted at a LOT of hair dye. But I have to say, this stuff adheres really, really well. The color is exactly as advertised (I did bleach her hair pretty light first), and it’s staying put so far. 

SUNDAY
Roast beef sandwiches with smoked gouda, garden corn, chips

The beef round eye hunks were still on sale, so we got another one and Damien seasoned and slow cooked it in the oven, and it turned out perrrrrfect. Very juicy and delicious. Unfortunately, the pictures I took make it look like something the plumber would hold up while saying, “Well, HERE’S your problem,” so I’ll skip photos. 

I splurged on some smoked gouda from the deli, and I also bought a jar of hot pepper sandwich spread

and oh man, that was a great combination. 

I see now that my table is gross. I’m not deleting the picture as an act of humility and penance in the face of the way I acted yesterday on social media. Anyway, really great sandwiches.

I picked the second round of corn from the garden, and Damien cooked it in the husk on the grill, and it was sweet and juicy and delicious. Lovely meal. 

Then it was time to make the apple sauce, as I’d been promising! So I set out to look for the foley mill, which I only use once a year to make apple sauce, but for which there is no substitute. Couldn’t find it in the island cabinet, but I did find a bag of rotten potatoes, so I threw that away and scrubbed out the inside of the cabinet. Then I thought, well, the other cabinet could probably use some cleaning, too, especially since it’s not even a cabinet, it’s just a ghastly conglomeration of wire shelving and milk crates and spidery misc. So I started pulling stuff out, and I DID find the foley mill, but then I got to thinking how much I didn’t want to go through that again next year, and how it wouldn’t be that hard to replace this chaos with some actual shelving, so I started looking for scrap wood, and then I thought for once I would treat myself and take some measurements and actually buy some wood specifically for this project, so I went to Home Depot and got back and settled in among the musty old double boilers, dusty candy molds, fusty wedding cake pans and bottles of terrible vermouth, and greasy pencils and bent measuring spoons that had slithered down into the gap, and I got going with the saw and the drill

and Corrie comes in and said, ” . . . I thought you were gonna make apple sauce.” 

I was! I mean, I am! This is the process! For some reason. 

Well, it took seven hours, and it’s not quite done. My pride will not allow me to show you photos of what the new shelves look like. They are level, and made out of real wood, and not likely to fall apart soon, and they are better than what we had, so that’s a win. I just can’t seem to take a picture where they don’t look like they were built by a Dr. Seuss bird, and possibly photographed by a second Dr. Seuss bird who is the first bird’s enemy. But I did fill two cartons with stuff to throw away, which is always nice. 

In my defense, I have built things out of wood before, but I’ve never built something that has to fit inside something else, and it involved more precise  measuring than is . . . customarily my style. 

Anyway, we delivered the bomb. I mean we found the foley mill. I mean I built some shelves. I mean we started making some applesauce!

MONDAY
Garlicky pork chops, homemade applesauce, baked potato

So Monday I actually finished making the applesauce. I spooned the cooked apples, peels and cores and all, into the foley mill. If you’re not familiar with this device, it’s basically a pot with a strainer for a bottom, and in the middle is a crank. When you turn the crank, a tilted blade forces the apples (or whatever) through the strainer, so only the soft, edible parts get pushed through the holes. Turning the crank also makes a spindle scrape the underside of the strainer, depositing the applesauce (or whatever) into the bowl below. It also has three little brackets so the mill stays in place over the bowl while you crank it.

Actually I have a picture!

Just a nicely-designed device. Of course you can peel and core your apples before cooking them, and then you won’t have to strain them out afterward; but it’s so much easier this way (assuming you’re not using a recipe that includes a trip to Home Depot), and cooking the peels along with the insides gives you more flavor and color (if you have nice apples!). Apples that are red, for instance, will result in a lovely dusty rose-colored applesauce. 

When I got it all cranked through, I put the apple pulp into the slow cooker with some butter, white sugar, and lots of cinnamon, and let that go all day. 

Pork chops were on sale, and I really struggle with cooking pork chops so they’re not dry. I thought Nagi might have a solution, and she did! She has a recipe called “Just a Great Pork Chop Marinade,” and even though it’s made with soy sauce, brown sugar, and garlic, she promised it just tastes savory, not Asian, and she was right. It also has dijon mustard, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce. I marinated the chops for several hours, and then broiled them right up under the broiler (the recipe calls for grilling, which would have been nice). SCRUMPTIOUS.

I will absolutely be returning to this recipe. These are probably the juiciest pork chops I have ever made. 

I threw a bunch of potatoes in the oven for 40 minutes or so, and we had the pork, applesauce, and baked potatoes for a very fine fall meal. 

Someday the kids are going to have applesauce made from actual good apples, and they’re gonna realize . . . well, you know what, it doesn’t matter. They liked the applesauce, and this was a very popular meal. And I delivered the bomb. 

TUESDAY
Buffalo chicken wraps

Tuesday Damien and I and a kid spent all day on the road and at a largely useless and frustrating doctor’s appointment, so I was very glad I had planned an easy dinner: Buffalo chicken wraps. 

Or, I was glad until I realized I had planned it, but not actually bought any buffalo chicken. A small error! Damien gallantly zipped off to the store and bought some, and we had a late but popular meal: Tortillas with buffalo chicken, blue cheese or ranch dressing, shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, shredded pepper jack cheese, and crunchy fried onions.

We still have a giant backlog of tortillas in the house, so get ready for more wraps. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken with chickpeas and piquant onions, Jerusalem salad, yogurt sauce, pita

Wednesday I made a dish I haven’t made for quite some time: Chicken with chickpeas. It’s a middle eastern-ish recipe and none of the steps are hard, but I’m always a little surprised at how many elements it has. I guess I have it in my head that it’s an INCREDIBLY SIMPLE meal, and it really isn’t. It’s just regular-easyish. 

Anyway, I got the chicken marinating, cut up the onions, and made the lemony onions side dish and the yogurt sauce and the Jerusalem salad. Tons of color!

I’ll put all those recipes at the end. Oops, I guess I don’t have a card for Jerusalem salad. Well, it’s just tomatoes, cucumbers, fresh cilantro and/or parsley, some olive oil, and lemon juice, salt and pepper. All of these dishes really want fresh lemon juice, if you can manage it. Bottled lemon juice always has kind of a stale stank to it, so if you’re going to use it in a dish that doesn’t get cooked, I always try to do fresh. 

Then when I got home, it really was very simple and easy to just chunk the chicken and chickpeas and onions into the oven. This recipe has you marinating the chicken in a spiced yogurt sauce, which makes the meat moist as heck, but even more importantly gives the skin a magnificent texture. 

The marinade kind of melds onto the skin and make it, like, chicken ultraskin. 

Sometimes I keep the chicken warm while giving the chickpeas some extra time in the oven to crisp up, but it was already super late and we were starving, so I just served it, along with some store-bought pita. I do like chickpeas with a little crunch, but soft and savory is also very good!

Really wonderful meal. 

On Wednesday I realized I had never picked the peaches from my tree, which is funny, because last year at this time, I was picking for the 476th time and blanching and freezing them as fast as I could, and still being neck-deep in peaches. I guess it’s pretty common for peach trees to be on a schedule like this. 

