What with one thing and another, I never really went shopping this week (which I was supposed to do on Tuesday). I just kept running to the store and muddling through, and it ended up a pretty delicious week. We had already made plans for the kids to do some cooking, so that helped. Here’s what we had:
SATURDAY Tacos al pastor, plantain chips
Almost a very delicious meal. I made too much meat, which means I crowded the pan. I CROWDED THE PAN. Actually I didn’t even use a pan! There was so much meat, I attempted to broil it in the oven, and I crowded the oven.
So the flavors were all there, but rather than being seared and juicy, the meat was in sort of wads, covered in a flavorful paste. Rather sad when you think what could have been.
I cooked the pineapple separately on the stove, and they turned out great. Gosh, I love seared pineapple.
I more or less followed this recipe, except I used pineapple juice instead of orange juice, and I used too much pineapple in the marinade and didn’t reserve enough for the tacos. The extra pineapple pulp did not help the pasty wad situation. But it’s a relatively simple recipe, and I admired the combination of ancho chili and pineapple. Very warming, and then you get your lime and cilantro and red onion, and it’s at least potentially a little party.
Guys, I’m not a very good cook. I’m adventurous, but I have terrible technique, and no respect for recipes, and I panic and make bad decisions that I know are bad decisions. The only thing that keeps me going is the promise that I can take pictures of food. Anyway, we’re gonna revisit this recipe when it’s warm enough to cook on the grill. I did remember to warm up the tortillas for once, so that was nice.
SUNDAY Stuffed shells, fried mozzarella sticks
A Lucy and Irene meal! Irene made the stuffed shells, which turned out to be a bit more work than she had bargained for, but she forged ahead.
Basically you slice each string cheese stick down the middle, then dredge in flour, then in egg with a little milk, then panko crumbs, then egg again, then crumbs again, then freeze, then deep fry.
Also delicious. We put them in the oven for a few minutes to make sure the cheese was melted, although that probably wasn’t necessary, as you can see it oozing out. The outside was crisp and crunchy and the inside was hot and melty. Perfect.
A lovely cheesy meal. And, uh, we had cheesecake for dessert. Look, we like cheese.
I don’t know if the kids had any great sense of accomplishment for what they produced, but I was proud of them, and so was Corrie.
Oh, and last Friday, Elijah made the mac and cheese, which is some knowledge he especially felt like he needed to be armed with before he leaves the nest.
Turned out great. My big secret about mac and cheese is just a normal white sauce with plenty of whatever cheese you have lying around, and then a nice squirt of mustard and/t several sloshes of tabasco sauce mixed in before you add it to the macaroni. And very buttery bread crumbs for the top. We use about three pounds of raw macaroni for the family, if you’re interested (and we generally have leftovers.)
So at least three of the kids are now armed with cheese skills. I made a big effort to just give directions to them, and not do it myself, which is a skill I am learning.
MONDAY English muffin pizzas
This was the meal Sophia chose to make. They turned out great, but I didn’t do as well with my end, and complained that there weren’t enough, even though I never told her how many to make. Also I forgot to take a picture.
TUESDAY Roast beef sandwiches
I think Damien made a paste of oil and garlic and salt and various things, pan seared the meat, and then roasted it in the oven. Whatever he did, it was fabulous as always.
Okay, here’s my hot sandwich dilemma. What if you want a toasted bun and also melted cheese? If you put it all together and then put it in the oven to melt the cheese, only the outside of the bun gets toasted, and the inside gets soggy, especially if you use horseradish sauce. But if you toast the inside of the bun first, and then put the stuff in and toast it again to melt the cheese, then the bun gets over toasted. It’s a problem.
Am I doing Lent right?
WEDNESDAY Aldi pizza
Nothing to report. It’s okay pizza, and pretty cheap for the size.
THURSDAY One-pan chicken thighs with butternut squash and garlic, green salad
Drop, drop, slow tears.
(This is the butternut squash fresh out of the microwave, where I cooked it on high for four minutes to make it yielding enough to cut, peel, and seed. It weeps.)
I changed up my normal “one-pan chicken and whatnot” recipe a bit, and I liked it. I added whole cloves of garlic, lots of paprika, hot pepper flakes, and a little maple syrup with the olive oil. I think I also put kosher salt, pepper, and maybe thyme.
Could have stayed in the oven a few minutes longer to get a little darker roast on the garlic, but it was tasty. A little spicy but just mainly warming, faintly sweet.
And several of us ate a green vegetable. It’s been a while.
FRIDAY I think seared scallops in cream sauce over fettuccine.
Ahem, continuing our spare and penitential menu. It’s not my fault the stores put seafood on sale for Lent! I grabbed a few bags a few weeks ago and stashed them in the freezer, and Damien volunteered to make something delicious with them. He said something about mixing cheese in with the pasta water so it coats the noodles. (Although he said that before he spent the morning digging through the ice so he could park his car next to my car so he could jump start it because I left the keys in it overnight.)
Some of the kids are fairly seafood averse, so I was trying to explain how accessible and inoffensive scallops are. If you are in this situation, I suggest avoiding the term “fish gumdrops.” It doesn’t help.
And now I’d like to point out that I cooked supper exactly twice this week: The tacos al pastor, and the chicken with squash. We had frozen pizza once, and everything else was Genuine Hot Dinner Made By Someone Else. Ghost of mother who has escaped babyland is here to say: Someday it could happen to youuuuuuu!
Just a basic recipe. You can add meat to the sauce or spinach to the cheese, or anything that strikes your fancy. Serves about 10.
Ingredients
212-oz boxesjumbo shells
232-oz tubsricotta cheese
8ozgrated parmesan cheese
4cupsshredded mozzarella, divided
4eggs, beaten
1Tbspgarlic powder
2Tbspdried basil
1Tbspsalt
1tsppepper
1/2tspnutmeg
4-5cupspasta sauce
Instructions
Cook the shells in salted water, drain, and rinse in cool water. Mix them up with olive oil so they don't stick together.
Preheat the oven to 350. Mix into the ricotta cheese all the seasoning, the parmesan, and 3 of the cups of mozzarella.
Spread a little sauce in the bottom of an oven-proof pan or dish. Stuff each shell with about 1/2-1/3 cup of cheese filling and lay the stuffed shells close together.
Top with the rest of the pasta sauce, and sprinkled the remaining mozzarella on top of that. Cover loosely with foil and cook for 45 minutes or longer, until it's bubbly.
Beat the eggs together with the milk in a shallow dish. Put the flour in another shallow dish, and the bread crumbs in a third.
Take each split cheese stick, roll it in flour, dip it in egg, and roll it in panko crumbs, then dip it in egg again, then panko crumbs again.
When you've coated all the cheese sticks, cover and freeze them for at least an hour.
Heat the oil in a heavy pot. You want enough oil that you can submerge the cheese sticks. If you put a wooden spoon in the oil and lots of little bubbles collect on it, the oil is hot enough.
Fry the cheese sticks for just a few minutes a few at a time until they are lightly browned all over.
Drain them on a paper towel and serve while still piping hot. If the cheese isn't melted inside, you can pop the cheese sticks in the oven for a few minutes.
I did buy hot dog buns, but not nearly enough. I’m new here and have no way of knowing how to shop for food. But of course you can turn a mediocre meal into something very different, with the right presentation.
Pretty good meal, but I ran out of white wine for the risotto and had to add some red, and I really just don’t prefer it that way. Can’t beat white wine, butter, and onions. Oh, I also used beef broth instead of chicken, because I couldn’t find my chicken bouillon cubes. Several years ago, I switched from using bouillon cubes to using a giant jar of powdered chicken bouillon. YEARS ago. But I hid this information from myself for some reason, and also somehow didn’t see the giant jar of powdered chicken bouillon I keep on the counter. So I was forced to use beef.
The pork ribs, I just seasoned heavily with salt and pepper and shoved them under a hot broiler, turning once, and they always turn out juicy and nice. The hardest part is running over to turn off the smoke alarm when you turn the ribs over. The whole meal tasted better than it looks. We’re getting some more light these days, but still not enough to make food look good in the evening.
MONDAY Mexican beef bowls
Everybody’s favorite meal this week. I adore this meal. The marinade is only a few ingredients, and then you just have to roast the meat for 40 minutes or so, slice it up, and put in a little time prepping the other toppings — not really more work than prepping for tacos or something.
The only hitch was I only had three cups of rice; but I had picked up these silly taco shell boats (“Fiesta Flats“) on a whim, and was dubbed Mother Hero for my efforts. We had fried onions and sweet peppers, shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, plenty of cilantro, black beans + tomatoes and chili (one can of each, drained and dumped together), and some sweet corn charred in a pan with olive oil. And lime wedges and corn chips.
This meat is so good, so tangy and savory. My current favorite thing to do to beef when it goes on sale. Whenever we make this meal, I scoop up plenty of the gravy and pour it over the whole thing. I firmly believe this is good for my heart and will enable me to live forever, a Gravy-filled Hero Mother forever.
TUESDAY
Nobody knows what we ate on Tuesday. I don’t have any pictures, so it probably wasn’t very good.
WEDNESDAY Chicken caprese sandwiches, fries
A fine meal. I took some chicken breasts, drizzled them with olive oil, and heavily seasoned them with salt, garlic powder, and oregano and dried basil and rosemary, and roasted them, then sliced them thin. February tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, freshly ground sea salt and pepper. Toasted buns. Very nice.
We ate late because I had spent a good part of the day shopping for Corrie’s birthday party, putting her presents together, and baking a ridiculous cake, as you will see.
THURSDAY Domino’s pizza
Corrie’s birthday! We’re still not having guests, so we made it as festive as possible with just us chickens, considering that several of us chickens had to work during the day.
She requested a Teen Titans cake, and drew this helpful diagram for me:
Sure, kid.
