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What’s for supper? Vol. 403: Nagi knows

Happy Friday! Since it is apparently indeed Friday. There has not been one single day this week when I knew what day it was, so why start now? 

I will begin with an abject failure from last Friday, which I hadn’t yet made when I wrote last Friday’s post. It was French onion pasta, and the recipe included fresh thyme, white wine, tons of freshly-grated cheese, and all kinds of lovely things. How could it go wrong? 

I still don’t know, but wheeee-ew. The recipe said to make sure you measure the liquids carefully so it didn’t turn out soupy. So I did, and it did. So I spooned off quite a bit of the liquid before baking it, and apparently that’s where all the flavor was? But also, it was still soupy. 

Doesn’t look terrible in this picture, but believe me. It was terrible. It tasted like the water you use to wash actual food. Man! Oh well. 

Anyway, on to what we had this past week: 

SATURDAY
Leftover buffet

In the morning, I drove into Nice New Hampshire and picked up a ton of windows from a guy who was converting a porch into a room.

The windows themselves are great (I think I got fourteen total), and also — and this may be something only cheapskate DIYers will understand — it was encouraging to get in on these materials so early in their life. Lots and lots of free and cheap windows are described as “collected to build a greenhouse but decided to go another route,” and that is . . . a little alarming. Because I am building a greenhouse/porch/solarium. But things will be different for me! I will collect windows, but I will not go another route! Probably!!

Then I went shopping, and we had leftovers for supper. I added taquitos, but there were so much leftover food, we didn’t really need them, and then Clara stopped by with some day-old baguettes from the bakery she works at. I myself mostly had the Middle Eastern Meatballs with yogurt sauce and Jerusalem salad, and also more day-old bread than you might think one person could even want.

Open photo

I’m amazed at how well this planned leftover day is working out. Much less food waste, obviously, and the fridge is much tidier; and people are actually looking forward to it, either because you get a second shot at a nice meal, or because of the frozen food I add. Most of all, it’s super helpful to have a stress-free meal to count on after shopping on Saturdays.

SUNDAY
Nachos

Sunday we had nachos (I make really subpar nachos, and I just don’t care. They’re just chips, seasoned meat, jalapeños, and cheese. Salsa and sour cream on the side. It’s fine. 

I also made Monday’s meal on Sunday. For whatever reason, I’ve been building up a supply of lamb shanks for the last several months, one or two at a time whenever they went on sale, and it was finally time to drag them all out of the freezer and do something. I decided on this curry recipe. 

I will tell you ahead of time that it was a tiny bit disappointing. It had all the right spices in it, but the end flavor was just kind of muddy, and the lamb was not nearly as tender as I hoped. It was good, just not great!

Anyway, I had fun making it. First I browned up the lamb

much to the dog’s interest. And I do mean MUCH

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and then I made a paste out of all the spices

then browned up some onions and other spices

then you add a bunch of chopped tomatoes and the spice paste

and also chicken broth and coconut milk, and then you put the lamb in. I let it simmer for several hours and then packed it into the fridge for the night. 

MONDAY
Lamb curry, rice, pita, pomegranates

Monday, the kids had the day off, and I think Moe and Clara stopped by for supper, but I can’t even remember which day that was. I started the lamb heating up a few hours before supper, and made a big pot of basmati rice. I soaked it first, and that really added to the light, feathery texture of the rice, so I’ll be doing that going forward. Gosh, I love basmati rice. 

A few hours before supper, I started some naan. I am not entirely happy with the various recipes I’ve tried, so this time I went with the Recipe Tin Eats version, which doesn’t include yogurt, but does include a little egg and ghee. 

Friends, Nagi was right again. It turned out so good. Much fluffier than any other naan I’ve made, and it had a nice flavor, too.

No description available.

I couldn’t find my iron frying pan, but this double-walled steel one worked fine. I wish I had been a little more assiduous about wiping the burnt flour out of the pan in between naans, but I will still very happy with the results. 

So then it was supper time! Rice was ready, naan was ready, and I had cut up some pomegranates and some cilantro, and all I had to do was combine the two pots of lamb curry into one very large, brimming pot and carry it into the dining room without–

never mind. I sloshed a little bit out, slipped in it, and sloshed a lot of it out. But didn’t drop any actual meat! But sheesh, what a mess. You can see, this is a fairly greasy recipe, which is one thing I wasn’t crazy about. I think you can see my actual slipping toe marks, which is kind of funny. 

ANYWAY, it was good, though!

Pretty good. Like I said, a little muddy, and just not as flavorful as I was hoping, considering how many THINGS went into it. There was a lot left over, and I cut the meat into pieces and returned it to the masala sauce, and I’m kind of looking forward to Saturday. It was fun having some of the big kids over, anyway. It’s very jolly when they’re here. 

TUESDAY
Bagel, egg, cheese, sausage sandwiches; OJ

Over the weekend, Damien pushed really hard and got the porch debris to the dump, which was a huge relief. On Tuesday, I got out there with a rake and got the small bits, so it looks much more respectabiggle out there. I found a very old bone which I’m about 87% sure is a chicken bone. 

In the late afternoon we had the pleasure of watching Moe read some of his short stories at an event at the college. He won a creative writing award and also recently got an internship with a publisher, and it was hard to say what was more gratifying: Hearing his excellent work, or hearing everyone say nice things about him!

Then we got home and had bagel sandwiches. I tried the oven rack toasting method again, and had slightly more success with the bagels than I did with bread, because they are more rigid

Turns out the kids are much more willing to eat duck eggs if you scramble them than if you fry them! Good to know. 

I don’t really blame the kids for feeling a little icky about eating the duck eggs. You spend enough time witnessing the ducks’ personal habits, and you start to feel a real need for some kind of buffer. I get it. Lucky for me, the main thing I care about is eating, so I love duck eggs, despite What I Know. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken drumsticks two ways, vegetables and dip, chips

In the morning, I drove into Sticksville and picked up a beautiful heavy door, only $20. The lady says, “I’m sorry I can’t help you lift it; I’ve hurt my back” and I said, “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I’m just rushing around lifting as much heavy stuff as I can before I have surgery myself” and she says “What kind of surgery?” and I said, “Uh, hernia.” and we just kind of looked at each other like, well, bitches be crazy. 

Then I got home and tried to do some writing, and then got an irresistible urge to, uh, plant a bunch of marigolds for the turtle to eat. 

I have an awful lot of seeds hanging around, and seeds go through my kitchen constantly. Last year I did some winter sowing (starting seeds inside jugs outdoors, like miniature greenhouses, so they are somewhat self-watering and are already hardened off and start to germinate earlier), which is a nice way to get through the dark part of winter. But I’m having fun finding edible plants I can grow right now. The turtle has been very active and adventurous lately, and is enjoying the geraniums and pansies I put in his tank. 

I roasted a bunch of chicken drumsticks with olive oil, salt and pepper, and then I made two sauces: One with honey, mustard, and lemon juice, and one with buffalo sauce and melted butter. Then I divided the chicken and mixed half with one sauce, half with the other. 

I did this in the morning, and then I had the kids start heating the chicken up in the evening while I was out, and by dinner time, there were two tasty chickens from which to choose. Also veggies and dip and chips. 

Pretty popular meal. It was only a tiny bit of extra work to do the two kinds of sauce. 

THURSDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, tomato soup with rice

Thursday is an absolute blur. In retrospect, I was starting to hatch a migraine (WHICH, I should mention, are much rarer than they used to be! Emgality has really made a difference), and it was one of those days where I had to think about where to put my foot for every step I took, etc. You know, just living is a lot of work sometimes. 

So for supper, we just had grilled ham and cheese on sourdough bread, and I heated up some condensed tomato soup with milk, and I put leftover basmati rice in mine. 

I absolutely love cream of tomato soup with rice in it. Makes you feel like you’re sitting in someone’s lap.

FRIDAY
Ravioli?

I feel like it might be ravioli. For lo, the migraine has come into full power and I don’t know much. But at least we have windows! Lots and lots of windows, and surely everything will work out, one way or another. Or maybe we’ll go another route. 

Speaking of which, I stopped interacting with Twitter about a month ago, and yesterday I finally started up with Bluesky. It’s nice! It’s like Twitter used to be, and lots of people are making a conscious effort to be friendly and pleasant and not horrible. If you’re there, let’s connect! 

What’s for supper? Vol. 400 and other milestones

Happy Fr–

wait. It’s Friday, seriously? AGAIN? ALREADY??

Yes, all right, fine, happy Friday, then [fetches head which has fallen off shoulders in dismay and rolled under the bed; dusts it off, glues it back on neck with hot glue, ouch, hot, ouch].

Here is what we had this apparently past week:

SUNDAY
Leftover chili, egg rolls, apple pie and ice cream

Saturday Leftover Buffet was a bit of a bust this week because the kid on refrigerator duty forgot it was a thing, and threw all the week’s leftovers away. But you know what, guys. I was like, “The chili, too?” and she was like, “Yeah, sorry” and I was like, “Wait, is this it, in the trash?” and she was like, “Yeah, I threw it away” and I was like, “BUT IT’S THE ONLY THING IN THE TRASH.”

A brand new trash liner, with no trash in it, just chili.

So,,,

when you think about it, really all that happened is that she moved the chili from the pot to an unused plastic bag.

So,,,

I moved it back from the bag onto the stove and heated it up again. I’m not sorry! I’m not sorry!!! It was a brand new liner! And I was really looking forward to that chili! 

To my credit, I did tell Damien what happened before I served it, and he said it was okay. Then 

DAMIEN DON’T READ THIS PART

I found out that actually the kid had also thrown out some leftover fried rice, and poured the chili on top of it, and I didn’t notice, and just heated it up all together.

And this, I did not tell anyone. 

It was still good chili! Had a little more rice, pork, and scrambled eggs in it than absolutely necessary, but who among us. 

Anyway, for some reason I had blurted out that we never had any apple desserts from all those apples we picked the other week, and then I blurted out that I would make some pies, so, I did. 

Truly, they were not the finest-looking pies known to mankind. I made a cute little extra pie for Millie but then ran out of crust for the second of the two big pies, so I went back to that cake mix streusel recipe that I made several weeks ago for the peach whatnot. 

Here is my apple pie dough recipe:

Jump to Recipe

and then I just mixed up the apple slices with a bunch of sugar, a tiny bit of salt, some cinnamon, and a bit of flour, and then piled it onto the crust and dotted it with butter. No recipe, just vibes. I brushed the top crust with egg white beaten up with water, and then sprinkled it with sugar. Baked at 450 for ten minutes and then turned it down to 350 for another 35 minutes or so, covered with tinfoil toward the end. 

I used Macintosh apples even though they cook down really flat and mushy, because Macintosh apples are the best tasting apples, no question. So the pies kind of looked like someone had stepped on them, but they were fresh, hot pies from fresh, local apples! Good stuff. 

The streusel topping was a little weird. I used yellow cake mix and only had a few tablespoons of butter in the house, so I hastily sloshed in some vegetable oil, scrunched it up, and baked it until it was firm. It was actually fine that way. I sprinkled the baked streusel on top of the unbaked pie, sprinkled some cinnamon on top, and baked it that way. It’s not my absolute favorite – it’s very sweet, as cake mix is, and has a tiny bit of a starchy taste. But it’s a great trick to have up your sleeve if you’re unexpectedly short of pie crust. 

And then we went to bed earlyish! Big day tomorrow! 

SUNDAY 
Park food and McDonald’s 

We missed the Cheshire Fair over the summer, so we decided to go to The Big E fair in September, but we were down to like .75 of a car at that point, so we truly had no choice but to go to  Screeemfest at Canobie Lake Park in October. And there was screeeming! It’s all the regular amusement park stuff, minus the water park area, but plus weird Halloween decoration, lots of music of varying scariness, fog machines, and people stomping around in costumes. I guess there is a parade, and probably some other stuff as it gets darker. They also have four themed haunted houses, which I stayed out of completely because I don’t like being scared. 

Bunch o’ pictures here:

In food news, before we left the house around 11:30, I dry brined two enormous, fatty pork shoulders, wrapped them up, and stowed them in the fridge. It takes a little less than two hours to get to the park, and we had some sandwiches in the parking lot first, according to tradition. 

We had such a nice time at Canobie. I love that place. All the lights — the colored lights on the rides, and the little globe lights dotted all over the park — started to come on just as Benny and I got on the Ferris Wheel, and oh, it was lovely. 

We stayed almost eight hours! Life is just so much more POSSIBLE when your kids aren’t all little. We stopped for burgers on the way home and then collapsed into bed. 