The peaches this year may be few but some of them are HUGE. 

This is not some kind of optical illusion photo. They’re the biggest peaches I’ve ever seen! They’re delicious, too, super juicy and nectar-y. I’m saving the pits from the biggest ones, and I’ll try to sprout them. Last year I used a method where you dry the pits for a few days, pry them open to get the inner seed out, and plant them in pots in the ground in the fall, so they get cold stratified and can sprout easily in the spring. 

I did this with six seeds, as I recall, and got two good seedlings, which are now in the ground and doing great. I have hopes of turning the side yard, which is currently overgrown with goldenrod and wild grapes, into a little orchard. Right now it has the apple tree, a very young peach tree, a valiant blueberry bush, and of course the ubiquitous wild raspberries. I would like a cherry tree, but I’ve struggled with fungus on cherry trees in the past, so maybe I will do a nut tree in the spring. Lucky me! Always something to look forward to. (The other new peach tree is by the duck pen, so eventually they will have some natural shade and, presumably, some windfall snacks. I’m not worried about them eating the pits because they routinely mooch around the existing peach tree, and they have figured out how not to eat pits! Which makes two things they have figured out. The first thing is screwing.)

THURSDAY
Rigatoni alla disgraziata with homemade cheese and homemade bread

Thursday I overextended myself, and I don’t even know why. I guess I was cooking my feelings, and also I had some pretty little eggplants from the garden that also wanted to be cooked. 

The plan was rigatoni alla disgraziata,

Jump to Recipe

which is a meatless but very hearty pasta dish. It is not difficult. You toast up a bunch of breadcrumbs in oil, and then take them out of the pan and fry up your eggplants in more oil. 

No need to peel them. But at this point I realized I didn’t have as much eggplant as I thought, so I added some diced onion. Then you add tomato sauce to the eggplant, then you boil up some rigatoni, mix the breadcrumbs into the eggplant sauce, and stir it all together with torn-up mozzarella, and top it with grated parmesan. I also tarted up the jarred sauce with some chopped tomatoes and fresh basil. 

I decided to make fresh mozzarella cheese for this, and that was a good idea, except I decided to make a double recipe, and I was unsure about the timing of the chemistry part of it when you’re making a double batch. I really struggled with getting the almost-finished cheese to a high enough temperature before stretching it. The stretching is what gives it that stretchy, string-like texture, but it’s really hard to stretch hot cheese without gloves! I don’t know why I don’t have gloves!

Anyway, the cheese tasted fine but was very grainy, because of the heating/stretching issue. 

I hope that, because it’s folded into the pasta and is supposed to melt a bit, it wouldn’t matter much, and it didn’t matter that much, but it was a little sad. I was a little sad. 

I decided to cheer myself up by making bread, and that was where I really went wrong. First the dough rose right out of the bowl and slopped itself all over the windowsill and floor, and then I decided to get cute and make twelve separate little loaves, and then I realized I was LATE, like “text your teenager and promise you have not forgotten them” late. So I zipped through the process as fast as I could, which, believe it or not, does not produce the highest quality of food.

The good news is, we ate so late, everyone was happy to see anything hot and ready. I did take some pictures, but they’re not great, and it was not a great meal. These are decent recipes which I recommend! Sometimes things just don’t come together, and we all live to fight another day. I did buy some gloves for future cheese. 

FRIDAY
Pizza

Just regular old pizza, no fancy tricks. And that’s-a my story. We live to fight another day. 

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Banana bread or muffins

adapted from Quick Breads, Soups & Stews by Mary Gubser

Ingredients

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 3 ripe bananas, mashed well
  • 1/2 cup chopped nuts optional

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375.

  2. In one bowl, sift flour, baking soda, and salt together.

  3. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well in between. Add mashed bananas and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients and blend well. If you're adding nuts, fold them in.

  5. Grease 12 muffin tins or a loaf pan and pour the batter in.

  6. Bake 20 minutes or longer, until the top is slightly browned.

 

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Cumin chicken thighs with chickpeas in yogurt sauce

A one-pan dish, but you won't want to skip the sides. Make with red onions and cilantro in lemon juice, pita bread and yogurt sauce, and pomegranates, grapes, or maybe fried eggplant. 

Ingredients

  • 18 chicken thighs
  • 32 oz full fat yogurt, preferably Greek
  • 4 Tbsp lemon juice
  • 3 Tbsp cumin, divided
  • 4-6 cans chickpeas
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 red onions, sliced thinly

For garnishes:

  • 2 red onions sliced thinly
  • lemon juice
  • salt and pepper
  • a bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 32 oz Greek yogurt for dipping sauce
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced or crushed

Instructions

  1. Make the marinade early in the day or the night before. Mix full fat Greek yogurt and with lemon juice, four tablespoons of water, and two tablespoons of cumin, and mix this marinade up with chicken parts, thighs or wings. Marinate several hours. 

    About an hour before dinner, preheat the oven to 425.

    Drain and rinse four or five 15-oz cans of chickpeas and mix them up with a few glugs of olive oil, the remaining tablespoon of cumin, salt and pepper, and two large red onions sliced thin.

    Spread the seasoned chickpeas in a single layer on two large sheet pans, then make room among the chickpeas for the marinated chicken (shake or scrape the extra marinade off the chicken if it’s too gloppy). Then it goes in the oven for almost an hour. That’s it for the main part.

    The chickpeas and the onions may start to blacken a bit, and this is a-ok. You want the chickpeas to be crunchy, and the skin of the chicken to be a deep golden brown, and crisp. The top pan was done first, and then I moved the other one up to finish browning as we started to eat. Sometimes when I make this, I put the chickpeas back in the oven after we start eating, so some of them get crunchy and nutty all the way through.

Garnishes:

  1. While the chicken is cooking, you prepare your three garnishes:

     -Chop up some cilantro for sprinkling if people like.

     -Slice another two red onions nice and thin, and mix them in a dish with a few glugs of lemon juice and salt and pepper and more cilantro. 

     -Then take the rest of the tub of Greek yogurt and mix it up in another bowl with lemon juice, a generous amount of minced garlic, salt, and pepper. 

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Yogurt sauce

Ingredients

  • 32 oz full fat Greek yogurt
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • fresh parsley or dill, chopped (optional)

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together. Use for spreading on grilled meats, dipping pita or vegetables, etc. 

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Rigatoni alla disgraziata

A hearty, meatless pasta dish with eggplant, breadcrumbs, and mozzarella

Ingredients

  • 2 lg eggplants with ends cut off, cut into one-inch pieces (skin on)
  • salt
  • 3/4 cup olive oil, plus a little extra for frying bread crumbs
  • 3 cups bread crumbs
  • 3 lbs rigatoni
  • 6 cup marinara sauce
  • 1 lb mozzarella
  • grated parmesan for topping

Instructions

  1. In a very large skillet or pot, heat up a little olive oil and toast the bread crumbs until lightly browned. Remove from pan and set aside.

  2. Put the 3/4 cup of olive oil in the pan, heat it again, and add the cubed eggplant. Cook for several minutes, stirring often, until eggplant is soft and slightly golden. Salt to taste. Add in sauce and stir to combine and heat sauce through. Keep warm.

