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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:

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

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.

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.

Happy Friday! I hope May is as great where you are as it is here, because my May is going GREAT. It’s so pretty and it smells so good, and the air is soft and warm, and everything is growing like crazy. So many delicious smells to smell!

So many delicious bugs to eat!

Here’s what we non-ducks ate this week: 

SATURDAY
Potluck

Saturday I did part of the shopping, and then we went to a faith formation dinner. I signed up to bring fruit, and planned to make a fruit salad, but while at the store I felt a profound need not to make a fruit salad. Chopping! Who needs chopping? So I made a platter of grapes, bananas, and clementines, and it was fine. Even washed the grapes. And I even remembered to bring my platter home. 

That reminds me of the time my parents went to a potluck event, and brought a fruit salad. One of my siblings was going to a fancy, toney private school in the Old Money part of Massachusetts, and our family always felt massively out of place, real bumpkins. So when it was graduation and they were supposed to bring a dish to share, they decided that regular fruit salad was too pedestrian, and an exquisitely fragrant custard studded with summer delights would hit just the right note and impress everyone.

So they made it, and followed the recipe exactly. But as you know, custards can be finicky, and my parents weren’t exactly practiced chefs anyway. So what they ended up with was a bowl full of something that tasted fine, but looked exactly like someone had eaten a lot of fruit out of a bowl, and then been sick right back into that bowl. 

BUT FOR SOME REASON, they decided to bring it anyway. I feel like the two-hour trip in the early summer sun can’t possibly have helped the custard situation much, and neither could the extra couple of hours in the car while the graduation went on. You have to understand, my family wasn’t the kind of family that owned, like, ice packs or anything. Somehow. So when it was time to eat, they went ahead and set this bowl of pale yellow fruit puke on the table with an optimistic ladle, in among the canapés and finger sandwiches, and slunk away to mingle.

Nobody ate that fruit puke. Not even one scoop. It just sat there in vomitous shame, getting more and more thoroughly cooked in the sun. And when the ceremony and the luncheon were over and people were reclaiming their serving dishes, my parents couldn’t bring themselves to admit that she shame custard was theirs. So they just left. 

That’s it. That’s the whole story. I don’t know why this seems so funny to me. I just imagine the long tables are still set up in the charming English-style garden to this day, all the students long gone and grown, all the parents and teachers dead and half forgotten, the ragged tablecloths flapping in the wind in the tall grass, and at one end, alone in the moonlight, one Havisham fruit salad. It waits and waits, fruitlessly. Which is funny, because it’s a fruit salad. 

Anyway, people at the church ate my damn bananas.

Saturday evening, Corrie desperately wanted to get into the pool, even though it was like 51 degrees out. So she did (and turned bright red), and Benny and I kept an eye on her while plucking lilac petals.

WHY, you may ask? Because I found out (a) lilacs petals are edible and (b) you can make them into jelly! I started it Saturday evening and finished it Sunday. I’ll go ahead and go through the rest of the week first, and then we shall return to jelly. 

SUNDAY
Chicken caprese sandwiches, cheezy weezies

Sunday I had to finish the shopping. Normally, shopping takes me three hours, but when I break it up into two days, it takes 46 hours. I don’t know why this is so, but anyway we had sandwiches. 

It was still a tiny bit nippy outside, but I was committed to eating on the patio anyway. Love it. 

MONDAY
Pulled pork on fries with cheese and onions

Monday, it suddenly warmed up, but menu is menu, so I started some pulled pork, and then was so delighted to finally get to meet my friend and fake sister-in-law, Elizabeth! (She is my sister’s husband’s sister.) We had a wonderful morning and we are very simpatico. Got home, ran around doing errands, and finished up dinner. 

The pulled pork was this recipe, with apple cider vinegar, cumin, jalapeños, and cloves

and it turned out okay, but kind of tough, I forget why, but it was my fault. (If you follow the recipe, it won’t turn out tough.) But I made a bunch of french fries, put out a bottle of BBQ sauce, sliced up some red onions, and heated up some of that disgusting cheese sauce that comes in a jar, and man, it was a tasty bowl of yum.

Good stuff. 

TUESDAY
Santa Fe Chicken Salad

Tuesday I had a bunch of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, and asked myself, “What would I do if I were on TikTok?” So I sprayed them with olive oil spray and sprinkled them heavily with Taijin chili lime seasoning, and roasted them in the oven. Then I cut them up and sprinkled the pieces with even more Taijin chili lime seasoning. 