MONDAY
Bo ssam, rice, pineapple and mango 

The next day was a school day and, well, you can take the Fishers out of homeschool, but you can’t take the homeschool out of the Fishers. I told everyone they could stay home on account of we were tired. Poor Irene had a dentist appointment, but not first thing in the morning, and the kids devoted the rest of the day to lounging about.

Around 11, I put both hunks of pork in the oven at 300, on pans double wrapped in tin foil. 

About six hours later, I slathered a paste of brown sugar, cider vinegar, and salt on top and cranked the oven up to 500 for ten minutes or so. (More detailed recipe here, with lots of delicious extras, but I have pared it down to the bare minimum, and all I do is the salt and sugar brine and then the glaze at the end.)

I made a big pot of rice, prepped some lettuce leaves, and cut up a bunch of mangoes and pineapples. 

Out comes the pork roasts:

Lovely. It was collapsably tender and juicy like you wouldn’t believe. Everyone just pulls off however much meat they want, and we eat it in little bundles of lettuce with rice. 

Fruit on the side to refresh the mouth after the intensely salty meat. Good stuff, everybody happy. 

TUESDAY
Bibimbap

In the morning, I prepped all the fixings for dinner: I chopped up some sugar snap peas, sliced up a bunch of cucumbers, and quick-pickled a bunch of thinly-sliced carrots in rice vinegar, water, a little salt, and some sugar. 

I had a busy, busy day, doing interviews and driving here and there, and poor Millie is having a bunch of medical problems again, so please pray for her. I love her dearly and she is feeling really poorly. 

I got home on the late side and started another big pot of rice and cut up all the leftover pork and heated it up in the microwave.

This is actually what was leftover after dinner. There was SO much pork. No regrets, though! I was just so pleased with myself for planning this all out: I started it on Sunday morning, cooked and ate it on Monday, and heated up the leftovers on Tuesday, so we had yummy full meals even though I was running around all three days. 

I fried up a bunch of eggs, and we piled it all up in bowls. My egg got overcooked. Sad. It’s amazing when the yolk is runny and soaks down into the rice where it meats the meat juice. 

So it was rice, then meat, then cucumbers, sugar snap peas, pickled carrots, and also crunchy noodles and fried onions if you wanted them, then a fried egg, and then I put some yum yum sauce on top. I wasn’t really sure what it was, to be honest, but I suspect it’s what we used to call “pink stuff” when I was little and my mother made tuna noodle casserole. Pink stuff is mayonnaise, ketchup, and vinegar, and I guess it probably tastes normal if you’re used to eating it in the context of Asian food, but my context is tuna noodle, and it was a little bit like I had just put marshmallow fluff on a croissant. Not completely wrong, but definitely not right. Oh well! I was super hungry and it all tasted good enough. 

I was a little worried the meat would be dried out on the second day, because it’s SO salty, but it came through just fine. 

Also on Thursday I finally acknowledged that we are all done with collard greens for the year, possibly forever.

I pulled them all out, trucked over a bunch of compost, planted a few dozen garlic bulbs, and tucked it in with a ton of used duck straw. And that’s that! It’s supposed to take root before a hard frost comes, and then start up sprouting in the spring. Same for the carrots, which are in the other half of that bed. 

WEDNESDAY
Zuppa Toscana, squash muffins

Wednesday I got the soup cooking in the morning. I made Zuppa Toscana

Jump to Recipe

which really only Damien and I like, but we like it quite a bit. He got back from his morning run in the cold drizzle as I was frying up Italian sausage with garlic and onion, and I think he would have proposed marriage if we weren’t already, you know. It is quite a nice soup. Tender red potatoes in thin slices, plenty of kale, and a savory, cozy, cream base. 

Here is my recipe, which I have tweaked a bit since last time I shared it.

Jump to Recipe

I considered adding a bit of instant mashed potatoes to thicken it up, but the broth tasted so nice, I decided to leave it alone.

I was gonna make some crusty french bread, but realized I would be out of the house too much to supervise the rising. Somewhat disappointed, I decided to make pumpkin muffins, which might mollify the kids a bit. So I stared making them, and you’ll never guess: We didn’t have any pumpkin. SO, I decided to make squash muffins, using acorn squash from my garden. 

Sounds so thrifty and commendable, right? It wasn’t. I could have easily run to the store down the road to buy a can of pumpkin, or even more easily sent Elijah to do it. Instead, I did it this way because my frame of mind was such that, when I saw we had no canned pumpkin, I snarled, “Oh??? Two can play that game!!” and started hacking at the squash.

Two who? What game? I don’t know. It wasn’t very fascinating womanhood of me, though. 

I cut four acorn squashes in half, scooped out the seeds, and then inadvisably cooked them in the microwave, which took so long, I might as well have used the oven; and they came out really unevenly cooked, too. Then I burned the hell out of my fingers scooping out the flesh, and jammed the pieces into the Ninja blender.

It came out quite a bit more liquid-y than the canned pumpkin you buy, but I was running out of time and also still pretty angry at the shadowy forces that had forced me into this corner, so I just slapped it all together and baked it. I put it in the oven right away so at least the dog wouldn’t eat it this time. 

They came out . . . low.

They tasted fine and normal and they were very soft.  Just kind of humble, I guess. And at least you can tell it’s all organic and home-grown and whatnot, because some of the peel made it into the muffins. 

Hey, great soup, though! And so we move on. 

THURSDAY
Hamburgers and chips

Thursday, two of the kids didn’t have school because there were parent-teacher conferences, and then one kid wasn’t feeling well, and the final kid and I kinda looked at each other, and we agreed that she probably had a stuffy nose. So we all went back to bed. Listen. I pay the tax dollars, I get to say if we get our money’s worth or not on any given day. 

So we did get the two kids in for their conferences, with varying levels of enthusiasm

and stopped at a thrift store on the way home, and Corrie found a mini sewing machine she fell in love with, and Benny found a hand-knit squid hat (we really do have pretty great thrift stores), and then NOBODY HAD TO GO ANYWHERE.

I have ever so much writing this week, so I tappa-tappa-tappa’d for a while, and took some time to deal out breathtaking injustices toward my children, then I showed Corrie how to use her new sewing machine, and then we decided they might as well carve pumpkins.

I told Cub Scouts we would just have to see them next time. The kid who is a bit young to be using such a big knife did, in fact, cut her hand, but it wasn’t too deep and we even had some of those giant bandaids in the house. Then I made hamburgers, and then spent several more hours writing while Damien folded clothes with the kids, and . . . that’s how twenty-seven years go by, folks. 

FRIDAY
Spaghetti?

Yes, today is our ANNIVERSARY. 27 years!

We’re gonna go out and do something nice on Sunday, probably involving kayaks and Indian food. I think the bigger kids have a library lock-in tonight, which means it will just be me and Damien and Corrie home for dinner, which sounds really nice! Perhaps pizza and a movie. 

Also, I just found out Millie is home from a short stay at the hospital and feeling much better! 

In conclusion, did you notice that this is What’s For Supper Vol. 400, including some chili I got out of the garbage, and that my very first blog post ever, a free Blogger blog that I started something like 17 years ago, was about my toddler eating spaghetti out of the garbage? Did you know that sometimes people ask me for tips on how to live a good life? It really makes you think. 

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Basic pie crust

Ingredients

  • 2-1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1-1/2 sticks butter, FROZEN
  • 1/4 cup water, with an ice cube

Instructions

  1. Freeze the butter for at least 20 minutes, then shred it on a box grater. Set aside.

  2. Put the water in a cup and throw an ice cube in it. Set aside.

  3. In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Then add the shredded butter and combine with a butter knife or your fingers until there are no piles of loose, dry flour. Try not to work it too hard. It's fine if there are still visible nuggets of butter.

  4. Sprinkle the dough ball with a little iced water at a time until the dough starts to become pliable but not sticky. Use the water to incorporate any remaining dry flour.

  5. If you're ready to roll out the dough, flour a surface, place the dough in the middle, flour a rolling pin, and roll it out from the center.

  6. If you're going to use it later, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. You can keep it in the fridge for several days or in the freezer for several months, if you wrap it with enough layers. Let it return to room temperature before attempting to roll it out!

  7. If the crust is too crumbly, you can add extra water, but make sure it's at room temp. Sometimes perfect dough is crumbly just because it's too cold, so give it time to warm up.

  8. You can easily patch cracked dough by rolling out a patch and attaching it to the cracked part with a little water. Pinch it together.

 

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Zuppa Toscana

Ingredients

  • 1.25 lbs. sweet Italian sausages
  • 1-2 red onion(s), diced
  • 4 medium red potatoes, sliced thin with skin on
  • 8 oz mushrooms, sliced (optional)
  • 3-5 cups kale, chopped
  • 4 cups half and half
  • 8 cups chicken broth
  • 1 Tbsp minced garlic
  • olive oil for cooking
  • pepper
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • instant mashed potato (optional!)

Instructions

  1. Squeeze the sausage out of the casings. Saute it up in a little olive oil, breaking it into pieces as it cooks. When it's almost done, add the minced garlic, diced onion, and sliced potatoes. Drain off excess olive oil.

  2. When onions and potatoes are soft, add flour, stir to coat, and cook for another five minutes. 

  3. Add chicken broth and half and half. Let soup simmer all day, or keep warm in slow cooker or Instant Pot. 

  4. Before serving, add chopped kale (and sliced mushrooms, optional) and cook for another ten minutes (or set Instant Pot for three minutes) until kale and mushrooms are soft. Add pepper. Add salt if necessary, but the sausage and broth contribute salt already. 

  5. This makes a creamy soup. If you want it thicker, you can add a flour or cornstarch roux or even a few tablespoons of instant mashed potato at the end and cook a little longer. 

 

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Pumpkin quick bread or muffins

Makes 2 loaves or 18+ muffins

Ingredients

  • 30 oz canned pumpkin puree
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup veg or canola oil
  • 1.5 cups sugar
  • 3.5 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1.5 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/4 tsp ground ginger
  • oats, wheat germ, turbinado sugar, chopped dates, almonds, raisins, etc. optional

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter two loaf pans or butter or line 18 muffin tins.

  2. In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients except for sugar.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix together wet ingredients and sugar. Stir wet mixture into dry mixture and mix just to blend. 

  4. Optional: add toppings or stir-ins of your choice. 

  5. Spoon batter into pans or tins. Bake about 25 minutes for muffins, about 40 minutes for loaves. 

How to vote like a Catholic

It’s almost time to vote! And it’s no fun at all! Political discourse has become so profoundly degraded and debased, there’s truly nothing left to enjoy, other than the occasional Twitter joke. Election season used to feel like a party; now it feels like going to the morgue to see if you recognize anyone.

That’s actually a good thing.

When I was growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, we treated politics like a game. The sport of political engagement was a good way to get young people like me and my siblings involved; but it also gave us the impression that political parties were like teams, and that it was normal and healthy to ally yourself completely with one side or the other, and to root wholeheartedly for that one side, and to wholeheartedly reject and despise the other. It was very much like Red Sox vs. Yankees: A clear-cut case of good vs. evil. 

Now politics has become dysfunctional to a degree I never could have thought possible in this country. Rather than pushing my kids to get involved in politics like I did when I was young, I’m teaching them, until they’re tired of hearing it, that neither political party is my side. They’re not with me, and I’m not with them. Can’t be. 

I am a Catholic, and neither major party represents the things I know matter most. Both parties get some things right, but both have profound flaws which make them unsuitable for my full allegiance. Because I am Catholic, I am obligated to keep my eyes open to these flaws, and not to get in the habit of talking myself out of taking them seriously because they’re not as bad as the other side. I have an obligation to remain Catholic first, and a political ally second or third or maybe not at all.

The Church and its teaching are strong and reliable when and because they remain independent from politics; and when Catholics blur the lines between faith and politics, their faith always gets shoved down out of the top spot. This is what politics does: It degrades and eventually subsumes other things. This is what it always does. 

This is not a new state of affairs; it’s just more obvious now. Pope Benedict XVI said in 2007, in a speech to the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean:

“Respect for a healthy secularity—including the pluralism of political opinions—is essential in the Christian tradition. If the Church were to start transforming herself into a directly political subject, she would do less, not more, for the poor and for justice, because she would lose her independence and her moral authority, identifying herself with a single political path and with debatable partisan positions. The Church is the advocate of justice and of the poor, precisely because she does not identify with politicians nor with partisan interests. Only by remaining independent can she teach the great criteria and inalienable values, guide consciences and offer a life choice that goes beyond the political sphere. To form consciences, to be the advocate of justice and truth, to educate in individual and political virtues: that is the fundamental vocation of the Church in this area. And lay Catholics must be aware of their responsibilities in public life; they must be present in the formation of the necessary consensus and in opposition to injustice.”