  3. In another pot, cook the rigatoni in salted water. Drain. Add the pasta to the eggplant and sauce mixture. Add in the toasted breadcrumbs and the shredded mozzarella. Stir to combine. Serve with grated parmesan on top.

 

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French bread

Makes four long loaves. You can make the dough in one batch in a standard-sized standing mixer bowl if you are careful!

I have a hard time getting the water temperature right for yeast. One thing to know is if your water is too cool, the yeast will proof eventually; it will just take longer. So if you're nervous, err on the side of coolness.

Ingredients

  • 4-1/2 cups warm water
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 Tbsp active dry yeast
  • 5 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup olive or canola oil
  • 10-12 cups flour
  • butter for greasing the pan (can also use parchment paper) and for running over the hot bread (optional)
  • corn meal for sprinkling on pan (optional)

Instructions

  1. In the bowl of a standing mixer, put the warm water, and mix in the sugar and yeast until dissolved. Let stand at least five minutes until it foams a bit. If the water is too cool, it's okay; it will just take longer.

  2. Fit on the dough hook and add the salt, oil, and six of the cups of flour. Add the flour gradually, so it doesn't spurt all over the place. Mix and low and then medium speed. Gradually add more flour, one cup at a time, until the dough is smooth and comes away from the side of the bowl as you mix. It should be tender but not sticky.

  3. Lightly grease a bowl and put the dough ball in it. Cover with a damp towel or lightly cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for about an hour, until it's about double in size.

  4. Flour a working surface. Divide the dough into four balls. Taking one at a time, roll, pat, and/or stretch it out until it's a rough rectangle about 9x13" (a little bigger than a piece of looseleaf paper).

  5. Roll the long side of the dough up into a long cylinder and pinch the seam shut, and pinch the ends, so it stays rolled up. It doesn't have to be super tight, but you don't want a ton of air trapped in it.

  6. Butter some large pans. Sprinkle them with cornmeal if you like. You can also line them with parchment paper. Lay the loaves on the pans.

  7. Cover them with damp cloths or plastic wrap again and set to rise in a warm place again, until they come close to double in size. Preheat the oven to 375.

  8. Give each loaf several deep, diagonal slashes with a sharp knife. This will allow the loaves to rise without exploding. Put the pans in the oven and throw some ice cubes in the bottom of the oven, or spray some water in with a mister, and close the oven quickly, to give the bread a nice crust.

  9. Bake 25 minutes or more until the crust is golden. One pan may need to bake a few minutes longer.

  10. Run some butter over the crust of the hot bread if you like, to make it shiny and even yummier.

What’s for supper? Vol. 438: Can you dig it?

Happy Friday! I hope you like hearing about digging! 

SATURDAY
Hamburgers, chips

On Saturday, my SISTER and three of her kids came for the weekend! We scheduled and then postponed this visit so many times, and I was delighted we finally managed it. Damien grilled burgers, and we made s’mores in the evening. Sonny made an absolute ape of himself, abasing her person before Sarah, who is one of his favorite people in the world. 

While I was out shopping in the morning, Damien was out in the woods trying to get the ducks to smarten up and run away from the hawk that may or may not be what’s been picking off our smaller ducks. I don’t really think it’s the blue heron that’s doing it, but we are in a drought, which means there are fewer ducks and frogs for everyone to eat, so who knows. (We have since bought one of those scary owl decoys, and it’s working so far?)

Anyway while he was out there, a baby squirrel fell out of a tree right at his feet. It had fur, but its eyes weren’t open yet. So he put it in a box and waited alll day for the mom to come back, and she didn’t. So I brought home some Pedialyte and some goat milk, and he warmed it up and fed the squirrel with a dropper. 

He put it to bed in our room wrapped in a t-shirt next to a sock full of rice that had been warmed in the microwave. I might as well tell you now that the squirrel did not make it through the night, but he go out with a full tummy and a warm, snuggly spot, and he must have just gone to sleep and not woken up. Tough world for little guys. 

Well. Anyway, in the evening, I started some vanilla ice cream. (Below is the recipe for strawberry ice cream, but just skip the strawberries, 1/4 cup sugar, and lemon juice, and make the “base.”)

Jump to Recipe

I made two batches at the same time, and you know what? It’s not silly having two ice cream makers! What’s silly is that they don’t make ice cream makers bigger. I suppose there might be some physics or thermodynamics problem I’m not taking into account, but I feel like American ingenuity ought to be able to solve the More Ice Cream Problem. Anyway, I see lots of ice cream makers in thrift stores, and it is always ice cream weather, all year long, so you know what to do. 

SUNDAY
Steak, corn, nectarine-rhubarb crisp with ice cream

Sunday after Mass it was perfect weather, so we went to the town pond, snacked on fruit, and tried out kayaking, which is new for my sister’s family. 

Lovely, wonderful afternoon altogether.

In the afternoon, the kids played Mysterium, and then Damien grilled some steaks, and I picked corn for the very first time. I was extremely proud of my corn!

It’s been hard to wait until the ears are fully formed, and a few of them could have benefitted from a few more days on the stalk

but most of them looked absolutely great. 

It’s pretty easy to find extremely fresh, local corn around here, so it wasn’t exactly a revelation to discover what it tasted like, but it was sweet and tender and juicy. Yay! I have one more round of corn that will be ready to pick in a week or so. Next year I’m going to plant a lot more corn. And a lot more potatoes! 

The steaks (actually a round eye roast cut into steaks) were most excellent. 

I had been planning baked potatoes, but I was so tired from kayaking that I skipped it, and along with dessert, there was plenty of food. What I made was a nectarine-rhubarb crisp, using the last of the rhubarb from the garden. I sorta kinda followed this recipe for peach-rhubarb crisp, but I think I left the skins on the nectarines, and I threw a few plums in there, and I topped it with a streusel made of a box of yellow cake mix scrunched into bits with a stick of melted butter, plus some oats mixed in.

I baked it in ramekins and topped it with the ice cream and fresh whipped cream. 

Not a great picture, but a lovely dessert, and HEFTY. We did not regret not having baked potatoes in our recent past at this point. 

On Sunday, the 31st of August, (in the morning! Before I ate enough for ten strong men!) I did the very last day of a thirty-day yoga challenge. I had missed one day when we went to the ocean, but doubled up the next day. And I don’t know if I’ve ever come closer to finishing up a thirty-day challenge of . . . anything. It’s a red letter day if I finish a novena, or heck, if I get to the end of a sentence without forgetting to

I was following this Alba Avella series, which is 20 minutes a day, and most days I added some weights training, because “bone density” has stopped being a phrase I’m able to tune out. September 1, I started a new challenge with Charlie Follows. This series is for “confident beginners and intermediate improvers,” but she also has easier and harder ones. I like her a lot, and it’s been fascinating to see how different yoga instructors (and fitness instructors in general) have their own style. This lady has a tendency to giggle when a pose feels weird, which I appreciate, and she has short legs like me, which is nice. (I do not resemble her in any other way.)

MONDAY
Leftovers

Monday we had our customary leftover nite, just shifted a bit, and somewhat fancier than usual because of steak!

I don’t know why I post pictures of leftover night. It always looks so gross, I don’t think I’ll convince anyone it’s a good practice to adopt. But in real life, it is! All day long, I think, “Ugh, I have to get supper going” and then I think, “No, I don’t!” And that is the most delicious food of all. Except maybe for food that someone else prepares entirely. 