So I did what any loving mother would do: I begged one of my other kids to deal with it. I did bake a cake, and decorate it so it looked sort of like a sort of comic book city at night, sort of:
And then Clara made EXTRAORDINARY cookies of the Teen Titans. She printed pictures of the characters, cut them out, traced them in dough, cut the cookies out, and then I guess just freehanded in the design with icing.
Note, her decorating equipment consisted of plastic sandwich bags with a little hole cut in the corner.
The most amazing part was that she worked on them all day, and then when it was time to serve the cake, she didn’t even wince as we went ahead and ATE them. Two of them played wishbone with Beast Boy’s legs.
So, Corrie loved her cake, loved her presents (well, except for the one she opened after waking up shortly after dawn, and it wasn’t exactly the way she expected, and she did not love that), loved the piñata Irene made for her, loved her Teen Titans decorations
and pretty much liked her party games. She had asked for a balloon shooting game with a stuffed animal for the big prize and then bad prizes for the rest of the prizes. It turns out that a combination of darkness and snow and a very old BB gun and balloons is . . . less than ideal.
The balloons wouldn’t pop! We had to bring the game inside and stab the balloons with a knife. Coincidentally, Corrie won the big prize, and everyone else got bad prizes, which included some seltzer and a can of tomato paste.
Phew. That was some day. I honestly think it would have been easier and more relaxing to invite a bunch of kindergarteners over for a few hours.
FRIDAY Elijah’s mac and cheese
I had the brilliant idea to get the kids to pick a favorite meal and cook it for everyone during vacation week. But I didn’t shop until Tuesday, and then we had various things going on that confused me, and now vacation is just about over, and here it is Friday. So today, Elijah is going to make mac and cheese.
I think we can squeeze some kid-made dinners out over the weekend, too. Irene is going to make stuffed shells, and Lucy is going to make breaded mozzarella sticks. Sophia earned some side eye by volunteering to make English muffin pizza, but dinner is dinner. Clara already earned her stripes with the Teen Titan cookies, and Lena was going to make the caprese chicken sandwiches but I forgot and made them myself by mistake. Moe has been doing inventory at work and I didn’t have the heart to ask him to cook, too.
Okay, that’s it for this week! Here’s some recipe cards for yez. And stay tuned, patrons, for a new podcast episode! This week Double Feature with the Fishers tackles Master and Commander and Appaloosa.
Pour over beef, sliced or unsliced, and marinate several hours. If the meat is sliced, pan fry. If not, cook in a 350 oven, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I cook the meat in all the marinade and then use the excess as gravy.
Sorry, I know it’s Friday in Lent, sorry. Check out my meat anyway.
SATURDAY Pizza
Lately I make four or five large, normal pizzas, and then with the last one I just go a little bit cuh-razy. This time we had two pepperoni, two olive, one cheese, and one with red onion, fresh garlic, anchovies, and pesto ricotta.
GOOOOD stuff. I don’t even want to eat pizza unless is has anchovies on it anymore. Get outta here.
SUNDAY Meatloaf, roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts
Terrifically romantic, I made two meatloaves, but Valentine. Here I demonstrate my method:
I don’t know how people even survived before silicone pans. Actually I remember there was a shop in town, Eaglewood Candies, that used to rent pans. For my eleventh birthday, my mother rented a Garfield pan and spent hours following the pattern of little bloops of frosting to make the design. I hope I said thank you! I do remember her saying, “Never again.”
Speaking of never again, here is the Raw Meatloaf with Ketchup Glaze:
And here is how it turned out after cooking:
I’ve taken to adding Worcestershire sauce to my meatloaf, and using red wine rather than milk.
To continue or fairy tale-style Valentine’s Day, I cut a bunch of potatoes into discs and roasted them with Brussels sprouts with olive oil, honey, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and it was pretty good.
I did cook this in two pans and then combine it in one to finish cooking while the meatloaf cooked. Sometimes I can’t believe someone like me has only one oven.
If you cut something that’s not made of rings, it will come out less of a blossom and more of an octopus. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; but I didn’t feel a strong need to make potato octopuses for Valentine’s Day. If I do want to make pork blossoms, I would have to cut the pork into thin slabs and roll them into a spiral and then blossom them. Which I may! But not in Lent.
We didn’t really have dessert, because the house was full of fancy foods Clara had provided for the Valentine’s Day party earlier.
The kids also had parties at school, so I consider them well-valentined this year.
MONDAY Vegetable lo mein, pork pot stickers, crunchy rice rolls
The plan was chicken nuggets and chips, but I had to run to the store, and I guess it was Chinese New Year. Chinese food at Aldi is actually –well, what’s several steps worse than a crap shoot? I guess just crap. But for some reason, I took a chance on their pork pot stickers, and they were excellent. And cheap! $3.99 for 20, so I got three bags.
I deep fried them and served them with some kind of ginger sauce I had. I also got a bunch of those sweet, crunchy rice rolls they sometimes sell, and I made a big pan of lo mein with sugar snap peas, green peppers, and fresh ginger.
I used spaghetti for the noodles, which is not ideal because it’s not wide enough to grab up much of the sauce. But it was a tasty and poplar meal overall. I don’t know why I never thought of this, but I finally bought one of those wire ladle skimming things for deep frying, and it’s made my life SO much easier, at least when I’m deep frying. I also got a nice deep and wide Calphalon pot at the dump, and that helps, too.
TUESDAY Shrimp cocktail, garlic steak, bread and butter, stray lettuce
Mardi gras! Damien was in charge of the menu, so he brought home a bunch of shrimp and steaks. One kid doesn’t like steak, so he made her a bacon cheeseburger. Then . . . he fried the steaks in bacon fat, with whole garlic cloves.
Bad picture, great steak.
WEDNESDAY Spaghetti, garlic bread
Ash Wednesday. I’m already doing intermittent fasting for weight maintenance, so Ash Wednesday fasting wasn’t that difficult. But I did have to say to a kid who had just sat down with a plate of hot buttered toast heaped with scrambled eggs, “Oh, hey, aren’t you 18?” and that was rough. Then we planned to eat at 5:00 and then book it to 6:00 Mass, but supper was a little late, and then I uh forgot to call one kid, so he ended up having about four minutes to eat before the Communion fast kicked in. I guess I’m just helping sanctify the whole family this year.
Then I had to take a kid to the bathroom during Mass, and that’s how I discovered I had a largish piece of parmesan cheese stuck to my eyelid. I use a fork when I eat, I swear I do.
THURSDAY Beef barley soup, beer bread
Soup day! I know someone who just serves soup all through Lent. I would totally go for that, but my family would murder me. I thought it was a good soup, though. I made it in the Instant Pot and the beef got really tender.
I also made two loaves of beer bread, which is so easy (one bowl!) to make and kind of fun. Here’s a quick video. (Next time I make a food video, I’ll turn off the washing machine first. And the radio. And I’ll take the marbles out of my mouth, and eat my spaghetti with a fork.)
Beer bread is spongy and tender inside, with a crisp, buckled crust outside.
The secret ingredient (besides beer) is an entire stick of melted butter poured over the top before baking. I thought the sharp, sour taste of the beer went very well with the slightly sweet, tomatoey soup.
Clara also made a few loaves of strawberry almond bread, which was heavenly. I’ll see if I can snag her recipe.
FRIDAY Quesadillas, chips and salsa
And here we are back at Friday again, what do you know about that?
How do you manage Lenten meals at your house? We generally just tone things down a bit, and I avoid any lavish, extravagant meals; but I don’t push lentils or anything, or avoid cloven-hoofed meats or whatever. I always feel bad about posting food posts on Fridays in Lent, but my brain pan is absolutely full and can’t deal with figuring out something that makes more sense.
Oh, today we begin our Friday Night Mandatory Lent Film Party! I guess I’ll post reviews on Monday like I did last year. Leaning toward The Keys of the Kingdom for tonight’s pick.
Also stay tuned for our new movie podcast episode later today! In this one, we review Rocky and Hard Times, filmed within a year of each other, Sylvester Stallone’s best and maybe Charles Bronson’s, too. Both movies about fighters, but vastly different in tone and otherwise. Podcasts are available to patrons who pledge as little as a dollar a month. If you’re a patron, you should receive a link to the podcast via Patreon every time a new episode goes up.
29ozcanned diced tomatoes (fire roasted is nice) with juice
1cupuncooked barley
salt and pepper
Instructions
Heat the oil in a heavy pot. If using Instant Pot, choose "saute." Add the minced garlic, diced onion, and diced carrot. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions and carrots are softened.
Add the cubes of beef and cook until slightly browned.
Add the canned tomatoes with their juice, the beef broth, and the merlot, plus 3 cups of water. Stir and add the mushrooms and barley.
If cooking on stovetop, cover loosely and let simmer for several hours. If using Instant Pot, close top, close valve, and set to high pressure for 30 minutes.
Before serving, add pepper to taste. Salt if necessary.
A rich, buttery quick bread that tastes more bready and less cake-y than many quick breads. It's so easy (just one bowl!) but you really do want to sift the flour.
This recipe makes two large loaf pan loaves.
Ingredients
6cupsflour, sifted
2Tbspbaking powder
2tspsalt
1/2cup sugar
212-oz cansbeer, preferably something dark
1stick butter
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375
Butter two large loaf pans. Melt the stick of butter.
I'm sorry, but you really do want to sift the flour.
In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients, and stir in beer until it's all combined and nice and thick.
Pour the batter into the loaf pans and pour the melted butter over the top.
Bake for about 50 minutes until it's crusty and knobbly on top.
And a happy Friday to you, week who just about killed us. We’re very glad most of the kids are back in school in person, but YEESH. We Fishers do not excel at transitions; we certainly do not. It didn’t help that we had lots of Nighttime Diabetes Excitement, which is one of my least favorite kinds of excitement.