So, no, you won’t win my Catholic vote by telling me which pocket to tuck my conscience into while I protect “reproductive rights,” and you won’t win my Catholic vote by shouting “Jesus is King!” through a MAGA megophone, either. You will clarify for me who you really rules you, though. 

But let’s be practical. What do Benedict’s words mean, in actionable terms? Do they mean that we, as Catholics, cannot register as Democrat or Republican, or that we can’t in good conscience vote for candidates of either party, because they don’t perfectly align with Catholic values?

They do not. The Church recognizes that the question of how to vote is thorny, complex, and sometimes downright revolting, and that people of good conscience may come to different conclusions. 

This year we just don’t have any good choices, and we either have to make do with what we think is the least bad; or we may discern, for various reasons, that our consciences tell us to vote for a candidate who cannot win. These are both legitimate courses to take, and any Catholic who tells you that it’s clearly a sin to vote one way or the other for any reason is just making stuff up. Catholics sometimes try to flog each other into voting Republican, claiming that Benedict XVI said it was a mortal sin to vote for a pro-abortion or pro-euthanasia candidate, even if you’re doing so for other reasons. Actually, he said the opposite (emphasis mine):

“A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”

So there you are. The church is not going to tell you how to vote, but it is going to tell you that you can’t stuff your Catholic ethics in the trunk of the car and let your political desires take the wheel. Yes, we still have to figure out whether proportionate reasons exist, but if that were obvious, he would have said so. 

What we should do, as Catholics, — and make sure our kids see us doing — is to ruthlessly reassess our political values frequently. Do a little examination of conscience and compare the things that motivate us as voters, and the things we are supposed to value as Catholics. Which things make us angry?   Which things do we make excuses for, that we used to find indefensible? What do we spend our time getting worked up about? If that’s changed, why has it changed? It’s not a matter of whether there will be discrepancies between our faith and our political situation, but of how many, and how grave. How defensible are our primary political talking points? What’s really driving our political desires? Could we defend those talking points if everyone else on the face of the earth went silent, and we were alone before God? 

Answering these questions may not change the way we actually vote, but it will probably alter the way you speak to and about other people, and the way you treat other people, especially people who are voting differently from you.

It’s not easy! But this is where our lives are actually lived: Not in the voting booth, but literally everywhere else.

This is what we will bring with us on judgment day: Not our ballots, but our words and deeds. Imagine how insane it would be to stand before God and argue that, sure, Lord, I treated other people like garbage idiots, but look at my voting record.

Yes, how we vote affects people’s lives, indirectly. But for every one vote we cast, we will have countless millions of chances to do good very directly. So that’s where our energy should go. Once every four years, we have the chance to be the best Americans we can be, but every single day, we’re supposed to be like Jesus. 

How? One way is by acts of charity. And another is by accepting how homeless you will feel. 

Recall that after a full day of healing people — a leper, the Centurion’s servant, Peter’s mother-in-law, and many who were possessed — Jesus, in Matthew 8, hears Peter say that he will follow him. Peter and the others have seen Jesus care for everyone who comes to him for help. He understands what they need, and when they come to him with faith, he heals them, because he is God, and he can do this. He is also preparing to give this power to his disciples: To pass along, through the Church he founds, the power to save souls. To be the one hope for humanity.

But what is the cost?

Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

This is what it means to follow Jesus, and this is what it means to be Catholic: It means you will be homeless. You will never be comfortable. You will never feel right and you will never fit in, and if you do fit in, that should worry you. It means that politics is wearing down the hard edges of your conscience, and down the hole you will slide, and right at the bottom is the worm that dieth not.

So, don’t do that. Instead, be Catholic. 

It’s not as much fun as joining a party! When you become a follower of Christ, no one is going to pull a string and release a shower of balloons on your head. But you can hope for eternal life. Overall, I think we’re coming out ahead.

___

Image by Lorie Shaull from St Paul, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

(A version of this essay first appeared in Parable Magazine in 2023.) 

I’m tired of throwing my vote away, so I’m voting ASP

For most of my voting life, people have been urging me to vote third party. The two-party system is broken, they say, and we have to send a message that we’re not happy with our flawed choices. It’s degrading to make ourselves vote for one or the other of these absurdly bad candidates, they say. We’re sending a signal that we’re ready for a change. 

I have always had some sympathy for this argument. As I’ve said several times, I can’t remember the last time I actually voted for someone. It’s always been a “hold your nose and check the box for the one who will do the least damage” kind of situation. I felt like it would be nice to stand on my principles and vote third party, but this current election is just too important. The stakes are too high, and I really can’t afford the luxury of throwing away my vote. 

Today I asked myself: What have I been doing, then? 

Here’s my voting record, since people seem to care: 

1992: George H.W. Bush
1996: Bob Dole
2000: George W. Bush
2004: George W. Bush
2008: John McCain
2012: Mitt Romney
2016: Hillary Clinton
2020: Joe Biden

I was never excited about any of the republicans I voted for, but when Trump came along, I held my nose so hard I almost broke it, voting for Hillary so she could stop him. She lost. I held my nose and voted for Biden in 2020, and he won. And I’ve spent the last few weeks gloomily preparing myself to vote for Kamala Harris, because while I don’t exactly hope she wins, I sure don’t want Trump to win. Don’t want to throw my vote away. 

Then I asked myself, Have I not been throwing my vote away? I don’t even mean that my person doesn’t win every time. I mean that even when I win, I lose. Biden didn’t stop Trumpism at all, and he didn’t stop Trump himself for long. (That’s not entirely Biden’s fault, but I’m hard pressed to see how he’s earned credit for any wins, either.)

And every time I vote this way, I stray a little further from even understanding clearly what I believe, or from feeling like it’s important, because my standards keep shifting out of sheer self-preservation. You have to change your standards if you don’t want to go insane. You have to hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils, right? 

But we have noses for a reason. They’re a gift from God to deter us from consuming things that will hurt us. Plug your nose long enough, you forget what noses are for. 

Where are we now? Nobody feels any pressure to represent me in any way. Both side perpetually crap on me and then stand back and wait for a thank-you. Even when I do my duty and stop the Great Evil from landing, all it does it put more wind in its sails. If anything, Trumpism, with its bloodthirsty strutting imbecility is more pervasive and more mainstreamed than it was four or eight years ago. Doing my duty and voting for Biden didn’t help. (Voting for Trump also wouldn’t have helped, if you think I’m suggesting some kind of “Let the worst happen and let people learn from their mistakes” strategy.)

When the republicans endorse something I support, they do it in such a backwards, revolting way that I want to kick my own ass for being in the same room with them; and when the democrats endorse something I support, they do it so limply and incompetently that I can barely bring myself to look at them. And then they both spend the rest of their time doing dangerous and depraved things that I hate. 

Maybe the worst thing of all, I’m used to it. I no longer expect anything different.

I have been throwing my vote away. 

I don’t want to do it anymore! Before the next president is sworn in, I’ll be fifty years old, and I’m sick to death of being told I must do things that I know are stupid and wrong, and that I don’t think will work. I’m tired of it. I don’t want to do it anymore.

So, I’m voting American Solidarity Party. They seem to be aligned with Catholic social teaching, including in ways that will annoy both democrats and republicans. They’re not libertarians, whose platform always gets distilled down to weed and underage girls. They’re nowhere near as flaky and unprofessional as they were when they first appeared (and their logo is better, too). I can’t think of a single reason not to vote for them, so that’s what I’m going to do. 

People keep lamenting how polarized the country has become, and then they go ahead and say, “Well, I have to vote this way or that way, because these are the choices in front of me.” But where do those choices come from? They come from us, from how we vote. Keep doing something that you can clearly see isn’t working, and it really does become your fault. And if you want to argue that individual voters don’t really make a difference, then you’re just arguing against voting (which is also something I considered). 

But I’ll say it again: I hate where we are, and I see very clearly that the way I’ve been voting has helped get us here. The left doesn’t care about me, the right doesn’t care about me, and voting to stop the left or the right doesn’t work. How I’ve voting has not served me at all. I am all done with being told I must do things that work against me. This time, I’m going to walk out of the voting booth feeling like a human being instead of a used tissue.  

Will it change things? Will we ever have a truly competitive third party who even goes so far as to be invited to debates, never mind have a shot at winning the presidency? Who knows? Not this election, or any of the next several elections.

But besides voting, the other thing I have on my calendar for this fall is to plant bulbs. Crouch there in the cold, dig a little hole, bury the bulb, and walk away. We do thankless work now so that good may possibly come of it later. I wish a massive group of people had started voting third party back in 1992, to break the back of the two party system; but the next best thing is to start doing it now. 

And maybe someday, someone who isn’t like Harris and isn’t like Trump will run and win. Maybe! Don’t tell me, in 2024, that such a thing could never happen. The last decade has been one thing that could never happen after another, happening.

For the very first time, I am going to vote in a way that lets me feel a little bit of hope for the future, and brings me peace for now. I’m not throwing my vote away. I’m burying it, and maybe at some point it will even bloom. 

Image: solidarity-party.org, via wikipedia, Fair use 

Note: As you no doubt noticed, I screwed up the election timelines! Sorry about that. What can I say, I was writing fast. 

Feeding the poor is Free Parking

If my faith were a Monopoly game, the church food pantry would be the space marked “free parking.” If you need food, you can go and get free food from the church, because it is the church. Simple, easy, free and occasionally massively important.

My family is not, by the mercy of God, in need of the food pantry to feed our family, but I am so glad it exists — for the sake of the people it serves, and for my own sake, every time I can donate.

I keep my involvement simple: When I do my weekly shopping, I pick up a few duplicate items of shelf-stable food — the same foods, and the same brands, that I want for my own family, because if I can afford a few extra cents to get the good kind for myself, then I can afford it for someone who doesn’t get many choices in life.

If I have one of my kids with me, I let them pick something out, so they feel more involved. Then, when we go to Mass the next day, I drop the goods off in one of the collection boxes — or, ideally, I ask one of the kids to drop it off, so they continue having a hands-on familiarity with this basic work of charity.

And that’s it. Simple, important, undemanding and effective. Free parking for Catholics.

But why would someone need a concept like “free parking” in the Church, especially if they aren’t poor and in need of its services? Because God may be simple, but our relationship with his Church can get complicated. So many aspects of our faith can become painful or confusing or fraught, and it may get harder and harder to find any point of connection with God, any spot where we can just keep things simple, and just be.

Maybe we’ve had a bad experience with someone in the parish, and, because we are human, we have a hard time untangling that relationship from our relationship with God. Sometimes it’s our fault and sometimes it’s not, but it’s fairly common to struggle with some unpleasant associations with the very place that is supposed to be our spiritual home, with the very people who are supposed to make up our spiritual family.

But donating to the food pantry is free parking! When we give, we don’t have to deal with anybody, and we don’t have to use any kind of social finesse. Absolutely anybody can plunk a case of mac and cheese into the collection box and then just walk away; and it will always be a necessary and salutary thing to do.

Maybe we’re frustrated or discouraged or mistrustful about finances in our diocese. We take our obligation to contribute to the church seriously, but we also have serious doubts that money is being used well. FOOD PANTRY, FREE PARKING. That little bag of coffee, granola bars and tuna stays right in the neighborhood and feeds someone who wants and needs it. Feeding the hungry will always be one of the least problematic transactions possible.

Maybe we’re having a hard time praying. Maybe our spiritual life is incoherent or angry or just kind of flat right now, and we can’t seem to snap out of it. Maybe we’re not in a state of grace and aren’t yet ready to do what it takes to get back. Where to go?

Food pantry! Free parking! Making a little, easy decision to give to the food pantry each week is a really good way of keeping that connection to God open when we’re not necessarily feeling it otherwise.

Good works are not a substitute for prayer. There was a whole Reformation about that. But…. Read the rest of my latest for Our Sunday Visitor. 

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 389: In which things are not the worst

Happy Friday! Despite some dog drama, this week has gone so much better than last week; hope you are same.

We have a shiny new well pump, and it was even sightly less money than they warned us it would be, and the guys were all very cheerful and understanding about . . . everything. The basement being damp and disgusting, the yard being so overgrown, the ducks being terrible, the dog being their new velcro accessory. As I apologized one last time, I said, “Just tell me this isn’t the worst house you’ve been to” and the guy said, “Ohhhhhh, no.” And that was the greatest gift of all.