TUESDAY
Sausage subs, garden skillet, raw vegetables and dip

Tuesday, fresh from my personal corn victory, I decided to see if I could make something else from the garden. There was some leftover corn, plenty of basil, some eggplants, and the garlic I grew. 

If anyone has tips for growing better garlic, I’m all ears. It tasted fine, but really all I did was put sprouting cloves of garlic in the ground, water it for months, and then dig up the exact same number of cloves of garlic. I think maybe one turned into two cloves of garlic. It did keep me entertained, but I’m having a hard time categorizing it as a successful crop!

Well, I cut the corn off the cob, peeled and diced the eggplant, minced the garlic, and chopped the basil, and I sauteed that in stages along with some diced onion 

and realized what I really needed was some tomatoes. The closest thing I had in the kitchen was some leftover spaghetti sauce, so I stirred that in, and a bunch of panko bread crumbs. I seasoned it and topped it with some fresh mozzarella. 

It turned out. . . . pretty goodish. 

I don’t really know what it was. A skillet, I guess. A bake. A sortatouille. I think with less corn and with fresh tomatoes, it would have been great! Anyway, it was something a little different, and I had fun using my garden produce. 

For the main, I fried up a bunch of Italian sausages, and some peppers and onions with salt and pepper, and we had subs. 

I also made a raw veggie platter with dip, which I have mostly been eating myself in the afternoons while I drive around. 

And here is the point in the week when my kids noticed with glee that it was ALL SANDWICHES FROM HERE ON OUT. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken honey mustard ranch wraps; fruit platter

Wednesday I revisited the Amazing Hole I had started to dig a few weeks ago. The plan is a duck pond, and the only smart thing I did all day was decide not to lift weights before digging in the mud for two hours. No wait, two smart things: I considered taking my shoes off, because they kept getting stuck in the mud, and then I immediately dug this up:

So I decided to keep my shoes on! Smart. 

This is what it looked like when I started:

When I first started digging, the spot filled up with groundwater and the ducks were in HEAVEN. Then the entire region dried up, and you can see that the ducks kept visiting this spot, stomping around and wondering why it wasn’t any fun any more. 

Well, I dug and dug and dug and dug, and it didn’t look all that different when I was done, but I know I doubled the area and made half of it twice as deep, and trucked a lot of the soil up to the front of the house to fill in the spot where the porch used to be. I listened to the first episode about Mary, Queen of Scots from The Rest Is History podcast, and that helped quite a bit. 

The sandwich of the day was actually a wrap. I cooked some frozen chicken tenders and served them on tortillas with sliced tomatoes, lettuce, and some kind of fancy ranch dressing that was on clearance at Aldi. A surprisingly popular meal. I mean I thought it was delicious, but usually that’s a personal opinion that does not extend to the rest of the family. 

I have been doing a lot of fruit salads lately, so this time I shook things up and made a fruit PLATTER. 

Watermelon SPEARS, rather than slices or chunks, and two kinds of plums and a dragon fruit I bought on a whim. The green plums are Sierra Honey plums, and they were wonderful. They had a honey-nectar taste, but also some tartness, and the texture was crisp but juicy. Really nice. The dragon fruit was meh, but it sure was pretty. 

It was actually a really great meal. 

Or possibly I was starving from digging! But the kids liked it, too, and I assure you, they had not been doing manual labor all day. I ASSURE YOU. 

THURSDAY
Spicy chicken sandwiches with pepper and cheese, fries

Thursday I got my yoga in and had to do a bit of running around for the kids, and then I figured as long as I was out, I’d stop by and see if this sale from the local floral farm was really anything. WELL, they had perennials for $2 each! Uh, I bought sixteen. Lupines, hollyhocks, coneflowers, and bunch more. And I paid full price for an extraordinary blue and white African daisy, an annual in these parts.

This picture doens’t show how pretty the daisies are, but I really must wrap up this post at some point.

While listening to the crazy backstory to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, I dug out the rest of the pond and hauled many, many loads of soil into the front yard. Damien put the pond liner on (it’s 10×10 and pretty much fits, which means I lucked out, because I didn’t measure anything!), and I carried four rocks up from the stream before I got super tired of carrying rocks. Picked up the kids, picked up some cheap topsoil from Home Depot to mix in, because the marsh soil is super dense and clay-y.

Supper came together pretty fast: This spicy chicken sandwich from Sip and Feast, which is mostly popular around here. I seasoned the boneless chicken thighs with Tony Cachere’s, then browned it slowly in oil.

(And we are now a single-pan family! I can’t believe it. Just seven of us at home, sometimes six.)

When it’s done, you take it out of the pan, top it with American cheese, and cover it so the cheese melts, and throw the shishito peppers in the hot pan to blister them up a bit. Serve on soft rolls with raw red onion and BBQ sauce, and oh, it is tasty. 

It was a very filling meal (I made french fries for a side), but it was cool and pleasant out and the neighbors were being quiet for once, so I pushed myself to find spots around the yard for all those perennials, and I added some used duck bedding and the topsoil to the beds in front of the house, and yeesh. 

It looks like a credit union or something, and I’m even gonna add some colored mulch, just to basic bitch it up.

It’s not bad, it’s just weirdly tidy. There are a lot of houses like that around here, very clearly IN PROGRESS. Maybe there are tarps flapping on the roof and a perfectly innocent collection of catalytic converters on the front porch right next to the deer skulls and the warning notice from the selectmen, but the fucken tomatoes are doing great.

(Obviously those are mainly annuals in this picture. The perennials are all things that should bloom next summer, so it’s an investment.) 

It rained last night, finally, and I already knew the pond hole I dug wasn’t level, so no surprises there. The pond is on a slope, which will help us when it’s time to drain and refill it. 

Dang, those ducks are lucky. This is going to be a wonderful spot. If I ever finish it. Which I will! If it kills me! Which it will. 

FRIDAY
Bagel, egg, cheese sandwiches, maybe oven fries

It’s after 1:00 and I am still in my nightgown. I guess I’m pretty lucky, too! Gonna do yoga and then get my ass to adoration, and I will pray for all of you. 

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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.)

What’s for supper? Vol. 437: The Supper of Theseus

Hello! Happy Friday! It is upside-downy day. I slept later than I meant and then spent the whooooooole rest of the day writing until it was time for dinner. Made some spaghetti, THEN did yoga, then cleaned the kitchen because Lucy wasn’t feeling well, then cleaned the dining room because I suddenly couldn’t stand it anymore. And now I am finally writing my food post, which I usually do first thing after yoga on Fridays. 

So! Here is what we had: 

SATURDAY
Leftovers and Aldi pizza

I absolutely trapped myself into going to confession while we were out shopping, and that was a relief. (No murders or anything; it’s just been a while.) I don’t remember much else about Saturday, except that hardly anyone was home. I think Damien was helping Moe with something. Oh yes, and he took Corrie along for the ride. Sadly, the hedgehog shop below Moe’s apartment (yes) was closed for the day, but they had a nice day anyway. 

SUNDAY
Beach food!