Pretty good food, though. Here’s what we ate this week:
SATURDAY Meatball subs
I always say “nothing to report” when I make meatballs, but guess what? I have something to report! I have been under seasoning them. I bumped up all the seasoning by maybe 20%, and then I added a healthy glug of red wine. So nice! Just a little more savory and rich. I didn’t take a photo, possibly because of being busy eating.
SUNDAY Hot chicken wings, beer brats, bloomin’ onions, a vast assortment of crunchy snackeroos and dips
Super Bowl food! Damien made his easy peasy hot chicken wings with blue cheese dip, and lots of beer brats with onions three ways (cooked in beer with onions and served with sautéed onions and raw onions); and, fearing that wasn’t enough onions, I made three bloomin’ onions.
The hot wings were fantastic, as usual. Damien used full wings, rather than wingettes (gosh I hate that word), which I actually prefer.
The bloomin’ onions were probably more fun to make than they were to eat. People were obliging, but we only ended up eating about half. I guess I had it in my head that it was a party since it was the Super Bowl, so I made three giant onions.
Here I am demonstrating the lovely job my little onion blossomer does:
I didn’t show this part, but because the onion sits on a little base that’s lower than the blades, the “petals” are still attached at the root end when you take it off the cutter, which is how you can fry the onion all in one piece. Now I’m wondering what else I can use this device to cut. Definitely a cantaloupe. We will have melon blossoms come summer, let me tell you, with little berries here and there. And maybe . . . potatoes! I’m seriously considering making some deep fried potato blossoms for Valentine’s Day.
And I’m almost ashamed to tell you this, but what I really want to try is a pork blossom. I’ll get a nice piece of lean, boneless pork, maybe marinate it for a while, and then freeze it for an hour or two to firm it up, and then . . . VOOM. Pork blossom. I guess I could deep fry if after that. THIS IS BIG BRAIN TIME, EVERYBODY. I feel like there is some disadvantage to my plan, or some wrinkle I’m not anticipating, but I also feel like it’s going to happen anyway.
I took so many damn pictures of these onions at various stages, I might as well share them.
Onions in ice water, firming up:
Onions coated in seasoned flour:
Onions coated in seasoned flour, then dipped in egg batter, then seasoned flour again, waiting for the oil to heat up:
Onion merrily frying in oil:
You have to fry them upside down first, shoving them down pretty hard in the pot to force the petals open; then flip it over and finish cooking it right side up. Then you can pull it out . . .
drain it, and set it on a plate with a little dish of sauce.
Then you pull the petals off and dip.
I used the flour, batter, and sauce recipes on this page, but next time I make this, I’ll use more ketchup and less horseradish in the sauce, which tasted a bit harsh. A bloomin’ onion should be nothing but fun and delight, no harshness at all.
MONDAY Turkey bacon avocado wraps; leftovers
I figured there would be lots of leftovers, and I was very right. So we had what passed for a light meal (supplemented by wings and brats): Spinach wraps, deli turkey, bacon, avocado, and Swiss cheese, with honey mustard dressing.
I don’t know why wraps feel like more of a treat than sandwiches, but they do. Maybe because I always used to order one after giving birth, and I associate them with having room service (and that first meal you eat after you have a baby is just indescribably delicious). Now I just need my own chipped ice machine and I can live that swanky hospital life every day.
TUESDAY Golden rice with salmon; egg rolls
New recipe. Frozen salmon is actually fairly cheap if you’re not making a giant slab of salmon your main course. We didn’t have any furikake. I don’t even know what furikake is (okay, I looked it up, and it sounds neat), but I thought the rest of it sounded delicious enough that we could limp along without it.
Alas, this dish was not a hit, despite lots of fresh ginger and garlic and both parts of the scallion. You cook the rice, then coat it with egg yolk before stir frying it.
Also you fry up the egg whites in the pan separately and then add them into the rice. This recipe has an awful lot of putting things into the pan and then taking them out again and then adding them back in, then making a little space in the middle of the thing you’re cooking and cooking something else in there, and then combining it with the other thing . . . to be honest, I was a little relieved that it wasn’t a popular dish, because it was too much work and I don’t want to do it again!
It wasn’t bad, just bland. Needed furikake, no doubt. I also crowded the pan when cooking the salmon, so the fish part was kind of soggy, rather than crisp and toasted, which is sad. We ended up adding soy sauce and/or hot sauce. I did like the egg-coated rice, and will probably adopt that for another recipe. It gave the rice a nice richness, plus of course a cheery yellow color. And I did like the addition of the fluffy egg whites in with the rice.
WEDNESDAY Chicken shawarma
I was going to make this over the weekend, but it seemed like everyone needed cheering up mid-week, so I made shawarma, which everyone loves.
We had these cute little mini pita breads, which aren’t really better than normal pita, but they are cute. Tons of various kinds of olive, feta, cucumbers and tomatoes, parsley, yogurt sauce. So much garlic in everything, my lips were fizzing. So good.
I usually put the onions in with the chicken to marinate, but I just didn’t feel like dealing with onions first thing in the morning, so I just spread them over the chicken right before I cooked it, and it turned out fabulous.
Probably do it that way from now on. There is plenty of flavor in the meat, and I liked having the onions a bit more crisp.
THURSDAY Pork nachos
Another successful meal that I decided on at the last minute. I’ve made John Herreid’s carnitas many times, and everyone likes them, but I was going to be driving around all day, so I chunked a piece of fatty pork into the Instant Pot with a bottle of Mexican coke, some cinnamon sticks, a quartered orange, some bay leaves, a splash of canola oil, and tons of oregano, salt, and pepper, and pressed the “meat” button. This still cracks me up. YOU MAKE MEAT NOW. *boop*
It cooked it on high pressure for 35 minutes, and then I left it on warm for a few hours until dinner, when I took the meat out and shredded it, then spread it over tortilla chips and sprinkled it with shredded cheese, and broiled it.
My land, it was good. Really tasty and tender, middling spicy and warming but not too sweet, with no need to add additional seasoning. I had mine with scallions and sour cream.
FRIDAY
I think we are having migas. The kids are having their Valentine’s Parties at school, so I’m hoping they’ll be full of hygienic store-bought individually wrapped treats and won’t care very much that it’s migas for supper, which they don’t like because they are culinary fools.
(Pictured: Past migas)
I may make some beans and rice, but then again, I may not. Maybe I’ll just have some Pixy Stix.
Hey, don’t forget to leave your suggestions for what gets blossomed next around here! Although we all know it’s going to be a potato. (And yes, I looked up “getting blossomed” on Urban Dictionary to make sure it’s not a kink of some kind. It is not.)
5lbsground meat (I like to use mostly beef with some ground chicken or turkey or pork)
6eggs, beaten
2cupspanko bread crumbs
8ozgrated parmesan cheese (about 2 cups)
salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400.
Mix all ingredients together with your hands until it's fully blended.
Form meatballs and put them in a single layer on a pan with drainage. Cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes or more until they're cooked all the way through.
Add meatballs to sauce and keep warm until you're ready to serve.
Hot chicken wings with blue cheese dip (after Deadspin)
Basic, tasty hot wings with blue cheese sauce
Ingredients
chicken wingettes
oil for frying
For the hot sauce:
1/2cupbutter
1/8cuptabasco sauce
1/8cupsriracha sauce
salt
vinegar (optional)
Blue cheese sauce:
sour cream
blue cheese
optional: lemon juice, mayonnaise
celery sticks for serving
Instructions
Fry the wingettes in several inches of oil until they are lightly browned. Do a few at a time so they don't stick together. Set them on paper towels to cool.
Melt the butter and mix together wit the rest of the hot sauce ingredients. Toss the wings in the hot sauce.
Mix together the sour cream and crumbled blue cheese. Use a food processor or whisk vigorously to break up the blue cheese. You can add lemon juice or a little mayonnaise to thin it.
Mix marinade ingredients together, then add chicken. Put in ziplock bag and let marinate several hours or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 425.
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.
Chop up the chicken a bit, if you like, and finish cooking it so it crisps up a bit more.
Serve chicken and onions with pita bread triangles, cucumbers, tomatoes, assorted olives, feta cheese, fresh parsley, pomegranates or grapes, fried eggplant, and yogurt sauce.
This week’s menu was designed with weight loss in mind. All you have to do is completely avoid these seven meals, and the pounds will simply melt away, ho ho ho.
Some people serve these with powdered sugar and I just couldn’t get my brain to accept powdered sugar that close to mustard. But I did drizzle my sandwich with honey, and that bridged the gap between sweet and savory very nicely.
I didn’t invest in gruyere, but just bought a bunch of Swiss. I did buy a nicer ham and some niceish bread. So I spread mustard on one slice and mayo on the other, then cheese, ham, and more cheese, and you dip the whole thing in beaten eggs, then fry in plenty of butter. I thought they were delicious, definitely more of a treat than plain old grilled ham and cheese.
I feel like I must have served a side dish. Maybe an apple?
SUNDAY Cheesy pepperoni chicken breast rolls, french bread
Love making keto recipes and then baking four loaves of french bread to go with it.
The chicken turned out fine. It tasted like exactly what it was: Chicken breasts cut in half, pounded thin, and rolled up around pepperoni and mozzarella, then baked with marinara sauce. I have a very nice picture of it, where you can really see how the pepperoni is peeking out from inside the cheese layer and it’s all wrapped up in chicken breast, but a little bird tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Simcha, that’s not pepperoni chicken. That is yoni chicken.” And the bird was right. So here’s a different picture instead, without so much sacred feminine in it.
As you can see, I secured the chicken with a wooden skewer to keep it in place, and that worked fine. Oh, I guess I sprinkled a bunch of fresh-grated parmesan on top before baking. I covered it with tin foil for most of the baking time, then took it off toward the end.
It was pretty quick to make, and if I were ever going to attempt to fuel a work crew for hammering out a tunnel through a mountain, and they needed a lot of protein and calories, I would definitely make it again. But not otherwise. It was just too . . . HERE, MEAT.
I don’t know. I like meat, but I don’t need a wall of meat.