There was some contamination, so they had to dump a bunch of chlorine in there, so we were on store-bought water until a few days ago. We’re so spoiled: Our normal tap water is so good, so icy cold and sparkling pure, and it’s great to have it back again. For some reason, getting a bill for thousands of dollars for a well pump hurt so much less than an equally large bill for a car repair. Giant car repairs always fill me with so much dread and shame, whereas the well thing was so obviously just a “shit happens when you own a house” situation. Anyway, we have water. Water! Cheers!

Here’s what we ate this week: 

SATURDAY
Chicken fries, veg and hummus

Just a regular Saturday. We were hoping to go to the county fair, but there were thunderstorms all weekend, and then I thought maybe we could go to Canobie Lake Park instead, but there was bad weather predicted for Salem, as well. I was irrationally despondent over this, and then Damien suggested this year we could try The Big E, which is an All New England state fair, and it’s not until September. There are hardly ever thunderstorms in September! We went there once was our oldest was a baby, and all I remember was the slide where you sit on a burlap sack, and a giant butter sculpture. That’s good enough for me. 

Anyway, we had chicken fingers for dinner, which I’ve never had before. 

They’re kind of embarrassing somehow, like a plastic lobster bib, or having your food blended up in a cup so you don’t have to chew. But they were tasty.

And I managed to avoid serving chips, which is a full-time job some weeks. 

Speaking of which, note the very tired dog in the background. He, too, has a full time job, but we haven’t figured out what it is, yet. But it’s exhausting. He’s so tired! And his week was about to get more exciting. 

SUNDAY
Steak and cheese subs, chips; homemade ice cream

Not really steak, but beef, anyway. I think it was a chuck roast or something, and I sharpened up my knife and cut it as thinly as I could (it was partially frozen, which helped), and then put tons of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Worcestershire sauce on it. 

First I pan fried up a ton of onions in oil, and then I pan fried up the beef. I toasted a bunch of rolls, and then I spread mine with a little mayo, piled on the beef and onions, and topped it with shards of cheddar cheese, and put it back in the oven for a few minutes.

Pretty frickin good. Pretty, pretty, fricken, fricken good. We were supposed to have fries with this meal, but I forgot to make them. Luckily, we still had chips left over from July 4th, which might cause you to believe that I bought too many chips for July 4th. But such thoughts are fruitless and should be abandoned. 

We did have ice cream! I haven’t made ice cream all summer, and part of the reason is that the last few times I made it, it never froze properly. It was still soupy when it came out of the ice cream machine, and then when I put it into the freezer, it froze solid like a liquid, rather than creamily, if you see what I mean. 

So I tried two things: I froze the bowls for two days, rather than just 24 hours; and I churned in inside a cooler with an ice pack. My kitchen really is pretty hot!

I made two batches, one strawberry and one almond coconut. They both use the basic sweet cream base (eggs, sugar, cream, and milk), and then I added macerated strawberries to one, and almond extract, toasted almonds, and shredded coconut to the other. 

Here is the strawberry ice cream recipe:

Jump to Recipe

which starts with the sweet cream base, and you can just skip the strawberry part and add in other stuff after churning it. (My original plan had been to make chocolate chip, but Somebody Ate The Chocolate Chips, if you can believe it. Even Though I Told Them!) 

The almond coconut one turned out great. It was the tiniest bit soft, but that’s because it needed a few more hours in the freezer. Would have been perfect otherwise. 

The strawberry one was a little uneven in texture, but that’s because . . . . sigh . . . . the fresh strawberries got frozen in the fridge, so I wasn’t able to mash them thoroughly. Our refrigerator has random extra-cold spots, and you never know what’s going to go on in there.

I do think using the cooler made a big difference overall, so I’ll be doing that going forward, even in the winter if there are other appliances warming the room up. One of the things on my wish list this summer is to make szechuan peppercorn ice cream, which absolutely nobody but me wants, and now I think I’ll be able to do it!

MONDAY
Vermonter sandwiches, french fries

High time for a fine sandwich. Sourdough bread or ciabatta, roast chicken or turkey, tart green apple slices, crisp bacon, and thickly-sliced sharp cheddar cheese, with honey mustard dressing. 

Oh, it’s a wonderful sandwich.

I bought a bottle of hot honey from Aldi and made some dressing with that. I was surprised at how spicy it was! It’s also a little bit thinner than regular honey, so the dressing turned out a little drippy. Nice flavor, though. 

We had steak fries to go with the sandwiches. Extremely popular meal. 

TUESDAY
Blueberry chicken salad; mango tart

I don’t usually like serving chicken twice in a row, but something forced my hand, I forget what. Oh, I was planning chili verde, but forgot to buy tomatillos!

So I seasoned the chicken breasts with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and roasted them, and then served sliced chicken on mixed greens with crumbled feta cheese, blueberries, minced red onion, and toasted walnuts. 

I had red wine vinegar on mine for dressing. I also served crackers. I’ve really been getting into crackers lately. 

For some reason I felt like a salad wasn’t going to be a big enough meal (even with all the nuts and cheese and chicken), and I had four giant mangos rapidly heading toward overripeness, so I decided we needed a mango tart, as well. We don’t usually have dessert during the week, but it’s SUMMER. I can do what I want!

Here is the recipe I used, because I had all the ingredients in the house. I like the way the recipe is written. You can tell she’s actually made it, and she explains why she does certain things, and what will happen if you don’t, which is helpful for me, who tends to think everything is stupid and I can just do it my own way. 

So I made a crust out of animal crackers (I just filled up the food processor with cookies and made it into fine crumbs, then poured in about half a stick of melted butter and whirred that it, and then pressed the mixture into a pie plate. I didn’t think it needed sugar, and I was right)

The recipe called for room temperature egg yolks, and I remembered the trick of quickly warming up eggs by putting them in very warm water for a few minutes. 

A lot of baking recipes don’t truly need room temperature ingredients, but since this was going to be a custardy kind of thing, I figured it would be important. 

This recipe calls for unflavored gelatin, and that should have been my warning sign. There really are very few recipes that used unflavored gelatin where taste is the foremost concern! But I figured, FOUR RIPE MANGOES. This is a can’t-lose situation. So I poured the mixture into the baked crust and then baked the tart. So far, so good. Lovely color. 

Benny collected strawberries, blackberries, and pansy blossoms (which are edible). Then I refrigerated the tart for several hours, and decorated the top.

It held up great when I sliced it. And it tasted like SWEET LIBRARY PASTE. Really, if I hadn’t cut up the mangoes myself, I might not even realize it was a mango dessert. What a disappointment! I don’t think I made any mistakes; I think it’s just not a great recipe. I want to make another mango tart that really lets the mango shine, if anyone has suggestions. Probably something with cream, or condensed milk. Oh well. It was a very pretty pie. 

WEDNESDAY
Pizza

Wednesday we had a little adventure. I had gotten tons and tons of chores and errands out of the way, and suddenly realized we had a free afternoon, so it was a fine time to check out the new dog park! Sonny has ducks and a cat to play with at home, but he very rarely gets to meet other dogs, so we were pretty excited.

Even those of us who had nooooo idea what was going on. 

So we got there and it was great! A huge area, all fenced in, tons of shade, a digging spot, a few spigots and metal bowls so the dogs could drink, plenty of benches, and balls and toys and sticks scattered around.

Dog paradise. Sonny romped and galumphed and sniffed so many butts, and had a lovely time. After about forty minutes, we were thinking about heading home, and then one more dog showed up, and at first everyone got along, and then next thing you know,

[EVERYBODY IS OKAY, SONNY IS OKAY]

there was snarling and screaming and a giant pile of dogs, and woman is shrieking at me, “GET YOUR F*CKING DOG OUT OF HERE.” And I look and the new dog has clamped his jaws onto Sonny’s neck!! and a man is crouching over them trying to pry them apart!! All I can think of to do is pull on Sonny, but I know that will make it worse, so I just stood there with my eyes bugging out, and the woman keeps screaming at me, thinking the aggressive dog is mine, and it keeps snarling like a horrible machine, and Sonny keeps crying like a baby. It was TERRIBLE. The dude finally gets the bad dog off Sonny, and then the people start fighting, because in the melee, the bad dog has bitten the man, as well, and the owners are repeatedly claiming that their dog is “not aggressive.” 

Yes, it was a pit bull. What an amazing coincidence. Never heard of such a thing.

So someone calls the police, and the screaming woman apologizes for the misunderstanding and helps me take pictures of Sonny’s injuries (one big bite on his neck and one on his ear), and the bad dog’s owners agree to pay for any vet or human bills, and then that was a whole other ordeal because the officer and the bitten man had some kind of conflict, and the officer starts loudly explaining to me that dogs are OMINOUS. I get that this is some kind of legal term, but it did not have the effect he was hoping it would have, especially with the stupid reflective sunglasses. So I gave the kids my debit card and told them to go see if they could find an ice cream truck while we sorted it out. 

Sonny is . . . completely fine. His basic attitude was, “Whoa, I heard there was some kind of fight! Did you guys see anything? I didn’t see anything! Gosh!”

But of course we brought him to the vet, and he got some antibiotics and they said it would be better not to have stitches, so it can heal more cleanly. and he’s been getting dog ice cream and lots of leftover chicken, and leftover steak, and pepperoni, and endless snuggles and praise. He still has no idea what happened. He’s like, First . . . I went to the playground, and I played with my friends! And then something happened, and then I turned into the best dog in the world! Everybody says so! Ohh, I gotta get back to that playground.

He is actually on TWO antibiotics, a cream and two pills, because he’s too big for just one. Here he is, brave soldier, freshly home from the vet, clearly very chastened by his experience:

I had always heard that boxers had been bred to have all those loose skin folds so that, if they get attacked, the aggressor will just chomp through their skin and not damage their organs, and now I believe it. He doesn’t have cropped ears, but if he had, that probably would have saved him an ear bite, too. He’s so goofy looking, but it’s a good design. 

Anyway, when we got home from the park, I made some pizzas. Nothing fancy, just one pepperoni, one olive, and one plain. 

And then we watched the 1999 cinematic masterpiece The Mummy with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Corrie’s first time. The “I . . . am a librarian” line got her good. 

THURSDAY
Chili verde and rice

Something I haven’t made for a while. I usually just get the bag of assorted hot peppers from the supermarket, rather than picking out individual peppers, and this works fine for me, because I have some kind of pepper blindness and never, ever come home with the peppers I tried to buy. So, might as well let Hannford pick them out for me. 

So you roast them, plus a few quartered onions, plus a bunch of tomatillos, under high heat, turning them once, so they are slightly blistered

then throw them in the food processor along with a head of garlic and a bunch of cilantro

Then you hack up some pork, heavily salt and pepper it, and brown it in oil in batches. 

and then you put it all together in the pot, adding some beer or broth if you like it thinner. Cover it and let it simmer for several hours. 

When it’s done, you can leave the meat in chunks

or you can mash it with a fork or potato masher until it’s shreddy

I had mine over white rice with cilantro, sour cream, and fresh lime juice on top. 

Scrumptious. Quite spicy, but perfect when I stirred in the sour cream. 

This meal is too spicy for most of the kids, and I think they just eat rice with limes. As you can see, I ate mine in bed, so I did not care. 

FRIDAY
Spaghetti

The kids have been asking for NORMAL SPAGHETTI with SAUCE FROM JARS, and they can have it! Damien and I haven’t been on a date in a very long time, so we are going to the movies (The Godfather on the big screen!) and then checking into a bed and breakfast with a gift card, and they can do what they want.

Oh, and the pit bull owner did pay the vet bill, and their dog was up to date on his shots. Apparently it was the first time at the dog park, too. Nothing like a vet bill and a call from animal control to get you a little more grounded about what kind of dog you have! Things could have gone so much worse. The good samaritan’s finger is okay, and I’m sending them a gift card, and Sonny is continuing to live his best life. Right after a nap. 

Oh, I forgot one last thing: The kids made frozen chocolate bananas. In case you’re looking for a quick little snack project. They melted chocolate chips in the microwave and stirred it a little vegetable oil, drizzled it over the peeled bananas, and sprinkled them with rainbow sprinkles and misc.,

and then put them in the freezer for a few hours.

Beautiful they were not, but the kids said they were good.

Okay, phew! That’s the week. Smell ya later. 