Sunday we finally got to the ocean, on the very last day of summer vacation. Poor Damien hurt his back and couldn’t go, and the older kids all went together in a separate car with friends to belatedly celebrate Lucy’s birthday. So that left me, Benny, and Corrie. We were pretty far away from the hurricane, but the ocean was still feeling it. 

Bunch more pictures here.

 

Since it was just the three of us, we hit the arcade and then picked a beachside restaurant. Corrie got her very first footlong hotdog

and Benny got a burger and I got some ridiculous cheesy bacon fries. We don’t have a lot of outings with just the three of us these days, and it was fun! We got home purty late, showered the sand off, and fell into bed. 

MONDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips, fruit salad

First day of school! The younger kids just had half days (not the same half, of course), so we were pretty much driving all day. A fine day for ham and cheese. 

I cut up a watermelon and a bunch of strawberries and threw in some grapes and called it good. 

TUESDAY
Chicken genovese, bread

This past weekend I got fed up with my cinnamon basil, which I bought accidentally, and which has been flourishing like nothing else I’ve ever planted. I don’t really like cinnamon basil, though. But I kept telling myself I was going to make something with it, so I kept watering it and picking the blossoms off every few days, and getting madder and madder as it got bigger and bigger. Anyway, I finally dug it up, chunked it in holes in the front of the house, and declared it flowering plants. I used the open garden space, plus the space where the potatoes were, to plant some cucumber seeds. I don’t know if I’ll really get a harvest before the frost comes, but I might!

Then on Tuesday, I picked a ton of regular basil and made pesto, more or less following this recipe. 

Good stuff. 

I ran out of pine nuts, so I toasted a bunch of almonds and then forgot to put them in. OH WELL. Pesto still turned out great, if a bit pale. 

The recipe is actually for chicken genovese, which is chicken roasted with pesto on and under the skin. It was whole chickens that were on sale, and it turns out most of the kids don’t like pesto (THEY DON’T LIKE PESTO), so I just roasted one with basic seasonings (salt, pepper, garlic powder, I think maybe paprika) and olive oil, and one with the pesto. One of the kids came in when I was shoving pesto under the skin and got permanently creeped out, and I have to admit, it was a little creepy!

Delicious, though. I honestly can’t tell if this looks yummy or grisly, but it was, in fact, yummy. 

When I cut it open, the layer of interior pesto looked so fancy. 

Again, not really sure if this looks gross! I’m tired, and just can’t tell!

I just cut up a bunch of baguettes and dumped a bag of fresh spinach into a bowl, and it was a nice meal. Something different. 

WEDESDAY
Weird tacos, tortilla chips

Wednesday I made some really terrible tacos. I couldn’t find the garlic powder, so I used garlic salt, forgetting that I had already added quite a bit of salt. Then I was out of cumin, so I decided to put a whole extra lot of chili powder, which doesn’t even make sense. I guess I was kind of distracted. Anyway, we had tacos. 

THURSDAY
Salmon, risotto, roast butternut squash

Thursday I was planning to try my new-to-me air fryer, and a few people told me salmon was a great thing to make it in. So I bought some frozen salmon at Walmart, and then for some reason at the last minute I decided to try a slightly more complex recipe than just, you know, salt and pepper and lemon juice. This calls for cutting the salmon into chunks, rolling it in a mixture of spices and brown sugar, and then air frying. Which isn’t that hard, except that I could not get the air fryer to heat up, at all. The light went on, the timer ticked and binged, but no heat, no matter how I set it. UNFORTUNATE. 

So I pan fried the salmon in hot oil, and they turned out pretty okayish. 

Salmon is already on the sweet side, so I think next time I’ll stick with a simpler recipe next time, with no sugar. I guess I was hoping maybe the kids would eat it if it had sugar on it. Don’t tell that shaved ape who runs the health department.

I also cut up a couple of butternut squashes and roasted them on a pan with honey, olive oil, uhhhhh salt, cinnamon, and chili powder, I think. 

That, too, turned out okay. 

The last part was risotto, and I made it in my new-to-me pressure cooker. My Instant Pot kicked the bucket, and what I really wanted was another 8-quart Instant Pot, but those are hard to find (it’s mostly 6-quart ones); so I settled for an 8-quart Instant Pot knockoff. I got it on the day we went to see the petroglyphs. And immediately realized it was, in fact, 6-quart Instant Pot knockoff, and kind of smelled like cigarettes. 

NO MATTER. I wiped it down and there was juuuust room in it to make a triple recipe of risotto. I followed this recipe, except without the sage and squash, and also I shoved a stick of butter in there before adding the cheese. And I doubled the cheese. And I used regular rice instead of arborio. Well, I guess I didn’t really follow the recipe. But it was good!

A good meal altogether, if a bit Ship of Theseusish. 

FRIDAY
Regular spaghetti

I already told you about Friday. What I didn’t tell you is doing yoga after eating a hearty bowl of spaghetti is not highly recommended. But you probably didn’t need me to tell you that. 

So tomorrow, my SISTER is coming, and she and some of her kids are going to spend TWO NIGHTS here! (Okay, yes, that is why I cleaned the dining room. But really, it was out of control anyway.) I am very excited. Thinking about trying out our new-to-me rotisserie thing, since we’ve had so much success lately with new-to-me appliances. I think I’m gonna finally pick my first round of corn, too. 

Okay, that’s it! Happy Friday!

Those gangly adolescent souls

If you’ve spent any time with adolescents, you’re familiar with one of their more endearing traits: disproportionate development. They wake up one morning 4 inches taller, but it’s all in the legs, and their torsos are still the same size. Or maybe their arms and legs are the same length as they were last year, but their hands and feet have suddenly gotten huge. It’s adorable, and a little bit pathetic.

Some kids grow so fast and so unevenly, they end up careening around, bumping into things and bouncing off the walls. It looks like they’re being careless and intentionally disruptive, and maybe they are; but a big part of it is that they literally don’t know what size they are. 

It’s not only their bodies that are growing quickly but disproportionately; it’s their minds and their hearts and their consciences. So you may find them careening around the house not just physically, but intellectually or morally or socially. Their thoughts and feelings and desires and sense of self are developing fast, and not at an even pace. They are disproportionate, and it’s adorable, and a little bit pathetic.

And sometimes infuriating. Disproportionate development leads to some truly insane inconsistencies in their opinions and behavior. They often come across as wildly hypocritical, requiring the highest standards for other people and (apparently) the lowest for themselves. They can be self-righteous, and they can be very harsh, as well as emotional and ludicrously sentimental, sometimes in the same breath.

The standard explanation for this behavior is that their hormones are fluctuating mercilessly, so they’re under assault from the inside; and at the same time, the world is bombarding them from the outside with nonstop information, nonstop stimulation and nonstop nonsense.

These are all solid explanations for why adolescents act the way they do. But I find it easier to look at them with kindness when I remember that their most irrational behavior is not as senseless as it looks. In fact, it is a sign they are growing. It’s just that the growth is disproportionate. 

The best thing you can do, for your own sanity and for their current and future good, is to look for, name and praise the parts that are getting big and strong and well-developed, and to be patient while the rest of them (it is to be hoped) catches up. 

Here’s an example. When the Space Shuttle Challenger was preparing to launch, our class got copious lessons about Christa McAuliffe, the teacher who’d been selected to join the crew through the NASA Teacher in Space Program. She taught high school not an hour down the road from us, and the whole school followed her exploits enthusiastically.