Got out a tub of mixed greens and set it out with the chicken, along with those crunchy fried onions that come in a tub, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, shredded pepper jack cheese, and chipotle ranch dressing, or something along those lines. 

I also had some kind of weird Aldi corn chips that were “street corn” flavor or something. They really tasted like corn! And this marks the day when I suddenly realized that regular corn chips don’t actually taste like corn. 

Anyway, great meal, very Sante Fe (or whatever). 

WEDNESDAY
Beef teriyaki stir fry, rice, berry lassi

Wednesday, people had been agitating for a stir fry, so I got a hunk of beef for a treat, and sliced it as thinly as I could (it was half-frozen, which helped) and let it marinate in soy sauce and a little sugar and mirin. I also defrosted a couple of bags of frozen mixed vegetables (I guess broccoli, carrots, maybe some pea pods, and water chestnuts).

I looked at a bunch of teriyaki sauce recipes, and for some reason they all looked annoying, so I just made something up. 

I heated up some oil and sautéed about five cloves of garlic, minced. We were out of fresh ginger and also brown sugar, so I mixed it about a cup of white sugar and whisked that over the heat until it bubbled and turned dark. I threw in about 1/4 cup of mirin and whisked that for another minute. Then I made a little roux with a little soy sauce and quite a bit of corn starch, and whisked that in until it was smooth, along with a bunch of powdered ginger. Then I dumped in a ton of soy sauce and brought it to a light boil. It got nice and thick, which is what I was going for.

I started some rice cooking in the Instant Pot. When it was almost time to eat, I sautéed the meat until it was slightly underdone, added in the vegetables to heat it all up, and then stirred in the sauce. 

Perfect. 

When I was poking around in the fridge that morning, I found some fruit I had bought on the weekend and didn’t use, and it was about to go off. I had cherries, strawberries, and blueberries. So I sliced them all up and put them in the freezer in the morning. 

While supper was finishing up, I dumped them in the blender

and then added in a bunch of plain Greek yogurt, some lime juice, and I think sugar, and a few ice cubes. 

Is this a lassi, or just a smoothie? I’m not sure. But it was a very hot, humid day and the drink was not as thick as I was hoping, but still sweet, berryful, and very refreshing

if a slightly weird accompaniment for beef teriyaki stir fry.

Anyway, we liked it.

THURSDAY
Mussakhan and taboon

Thursday was still super hot and humid, but I only had one meal left on the menu, so I forged ahead and made this mussakhan (Palestinian roast chicken with sumac and onions) from Saveur. I started the chicken marinating in the morning, but discovered I was very low on sumac, which is sad. 

A couple of hours before dinner, I started some taboon dough. Last time, it turned out incredibly fluffy and lovely, but for some reason I had a bad feeling about this dough. But menu is menu, so I forged ahead. Gotta forge ahead. 

When it was about an hour before dinner, I started the chicken roasting in one big pan, and then about twenty minutes before dinner, I got the dough in the other big pan and put that in the oven.

I crowded the chicken a bit, so it wasn’t crispy golden, but still quite delicious. And the taboon was, as I feared, a tiny bit dense and tough. But lookit: Two pans of wonderful savory meat and fresh bread for all, coming out of the oven at the same time

Can’t beat that. I toasted up some pine nuts in oil and chopped up some parsley, and then I put the chicken on the bread and the pine nuts and parsley on the chicken, and the family started grabbing for it before I could even get a picture

So that’s a good sign! Especially since I had to drag everyone out of the pool to come eat. 

If you are thinking of getting a pool, which I heartily recommend, the thing you should know is that the kids will always mad at you for making them come out of the pool, but yet never happy with you for getting them a pool.

But like I said, the chicken and taboon helped a lot. 

Gotta get my hands on some more sumac, though. 

That reminds me, the sumac tree I cut down about five years ago (because it was overshadowing my rock garden) has come roaring back, and now I need to look up if some sumac is poisonous or what, and how to tell, and how hard it is to get sumac from a sumac tree, if it’s not poisonous. 

But gosh, those pine nuts are nice. Did you know they are actually from pine trees? For some reason I assumed they weren’t, but they are. I have no intention of harvesting my own pine nuts, though. I will continue to pay 30 cents a nut, or whatever it is, and then be late with the electric bill. Worth it. 