Sophia was interested in learning how to make bread, so I mostly just advised her while she made this easy french bread recipe.
Turned out great! It’s a wonderful feeling, knowing you can make a decent loaf of bread.
MONDAY Sausage, egg, and cheese sandwiches on bagels
Nothing to report. We were out of butter, so I fried the eggs in oil, which does make the whites bubble up a bit more, and gives them a neat little crust.
Everyone was pretty excited about the orange juice.
TUESDAY Hamburgers, veggies and dip
Nothing to report. Ground beef was on sale because of the Super Bowl, so the burgers were Rather Large. I did manage to serve broccoli before it went bad, which is the first time in months. I throw out broccoli like it’s my job.
We also had chips, but I heroically abstained from eating any. Just kidding! I ate them before I took the picture.
WEDNESDAY Buffalo chicken quesadillas, guacamole and chips
Something a little different. I bought a few bags of frozen buffalo chicken tenders (also on Super Bowl sale) which I cooked and cut into strips and fried in quesadillas with cheddar cheese. I was going to sprinkle in some crumbled blue cheese, but do you know, it’s really hard to tell if very old blue cheese is too old or not, so I made a few people smell it and then threw it away.
I also chopped up a bunch of scallions but then randomly got mad and didn’t feel like adding them. I still wanted to get blue cheese in there, so I added some blue cheese dressing to some sour cream, and it was . . . not actually delicious. Maybe I just don’t like blue cheese, I don’t know.
Anyway, ths quesadillas variation was very tasty and I will definitely make it again. Look, you can see my pretty new flower-shaped dishes! I found a set of 8 in various sizes at the Salvation Army. Some are white, some are green, and some are yellow.
Made a ton of guacamole (avocados 49 cents, courtesy of football!)
THURSDAY Chicken salad with feta, green apples, red onions, and candied walnuts
The original plan for this meal was a nice salad with chicken, blueberry, feta, red onions, and almonds. I get to the store and they are all out of blueberry. Fine, we decide to have green apples instead. A child earnestly requests croutons, and I agree, because I’m feeling bad about the blueberries. Oh no, all the old bread is moldy! This salad is going to be a salad of sadness! I realized we had tons of walnuts in the house from Christmas treats I never got around to making, so I made candied walnuts.
Very simple recipe — you just stand there stirring walnuts, butter, and sugar in a pot until the butter and sugar melt and coat the nuts, and then you spread it in a pan and break it up so they don’t clump, and that’s it. It turns out this takes KIND OF A LONG TIME if you’re sextupling the recipe. But they turned out great.
These would be useful for any number of salads, or just for snacking on, and you could fiddle with the seasonings and add chili powder or cinnamon or whatever.
Look how pretty the salad was!
I had mine with balsamic vinegar. Very filling. If I’m going to have a salad for dinner, there has to be serious detritus at the bottom of the plate.
FRIDAY Marcella Hazan’s red sauce with spaghetti
The real reason I wanted to make this is so I could get a second giant can of whole tomatoes and make some stilts for Corrie. Because we need more clomping and falling down, I don’t know. We used to have giant coffee cans in the house all the time, used mainly for stilts, banks, and crayon cans. The smells of crayons and coffee are forever wedded in my head.
If you haven’t tried this sauce yet, I beg of you. The time has come. It has three, count ’em, THREE ingredients, plus a pinch of salt; it requires no skill, and it tastes like you slaved over it for hours. The recipe says to take out the onion before serving, but we have at least one kid who prefers to keep the onion, for purposes of devouring it whole.
Makes four long loaves. You can make the dough in one batch in a standard-sized standing mixer bowl if you are careful!
I have a hard time getting the water temperature right for yeast. One thing to know is if your water is too cool, the yeast will proof eventually; it will just take longer. So if you're nervous, err on the side of coolness.
Ingredients
4-1/2cups warm water
1/4cupsugar
2Tbspactive dry yeast
5tspsalt
1/4cupolive or canola oil
10-12cupsflour
butter for greasing the pan (can also use parchment paper) and for running over the hot bread (optional)
corn meal for sprinkling on pan (optional)
Instructions
In the bowl of a standing mixer, put the warm water, and mix in the sugar and yeast until dissolved. Let stand at least five minutes until it foams a bit. If the water is too cool, it's okay; it will just take longer.
Fit on the dough hook and add the salt, oil, and six of the cups of flour. Add the flour gradually, so it doesn't spurt all over the place. Mix and low and then medium speed. Gradually add more flour, one cup at a time, until the dough is smooth and comes away from the side of the bowl as you mix. It should be tender but not sticky.
Lightly grease a bowl and put the dough ball in it. Cover with a damp towel or lightly cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for about an hour, until it's about double in size.
Flour a working surface. Divide the dough into four balls. Taking one at a time, roll, pat, and/or stretch it out until it's a rough rectangle about 9x13" (a little bigger than a piece of looseleaf paper).
Roll the long side of the dough up into a long cylinder and pinch the seam shut, and pinch the ends, so it stays rolled up. It doesn't have to be super tight, but you don't want a ton of air trapped in it.
Butter some large pans. Sprinkle them with cornmeal if you like. You can also line them with parchment paper. Lay the loaves on the pans.
Cover them with damp cloths or plastic wrap again and set to rise in a warm place again, until they come close to double in size. Preheat the oven to 375.
Give each loaf several deep, diagonal slashes with a sharp knife. This will allow the loaves to rise without exploding. Put the pans in the oven and throw some ice cubes in the bottom of the oven, or spray some water in with a mister, and close the oven quickly, to give the bread a nice crust.
Bake 25 minutes or more until the crust is golden. One pan may need to bake a few minutes longer.
Run some butter over the crust of the hot bread if you like, to make it shiny and even yummier.
any spices or seasonings, you want: cinnamon, cayenne pepper, etc.
Instructions
Line a large pan with parchment paper.
Put all ingredients in a heavy pot and cook on medium, stirring frequently, until the butter and sugar are melted together and the nuts are all coated. Be careful not to let them burn.
Pour the sugared nuts onto the prepared pan and immediately break them up so they don't clump. Let them sit for several minutes so the sugar coating hardens.
Eat immediately or store them in an airtight container for several weeks.
I guess the Superbowl is coming? You know what that means: FOOD. Everything means food! Here are a few recipes to console you if your team loses, to reward you if your team won, or to help you pass the time if you have no idea what is happening and are too old to learn.
SAUSAGE ROLLS
These are savory little pastries stuffed with sausage and onions, brushed with egg and topped with “everything” seasoning. Simple to make, very tasty and chompable.
Dice the onion and sauté in the olive oil until it's slightly browned
Put the raw, loose sausage in a bowl. Beat two of the eggs and add them to the bowl along with the cooked onions. Mix thoroughly.
Cut the puff pastry into six long strips. On a floured surface, roll them out until they're somewhat thinner.
Divide the sausage mixture into six portions and spoon it out into a long rows down the middle of each strip of puff pastry
Form the sausage mixture into a tidier strip, leaving a margin of dough on each side.
With a pastry brush, paint the dough margins on both sides.
Fold the pastry up over the sausage on both sides, to form a long roll.
Flip the roll over and lay it in a greased pan with the creased side down.
Cut each roll into six smaller sections. (You can make them whatever size you like, really.) Leave a little space in between rolls on the pan.
Brush each little roll with the rest of the beaten egg. Sprinkle with "everything" seasoning if you like.
Bake for 20 minutes until the sausage is cooked and the rolls are golden brown. Serve hot or cold.
HOT WINGS with BLUE CHEESE DIP
If you can do basic frying, these are easy and delicious. The measurements in the recipe are a little vague because you can adjust the hot sauce and cheese sauce to your tastes.
Hot chicken wings with blue cheese dip (after Deadspin)
Basic, tasty hot wings with blue cheese sauce
Ingredients
chicken wingettes
oil for frying
For the hot sauce:
1/2cupbutter
1/8cuptabasco sauce
1/8cupsriracha sauce
salt
vinegar (optional)
Blue cheese sauce:
sour cream
blue cheese
optional: lemon juice, mayonnaise
celery sticks for serving
Instructions
Fry the wingettes in several inches of oil until they are lightly browned. Do a few at a time so they don't stick together. Set them on paper towels to cool.
Melt the butter and mix together wit the rest of the hot sauce ingredients. Toss the wings in the hot sauce.
Mix together the sour cream and crumbled blue cheese. Use a food processor or whisk vigorously to break up the blue cheese. You can add lemon juice or a little mayonnaise to thin it.
Serve with blue cheese dip and celery sticks.
DORITO POTATO TORNADOS
A completely ridiculous recipe if you’re looking for something to do in the kitchen while people watch football. I made these with an entire potato on each stick, but you can make more sensible portions.
11 ozDoritos or your favorite chips, crushed into crumbs
vegetable oil for frying
salt
Instructions
Slice each potato into as thin slices as possible, and thread the slices onto skewers.
If you're not going to cook them right away, you can keep them in water to keep the potatoes from turning brown. Try to fan the potatoes out so there is a little space in between but don't forget to leave enough room on the skewer so there's something to hold onto.
Start heating the oil in a heavy pot. Prepare a pan lined with paper towels or paper bags.
In a shallow dish, mix together the flour, water, and crushed chips. It should be thin and drippy.
Dip the potato skewers into the batter and spoon more batter over them, so the slices are thoroughly coated.
When the oil is hot enough (you will see bubbles form steadily if you dip a wooden spoon in), dip the skewers into the hot oil. Cook for several minutes until they are crisp.
Remove to a pan lined with paper towels and sprinkle with salt.
DELI SANDWICH BAKE
The meats and cheese in this recipe are just suggestions. Just layer in whatever looks yummy to you. Don’t worry if the crescent roll dough gets mangled when you stretch it over the top. It all bakes up nicely. You can make giant pans of this stuff and people can carve off however much they like.