Print

Ben and Jerry's Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

For the strawberries

  • 1 pint fresh strawberries
  • 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.)

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Spicy Chili Verde

You can decrease the heat by seeding the peppers, using fewer habañeros, or substituting some milder pepper. It does get less spicy as it cooks, so don't be alarmed if you make the salsa and it's overwhelming!

Ingredients

  • 5 lbs pork shoulder
  • salt and pepper
  • oil for cooking
  • 2 cups chicken broth or beer (optional)

For the salsa verde:

  • 4 Anaheim peppers
  • 2 habañero peppers
  • 4 jalapeño peppers
  • 4 medium onions
  • 12 tomatillos
  • 1 head garlic, cloves peeled
  • 1 bunch cilantro

For serving:

  • lime wedges
  • sour cream
  • additional cilantro for topping

Instructions

  1. Preheat the broiler.

  2. Pull the husks and stems off the tomatillos and rinse them. Cut the ends off all the peppers. Grease a large pan and put the tomatillos, peppers, and onions on it. Broil five minutes, turn, and broil five minutes more, until they are slightly charred.

  3. When they are cool enough to handle, you can at this point remove the seeds from the peppers to decrease the spiciness, if you want.

  4. Put the tomatillos, peppers, and onions in a food processor or blender with the garlic and cilantro. Purée.

  5. In a heavy pot, heat some oil. Salt and pepper the pork chunks and brown them in the oil. You will need to do it in batches so the pork has enough room and browns, rather than simmering.

  6. When all the meat is browned, return it all to the pot and add the puréed ingredients.

  7. Simmer at a low heat for at least three hours until the meat is tender. If you want thinner chili verde, stir in the chicken broth or beer. If you don't want the pork in large chunks, press the meat with the back of a spoon to make it collapse into shreds.

  8. Spoon the chili verde into bowls, squeeze some lime juice over the top, and top with sour cream and fresh cilantro.

What’s for supper? Vol. 387 and 388: Water, water everywhere, and all the Fishers stink

Happy Friday! I didn’t get a WFS done last week because we were still on the road, and then, rather than unpacking, I spent the week personally unravelling. Something to do with kids moving out into their own apartments and me forgetting to refill my prescriptions, and 80% humidity and whatnot. 

And then the water stopped working. Damien tried replacing the well pump switch, and that didn’t work. The guys are still down in the basement as I begin to write, getting dripped on and battling hanging insulation out of their faces.

At one point they asked me where the actual well was, and I, who have lived here for fifteen years, suddenly did not know. There are two wells on the property. One is defunct, and they’re both completely overgrown by briars because we wanted to discourage the kids from playing on them and turning into a tragic headline. So I led the repair guys to the briar patch I thought was more likely, and this involved me tripping over a canoe and then also tripping over some shit-smeared duck eggs that were lying around on the ground because our ducks are even worse housekeepers than I am. 

Here they are, trying to eat a shoe. 

Anyway, we still have no water, but the good news is, I don’t know what the good news is. Tra la la, it’s just money. It comes, it goes. Even money you don’t have goes! At least we have some duck eggs. And a shoe. 

Anyway, we WERE on vacation on Peak’s Island off the coast of Portland, Maine, and it was VERY NICE.

I’ll just do a super quick run down of what we ate there, because it may interest you to know how a large family eats away from home without a big budget. The main thing to know is that we were staying on an island that is accessible only by ferry, and there is only one food market on the island, and that market charges . . . 

$12.39 for a little jar of mayonnaise!

I didn’t even want mayonnaise that much, but really! There was also no grill outside, because this grassy, breezy little island is understandably finicky about not having fires started on it. 

So I packed a lot of food! Sandwiches, pizzas, chicken drumsticks, a hunk of beef, ground beef, and hot dogs, fruit and frozen vegetables, ice pops, coffee and ice tea mix, and a bunch of cereal and crackers and snacks, milk, and two watermelons, and also two giant sacks of candy from the “je ne sais expiration dates pas” discount store. 

Next time, I will remember to bring Fisher-sized cooking pots and pans, and at least a few decent knives, and a pizza cutter. I did bring heavy duty paper plates, and ziplock bags and trash bags, and I packed all the food in laundry baskets, which were useful for other stuff during the week. 

SATURDAY:

We ate Market Basket pre-made subs while waiting for the ferry. And then we got on the ferry!

and got to the house and settled in.

I’m feeling super overwhelmed with photos, so this is lame, but I guess just please feel free to check out my Facebook page, where I posted all about our adventures all week. We climbed around on rocks, used a rope as a rappel line to get down to a little hidden beach, kayaked around the cove, went fishing, explored a dark and abandoned military fort, built cairns, found sea glass and pretty shells, visited the Umbrella Cover Museum, checked out a Civil War-era cemetery, and spent a day on the mainland and visited the Portland Museum of Art, and probably more that I’m forgetting!

Damien and I also decided at one point to take a “shortcut” around the perimeter of the island, rather than climbing up onto the road, and it turns out there’s a reason they built a road. Nice to know we still have the knack of goading each other into completely unnecessary stupid stunts. It was actually super fun and we giggled our heads off while almost plummeting to our deaths, and ended up emerging through the hedges into someone’s private garden party, oops.

And that was Peak’s Island!

So here’s what we ate: 

SUNDAY:

Aldi pizza (you can stuff four of those extra-large pizzas into one of those soft insulated Aldi coolers)

MONDAY: Oven-fried chicken, mashed potatoes, watermelon.
For reference, here is my usual recipe for oven fried chicken:

Jump to Recipe

But here is what I made, based on things that were in the beach house and things I could bear to buy at Marché de Priceless Mayo:
I made a thin batter of eggs, milk, cornstarch, salt, pepper, and cumin, and then rolled in crushed corn flakes and baked in a hot oven in melted margarine (cheap) and olive oil (at the house). Corrie helped with this meal:

and it turned out okay, not amazing, but fine. 

The mashed potatoes were instant from a box. I made lots and lots of chicken, and the kids had it for lunch, along with leftover pizza, for the next few days. 

TUESDAY: Beef “stir fry” and rice. I made a somewhat dubious marinade of soy sauce, white sugar, fresh lime juice, and pepper, and cut the beef into strips to marinate. Then I microwaved the frozen veg I brought, and kept them warm on top of the pot of rice while I cooked up the meat. 

Not ideal, but we were hungry and it was fine. 

WEDNESDAY: Restaurant food, yay! We took the Ferry into Portland and went to the Portland Museum of Art, then ate at some restaurant by the water, I forget what. I had a sandwich stuffed with fried clams that the kids insisted I buy because they had a funny name. 

Tittyleg Shorties or Bognipples or something like that. I don’t know why all clams have ridiculous names, but I’m not complaining.

 Anyway, it was delicious food and the staff was super friendly.

THURSDAY: Hamburgers, more chips, and the other watermelon. I have no regrets about bringing two watermelons in the car. 

FRIDAY:  we spent the morning cleaning the house and packing, hopped on the ferry at the last possible moment, gassed up and loaded up on snacks at a 7-11, and started the drive home. My AC broke at the beginning of the trip, so it was kind of a long drive with the windows down and no radio (because it was too loud), but the kids were good sports. 

We stopped and spent several hours at Hampton Beach, because I realized too late that most of the kids were really hoping for lots of sand and big waves on the same beach, which the island, for all its charms, simply doesn’t have. You either get huge, crashing waves on the windward side, which is rocky and dramatic and covered with wild roses and flailing mats of seaweed, or you have the leeward side, which is sandy when the tide goes out, but the water just laps mildly against you and it’s mostly pebbles. Also, it’s Maine, so your legs go numb in the water. Sorry, kids! Next time, we’ll go south instead of north. 

Anyway, we got our Relatively Big Beach time in,

and I actually fell asleep on the beach, which I’ve never done before.  Then everybody got giant slabs of fried dough, which tided us over until we got closer to home. Then I got lost, and my phone died, and the charger was in Damien’s car, and I had to rely on the kindness of strangers in Burger King, and then I realized I could just buy a new charger, and relied on the kindness of the gas station guy who helped me figure out which one to get. I thought I was having a fairly dramatic time getting home, but it turns out Damien had to stop several times and put more oil in his car, and then as soon as we got home, he had to fix a cracked oil something or other, so I guess he wins.

Anyway, it was lovely to be home, and the dog went absolutely apeshit. The cat, however, was furious, and has only just started talking to us again. 

And that brings us up to this week!

SATURDAY
Well-travelled hot dogs

Yeah, we cooked and ate the hot dogs I brought to Maine and back. They were the nice, expensive kind of hot dogs, and I kept them cold the whole time, so there.

I took Benny and Corrie out to a local street fair thing, which we thought we had missed this year, but we didn’t. Good thing we went, because it turns out Warner Bros legal department is not cool with you making a Harry Potter-themed street fair, even if you euphemistically call it “Wizarding Week.” So they got a cease and desist and I guess that’s the end of that! It was really just a vendorpalooza plus some light satanism anyway, and the sorting hat put Benny in Slytherin, so the heck with them. We got our chocolate frogs and our 3D printed dragons and the kids were happy. 

SUNDAY
Hamburgers again, grilled corn on the cob, chips

I did a little shopping, just to get us back in toilet paper and stuff, but I was sooo tired and confused and didn’t really know what day it was, so I only got a few day’s worth of food. I got pre-made hamburger patties and Damien cooked them on the grill, and he also grilled a bunch of corn on the cob, right in the husk. 

I did shuck it before I ate it. It really turns out nice that way, very juicy and sweet. 

MONDAY
Spaghetti carbonara, bread

People were feeling a little gloomy, so I cheered things up with duck egg carbonara

Here’s the carbonara recipe:

Jump to Recipe

If you look close, you can see that I didn’t stir it up fast enough, and the eggs went right ahead and scrambled themselves onto the pasta. Oh well! Still good!

TUESDAY
Terrible tacos

Just miserable tacos. I couldn’t find any of my seasonings, and I still hadn’t unpacked, and it was insanely humid, and things just went poorly all day. Oh well. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken shawarma and stuffed grape leaves

On Wednesday, I bullied myself into imitating a functioning adult, and started some chicken thighs marinating in the morning, and then spent the rest of the day dashing around from one seemingly urgent task to another — buying paint, trying to install a new overhead light fixture, loading up on half-dead plants on clearance at Home Depot, ordering a paper marbling kit and and new bathroom exhaust fan, looking up how to make fresh mozzarella —  until Damien asked if I was okay. I stopped to think, and it turns out, not really! It turns out the drugs I take to keep myself on an even keel were actually working, and when I skip several weeks, things become less even! Why didn’t someone say something? 

Anyway, the shawarma was very tasty,

Here that recipe:

Jump to Recipe

and I made some yogurt sauce

Jump to Recipe

and cut up a bunch of tomatoes and cucumbers, and gathered feta cheese, store-bought pita and various olives. 

Then I sent the kids out to pick some grape leaves, because I got it into my head that we needed stuffed grape leaves. This inspiration didn’t propel me far enough to find the actual recipe I use, though, and I just chucked a bunch of stuff in rice (tons of fresh mint, salt and pepper, chicken broth, olive oil, and some green za’atar) and I also didn’t blanch the grape leaves. 

Corrie said she knew how to roll grape leaves, and that was good enough for me.  

Then I just shoveled them into the Instant Pot with some water, and squeezed a few lemons into it, and set it to cook for ten minutes. 

Does it turn out good this way? NOT REALLY. I mean they were good in their way, but this is not really a recipe, and I can’t really recommend it. 

HOWEVER, it was a great meal together, and I felt a little more like myself, having cooked something. 

Then, right before bed, the water went out. 

You said it, Hayao. 

THURSDAY
One-pan kielbasa, potato, and broccoli 

That was the plan, anyway, but I called the well people and they tramped all over the property and informed me that the thing that I have always thought was the well is actually the sewer, and they couldn’t find the well, even with  . . . some kind of device which I’m sure isn’t a dowsing rod, but which is designed to find your well.

Anyway, it didn’t work, and it wasn’t until about 45 minutes after they left that I got mad enough to find it myself. So that cost $300, and then I called them back to say I found it, and they said they’d be back tomorrow to do the rest, which is going to be about $3,000, or maybe $5,000, who can say. I called my homeowner’s insurance agent, and apparently we don’t have an entropy rider, so that’s-a no good. 

At least we have duck eggs. Which I would wash, if I had some water. But it could be worse! The well is apparently from 1982, and sometimes well heads from that era were buried, for some reason. So at least we haven’t had to use our fake money that we don’t have to hire an excavator to find the well! Yay!