Of course she never made it. The whole class was all glued to the screen as the ship exploded. It was horrible in many different ways.

But in the aftermath, very shortly after, a bunch of us complained to our teacher, Mrs. Blanchard, that we were tired of hearing about boring old Christa McAuliffe all the time. … Read the rest of my latest for Our Sunday Visitor. 

Image by Alex Proimos from Sydney, Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

“Nomadic canon lawyer” Balestrieri fined $50k for defamation

By Damien Fisher

Self-described nomadic canon lawyer, Marc Balestrieri, is going to have to pay $50,000 for defaming a New Hampshire priest, the Rev. Georges de Laire.

Balestrieri was the final defendant in de Laire’s epic lawsuit against Gary “Michael” Voris and his Church Militant news outlet. According to court records, Balestrieri is the author of a 2019 defamatory article which caused de Laire emotional distress as well as the loss of his position as judicial vicar in the Diocese of Manchester.

Church Militant and its parent organization, St. Michael’s Media, shut down as a result of a settlement agreement with de Laire reached last year. The Michigan-based nonprofits that Voris founded 20 years ago to spread his weird version of Catholicism also paid de Laire $500,000 as part of the deal to avoid a worse fate at the coming jury trial.

Voris managed to stay out of a trial by apologizing in writing to de Laire last summer. Suzanne Elovecky, de Laire’s attorney, told us Voris also paid a “substantial” amount of money as part of the settlement. Voris later denied he paid any money to de Laire, and blamed a former staffer for the defamation. 

While de Laire wanted Balestrieri to pay $100,000, United States District Court Judge Joseph LaPlante wrote in his Aug. 25 order that $50,000 was appropriate given the undisclosed settlement cash he’s already received from St. Michael’s and Voris. 

Balestrieri and de Laire knew each other professionally, and Balestrieri represented people involved in a New Hampshire annulment case that de Laire presided over. When that case did not go his way, Balestrieri complained to Rome about de Laire, according to court records. The Vatican does not seem to have responded to Balestrieri’s complaints.

Balestrieri also represented Voris, various Church Militant staffers, and the Richmond, New Hampshire Feeneyite group, the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But it was Balestrieri’s side gig as an anonymous reporter for Church Militant that caused the problems for Voris, the Slaves, and de Laire.

Voris went to New Hampshire in 2019 to interview the Slaves after the Diocese of Manchester disciplined the group. As the judicial vicar, de Laire was the diocesan point man on dealing with the Slaves. Church Militant then outlet published videos and articles calling de Laire ‘emotionally unstable,’ stating de Laire is incompetent, and implying he’s corrupt, according to the lawsuit. 

Voris initially took credit for the reporting when de Laire brought the lawsuit, and kept Balestrieri true authorship secret. At the time the original article came out, Balestrieri was involved in the Slave’s canon law defense. Both Voris and Louis Villarubbia, the Slaves leader also known as Brother Andre Marie, claimed they had no knowledge of Balestrieri’s conflict of interest. 

Voris placed a large chunk of the blame for the articles on his failure to properly vet Balestrieri’s work. 

“As CEO of St. Michael’s Media and Church Militant.com, I did not ensure the proper vetting the article as I should have. Mr. Balestrieri did not substantiate, and has not substantiated in the lawsuit, his claims regarding Father de Laire by identifying sources. Prior to publication, SMM should have questioned this lack of substantiation, and should have assessed Mr. Balistieiri’s and his story’s objectivity. I did not ensure that SMM did so,” Voris wrote. 

Court records show Voris worked to keep Balestrieri’s identity secret for months after the lawsuit was filed. After Balestrieri’s connection came to light, Voris supplied him with an interest-free $65,000 loan as Balestrieri dodged process servers. Balestrieri was finally ruled in default and liable for the defamation for failing to respond to the lawsuit. 

As the case moved closer to a fall, 2023 trial, court records show de Laire’s team learned Voris and his Church Militant staff had been hiding evidence sought in discovery, including messages with Balestrieri. Balestrieri then made a surprise appearance at a June, 2023 hearing in the United States District Court in Concord seeking to get out from under the default judgement. 

Weeks before, Balestrieri denied to Villarubbia that he had written the original article. At the June hearing, Balestreiri agreed to sit for a deposition scheduled for July, 2023 during which he was likely to repeat that denial under oath. However, court records show the day of the June hearing, Voris sent Balestreiri a text message warning.

“Marc – you are committing perjury. You know you wrote that article. What you don’t know is this morning we found proof – your digital fingerprints – all totally documented – on that article. Remember the email address – TomMoore@Churchmilitant.com.? We have all the receipts. You go through with this and we will rain down on you publicly. You are a liar, and a Welch,” Voris wrote.

Balestrieri cancelled his deposition 24 hours before it was to start, and again disappeared from the scene for a time. 

From this point on, Church Militant and Voris were headed for disaster. Three defense lawyers quit the case, more evidence that been withheld was found, Voris was fired for violating Church Militant’s “morality clause” via a gay sex scandal, and Church Militant ran out of money. In February, the outlet agreed to settle with de Laire for half a million dollars before it went dark in April.

Balestrieri made repeated, unsuccessful attempts to get the default judgement lifted. But after two damages hearings this summer, at which Balestrieri was surprisingly present, LaPlante issued the $50,000 order this week. 

Voris has since resurfaced with a MAGA-flavored Catholic news blog called Souls and Liberty based in Houston, Texas. Voris has recycled some of his Church Militant video content on Souls and Liberty, like the talks he gave at the 2016 Church Militant Retreat at Sea.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

What’s for supper? Vol. 436: Not governed by me only

Happy Friday! This was somehow both the fastest and longest week all year. I am going to make a stab at fasting and praying for peace today, especially in Ukraine and Israel, at the Pope’s behest. Don’t forget, you can fast all kinds of ways. It doesn’t have to be like Good Friday; you can fast from sweets, or from TV, or from being a big whiny baby (impossible).  

Also today Elijah is moving out. Our fifth kid to move out. A fine day not to be able to eat one’s feelings, humph.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s artist profile, Our Sunday Visitor magazine is shuttering, as well as several other OSV publications. Of course the Lord will provide, so we are just praying that he provides until he provides, and all will be well. I truly did love writing that art series, and pretty much loved writing my monthly column for them as well, so it’s just a shame. Lots and lots of great writers were there. Although I suppose if we can survive the loss of a picture of a barrel on a sign, we can survive this.

Anyway, this past weekend we saw Benny and Clara in a production of Alice, and they were both great. Here are just two of the roles they played: Clara as the Red Queen, and Benny as Shrunken Alice. 

This is an ensemble that Clara put together with her cousin and a bunch of friends, which is very cool!

SATURDAY
Leftovers and mozzarella sticks? 

On Saturday, two unlikely things happened: One is I found three giant, handmade, high quality pillows with a really neat menagerie pattern for the living room

and the other is that I donated three bags of clothes to the same thrift store. I donated them, I tell you! My usual technique is to sort clothes into bags, then leave them under the dining room table until they get enough macaroni stuck to them, then put them in the back of the minivan and drive around with them for several months until the bag gets stepped on and ripped, and then put them in a second bag and bring them to the thrift store, who politely and reasonably declines; and then I throw them away. BUT NOT THIS TIME. 