2 tspgarlic powder, minced onions, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, etc.
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350.
Unroll 3 of the tubes of crescent rolls without separating the triangles, and fit the dough to cover an 11 x 25-inch pan.
Layer the meat and cheese, making it go all the way to the edges of the pan. This part is subject to any kind of variation you like.
Unroll the remaining 3 tubes of crescent rolls and spread the dough to cover the meat and cheese. It's okay if you have to stretch and piece it together.
Beat 2-3 eggs and brush it over the top of the dough, and sprinkle with garlic powder, onions, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, etc.
Cover pan loosely and bake for 20 minutes. Then uncover and bake for another 15-20 minutes until dough is slightly browned and egg is completely cooked.
Wow, is it Friday? Sorry for the radio silence on the site. I’ve been working on a bunch of other projects, like, a BUNCH. It’s a real feast-or-famine life for a freelancer. By which I mean I don’t know how to budget my time and I’m a mess. No, a planner would not help, because I would lose it. Yes, even if it was a special holy planner with stickers and lifestyle bookmarks or whatever you people are doing.
My mother has COVID. She had her first dose of the vaccine before she tested positive, and her symptoms are fairly mild so far, no fever, just bad cold symptoms. Of course we can’t visit her, and I keep thinking how she used to be such a stoic, but now she doesn’t have any means of understanding what’s happening to her. But she does appear to be recovering, and they are taking good care of her. I keep thinking how this is her favorite kind of weather right now: Sparkling bright, dry, cold, plenty of snow on the ground. She absolutely loved shoveling, for some reason, and I remember being awestruck at her going at it without a jacket on. Here’s a picture of her when she had some dementia but was still living at home:
In the background you can see her beloved grapevine, which she pruned and netted, where she poured out Elijah’s cup after the Passover seder, and where she buried precious things. At some point we are going to have to figure out what to do with that house, but NOTTTTT NOWWWW. P.S., does anybody want to buy literally 12,000 used books? DM me.
Anyway. Distance schooling has been extended for another week. I have lost one of the slippers I got for Christmas, and it’s so dang cold. But, I had a massive craving for cheese before bed last night, and managed to muscle it into submission and just go to bed cheeseless, so **feeble cheer for minor victory**
I need to shake up my menu. People just aren’t eating what I’m cooking, and I’m throwing away so many leftovers. Also, the kids have taken to storing any and all leftovers in ziplock bags, which works, but it’s just so squalid. We need to either buy a goat or, you know what, maybe I’ll stop buying so many delicious snacks. The snacking situation is UNTENABLE. I’m going to start a system where they can eat as much as they want, as long as they’ve grown it themselves on windowsills in little recycled egg cartons. Then we’ll see who’s hungry for . . . [checks notes] . . . slow cooked . . . thing. Anyway, I need to shake up my menu.
You know who likes my cooking? The birds! Chickadees, tufted titmice, and nuthatches, with the occasional cardinal and dark eyed junco. Here’s my recipe for birdseed cakes, and I’ve discovered a coffee filter makes a great liner when you freeze it. Helps keep the shape and peels off easily.
This recipe makes a sturdy hunk of bird food full of fat and protein. It's best for the kind of bird feeder with an enclosure or support system to hold it as the birds peck at it, but you can make your own free-hanging "bird bell" by feeding a loop of thick string into it before you freeze it, or by making a spot for a hole and then threading a rope through afterward.
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We like the kind of bird feeder that has a little platform and a central prong, so I make the seed cake in a round food storage container lined with parchment paper or, even better, a coffee filter. To make a hole, I roll up a wad of tinfoil to make a column for the center, and pour the bird seed mixture around that, and then dig the tinfoil out when it comes out of the freezer.
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This recipe makes TWO flat, round cakes about 5" in diameter and 2" deep
Ingredients
1cupspeanut butter
1cupsshortening (can add bacon grease)
1cupcorn meal
2cupsoatmeal
1cupbirdseed
optional:
raisins, popped popcorn, cranberries, seeds, nuts
Instructions
Prepare a container for the birdseed for a mold. If it's not a flexible container, line it with parchment paper.
In a pot, melt the shortening and peanut butter over low heat, and stir to combine.
Stir in the rest of the ingredients. Pour the mixture into the prepared container. Remember, if you want to hang it or put it on a prong, you will need to put something in so there will be a hole.
Freeze for several hours until the cake is solid. Remove from the mold and put it out for the birdies!
Here’s what the humans had this week:
SATURDAY Pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, tater tots
Not much to say about this. I put beer, apple cider vinegar, fresh jalapeños, and a couple other things in the slow cooker and let it cook all day, then fork shredded it. It was fine. Nice with some raw red onions.
We briefly discussed learning how to make actual BBQ sauce, but the concluded that Baby Ray’s or Sugar Ray’s or Honey Ray Ray’s or whatever it’s called is fine, and we always have 11 open bottles anyway.
SUNDAY Pizza
I made six 16-inch pizzas, and was relieved to discover that was too much pizza. I made one cheese, two pepperoni, one olive, one olive-basil-ricotta,
and one basil-ricotta-fresh garlic-artichoke hearts-red onion-anchovy-red pepper flakes
which melded together verrrrry nicely.
They all got mozzarella, parmesan, and garlic powder and oregano. That last one was magnifico.
I also had a lovely lunch of scrambled eggs mixed with various fajita beef bowl fixins from last week, so I got rid of some ziplock bags that were sloshing around in the fridge. I was excitedly telling my son about this wonderful lunch option, where you scramble a few eggs while heating up leftovers in the microwave and then jumble it together in a nice bowl, and he just looked at me. In a way that reminded me how we used to look at my mother when she would take whatever was leftover and heat it up in a pot with a giant glug of salsa from her giant salsa jug.
Ohh the cat’s in the cradle and the salsa jug Little boy blue and his ugly mug When you shutting up, kids? I don’t know when I just wanna eat my lunch, guys. Let your mother eat her lunch.
To be fair, I was the one who called him over to look at my lunch, which is a rookie mistake my mother never would have made. MONDAY Asian meatballs, rice, steamed broccoli
I went grocery shopping on Monday and didn’t get home until after dinner, partly because it was Benny’s shopping turn and she had some business to conduct at the Dollar Store, and these things can’t be rushed; so dinner was a real group effort. Started to make meatballs, sent son out to buy crackers, got daughter to finish making meatballs, asked husband to cook meatballs plus rice and broccoli.
Here are some meatballs I made back when there were sunshine and vegetables
I do like these meatballs. A few ingredients, simple preparation, mild flavor, and not too heavy. If you’re feeling inspired, you can dress up the meatballs with nice sauces and dips, or you can just have soy sauce. Soy sauce, brownest of the brown sauces. So tempting.
TUESDAY Spaghetti with bolognese sauce
I got it into my head to make a bolognese sauce, but really what I wanted was a ragu. Don’t ask me why I didn’t use the ragu recipe Damien always makes, which is superb. Well, the reason is that it looked a lot easier. I don’t know what I messed up, but it was extremely watery and kind of bland, despite all the lovely ingredients. I ended up having to siphon off about a quart of liquid, and probably ended up sopping up all the flavor with it.
I used Marcella Hazan’s recipe via Epicurious, and I sized it up x4, and that’s probably where my mistake came in. Also, I guess you’re supposed to use broader pasta with bolognese and save the spaghetti for ragu. This is not Marcella Hazan’s fault. She has been very clear about which sauces go with what pastas, and I just didn’t listen.
Oh well, it was still good. Just not the heavenly treat I was anticipating.
You can see I did buy a block of parmesan and shred it right before supper, so that was nice.
WEDNESDAY Instant pot beef teriyaki with rice and steamed vegetables
Another okay meal. I used this recipe and it was fine, but a little sweeter than I’d prefer, and it didn’t thicken up very well. No sauce I have ever made in my life thickens up well. IN MY LIFE.
I meant to serve this with fresh broccoli very lightly steamed, but I ended up with microwaved bags of mixed vegetables that turned out to have sauce on them already. It was fine. Nice and easy, and the meat did come out very tender.
THURSDAY Chicken nuggets and pasta salad
I reorganized my cabinets and weeded out a lot of stuff I will want at some point, but not right now. It’s pretty great! Now when I want peanut butter, I can just get it, rather than shoving around coconut cream and matzoh meal and molasses and packets of unflavored gelatin to find it. I know this is why you come to this site: For the amazing kitchen hacks. Tired of having cabinets that need cleaning out? Try cleaning out your cabinets! It really works!
The pasta salad was pretty good.
I had some sun dried tomatoes, fresh garlic, basil-infused olive oil, wine vinegar, pepperoni, feta cheese, and some more of that freshly-shredded parmesan, and plenty of freshly-ground pepper and sea salt. The feta cheese was probably not a great match, but nobody complained.
I guess I had some kind of spasm at Aldi and bought four bags of chicken nuggets, which is 200 chicken nuggets. At the last moment I didn’t open the fourth bag, but of course that was still too many. But if I had only cooked two bags, there would have been a riot. I don’t know. I don’t know anything.
I also managed to use three more boxes of my Ludicrous Pasta Backlog. There’s another hack for you. Tired of having nine boxes of pasta hanging around? Try cooking some of it! It really works!
FRIDAY Mac and cheese
Truthfully, only some of this will be macaroni, because in yesterday’s Pasta Hack, I only managed to use three boxes of pasta. They are not the ideal shape to receive cheese sauce. Nobody tell Marcella Hazan.
Here’s the one and only recipe card for the week, unless you want my recipe for chicken nuggets.
Very simple meatballs with a vaguely Korean flavor. These are mild enough that kids will eat them happily, but if you want to kick up the Korean taste, you can serve them with dipping sauces and pickled vegetables. Serve with rice.