Damien used the sump pump to fill the bathtub full of stream water, and showed the kids how to dip up a bucket of it and dump it into the toilet to make it flush. Then, and it is not clear how, exactly, but somehow, in a very police-involved shooting kind of voice, the toilet got broken. Only on the top part, though, so it’s not like we’re having a bad time here. 

Oh, anyway we decided to have Aldi pizza, because you can eat them directly off cardboard. 

FRIDAY
Grilled cheese

The well guys are here and so far, they have spent forty minutes weed whacking, and then they knocked on the door and said, “Okay, so WHERE is the well?” So I showed them. The ducks are absolutely amazed. We’re all amazed. Corrie is siting next to me on the couch, watching me write and telling me where I should have added a comma. So I’ve got that going for me, as well. 

The kid who moved out likes her new apartment, the kid who moved into the newly-free room is delighted with her new room, and we found the gorilla mask that Irene bought to wear to her first dance. See, water isn’t everything. 

And that’s my story! It’s not a good story, but I wasn’t sure I would ever get to the end of this post, but I did. If you’re here, too, congratulations. Excelsior. 

WP Recipe Maker #158184remove

Oven-fried chicken so much easier than pan frying, and you still get that crisp skin and juicy meat – chicken parts (wings, drumsticks, thighs) – milk (enough to cover the chicken at least halfway up) – eggs (two eggs per cup of milk) – flour – your choice of seasonings (I usually use salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and chili powder) – oil and butter for cooking 1) At least three hours before you start to cook, make an egg and milk mixture and salt it heavily, using two eggs per cup of milk, so there’s enough to soak the chicken at least halfway up. Beat the eggs, add the milk, stir in salt, and let the chicken soak in this. This helps to make the chicken moist and tender. 2) About 40 minutes before dinner, turn the oven to 425, and put a pan with sides into the oven. I use a 15″x21″ sheet pan and I put about a cup of oil and one or two sticks of butter. Let the pan and the butter and oil heat up. 3) While it is heating up, put a lot of flour in a bowl and add all your seasonings. Use more than you think is reasonable! Take the chicken parts out of the milk mixture and roll them around in the flour until they are coated on all sides. 4) Lay the floured chicken in the hot pan, skin side down. Let it cook for 25 minutes. 5) Flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes. 6) Check for doneness and serve immediately. It’s also great cold.  

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Oven-fried chicken

so much easier than pan frying, and you still get that crisp skin and juicy meat

Ingredients

  • chicken parts (wings, drumsticks, thighs)
  • milk (enough to cover the chicken at least halfway up)
  • eggs (two eggs per cup of milk)
  • flour
  • your choice of seasonings (I usually use salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and chili powder)
  • oil and butter for cooking

Instructions

  1. At least three hours before you start to cook, make an egg and milk mixture and salt it heavily, using two eggs per cup of milk, so there's enough to soak the chicken at least halfway up. Beat the eggs, add the milk, stir in salt, and let the chicken soak in this. This helps to make the chicken moist and tender.

  2. About 40 minutes before dinner, turn the oven to 425, and put a pan with sides into the oven. I use a 15"x21" sheet pan and I put about a cup of oil and one or two sticks of butter. Let the pan and the butter and oil heat up.

  3. While it is heating up, put a lot of flour in a bowl and add all your seasonings. Use more than you think is reasonable! Take the chicken parts out of the milk mixture and roll them around in the flour until they are coated on all sides.

  4. Lay the floured chicken in the hot pan, skin side down. Let it cook for 25 minutes.

  5. Flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes.

  6. Check for doneness and serve immediately. It's also great cold.

 

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Spaghetti carbonara

An easy, delicious meal.

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs bacon
  • 3 lbs spaghetti
  • 1 to 1-1/2 sticks butter
  • 6 eggs, beaten
  • lots of pepper
  • 6-8 oz grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Fry the bacon until it is crisp. Drain and break it into pieces.

  2. Boil the spaghetti in salted water until al dente. If you like, add some bacon grease to the boiling water.

  3. Drain the spaghetti and return it to the pot. Add the butter, pieces of bacon, parmesan cheese, and pepper and mix it up until the butter is melted.

  4. Add the raw beaten egg and mix it quickly until the spaghetti is coated. Serve immediately.

 

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Chicken shawarma

Ingredients

  • 8 lbs boned, skinned chicken thighs
  • 4-5 red onions
  • 1.5 cups lemon juice
  • 2 cups olive oil
  • 4 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 Tbs, 2 tsp pepper
  • 2 Tbs, 2 tsp cumin
  • 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 entire head garlic, crushed

Instructions

  1. Mix marinade ingredients together, then add chicken. Put in ziplock bag and let marinate several hours or overnight.

  2. Preheat the oven to 425.

  3. Grease a shallow pan. Take the chicken out of the marinade and spread it in a single layer on the pan, and top with the onions (sliced or quartered). Cook for 45 minutes or more. 

  4. Chop up the chicken a bit, if you like, and finish cooking it so it crisps up a bit more.

  5. Serve chicken and onions with pita bread triangles, cucumbers, tomatoes, assorted olives, feta cheese, fresh parsley, pomegranates or grapes, fried eggplant, and yogurt sauce.

 

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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. 

The table where you sit

It’s been an ugly week in Catholic discourse, again.

I saw the clips of the opening of the Olympics, and I heard all the arguments. I heard people quivering with outrage because a crowned woman surrounded by drag queens was acting out a gross and deliberate mockery of the Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci; and I heard others snottily correcting them and claiming the scene was obviously echoing a Bacchanal, probably specifically “The Feast of the Gods” by Jan Hermansz van Bijlert, which explains the tubby blue Dionysus lounging on a plate of fruit. Everybody knows that famous ban Bijlert painting, duh. 

An Olympics spokesperson said,“Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. [The opening ceremony] tried to celebrate community tolerance,” and many readers took this statement as a denial that there was any intentional reference to the Last Supper. But Barbara Butch, the crowned woman at the center of the scene, posted an Instagram story comparing the two images, with the caption:  “OH YES! OH YES! THE NEW GAY TESTAMENT!”

I’m pretty sure it was intended as both: A snarky little nod to the Last Supper, and an equally facile gesture in the direction of ancient Greek history. It’s the Olympics! Here’s a god! It’s a cultural moment! Here’s the DaVinky thing! Lights! Drag! Naughty bulges! Tee hee!

I think that’s all it was. Just the usual flashy mess that passes for artistic expression: A tossed salad of visual moments that read as significant because they’re vaguely familiar, and no one has to put in the effort of actually meaning anything or knowing what you’re suggesting (or even knowing what you’re parodying). Serve it dressed with plausible deniability so the Christians will freak out and make themselves look silly, and there it is. My main critique of the whole is that it’s so incredibly boring to talk about (and honestly, if I were a drag queen, I’d start to resent how often I get trotted out to buy some cheap headlines). The public seem to have an endless appetite for this particular flavor of controversy, though, so people keep serving it up. 

So let’s take it at face value. What does it mean to see the Last Supper and a Bacchanal on the same stage? Even if you think the Last Supper imagery wasn’t intentionally there, they’re both there on the stage of public discourse now. So let’s talk about that. 

We could say that the Last Supper represents sacrifice and redemptive suffering and everything Christianity stands for, whereas a drag bacchanal represents excess and broken boundaries and everything modern secular culture stands for. And if you’ve seen them both, you have to chose one or the other.

You could say that, but you’d have to wake me up before the end of the sentence, because you’re boring me to death.

What if, instead, we talk about who we are, and what we have to offer? 

Last week, my family visited a city, which we rarely do. My kids are not used to tall buildings or traffic; and they’re not used to homeless encampments. So when we started walking down a block lined with scruffy, dirty men, I quietly told my youngest to move to the other side of me. I wanted to protect her, just in case. 

It wasn’t the wrong thing to do. I don’t know these men, and it wasn’t unreasonable to worry that they might hurt or scare my kid. But as I passed by, one gentlemen, tall, shaggy, and very dirty, called out “You have a good day, ma’am.” He smiled toothlessly, and bowed his head as we passed. 

I felt like absolute trash. I know I hurt his feelings by shielding my child from his presence. Again, it was only the prudent thing to do, but I think I will remember that man and his smile for the rest of my life. This man who had so little went out of his way to let me know he meant no harm, and to offer reassurance.

A moment ago, I was the wholesome, wealthy, sane one holding my child’s hand and striding purposefully toward my destination, and then suddenly, in his eyes, I was the beggar in need of consolation. It’s strange how quickly these things can shift. I went into the situation thinking the man was a threat, but he knew himself as someone with something to offer. 

I thought of him again during the readings at Mass this morning: The multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Jesus comes with nothing, no apparent plan, no preparation, no way to feed the multitudes. But the people are drawn to him. They want to go over to his side, because it’s so clear he has something to offer. So he reassures them, and he feeds them. He does this because he knows who he is: Despite how empty-handed he appears, he is the one who has something to offer. He knows who he is. He is the one who feeds. 

Several people argued that Christians have no call to be offended over anyone appropriating the imagery of Leonardo’s Last Supper. It’s not even really a Christian image anymore, because it has so thoroughly passed over into the public imagination, it’s bigger than Christianity now. It’s just a picture of people eating together, being together, having a moment together around a charismatic figure. The image may have been scriptural once, but it really isn’t, anymore; and the Christians who are stamping their feet and calling it blasphemy are now actually the intruders, the uninvited guests at the feast. They’re the ones who don’t belong, and are dirtying up the sidewalk and posing a threat. 

I kind of agree. 

The whole point of our faith is that we live in a place of generosity. Jesus is the generous one, the depthless fountain, the vine that never stops fruiting, the lamb who was slain once and now feeds us with his flesh forever and ever, without suffering, without loss, without depletion. The one who feeds. That is who we are with, at whose table we sit.

We can, in other words, afford . . . this. Whatever it is, whatever was intended. We can afford to give our imagery away. We can afford to give everything away, because are so incredibly, unspeakably wealthy, because we sit at a table with the Lord. We’re not going to run out. And if we feel like we are, if we are afraid of what will become of our faith, it’s because we’ve allowed our faith to become an empty image, and we think it can be harmed.

The real faith is inexhaustible. We may ourselves be tired, but our faith is not; and Jesus is not. Cannot be exhausted. 

I understand the cultural moment we’re at. I try to be prudent, and so I am fearful, and I want to shield myself and my children from the dirty and threatening things that line the path we have to walk together. Just yesterday, my same youngest child wanted to buy a pretty piece of rose quartz at a children’s fair, and the woman selling it had plastered her cash register with pentagrams and slogans cheering for abortion. How do we walk this path? Some days I am in despair, because I haven’t shielded my children well enough, and I know it. I wish I had done a better job of putting myself in between them and potential harms. 

But I also see is how poor the world is. Poor in imagination, poor in theology. Starving to death amid plenty, writhing around on a giant platter of fruit, but all of it artificial, painted and empty. They are so needy, they can’t even think come up with their own party, but they must borrow from all those fake gods, that Dionysus, that Jesus. Instead of joy, all they have is an eternal “tee hee.” 

I also want to remember who I am, and where I stand.

I know that some people see me as the threat: I am, in so many people’s eyes, the intolerant conservative, the TERF, the oppressor, with my narrow mind and impure body of thought. Because of what I believe, I am potentially violent. Maybe I’m insane, maybe I have fleas, maybe I bite. At very least, I have my beggar’s hand out, needy, desperate with self-pity. I represent a church that, in their eyes, perpetually condones abuse and oppression, and a theology that says nothing but no, no, no. Sometimes I want to reassure the non-Christian I meet with a little smile: I will not hurt you. I’m just living my life. You have a good day, now. 

But it’s not my theology that’s at fault. It’s not my faith; it’s me. I perpetually forget myself, who I am, where I sit. Here I am, stuffed to the gills with the goodness of God and all I can think to do is bitch and whine that somebody borrowed my painting without asking. Je meurs de soif auprès de la fontaine.

So, which is it? Am I a beggar, or am I a rich woman who strides coldly by? Am I an oppressor, or am I on the side of lovelovelove? Am I mocked and persecuted, or am I thin-skinned and self-obsessed? Am I hungry and in need? Or have I been fed with the bread of life itself? 