FRIDAY

I just realized I said I would get ravioli, but I forgot. I forgot a lot of stuff. On Thursday, we were talking over the logistics of Friday. It was one of those cat-fox-basket of corn situations, except the cat needs new tires and her husband has to be in Newport to talk to the county attorney or something, and the upshot was that I decided: School? School?? A sweet, warm Friday in May is no time to send kids to school. So we stayed home. Fight me. In lieu of bedtime Thursday night, I made a fire and the kids roasted marshmallows. No ragrets.

I do have to get some ravioli, though. 

So, now, here is how I made the lilac jelly!

I was following the recipe from Lord Byron’s Kitchen, but I fiddled with it a little bit, for no reason whatsoever. And in fact Lord Byron, if that is indeed his name, says you will need to add blueberries or blackberries to it if you want it to turn pink, but that turned out not to be the case — either because of the aforementioned fiddling, or maybe I just have pinker lilacs, I dunno. 

I picked enough bunches of blossoms to fill up my biggest stock pot, and then we plucked off the petals, trying to get as little of the green in there as possible. 

It took QUITE SOME TIME. But Benny is very pleasant to chat with.

We finally got them all done and we ended up with more than the eight cups the recipe called for. I rinsed them in a colander and then the next step is to steep them. I used the proportions of the rest of ingredients called for, even though I had extra petals. So I ended up with 11 cups of petals and eight cups of water, and I boiled that.

And I was like, ooh, he’s right, this is not gonna be pink or purple or anything nice, oh well.

It said to let it steep for four hours, but I put it in the fridge and went to bed. So it steeped for probably twenty hours. Next day I poured the liquid into a pot, straining it through a double layer of cheesecloth to keep the petals out. 

and it did not look terribly promising. I was pretty resigned to having tannish-yellowish-greenish jelly. 

Then I added eight cups of sugar and 1/4 cup of lemon juice. I think it was at this point that the color started to perk up. 

Then I brought it to a boil again. This is the point where you’re supposed to add the pectin. It calls for 114 grams of pectin. What I had in my cabinet (no, it would not have been possible to check this ahead of time, because I had to go outside and look at flowers) was some pouches of liquid pectin, which is measured in fluid ounces, not grams. They were six fluid ounces each. So I thought about it for a while, and asked my smart speaker, which was not exceedingly helpful. What to do?

Well, if my math is correct, and you want to convert fluid ounces to grams, and six times two is twelve, then that means two pouches is twelve fluid ounces, which is the equivalent of . . . some grams. So that’s what I did. Dumped those grams right in, both pouches of grams.

Then I started to bring it to a boil again.

I don’t even like jelly that much, but I sure do like watching pots of color swirl around. 

As it heated up, a sort of taffy-like foam started to collect on the top, and this is the first time I tasted it to see what was going on in there. 

You’re not gonna believe this, but it tasted like lilacs. I don’t know how else to describe it. Definitely sweet, and of course I could taste a tiny bit of lemon, but mostly it was just . . . floral. Not like rosewater, which I don’t really like, but like lilac. I guess maybe a bit like blueberry or possibly plum, but it was really a new taste for me. Amazing! 

So I boiled it and whisked it for another minute or so, and then let it cool down a bit before pouring it into jars. 

LOOK at this color. 

The recipe has you doing the whole canning water bath thing, but I’m not cut out for that, and I just planned to make refrigerator jelly. 

Lovely, lovely. 

It was the consistency of thick syrup when I poured it into the jars, but either this or another recipe said it could take up to a week to thicken up properly, so I wasn’t worried. 

I gave away a few jars and we have plenty left in the fridge. So far I’ve eaten it on leftover taboon and on Saltines, and I’m absolutely sold. Clara is talking about making shortbread thumbprint cookies (which have a little scoop of jelly on each one). It has thickened up, and is almost the consistency of jelly you’d find at the store, but just slightly looser. 

Oh, and here is the leftover lilac petals, after the liquid was drained off. Poor things! All used up. 

So that’s-a my lilac jelly story. We had SO many lilacs this year, and they seem to be sticking around for an unusually long time; or maybe it’s just that I have more leisure time this year than I usually have, and I’m taking more time to enjoy the lilacs. Or maybe I don’t have more time, and I’m just recklessly choosing to use what I have with messing around with flowers! Either way, I’m very grateful. And I have jelly! And it is pink!