Servings30large meatballs
Ingredients
2.5lbsground beef
1sleeveRitz crackers, crushed finely
1/3cupsoy sauce
1/2 headgarlic, minced
1bunchscallions, chopped (save out a bit for a garnish)
1 tspkosher salt
1Tbspground white pepper
For dipping sauce:
mirin or rice vinegar
soy sauce
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 425.
Mix together the meat and all the meatball ingredients with your hands until they are well combined. Form large balls and lay them on a baking pan with a rim.
Bake for about 15 minutes.
Serve over rice with dipping sauce and a sprinkle of scallions.
First, some important news. I don’t mean to be melodramatic, but this week, we all saw the dawn of a new era in America. It’s easy to sit around and hope for great things on a macro level, but it behooves us all to look around and see what changes we can make on a personal level. I’ve been thinking hard about the direction I want to go in, and after much prayer and reflection, I’m ready to announce the launching of a brand new project, and I truly hope you will all join me. It’s called Potatoes with butts, and you can follow it @PotatoesButts.What it is, is a twitter account that is just photos of potatoes with butts. I got the idea last week, when I saw this potato with a butt.
Here’s the thing, folks. This won’t work if I try to do it alone. My DMs are always open, and you can submit your photos of potatoes with butts and I will share them with mankind, and together we will do our part to make the world a little more full of photos of potatoes with butts. In these unprecedented times let us all work toward unity, and never allow ourselves to be cleft in two unless we are a potato with a butt.
In other news, I am determined to be less of a potato butt on a personal level, so I started on my treadmill again, and I was passing the time by processing some food photo files. Here’s a little preview of what you’re in for this week:
That does sound tasty!
EDIT: I have unintentionally caused confusion with this joke. The screenshot above shows what autocorrect does to the names of my food photos when I’m on the treadmill and huffing and puffing too much to fix it while I upload them. If you wanted to, you could guess which of the following photos match up with irk chops, yffalo doh, hi ken plate, and Eminem inside chicken. I regret to inform you that “chickens vertical” is actually what I meant to type. I had a number of chicken photos, and in this particular one, well, they weren’t horizontal.
Okay, here’s what we had this week:
SATURDAY Spaghetti carbonara, french bread
Delightful as always, and low-skill (although cooking for a crowd does require you to keep your head). I used four pounds of bacon and 3-1/2 pounds of spaghetti, and 423 mashed ends of butter sticks, and a whole thing of parmesan cheese.
This recipe makes four long, fat loaves. (I do not intend to start a Twitter account for loaves of french bread that look like something it’s not. Because it’s VULGAR, that’s why.) A couple of them split, as you can see, because I didn’t slash them deeply enough, but no one complained. If you’re not great with bread, this is a reliable recipe, as long as you give it plenty of time to rise (it takes two rises).
SUNDAY Ina Garten’s roast chicken with fennel and lemon, candied sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce
Very, very juicy and tasty. The lemon, garlic, and thyme flavors really make themselves known in the meat, but it was the caramelized vegetables that really wowed me, especially the fennel. Must get more fennel into life.
And here, for the curious, is a picture of Eminem inside chicken:
I also opened up some cans of cranberry sauce, which turned out to be whole berry because I’m a monster; and I made some candied sweet potatoes. It’s a fine recipe
but in retrospect, something less sweet would have been a better foil for the other two dishes.
MONDAY Hot dogs of many nations, cheezy weezies
Not even really hot dogs of many nations. I intended to serve Chicago-style hot dogs (mustard, tomatoes, pickles, pickle relish, onion, pickled peppers, and celery salt) and buffalo hot dogs (blue cheese, scallions, and hot sauce), but by the time dinner came, buffalo seemed adventurous enough.
Ugh, I will be so glad when it’s finally light at dinnertime again. The lighting is killing me. You can see all the grime in my house, but everything looks so garish and dire. Oh well.
TUESDAY Oven fried pork chops, pink risotto, peas
I’m just over here exhausted with all my same old same old pork recipes, so I poked around a little and tried something different, yet decidedly un-exotic: Breaded fried pork chops.
I was planning to just chunk them in the oven, but at the last minute I thought they really needed a little browning up first, so I fried them in oil just to cook the outside
and then baked them to make sure the meat was done. I thought they were great, if a little bit of a hassle (because I made 12).
Will make again, probably using boneless pork ribs. The breading could easily be made more spicy, but it had a good, balanced flavor, and the texture was perfect, crunchy and light, and the meat was juicy. My mother used to make pork chops often, and they looked and tasted like a mitten that had fallen in the slush by the bus stop and been run over repeatedly, so I feel pretty good about this.
I made my reliable Instant Pot risotto, which is so easy and always turns out creamy and lovely, especially when I’m generous with the butter and cheese. On this day I was a little low on cheese, so it was slightly less gooey than normal, but still very nice.
It calls for chicken broth and white wine, but all I had was three half-empty bottles of rosé and merlot, so in they went. Predictably, this changed the flavor slightly, and the color dramatically.
I definitely prefer white wine in this, but the kids thought pink risotto was amusing, and I cleared up some counter space, so overall a win.
WEDNESDAY Pork ramen
The last few times I made fancy ramen, it caused a lot of suffering, I mean really bad suffering, like really bad, because someone’s mother had made JUST RAMEN FOR SUPPER (and meat and vegetables and crunchy noodles and sprouts and sauces and eggs), and so there was a lot left over. So this time, I only made six packages of ramen. You will be surprised to hear that everyone was very excited about ramen for supper, because it’s SO GOOD, and they gobbled it up and howled for more. So Lena made some more, but by the time it was ready, everyone had left to go lie on their necks and listen to K-pop.
Anyway, here’s my ramen.
I ha it with wilted spinach, scallions, accidentally hard boiled eggs, quick-pickled carrots, scallions, pea shoots, a little broccoli, and pork sautéed in sesame oil, then sliced and simmered in soy sauce. I usually put hot sauce on it, but I tried some sweet chili oil and it wasn’t great. The carrots and vegetables added enough sweetness.
THURSDAY Beef fajita bowls
I love this meal. I got the meat marinating first thing, using this very sharp, savory marinade
I actually used lemon juice rather than lime, and didn’t really notice the difference. Then, close to dinner time, I was afraid there wasn’t enough meat, so I went out and bought more, so some of the meat only had an hour to marinate.
Ladies and gentlemen, marinating is magic. I was too hungry to stop and take a picture, but the difference between the two hunks of meat was astounding. The acid in the lemon (or lime) juice and the Worcestershire sauce breaks down the connective tissue and makes it so tender and yielding, and really opens it up to receive the flavor.
I made a big pot of rice in the Instant Pot, and I set out bowls of everything so people could build their dinner as they pleased. I chose, uh, everything: Rice, beef, some sweet corn slightly charred in oil, scallions, fried onions and sweet peppers, black beans with tomatoes and chili peppers, cheddar cheese, sour cream, and corn chips. Oh, and some Taijin chili lime powder.
I scooped up a bunch of the gravy and poured it over the bowl because I can’t get enough of that tangy, garlicky juice. So good.
I really love this meal. Beef is my favorite meat by far, and this is one of my favorite things to do with it.
FRIDAY Fish tacos
I guess just tortillas, batter-fried fish from frozen, shredded cabbage, salsa, sour cream, limes, and avocados. This would be great with guacamole, or, even better, pico de gallo, but we always have it on Fridays when my ambition is so low.
Well, adios. Don’t forget to send me your potatoes with butts. DM my Twitter, or email it to simchafisher at gmail dot com, or message me through Facebook, or just throw it through my window as you drive by.
Makes four long loaves. You can make the dough in one batch in a standard-sized standing mixer bowl if you are careful!
I have a hard time getting the water temperature right for yeast. One thing to know is if your water is too cool, the yeast will proof eventually; it will just take longer. So if you're nervous, err on the side of coolness.
Ingredients
4-1/2cups warm water
1/4cupsugar
2Tbspactive dry yeast
5tspsalt
1/4cupolive or canola oil
10-12cupsflour
butter for greasing the pan (can also use parchment paper) and for running over the hot bread (optional)
corn meal for sprinkling on pan (optional)
Instructions
In the bowl of a standing mixer, put the warm water, and mix in the sugar and yeast until dissolved. Let stand at least five minutes until it foams a bit. If the water is too cool, it's okay; it will just take longer.
Fit on the dough hook and add the salt, oil, and six of the cups of flour. Add the flour gradually, so it doesn't spurt all over the place. Mix and low and then medium speed. Gradually add more flour, one cup at a time, until the dough is smooth and comes away from the side of the bowl as you mix. It should be tender but not sticky.
Lightly grease a bowl and put the dough ball in it. Cover with a damp towel or lightly cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for about an hour, until it's about double in size.
Flour a working surface. Divide the dough into four balls. Taking one at a time, roll, pat, and/or stretch it out until it's a rough rectangle about 9x13" (a little bigger than a piece of looseleaf paper).
Roll the long side of the dough up into a long cylinder and pinch the seam shut, and pinch the ends, so it stays rolled up. It doesn't have to be super tight, but you don't want a ton of air trapped in it.
Butter some large pans. Sprinkle them with cornmeal if you like. You can also line them with parchment paper. Lay the loaves on the pans.
Cover them with damp cloths or plastic wrap again and set to rise in a warm place again, until they come close to double in size. Preheat the oven to 375.
Give each loaf several deep, diagonal slashes with a sharp knife. This will allow the loaves to rise without exploding. Put the pans in the oven and throw some ice cubes in the bottom of the oven, or spray some water in with a mister, and close the oven quickly, to give the bread a nice crust.
Bake 25 minutes or more until the crust is golden. One pan may need to bake a few minutes longer.
Run some butter over the crust of the hot bread if you like, to make it shiny and even yummier.
Easy and pleasant. Please do not top with marshmallows, as that is an abomination.
Ingredients
3-4lbssweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks. Canned is fine, although they will be slightly mushier.
6Tbspbutter, melted
2/3cupbrown sugar
1tspcinnamon
1/8tspnutmeg
1/2tspsalt
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400. Grease a baking dish.