Both. Neither. All of the above. That’s what it means when the Last Supper and a Bacchanal are on the same stage in the year 2024. It means we live amid heaps of bounty empty of meaning, and also we are invited to sit down to a spare meal of bread and wine that will feed us forever. It means we have a bottomless budget for all the right ideas — love, tolerance, acceptance, peace, togetherness — without even wondering what lurks at the bottom of that well. And it means we have hours and hours to spend on Facebook posts and podcasts and Instagram stories, hotly defending our faith that knows the true meaning of love, and oops, the whole day went by and we didn’t feed anybody. It is wrong to mock the Last Supper without knowing or caring what it means. It is worse to defend the Last Supper by making it seem joyless and repellent. 

If we sometimes feel like a beggar, and sometimes feel like heirs to unfathomable riches, it’s because it’s all true. That’s what it means to be a Christian, and to walk the narrow path. It’s weird, but it would be weirder if our the faith that gives our lives meaning could be compressed into a single image or soundbite or tableau. 

I do have a message, though, and I think it’s better than “diversity and being together.” It is this:

Remember who you are. You are the one who has been fed. You are satiated. You can afford to share. Behave as if you know how rich you are, and then see if people will want to come to that heavy-laden table and eat. 

 

 

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 385: Hot, hot, hot

Happy Friday! We are being unusually sociable this morning, and after making arrangements for Benny to have a little pool party, I took Lucy and Irene to their friend’s house. It’s only 25 minutes away, but very rural, and last time I went there, it was dark and foggy. But I COULD NOT FIND MY PHONE, which I depend on utterly to help me get around.

So, intrepidly, I went to Mapquest and printed out instructions just like in the olde days. And just like in the olde days, we couldn’t find any papere, so had to print over paper that already had something on it, and it ran out of inke before it was done, so we had to write the last few turns in with pen.

But, INTREPID, we started out, and after twenty minutes were pretty thoroughly lost. I shifted fairly seamlessly from my standard “really all it takes to get through life is a little confidence” monologue to my “you know, all my life I thought I was dumb because I got lost all the time, but now I know that everybody’s dumb about something, and it’s okay if you aren’t good at anything” monologue, and then modulated to a slightly desperate commentary on “It sure is pretty out here.” But we got there eventually, and I told the kids to go in and give me the high sign so I know it’s the right house. 

They never did, so I left.

I was — it’s hot. I’m not at my best. And no matter what I say to my teen daughters, I am pretty sure I’m stupid. 

Then I got even more lost on the way home, like, really, really lost. And then I found some roads that looked right, but I wasn’t sure which way I was supposed to be going on them. But eventually I went past a ski lodge that I had a very strong memory of being on the right hand side when I went there to pick up a kid with a sprained wrist, and, long story short, that sure was a big loop I made. But I did get home. And then I found my phone.

If anyone asks, this is a story about how Mapquest is subpar.

Here’s what we ate this week!

SATURDAY
Italian sandwiches

Geting ready for the big family independence day party, so I figured just simple sandwiches. Forgot to get sliced meat at Aldi, so I stopped at the deli counter at the second supermarket, and there was an ollllllld man with his olllllllld wife in a Rascal Scooter there, and he kept saying things like, “How’s about a taste of that uhhhhhh say that buffalo chicken?” and the deli guy would fetch the buffalo chicken and put it on the slicer and turn it on and cut a slice and fold it in half and put it on a little plastic square and hand it to the old man, and he would examine it and hand it to his wife, who would carefully unwrap it and, with great dignity, take a small bite, and she would say shakily, “That’s pretty good, but you know Stan I was wondering about the sodium” and the old man would say, “Ohhh, yahhhh, that’s something, the sodium. What about uhhhhh that Krakus ham?”

So I says to myself, I says, I will come back later.

Then I forgot. So I sent Damien out, and he got some meat, and we had sandwiches, and all I can say is, I hope I never turn into one of those ollllllld couples that goes on and on telling pointless stories about —

Hey, have you noticed, this website is free? 

SUNDAY
Cookout!

Sunday was just plain great. Lots of family and friends came, and we had lots of food, and my brother Izzy brought lots of sparklers and fireworks. Kids swam in the pool and splashed in the stream and played in the sandbox and on the swingset and trampoline, everyone had plenty to eat and drink, and it was just lovely. Glow sticks, glowing cups, temporary tattoos, torches and sticky kids. This is my favorite party. Bunch of photos here:

 

Oh, and we rented a COTTON CANDY MACHINE.

I cannot recommend this highly enough. There was a bit of a learning curve, but once we got it going, it was super easy, and it was delightful.

Much cheaper than I expected, too. Loud as heck, but it made a huge amount of cotton candy with each batch, and we ran it three times. It was a nice way to keep the party going, and just about everybody, of every age, wanted at least some. 

The rest of the menu was: Lots and lots of vegetables with dip and hummus

and several watermelons; wonderful savory baked beans from my sorta sister-in-law Elizabeth, guacamole from my brother Joe, and Damien cooked hot dogs, brats, hamburgers, and chicken thighs on the grill, and we had a mountain of chips, and for dessert, red and blue Jello cups with Kool Whip, and ice cream cups, and then just straight up bags of candy in the dark at the end. 

Ah, what a good party. Somebody found some of those weird black snakes, and we lit them all up at once while everyone chanted “SNAKE! SNAKE! SNAKE! SNAKE!” 

We always seem to have chanting at our parties. 

MONDAY
Cookout leftovers!

So many cookout leftovers. 

This would be a good time to talk about the Jello Hand. I had some leftover Jello after filling up all the cups that would fit in the fridge, so I filled up a glove and, because it had recently been the Fourth of July, called it The Invisible Hand of the Market, which, NO, picky-picky, that doesn’t make any sense. 

Some people might find it hard to figure out how to get a Jello hand such as this to stand up and keep its shape while it gels, but it happens that my almost entirely otherwise useless brain is really good at solving this kind of problem.

So then after the party, we had this Jello hand, and we didn’t know what to do with it, so Corrie ate it. 

and that’s-a my story. 

TUESDAY
Aldi pizza

Tuesday we still had more cookout leftovers in the fridge, but I couldn’t bring myself to serve them again, but I also couldn’t bring myself to cook anything. And that’s what Aldi pizza is for. 

WEDNESDAY
Chicken pesto pasta, bread

Wednesday I went to West Lebanon to have lunch with my friend Jenni, who I’ve been friends with for something like 24 years but have never met in person!

The internet was basically a mistake, except for the part where you make online friends that are absolutely real friends. (And also the part with the maps that tell you where to go.)

Got home and it was SO HOT. It’s been so hot and so humid all week. Not in the 100’s or anything, like some parts, but still pretty freaking hot, and it’s just exhausting, and everything makes you sweaty, and it’s hard to think or do anything. So I did the quickiest shortcut meal I could think of without heating up the kitchen too much, with ingredients on hand, which was: A few pounds of rotini, a bunch of butter, a bunch of shredded parmesan, and a few jars of pesto, and chunks of chicken breast I had cooked in the Instant Pot. 

A decent summer meal. I honestly don’t think it would have tasted better if I had gone through a whole hot ordeal making a cream sauce or whatever. 

THURSDAY
Korean pork ribs, rice, watermelon

An actual recipe! I got a giant rack of pork ribs for like $10, without a solid plan, but found this likely-looking recipe from Glebe Kitchen. Super simple. You just sprinkle the meat with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and cook it in the oven for an hour or so, until it hits 180 degrees.

Toward the end of cooking, you make a quick gochujang sauce, with garlic and ginger, soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, sesame oil, gochujang, and brown sugar. It also calls for fish sauce, which I didn’t have. 

I wanted each rib to have plenty of sauce, so I cut the ribs up first (and that was a bit of a travesty. I think I need a meat cleaver), and then brushed them with sauce

then put it back in the oven for another ten minutes or so, finishing it with the broiler, until they got a little bit blackened in spots, and were sizzling

OH, so good. The sauce was thick and sticky, spicy and a little sweet, and the meat was tender and juicy. Probably could have left it in the oven for another five minutes to really let the glaze get a little thicker, but there were no complaints.

I had made a pot of rice in the Instant Pot and cut up the last remaining watermelon (yes, I bought too many watermelons for the party) and it was an excellent meal.

Briefly considered making Korean-inspired collard greens, because this meal is really callong for something green; but did I mention it’s HOT, and I’m not like other people, and when it’s hot, I don’t want to cook? It’s true. 

Definitely making these ribs again. I was afraid the sauce was going to be too spicy and maybe a little harsh, which is how it tasted when it was just sauce; but once it got cooked onto the meat, it mellowed and was perfect. MANY of us thought it was perfect. 

Many of us had to be cautioned to slow down so as not to accidentally devour our own little fingers, which are not made of Jello. 

FRIDAY
Honestly, probably pizza again

You’ll never guess: It’s hot out. Kids are swimming, dog is panting, cat is stretched out pathetically on the bathroom floor, barely even able to muster the strength to bite anybody’s ankles. Very sad. I think he needs some Aldi pizza. 

Speaking of the cat and dog, this week is the anniversary of the days we brought both these worthy animals home — the cat, a year ago, and the dog, four years ago. 

Look at them now!

They’re both such good boys, and such good friends. 

And you know what else, Damien’s going to pick the kids up from their fun time with friends who live in terra incognita. Because it’s hot.

 

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 384: What Washoe wants

Happy Friday! I spent most of the week prepping for the big Independence Day family party, which will be Sunday. We had to move it because Saturday looks like wall-t0-wall thunderstorms, and now not everyone can come, but I think it’s going to be lovely anyway. It’s almost always lovely, just like me.

Today’s post has a certain amount of complaining, an unreasonably large and expensive cabbage, pictures of my reasonably chimpy deck, and a few good meals. If that sounds readable to you, then here we go! 

SATURDAY
Chicken quesadillas

We had an action-packed day, I forget why, and I got home quite late from shopping. So I did something I’ve never done before: I bought chicken that was not only pre-cooked, it was pre-shredded. 

It was fine. Not bad, even.

I made chicken quesadillas for everybody, but by the time I was done frying them up, I had already experienced enough chicken and oil through my other senses that I didn’t want to eat a chicken quesadilla, so I had a little girl dinner instead.

And very good it was, girl dinner. You’ll notice I still had room for cheese. Alert viewers will also note that I ate it in bed.

SUNDAY
Aquarium!

Our first day trip of the summer! Last summer, we went to the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, CT, and it was cheaper to get a membership than to buy individual tickets, so even though it’s two-and-a-half hours away, we decided to make the trip again to get a second visit in before the membership ran out. 

The day before, I stopped at Market Basket and got six footlong subs, which are crazy cheap (like $5.50 each) and quite good. (And that makes exactly one good thing about Market Basket.) We cut them in half and there was way more than enough for lunch on the road.

This was the very first time in 26 years that I didn’t obsessively check the weather forecast and insist that everybody bring at least a light jacket. Which of course caused it to pour rain the whole time we were there, interspersed with violent thunderstorms, so we had to shelter in place. BUT, lots of people got scared away by the storms, so when it went back to just plain raining, it wasn’t too crowded!

It’s a good aquarium. The sea lion show is very loud and cheesy, but still lots of fun. We didn’t get to feed the rays this time, because of the rain, but the sharks and turtles and light-up jellyfish were still excellent. They have several belugas, and one of them spends so much time just hanging out upright, they have to rub Coppertone sunblock on her head so she doesn’t get a burn.

Complete doofus. She periodically did this weird head-shaking thing as she hung out, and the top of her head wobbled around like a blanc mange. 

I had Benny and Corrie in my car, and we stopped at Domino’s on the way home, and then again at Wendy’s for Frosties. I had the triple berry one, which tasted exactly like you’d imagine (fine).

For a trip this long, I okay’d the DVD player, and we watched Moana on the way up and the second Harry Potter on the way back. Wow, Moana really holds up. Captivating even if you’re only listening while you drive. I still think the coconut demon part could have been cut, and I still cry when it gets to the part where all the brute force and all the magic in the world is no use, and Moana uses her feminine genius to conquer Ta Fe by reminding her who she really is.

I told this guy they had stolen the heart from inside him, but this does not define him, and he was like, I know, but this is who I truly am.

Fair enough. 

MONDAY
Korean beef bowl, rice, roast broccoli 

Monday was very much back to the summer grind, which is highly preferable to the non-summer grind, but still, fairly grindy. I got so confused, I had to write it down on actual paper

and I’m happy to report that, since this day, one kid who previously needed a ride now owns her own car!  The whole rest of the week was like this, too, but for some reason I was especially confused by Monday. 