The we did the rest of the shopping, and then for supper we had leftovers and, as far as I can recall, mozzarella sticks.

SUNDAY
Hamburgers, chips

Sunday I absolutely splurged on ground beef. I remember when ground beef was $1.29 a pound. Now it’s $1.29 to smell it, and if you actually want to buy it and take it home, you have to fax proof of income to the loan officer, and they don’t even give out lollipops anymore. We used to be a proper country, with hamburgers, and lollipops!

But before supper, Damien and I went kayaking! First time this summer. Boy is it hard to do all the things you want to do in the summer. But we went, and it was absolutely lovely. We explored this placid little river for about an hour, surrounded by a chorus of buzzing grasshoppers and the splash of irritated turtles as they turned their backs and fled. 

We paddled until we met a beaver dam on either side, and I did not fall in the water while getting out of the kayak OR while getting in. Absolutely gorgeous and perfect afternoon. And then we got ice cream, just us two grown-ups. 

MONDAY
Pizza

On Monday, Benny and Corrie and I dug up our potatoes. This was kind of an experimental crop, which I invested zero doll hairs in. Just shoved a bunch of sprouting potatoes from the supermarket into the ground in the spring, added plenty of compost, and kept it watered.

Wow, it was fun and exciting to dig them up! I had planted at least three kinds of potatoes, and we really didn’t know what we would find. 

I mean, we found potatoes! It was a very pleasant little treasure hunt. Here’s our haul:

They would have gotten bigger if I had left them in the ground longer, of course, but I was very happy with new potatoes. 

Also on Monday, Corrie started some pork butts dry brining for bo ssam. She is the one who is most excited about continuing to cook, and this is a very popular meal, and quite easy (you just have to start well ahead of time). For this first part, you just mix together a cup of salt and a cup of sugar, rub it all over the pork

and wrap it up and let it brine overnight. The salt draws the moisture out of the meat fibers but then back in again, or something? I don’t know how the magic works, but it works. 

Oh, and we had pizza for supper. One plain, one pepperoni, and one with black and kalamata olives, feta, fresh basil, and fresh garlic. 

Kind of ghastly picture, but it was very yummy pizza. 

TUESDAY
Bo ssam, rice, pineapple; world’s biggest s’mores

Tuesday, we double wrapped a pan with heavy tin foil and started the meat cooking in the early afternoon. It needs five or six hours to cook. When it got close to being done, we made a pot of rice and then Corrie made a little sauce  of brown sugar, salt, and cider vinegar and slathered it on the meat.

This caramelizes on top and gives it an extra sweet and tangy punch and a wonderful crackly crust, with impossibly tender fat underneath. It came out spectacular. 

We got it in the oven later than I meant to, and had to turn up the heat a little higher than usual, so I was afraid it might not be shreddy and moist, but it sure was

I cut up a few pineapples and even though I forgot to buy lettuce to wrap the meat it, it was an excellent meal. If not an excellent photo or presentation.

Here’s the recipe we use, although we do only the most basic parts of it. And now Corrie knows how to make another meal! 

Also on Tuesday, we finally had everyone home in the evening, and it was finally finally time to make the world’s biggest s’mores. I had already made two giant graham crackers, two big slabs of marshmallow, and an absurdly thick giant chocolate bar. It was so much work that I couldn’t quite bring myself to make any plans for how to actually . . . make it into s’mores. Pish tush. 

Also, I was afraid the graham crackers were going to be stale as heck since they were almost a week old, but in fact they got really soft. I put them in the oven for a while to firm them up, and it didn’t help at all. So I just lit the propane fire pit and FORGED AHEAD. 

What I ended up doing is putting the marshmallow on a metal baking rack and toasting it over the fire that way. Which meant I couldn’t really flip it and toast both sides, but I did anyway, and of course I got burnt and sticky and all the dumb things you might expect. After a while I just kinda dumped one graham cracker on Corrie, dropped the chocolate on that, flopped the marshmallow on that, smacked the other graham cracker on that, and then topped it with another pan like a clamshell and held both pans over the fire until I thought maybe it was hot. 

Then I carved it into Big Mac-sized pieces and gave them to the understandably skeptical kids.

Who ate as much as they could and then escaped inside to watch TV.  So, this project was a success in that I finished it! I am trying really hard to finish projects instead of abandoning them, and I did finish it. So there. 

WEDNESDAY
Pork fried rice, frozen egg rolls

Wednesday we had a sort of complicated little outing: First I went to buy an off-brand Instant Pot from some lady on Marketplace, and then we went searching for ANCIENT PETROGLYPHS. They are in Bellows Falls, VT, and it seems like they are being deliberately kept on the DL to avoid a lot of tourist fuss? So I will abide by that! You can find them with a little sleuthing.

Not knowing exactly where they were, and spending a lot of time clambering up and down on the slippery boulders of a gorge with a hydroelectric dam nearby

 

made it all the more exciting when we finally found them!


I think I’m gonna write a whole separate post about this, but it was a wonderful experience, very beautiful and moving, somehow. These petroglyphs were carved probably by Abenaki people, several hundred or maybe a few thousand years ago, and nobody really knows why. A signpost for souls in the afterlife? A family portrait? An elaborate doodle? We just don’t know, except that they are clearly faces, and someone knew what they are — just not us. Real Richard Wilbur vibes:

A lark, because I’d been wrong
Burst rightly into song
In a world not vague, not lonely, 
Not governed by me only. 

Yeah, that’s what it was. 

I was there with only three of the kids, and everyone really enjoyed it. Then we went to the fabled nearby Dari Joy

where the people are friendly and the ice cream cones are enormous. And then we drove home, and then I remembered we were out of milk, and then I remembered we were out of duck food, and by the time we actually got home, it was late o’clock. 

I made some quick fried rice with the leftover pork 

Jump to Recipe

and heated up some egg rolls. And then I took the leftover s’mores, of which there was about 43 pounds, and cut it into squares, wrapped it in tinfoil, and heated it up in the oven until the chocolate was actually melted.

This is, in fact, probably the best way to make giant s’mores: In the oven. But the whole point of s’mores is that you make them over a fire, so that’s why we did it the dumb way that didn’t really work. 

It was still a mess and still kind of overwhelming! And that’s why people don’t make giant s’mores! I left the pan in the kitchen and it made great food for teenagers to pick at while yacking about whatever. And then I bundled up the tinfoil and dumped it all in the garbage, and that felt great. Better than dropping off used clothes, even. 

THURSDAY
One-pan chicken, brussels sprouts, and new potatoes

Thursday I gave all our lovely homegrown potatoes a good scrub. 

I cut up a bunch of brussels sprouts and put them in two big greased sheet pans with the potatoes, then nestled some chicken thighs in among them, and doused it all with what is meant to be a marinade,

Jump to Recipe

but I forgot about making supper until it was too late to marinate anything, so I just splashed it on top and then added extra garlic powder and salt. (This recipe calls for summer squash and zucchini, but obviously you can improvise.) It came out nice and sharp and garlicky.

The potatoes were delightful. The skins were just tissue-paper thin and the insides were tender as heck. Many of them were only bite-sized or smaller, so I left as many whole as I could, and it was a treat. 