Combine the sugar, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg. Add the melted butter and stir to make a paste.
If you're using canned sweet potatoes, drain them. Spread the potatoes in the dish and distribute the butter-sugar mixture evenly over them. Use a spoon or spatula to toss the potatoes so they are coated with the mixture.
Cook for 30-40 minutes. If you're using fresh potatoes, stir every 15 minutes to keep the sauce distributed well. If you're using canned, let it be, so they don't turn into mush.
Pour over beef, sliced or unsliced, and marinate several hours. If the meat is sliced, pan fry. If not, cook in a 350 oven, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I cook the meat in all the marinade and then use the excess as gravy.
Hey, the world didn’t end! Per se! And I didn’t even pack up to go live at the P.O., although I was tempted. Here’s what we ate this week:
SATURDAY One pan chicken thighs with squash and potatoes
Old reliable. This is even better when you have a big variety of vegetables, but just potatoes and squash is good, and it’s stupid easy to make, and nice, honey garlic, mmm. In conclusion, you may think it’s easy to be a food writer, but it’s actually hard, with words, booo.
Speaking of stupid, it was only some technical difficulties that prevented me from starting a Twitter account called @potatoeswithbutts.
I uhhhh have a collection. This poor fellow appears to have a pilonidal cyst, which is unusual in potatoes, and you can see by his posture that it’s really getting him down. Yes, I have work to do, what do you mean?
SUNDAY Chinese roast pork and vegetable lo mein
Here was something new I tried, because I’m bored to death of all my pork recipes. You marinate the meat in chunks in a simple sauce, then roast it over a pan of water, then cut it up.
I had mine with some excellent pepper jelly we got for Christmas, and it was a great match. It would also be good with that super strong Chinese mustard, or any number of sauces.
This is most certainly an Americanized Cantonese recipe, and there’s nothing wrong with that, especially if you don’t like five spice because, try as you might, you just can’t get used to *ptui* anise. I’ll go ahead and write up a recipe card
but I expect to change it a bit. Next time I will buy fattier meat and cook it in bigger chunks before slicing it. It was a tiny bit dry. If I make those changes, I’ll be able to cook it longer and work up a little crust on the outside. The boiling water made it tender and taste was good, though, if slightly bland. It would also be great cut up and added to stir fries or lo mein.
SPEAKING OF LO MEIN, this continues to be a popular dish around here. I had bought some flat rice noodles intending to try some kind of Vietnamese noodle bowl (which is what I bought the pork for), but for once in my life I listened to the “nobody’s going to eat that” alarm going off in my head, and made lo mein instead. The only vegetable in the house was green pepper, so I added that, plus some red onion and . . . and this was a most excellent choice . . . some fresh minced ginger, which I’ve started keeping in the house routinely.
I was careful not to overcook the vegetables, so they were still crunchy. Man, what a high-yield dish for flavor, with very minimal effort. Sometimes I will add a little fish sauce or oyster sauce, but it’s honestly fine without.
MONDAY Tacos, tortilla chips
I do not remember making or eating tacos. I do remember people saying, “You should have made this on Tuesday for taco Tuesday!” and me going “bahhhhhh” in a growly voice.
TUESDAY Chicken caprese sandwiches, grapes
Tuesday was grocery shopping day this week, so I needed something very easy. Aldi had big cartons of frozen breaded chicken cutlets, so there was my answer.
We had basil from the Vietnamese noodle bowls I never made, and no end of cheese from various cheese adventures. I was planning to make a shortcut version of the lovely chicken cutlets Damien makes for special occasions, but while shopping, I became confused, and bought a large amount of tomatoes, so we had caprese chicken sandwiches, which I usually make with grilled chicken, but it turned out nobody cares about the arbitrary chicken rules in my head, especially when it’s very late and everyone’s hongry.
WEDNESDAY Meatball subs, raw broccoli and hummus
Again, nothing special, but always a popular meal.
This was my third day of watching Bridgerton for a review, and let me tell you, if you have to lock yourself in your bedroom and watch four episodes of Bridgerton in a row, getting up and making eighty meatballs is a good antidote.
THURSDAY Beef barley soup and pumpkin muffins
A couple of the kids have been begging for this meal. Benny and Corrie were done with their school work early, so they made the muffins with just a little supervision. This is a good recipe, very reliable.
This is a light, tender pumpkin bread, not some kind of challenging artisinal loaf-log. It has a hearty flavor but is pretty fine-grained. We made a double recipe which gave us 18 muffins plus a small loaf.
You can add all kinds of things to these muffins (or bread) — oats, nuts, raisins, dried cranberries, chocolate chips if you’re a monster, sunflower seeds, chunky sugar, etc. You can add more sugar to make them more dessert-y, but as is, they make a fine dish dish.
Although, as you can see, I couldn’t find the barley, so I used pasta rings instead, because I happen to have a lot of different kinds of pasta in my cabinets. Which immediately led the kids to assume I had WASHED OFF SPAGHETTIO-S AND PUT THEM IN THE SOUP. I told them I had not and would not, but they just stared at me. And that’s why, if I lived at the P.O., why.
The other reason I might live at the P.O. is that, before Christmas, I bought about nine boxes of different kinds of pasta in various shapes, because I made myself believe we were going to make Christmas tree ornaments out of pasta, hot glue, and gold spray paint, and now here we are in January and I can’t find the barley because my cabinets are crammed with pasta. Shut up, it’s a good craft. We just didn’t do it, that’s all. Hey, have you seen my potato butt? And my food writing? It’s very good.
FRIDAY Tuna noodle casserole and Brussels sprouts
That’s a little weird, but that’s what the blackboard says. I feel like the Brussels sprouts were expensive, too, so I better actually make them. And you know what, maybe tuna noodle can be made with pasta rather than egg noodles. Because I have–
In a large, greased sheet pan, spread the potatoes and squash. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
Lay the chicken thighs on top of the potatoes and squash. Brush the sauce over the chicken skins.
Roast the chicken for thirty minutes or more until they are almost cooked.
Add the broccoli, arranging it on top of the potatoes and in between the chicken. Return the pan to the oven and let it finish cooking another 10 -20 minutes so you don't die. The skins should be golden and the broccoli should be a little charred.
This is a recipe in progress, but it's easy and reasonably tasty as is. Serve with any number of sauces.
Ingredients
6-8 lbsboneless pork
1/4 cupsoy sauce
3/4cupwhite sugar
2Tbsphoisin sauce
2Tbspbean paste
2tspsalt
RED FOOD COLORING, DO IT
Instructions
Cut the pork into long chunks
Mix together all the sauce ingredients and marinate the meat for several hours or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 375
Boil some water (I used a tea kettle)
Line a large roasting pan with tin foil and put cake racks over it. Lay the meat on the racks, put it in the oven, and then carefully add the boiling water to the pan.
Roast for an hour or more, adding water if it cooks away. Turn meat once during cooking. The outside of the meat should be dark and glossy.
5lbsground meat (I like to use mostly beef with some ground chicken or turkey or pork)
6eggs, beaten
2cupspanko bread crumbs
8ozgrated parmesan cheese (about 2 cups)
salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400.
Mix all ingredients together with your hands until it's fully blended.
Form meatballs and put them in a single layer on a pan with drainage. Cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes or more until they're cooked all the way through.
Add meatballs to sauce and keep warm until you're ready to serve.
29ozcanned diced tomatoes (fire roasted is nice) with juice
1cupuncooked barley
salt and pepper
Instructions
Heat the oil in a heavy pot. If using Instant Pot, choose "saute." Add the minced garlic, diced onion, and diced carrot. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions and carrots are softened.
Add the cubes of beef and cook until slightly browned.
Add the canned tomatoes with their juice, the beef broth, and the merlot, plus 3 cups of water. Stir and add the mushrooms and barley.
If cooking on stovetop, cover loosely and let simmer for several hours. If using Instant Pot, close top, close valve, and set to high pressure for 30 minutes.
Before serving, add pepper to taste. Salt if necessary.
I haven’t done a food post since … Dec. 18? Is that possible? Since then, we had the rest of Advent and then Christmas, then Damien got appendicitis, then it was New Year’s and a birthday, then school started up again, and now there’s another birthday. Specifically, Damien’s birthday, and for his present, he got to keep his appendix. Did you know they could do that? They caught it early, and are treating it with antibiotics, no surgery. But if it acts up again . . . CHHHHHTTTT!! [that’s a throat-slitting noise, to indicate that someone is a goner. Corrie has been practicing it during Mass, so that’s how that’s going]
Also like this:
I guess I’ll do this week’s food round-up, then pick up some highlights from past weeks.
SATURDAY Calzones, cheesecake with strawberries
Saturday (New Year’s Day) was Sophia’s birthday. The kids spent the day playing Dungeons and Dragons with the fanciest snacks Aldi had to offer. I didn’t get any good pictures because we hung up some atmospheric dungeon decorations (plastic tablecloths), and it was pretty dark in there.
I made a cheesecake the night before, using a recipe from my friend Elizabeth. It was a tremendously delicious cheesecake, about a foot high, fluffy and creamy, no cracks.
I would share the recipe with you, but I’m pretty sure Elizabeth would CHHHHHTTTT!! me. But it turned out so well.
I over-baked it a little bit because we were watching A Day at the Races and I forgot to check it, but that just gave the top a kind of caramelized taste which was actually very nice (and now the kids know the “Thank you” — “Thank YO” bit, so it was worth it). I dipped a bunch of strawberries in chocolate, and then used the leftover chocolate to add a little drippy garnish.
I think the chocolate dip recipe is 12 oz of chocolate chips and 2 tablespoons of shortening, melted together. The shortening is so it hardens when it cools. Note: Aldi chocolate chips do not melt well, so spring for name brand, but not Nestle, because they’re evil. It was partially a selfish choice to do this rather than make a glaze, because if you are someone who gets migraines from chocolate, you can easily pick this stuff off.