So in between, I got a bunch of yard work done while Corrie cooled off, and was cool, on behalf of everybody

Got a big pot of rice going in the Instant Pot, made some quick Korean Beef Bowl (I had fresh garlic and ginger, which is great, but we were out of brown sugar, which was boo, so I used honey, which wasn’t the same. 

Still a yummy, satisfying, and EASY dish.

Jump to Recipe

I was gonna make sesame broccoli,

Jump to Recipe

but I couldn’t find the sesame oil OR the sesame seeds, so I just cut up the broccoli and dumped on some garlic powder, a little salt, and a bunch of soy sauce, and roasted it under the broiler. Not bad at all. 

I forgot to add any kind of oil, and I may actually make it that way going forward. 

TUESDAY
Not-caesar chicken salad

Tuesday I spent most of the day working on the deck. I undid a few inadvisable parts and starting on the railing, doing my best impression of a chimpanzee learning how to work power tools, and frequently reminding my simian self that it doesn’t have to look professional; it just has to not be a death trap. And I achieved that!

Then I dragged my knuckles inside to do something about supper. It was supposed to be chicken caesar salad,

Jump to Recipe

but it turned out I forgot to buy anchovies for the dressing, but that’s okay. Oh, I also forgot to buy a wedge of parmesan cheese. Still okay, I guess. But then I discovered we didn’t have any lemons OR bottled lemon juice. I discovered this after I had already started making the dressing.

So, knowing it was terribly wrong, I put lime juice in. 

So, fine, it was disgusting, whatever. Who cares. We had romaine lettuce and roast chicken and I think cucumbers. Also the dog stole one of the chicken breasts, so there wasn’t even that much chicken. What you want from poor old Washoe? Washoe tired. 

WEDNESDAY
Shepherd’s pie

Wednesday it was murderously hot and humid, so of course I spent all day trudging around Home Depot and working on the rest of the deck railing, and then I topped the day off with an extremely heavy and dense casserole. Sometimes you look at your plans, realize they are terrible, and forge ahead anyway, because following through feels better than anything else possibly could. At least that’s what you tell yourself. 

I installed the last of the balusters and topped the whole (well, almost the whole) railing with a PVC gutter, because I just need to protect little hands from the screws that are poking out all over the place. It’s FINE. It’s fine! 

I didn’t even argue with the Home Depot guy when I bought the gutter. I told him what I wanted (a handrail cover, or, failing that, something that would function like a handrail cover; for instance, maybe some PVC gutter) and he told me, “Oh, no, that’s not what you want.” Which is what Home Depot ALWAYS says to me. They either say “Oh no, that’s not what you want” or else they say “That would be a special order” even though I know exactly what I want and they clearly HAVE it, because I can SEE IT, RIGHT THERE; but they insist they don’t have any. Or one time, they installed a water heater for us, and there was a carbon monoxide leak, and I had to throw and absolute FIT to get them to admit that this is a problem. I haven’t forgotten that. 

Anyway, I thanked him for his help and then went over and bought a PVC gutter, and I attached it to the rail with a staple gun, so there. 

I also opened up the pool-facing part of the original platform. It used to look like this:

because it was originally a play structure, not a lifeguard stand. So you had to duck your head to get into the pool 

But now it looks like this:

Wooo, wide open! Go right in! I was pretty nervous about removing half the frame, because I was afraid it would somehow destabilize the whole thing. But it still seems perfectly solid. 

So here is my oddly-shaped but indisputably actual deck:

I also trimmed off a few protruding parts, added a grabbing handle to the ladder at the end, and did miscellaneous fussing, and put one of my finer pallets underneath it, so we have a spot for our hay and straw collection

And there it is. Still needs to be sanded and painted or stained, but I don’t think I can get that done this week.

I wondered if it was really, truly done. I thought long and hard and then went back to Home Depot, looking for a transitional piece to ease the 1-inch drop between the triangular floor section and the long section. But as soon as I got there, I remembered having the same fruitless search when I was redoing the dining room floor, which had its own weird threshold situation. 

So I’m gazing at long pieces of wood and a guy in an orange apron greets me in a booming and friendly voice, and asks how I’m doing. 

I say, “Oh, good, but do you have a moment? I have a question about wood.”

He says, “I just have to get back to this customer, but what do you need to know?”

So I explain what I’m looking for, and he suggests looking in the flooring section. I say I already did that, and then I explain a bit more about what I need. 

So he says he’s going to go help the first customer, but he’ll send someone else over to help me. I thank him. So cordial, so helpful. Home Depot’s not so bad after all!

I start walking to the flooring section, just to take another look, but I’m keeping an eye out for the guy, so he doesn’t have to search for me. And I pass by an aisle, where I hear a booming and friendly voice saying, “Yeah, this lady needs some help, she has some transitional bullshi–”

and then he sees me. The “t” never falls from his lips.

You know what, fair. He wasn’t wrong. It was an hour before close, it’s customer service, and I DID have some transitional bullshit. I’m not even mad. So the other guy (who turned out to be the “oh, no, you don’t want a gutter” guy, haha) walks with me to flooring and we look over our options, which are, as I expected, additional bullshit, which is even worse than transitional bullshit. I can put a stair nosing over the transitional part, which will not help in any way, and is $20, and I would need two.

So I went home! Thanks for nothing, Home Depot. I hate you so much. 

I also bought some flowers, which is what I do when someone hurts my feelings. So I guess I was a little mad, actually. And I also got some fresh sand for the sandbox, and some Killz in a spray can, which I didn’t realize was a thing. The bathroom ceiling is about to find out it’s a thing!

Oh, so the shepherd’s pie was fine. Instant mashed potatoes continue to delight. 

Quite tasty, even if it did slump a bit

Who among us. And did you notice the Fiddler on the Roof? A present from Moe. 

THURSDAY
Vietnamese chicken salad, potstickers

Thursday was, of course, the Fourth of July. I got up relatively early and cleaned out the fridge, which was MONSTROUS, and then prepped supper, because I knew I was gonna be running around all day.

I had been waffling all week on what to do with this chicken. I know it sounds like I’m going to make pun about chicken and waffles, but I’ve never even been tempted to make chicken and waffles. That’s just weird and I don’t want to understand.

What I wanted was to make the Milk Street Radio Goi Gà, but I always get lost in a maze of Milk Street logins; so I decided instead to make this Chinese chicken salad from Recipe Tin Eats, a site which has yielded some great recipes. 

This recipe calls for both red cabbage and Napa cabbage, but when I got to the store, they had plenty of red, but only one Napa cabbage, and it was massive. But I was like, haha, it’s one cabbage, Michael, how much could it possibly cost? 

That mofo was $14!!!!!! But it was already our fourth stop and it was already after 5 PM, so I didn’t have it in me to call the manager over to void a cabbage. 

So I had this freaking cabbage the size of a hassock, and then, I don’t even remember why — possibly because there has some kind of giant locust in the house all week, and I have absolutely torn the living room apart and vacuumed everything I can find but I CANNOT FIND THE BUG, and it just sits there screaming all day long! Which can be a little wearing! — but I switched recipes again. I went with a different Vietnamese chicken salad recipe that I cannot even find now. Good heavens. And I ran out of fish sauce, and guess what? I forged ahead, and IT WAS DELICIOUS. 

Basically you have some cooked chicken (I cooked it in the Instant Pot and then shredded it in the standing mixer), a bunch of shredded cabbage (if you can’t find Napa cabbage, just shred some $20 bills), and this garlickly-limey-fish saucy-spicy dressing, and I didn’t have peanuts so I put some cashews in a bag and bashed them with a rolling pin, and I made a big bowl of pickled red onions, and found some crunchy Chinese noodles, and it was so, so good. 

It’s supposed to have cilantro, which I forgot to buy, and fresh mint, which I didn’t use enough of. Still, just about everybody liked at least some part of it, and it made a really pleasant summer meal — filling, but not too heavy, and a real festival of flavors. And pretty! And if you use an Instant Pot, you don’t even have to heat up the kitchen. 

By the end of the day, my hands and feet were all swollen up and I was full of wood splinters and fish sauce and bad opinions about life, and simply could not face the thought of taking the kids to a fireworks show. So Damien, who had been dealing with a Napa cabbage-sized heap of nonsense himself all day, and all week, cheerfully brought them. And they had a nice time. I stayed home and took a shower and lay in front of a fan, and I also had a nice time. 

FRIDAY
Pizza

We just had pizza several times, but we’re having more pizza. Fight me. Topped the garden basil, so I believe we’ll have basil pizza. 

I got some pretty great mail today: Some bins that I was planning to store duck and dog food in, but it turns out they are too small (even though I measure and measured and did tons of research and comparison shopping and even worked out how to covert gallons to pounds), which is a bummer, but then I also got a framed alla prima painting of a skull by Matthew Good. I ordered it kind of on a whim with some money that fell into my lap for a ridiculous reason, so I exchanged it for ONE ART, and I feel wonderful about that. 

When we die, we are not gonna leave our kids any money, because we ate it all, but we are gonna be able to leave them some original art. 

Anyway, this is our current pet food storage system:

and this is what I have now.

Not big enough, but it cannot fail to be an improvement. In some way. Surely. 

I just took a quick break to give Sophia her very first driving lesson, and she did great. Corrie got some sunblock in her eye, and then the other eye, and then the first one again, but we all survived. I planted the grapevines. I moved the eggplants. I weeded around the patio. I staked up the peas. I put the stairs on the bog bridge. I mulched around St. Joseph. I ziptied the flowerpot to the stand so it stops falling down. I trimmed the hydrangeas so the stella d’oro lilies can see the sky. I thinned the collards. I deadheaded absolutely everything. I found a high spot for the flowers the bunnies keep eating. And for the third time this summer, I replaced the sunflowers that the bunnies also keep eating, and this time I smartened up and sprinkled red pepper all over them. And I cleaned up the hundreds of bits and pieces of wood that somehow got thrown all over the yard by some maniac. 

And now I’m ready to have a party! Basically! I just need to go shopping. 

Washoe out!

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Korean Beef Bowl

A very quick and satisfying meal with lots of flavor and only a few ingredients. Serve over rice, with sesame seeds and chopped scallions on the top if you like. You can use garlic powder and powdered ginger, but fresh is better. The proportions are flexible, and you can easily add more of any sauce ingredient at the end of cooking to adjust to your taste.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup brown sugar (or less if you're not crazy about sweetness)
  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
  • 3-4 inches fresh ginger, minced
  • 6-8 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3-4 lb2 ground beef
  • scallions, chopped, for garnish
  • sesame seeds for garnish

Instructions

  1. In a large skillet, cook ground beef, breaking it into bits, until the meat is nearly browned. Drain most of the fat and add the fresh ginger and garlic. Continue cooking until the meat is all cooked.

  2. Add the soy sauce, brown sugar, and red pepper flakes the ground beef and stir to combine. Cook a little longer until everything is hot and saucy.

  3. Serve over rice and garnish with scallions and sesame seeds. 

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Sesame broccoli

Ingredients

  • broccoli spears
  • sesame seeds
  • sesame oil
  • soy sauce

Instructions

  1. Preheat broiler to high.

    Toss broccoli spears with sesame oil. 

    Spread in shallow pan. Drizzle with soy sauce and sprinkle with sesame seeds

    Broil for six minutes or longer, until broccoli is slightly charred. 

 

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caesar salad dressing

Ingredients

  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 6 cloves garlic, minced
  • 12 anchovy fillets, chopped
  • 1 Tbsp kosher salt
  • 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (about two large lemons' worth)
  • 1 Tbsp mustard
  • 4 raw egg yolks, beaten
  • 3/4 cup finely grated parmesan

Instructions

  1. Just mix it all together, you coward.

5 from 1 vote
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Leftover lamb shepherd's pie

This recipe uses lots of shortcuts and it is delicious.

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350.

  2. Prepare the mashed potatoes and set aside.

  3. Heat and drain the corn. (I heated mine up in beef broth for extra flavor.)

  4. In a saucepan, melt the butter and saute the onion and garlic until soft. Stir in pepper.

  5. Add the flour gradually, stirring with a fork, until it becomes a thick paste. Add in the cream and continue stirring until it is blended. Add in the cooked meat and stir in the Worcestershire sauce.

  6. Add enough broth until the meat mixture is the consistency you want.

  7. Grease a casserole dish and spread the meat mixture on the bottom. Spread the corn over the meat. Top with the mashed potatoes and spread it out to cover the corn. Use a fork to add texture to mashed potatoes, so they brown nicely.

  8. Cook for about forty minutes, until the top is lightly browned and the meat mixture is bubbly. (Finish browning under broiler if necessary.)