Delicious. 

FRIDAY
Fish tacos, tortilla chips

Just batter-fried fish from frozen, shredded cabbage, avocados, I think maybe jalapeños? and salsa and sour cream. I’ll have to look it up. I do have some non-radioactive shrimp in the freezer, so maybe I’ll stir things up a bit (by cooking shrimp).

And this is our last weekend of summer vacation. The kids are at a magic show at the library, and we are going to squeeze in one last playdate on Saturday and an ocean trip on Sunday, and maybe we can get to the pond on Monday. I’m going to plant some cucumbers in the empty potato bed today and see if I can get a quick harvest before the frost comes.

Yesterday, I had the kids buy TV time by picking apples from Marvin

so I guess I’ll be making some apple sauce soon. Still haven’t picked my first round of corn, so I’m looking forward to that. And the grape vine continues to ramble around everywhere, so I added a new little trellis (well, a bendy stick) and it’s going along with it. 

Some day you’ll be able to pick grapes with your teeth while swimming in the pool. Who knew New Hampshire could be so decadent. 

One thing I do feel good about is that I have practiced yoga every single day this month, and almost every day I lifted weights, too. I made myself a motivational sticker chart, and although I haven’t been getting a lot of gold stars in food, I have been getting lots of flowers in yoga, and birds in weights.

It’s not stupid if it works!

This is your periodic reminder that I have an extremely low-key private exercise group on Facebook, where people just check in and note what exercise they have done, aiming for three workouts or more a week, and we encourage each other and share information about workouts we recommend. I’ll probably be starting another thirty-day challenge in September, so if you want to hop on, this would be a good time. 

I just now took this picture:

even though I just took this one of us a couple days ago:

and then off he went. Dang it. Ah well. 

Print

Basic stir fried rice

This is a very loose recipe, because you can change the ingredients and proportions however you like

Ingredients

  • cooked rice
  • sesame oil (or plain cooking oil)
  • fresh garlic and ginger, minced
  • vegetables, diced or shredded (onion, scallion, peas, bok choy, carrots, sugar snap peas, cabbage, etc.)
  • brown sugar
  • raw or cooked shrimp, or raw or cooked meat (pork, ham, chicken), diced
  • soy sauce
  • oyster sauce
  • fish sauce
  • eggs

Instructions

  1. In a very large pan, heat up a little oil and sauté the ginger and garlic for a few minutes. If you are using raw meat, season it with garlic powder and ginger powder and a little soy sauce, add it to the pan, and cook it through. If you are using shrimp, just throw it in the pan and cook it.

  2. Add in the chopped vegetables and continue cooking until they are cooked through. If you are using cooked meat, add it now.

  3. Add the brown sugar and cook, stirring, until the brown sugar is bubbly and darkened.

  4. Add in the cooked rice and stir until everything is combined.

  5. Add in a lot of oyster sauce, a medium amount of soy sauce, and a little fish sauce, and stir to combine completely.

  6. In a separate pan, scramble the eggs and stir them in. (Some people scramble the eggs directly into the rest of the rice, but I find it difficult to cook the eggs completely this way.)

  7. If you are using cooked shrimp, add it at the end and just heat it through.

Print

One-pan garlicky chicken with potatoes, summer squash, and zucchini

Ingredients

  • 12 chicken thighs
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
  • 1/4 cup cider vinegar
  • 6 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
  • 2 tsp ground pepper
  • 1 Tbsp onion powder
  • 1 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • fresh basil, chopped
  • more salt, garlic powder, and onion powder for sprinkling
  • 4 lbs potatoes, scrubbed and sliced thickly
  • 6 assorted zucchini and summer squash, washed and sliced into discs with the skin on

Instructions

  1. Combine the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, cider vinegar, garlic, garlic powder, onion, powder, salt, pepper, and fresh basil. Marinate the chicken thighs in this mixture for at least half an hour.

  2. Preheat the oven to 400.

  3. Grease two large baking sheets. Arrange the chicken, potatoes, and vegetables on the sheet with as little overlap as possible.

  4. Sprinkle additional salt, onion powder, and garlic powder on the potatoes and vegetables.

  5. Cook about 40 minutes or until chicken is completely done and potatoes are slightly brown on top.

Andrew Coleman works with wood, for now and for the future

Wood doesn’t last forever. That’s one of the things Andrew Coleman likes about it.

“God’s the one who made wood. Its properties are what they are because he made it that way,” said Coleman, the artist and owner of Coleman’s Handcrafted Sacred Art and Fine Woodworking.

Even a substantial and ornate wooden altar, like the one he built for Our Lady of Mount Carmel in St. Francisville, Louisiana, doesn’t have the lifespan of stone or metal — especially in humid south Louisiana, where Coleman’s workshop is based. But that’s not necessarily a flaw.

Some parts of the church will last for thousands of years; some of it is designed more for the here and now. That’s true for church buildings and for the Church as an institution.

“Even if you’re going to have a church built out of marble, you can’t do it without the use of wood,” Coleman said. You need both, and there’s a wider lesson about complementarity there.

This meeting of the eternal and the temporal gets played out throughout salvation history: Some of the things God does are permanent and unchangeable; some of them are meant for a specific time and place. Coleman, who founded the company with his wife, Ashley, four years ago, tries to keep both the temporal and the eternal in mind as he works.

After studying in seminary for a year, Coleman discerned he was meant for married life — specifically, marriage to Ashley, whom he’d known since they were kids growing up in Baton Rouge. His main goal, early on, was just to support a family, so he took a job as a salesman at a septic company owned by a fellow daily Massgoer. The job wasn’t glamorous, but it paid the bills.

But he did long to serve the Church more directly. He’d always been interested in woodworking, ever since he built a kneeler in shop class, and gradually he began to spend more and more time woodworking as a hobby. When his pastor at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Baton Rouge said the church’s altar rails needed restoring, he made the time to get it done.

That part-time project changed his life. A friend of the pastor who was visiting saw his work and was so impressed that he asked Coleman to build the entire sanctuary for a new church they were building in Alabama.

“It was a jump! It was like two years of work, and I was like, OK, well, I’m quitting my job to do that,” he said.

He was ready to take the leap, but Ashley was less certain. She considers that caution part of her job, along with managing the business end of the company, including social media accounts and their newsletter, The Whittler.

“That’s our dynamic. Andrew is the dreamer and the idealist, in a very positive way. Andrew is like, ‘Let’s go!’ and Ashley is like, ‘How are we going to do this?’” she laughed.

As the couple described the complementarity of their business dynamic, they took turns managing their toddler son, who spent the interview playing with his favorite toy, a calculator. Ashley is expecting another child in March.

Since that first big leap into full-time woodworking, the Colemans have been busy with commissions for churches, mostly in and around Louisiana, where both Catholicism and family ties are deeply seated.

“We’re very, very embedded in our community,” Andrew said. Much of the work they do is for priests who were friends with the Colemans before they were even ordained.

Mixing business and friendship has the potential for awkwardness, but the Colemans are overwhelmingly grateful their work is so personal.

“These different pastors are willing to trust us with these big projects that maybe they wouldn’t have trusted to someone they didn’t know personally,” Ashley said.

They’ve hit a sweet spot….

Read the rest of my latest (and possibly my last) for OSV.