The cheesecake recipe a bit of an ordeal (the ingredients all have to be at room temperature, and there’s lots of scraping and dropping the bowl, and it’s baked in a water bath, and you have to let it cool in the oven for many hours, and you have lost the bottom to your springform pan so you have to buy a new one) totally worth it. I made the crust with graham cracker crumbs, butter, and a bunch of ground walnuts I had leftover from when we made rum balls or something. We served it with additional strawberry glaze topping from a can, which I had bought when I thought January strawberries would be worse than they were. Whether Sophia liked it or not, I have no idea, as she is 15, and fifteen-year-olds tell no tales.
TUESDAY Old Bay chicken wings and drumsticks, baked potatoes, carrots and dip
Not exactly a recipe. I sprinkled the chicken heavily with Old Bay seasoning and cooked it, then drenched them with melted butter and more Old Bay, and cooked some more to crisp up the skin.
For some reason, possibly because I was very hungry and because I couldn’t find the Old Bay seasoning and almost resorted to making a homemade approximation, I thought this chicken was going to be AMAZINGAMAZING chicken. And it was just good and nice.
WEDNESDAY Vermonter sandwiches, salad, king cake
Very popular sandwiches. Toasted sourdough bread, a thick slice of grilled chicken breast, a few pieces of bacon, a thick slice of sharp cheddar, some slices of tart Granny Smith apple, and plenty of honey mustard. Some people use deli meat and add turkey, and some people use maple mustard. Just follow your heart. This is a bad picture, but a wonderful sandwich.
We got confused with fake Sunday epiphany and actual epiphany, but Clara leaped into the breech and made a wonderful, pneumatic king cake, stuffed with sweet cream cheese filling and glazed with some kind of lemony thing,
with colored icing and sprinkles, and a lucky . . . uh, baby.
You’ve heard of the Infant of Prague?
Infant jesus of prague – Das Prager Jesuskind- El niño jesus de Praga. Prague
Now get ready for the INFANT FROG.
I don’t know. Somebody turn this into a real joke and get back to me.
THURSDAY Gochujang pork ribs, rice, nori, pomegranates and kiwis
Now this was a very fine meal. I made a double batch of this excellent gochujang sauce
which was enough to marinate about 15 pork ribs. Then I broiled them to a little char, and they were so spicy and good.
If you have boneless pork, you can cut it into little strips and marinate it along with sliced onions and matchstick carrots and sautée it all up together, and this is gochujang bulgoki, which is also a wonderful meal, but more time consuming.
We had good rice leftover from New Year’s Eve, which I decided to cook rather than save for a special occasion, because maybe the world will end soon. We also had leftover nori, and some pomegranates I had forgotten about, and some kiwis that were sitting around neglected
and it was just a lovely meal. High flavor, low skill, just my speed.
FRIDAY
Today is Damien’s birthday! He has requested bacon cheeseburgers, name brand Doritos, guacamole, and strawberry and chocolate ice cream, which I believe can be accomplished. He’s feeling much better, thank God.
Okay! Now let’s pick up some loose ends.
The last thing I wrote about was making noodle kugel for the last day of Chanukah, which turned out to be the day after the last day of Chanukah, oops. Well, we were out of eggs, oops, so I sent my son out to buy some, and then I baked it, but forgot to add the eggs. Oops. The one thing you can say about Jewish cooking is that it sure has a lot of eggs in this, so this kugel was . . . well, it smelled nice. I ate it, but it really wasn’t what it should have been. Gonna try again sometime, because the blonde rum raisins and apple bits were good.
I had mine with a little sour cream and caviar because no one stopped me.
This seems like a good time to remind you that you can make latkes at any time of the year, and cheap caviar is still caviar.
Word on the street is you can just rinse the shredded potato in cold water, and that will be enough to keep it from getting discolored. You apparently don’t have to keep it actually in water. We learned this tip too late, but will definitely try it next time.
As I look through my photos, gosh, we did a lot of baking and sweets-making. I made rugelach, rum balls, and buckeyes; Clara made gingerbread cookies and Benny made chocolate chip cookies; and we strung popcorn and cranberries. Ugh, I have so many lovely Christmas photos languishing on my phone. Je suis overwhelmèd. Just tell me if you want any of these recipe I didn’t include, and I’ll add them in.
I also tried making beef bourguignon for the first time, using this recipe adapted from Julia Child. It was a lot of work. SO much work. It took all day.
We had it on noodles.
Doesn’t it look sooooo, so good? Well, it tasted . . . fine. I would honestly just as soon have a cheesesteak, or beef stew I can throw together in 20 minutes. Just not worth the hassle.
Now if you’re looking for something that is NOT a hassle, may I suggest baked brie, which we had on Christmas eve while decorating the tree?
It was just a little lump of cheap brie with some honey and pecans on the top, heated up in a little pan until the insides were gooey, served with crackers. My goodness, it was delicious.
I also have this photo on my phone, and I can’t even remember what this means or why it was so funny
but we laughed pretty hard.
Christmas morning we had cinnamon buns FROM A CAN AND IT WAS FINE, orange juice and eggnog, and crazy grapes the size of plums, and for dinner we had a pupu platter take-out as usual. The next day, Damien made his fantastic Chinese chicken wings
These chicken wings are like a three-course meal in themselves, with the crackling skin, the juicy meat, and then the whole skin-and-meat-together phenomenon. I’m not explaining this right, but they’re so good.
I made the lo mein with ramen-style noodles, but it turns out I definitely prefer something wider. Still an easy, tasty recipe.
Looks like we also had muffaletta sandwiches, which everybody likes. I made an olive salad in the food processor with manzanilla, black, and kalamata olives, marinated red peppers, and I think maybe some banana peppers.
Olive salad for muffaletta sandwiches is supposed to have a very particular balance of flavors, but I just throw in whatever we have in little bottles. I guess some olive oil and pepper and fresh garlic.
We cut up some baguettes for the bread (I think real muffaletta sandwiches use a sweet, soft bread) and an assortment of meats, ham, smoked salami, capicola, and a little prosciutto, and I think maybe provolone? It feels like so long ago. This was the night Damien got appendicitis. I am not sure if he ever did get his sandwich.
We had tons of leftover rice from Christmas and tons of leftover eggnog, which I always forget nobody really wants more than a sip of, so I made Instant Pot eggnog rice pudding. Nice and easy with a pleasant taste, but the eggnog flavor was very faint. Anyway, I used up the eggnog.
On New Year’s Eve, we had DIY sushi, plus lamb on crostini. I had been stashing away boneless legs of lamb for months whenever it was on sale. I used Tom Nichols’ grandmother’s easy recipe,
and it was tender and tasty. Kind of weird combination of foods, and could have used a bit of cheese or horseradish sauce, but looking back, it’s a miracle we were all still upright at this point, much less making a coherent menu.
For the sushi, we had more than one setback, but ended up with . . . let’s see. Sushi rice, some raw tuna, cooked shrimp, and I guess cucumbers, pineapple, mangoes, and I guess caviar and ginger and whatnot. I feel like there was more, but I dunno what. I also tried something new, a Hawaiian dish of spam musubi, which is thin slices of spam simmered in a sauce and then cooked until crisp and caramelized
then served on a scoop of sushi rice with a strip of seaweed wrapped around it.
The spam by itself was more salty and harsh than anything, but together with the rice and nori, it was surprisingly delicious. One of those magical food equations where it adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
There was a lot of leftover olive salad, so I ate it for days along with leftover lamb, and this gladdened my heart. It’s been a RATHER DIFFICULT couple of weeks, to be honest, but we did have good food! So much of it. I haven’t worked up the nerve to get on a scale yet, and Damien just brought pizza home, so.
This is the basic recipe for cheese calzones. You can add whatever you'd like, just like with pizza. Warm up some marinara sauce and serve it on the side for dipping.
Servings12calzones
Ingredients
3ballspizza dough
32ozricotta
3-4cupsshredded mozzarella
1cupparmesan
1Tbspgarlic powder
2tsporegano
1tspsalt
1-2egg yolks for brushing on top
any extra fillings you like: pepperoni, olives, sausage, basil, etc.
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400.
Mix together filling ingredients.
Cut each ball of dough into fourths. Roll each piece into a circle about the size of a dinner plate.
Put a 1/2 cup or so of filling into the middle of each circle of dough circle. (You can add other things in at this point - pepperoni, olives, etc. - if you haven't already added them to the filling) Fold the dough circle in half and pinch the edges together tightly to make a wedge-shaped calzone.
Press lightly on the calzone to squeeze the cheese down to the ends.
Mix the egg yolks up with a little water and brush the egg wash over the top of the calzones.
Grease and flour a large pan (or use corn meal or bread crumbs instead of flour). Lay the calzones on the pan, leaving some room for them to expand a bit.
Bake about 18 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. Serve with hot marinara sauce for dipping.
Serve with sour cream and/or apple sauce for Hanukkah or ANY TIME. Makes about 25+ latkes
Ingredients
4lbspotatoes, peeled
6eggsbeaten
6Tbspflour (substitute matzoh meal for Passover)
salt and pepper
oil for frying
Instructions
Grate the potatoes. Let them sit in a colander for a while, if you can, and squeeze out as much liquid as possible.
Mix together the eggs, salt and pepper, and flour. Stir into the potato mixture and mix well.
Turn the oven on to 350 and put a paper-lined pan in the oven to receive the latkes and keep them warm while you're frying.
Put 1/4 to 1/2 and inch of oil in your frying pan and heat it up until a drop of batter will bubble.
Take a handful of the potato mixture, flatten it slightly, and lay it in the pan, leaving room between latkes. Repeat with the rest of the mixture, making several batches to leave room in between latkes. Fry until golden brown on both sides, turning once. Eat right away or keep warm in oven, but not too long.
Serve with sour cream and/or applesauce or apple slices.
