Category: What’s for Supper?

What’s for supper? Vol. 133: To serve your parents

This week, I decided to take a stand. No more shirking. I just care about my kids so much that I want them to be as prepared as possible for adulthood. So I let them make supper most of the week.

SATURDAY
Bratwurst (?)

Saturday I took the oldest two kids and a friend to an I Don’t Know How But They Found Me concert, and the people back home had some kind of cookout. I think there were leftover things from some previous cookout, and then Damien went shopping with one of the little girls, whose eyes lit up at the sight of bratwurst. And very good it is, bratwurst!

SUNDAY
Steak, asparagus, pull-apart Italian bread, strawberry shortcake

Father’s Day, of course! My father came over

and we all went to the beach and then, you’ll never guess: We had a cookout. I bought all the steaks that called out to me, and Damien coated them with a dry rub using this recipe.

Then he grilled them steaks up nice.

I sautéed some asparagus in olive oil, and we had store-bought bread to sop up the wonderful meat juices.

Dessert was angel food cake (from a mix) with strawberries and whipped cream. I didn’t get any decent pics.

I had five pounds of strawberries, and I assigned two kids to hull them, and another to mash them and add a little sugar and vanilla. Another kid baked the cakes, and another whipped the cream. I outsmarted myself here, and assigned too many people to the strawberries. By the time dessert made it to the table, that warn’t no five pounds of strawberries still in the bowl. I think there was a lot of “Well, if she’s going to taste that many, I can, too” and “You can’t tell Mama because you were doing the same thing” and “Is that all you can fit in your ear, you big baby? Watch this!”

Anyway, it was all beyond delicious.

MONDAY
Turkey bacon wraps, chips

With avocado, lettuce and tomato, cheddar, and ranch dressing. Some of the kids used pita bread, some used spinach wraps.

Made by the kids while I . . . I did something or other. Oh, I was chaperoning a field trip to the seacoast to explore tide pools. For the record, four+ hours in a car with no AC but with four fourth-graders talking about boys with the aid of a Magic 8 Ball? Is enough hours. I did have a lovely time scrambling around the rocks with my goober girls.

I was trying to think back if there has ever been a time when I was unhappy at the ocean. I just don’t think it can be managed.

Anyway, this sandwich is great combination of flavors, very satisfying. I got the idea when I asked for your best sandwich ideas, with an eye to doing a Sandwich of the Week thing in the warm months. Now I’m of the mind that Not Everything Has to Be a Thing, and you can Just Have Sandwiches. Still, I’d love suggestions for your favorite sandwich (or wrap, or pocket) ideas. Bonus if they include enough vegetable matter that, when the pediatrician asks the toddler what her favorite food is, she’s at least heard of things that don’t come in boxes.

TUESDAY
Chicken burgers, cheezy weezies, carrots and hummus

I don’t remember making or eating this meal. Oh, I was at 8th grade graduation! Yes, Mr. Godzilla graduated.

Usually, we spring for a burger after 8th grade graduation, but this kid is so good, he got pizza.

WEDNESDAY
Scrambled eggs, oven-roasted potatoes, hostages

Another blur day. It was the last day of school, and then we went to the beach with the school families.

I do remember cracking some eggs into a bowl while telling someone to cut up potatoes, and I remember eating a cold sausage the next day. Blur, I tell you.

THURSDAY
Spaghetti and meatballs

I don’t know, I was driving, and then I got home and there was spaghetti and meatballs. Next thing I knew, I was hearing the music for the closing credits of Kimmy Schmidt and my husband was plucking my half-finished drink out of my hands and telling me to go to bed. Blurrrrrr.

FRIDAY
Fish tacos, tortilla chips

Oh wait, we had a campfire yesterday! That was nice. First full day of summer vacation, so you have to do something fun.

Today, we’re going to the library, where I am bracing myself to write a very large check and request a clean slate.

And that’s what we ate this week. Don’t forget to tell me your sandwich ideas!

What’s for supper? Vol. 132: Girls like shwarms of things, don’t they?

Can you believe we’re not on summer vacation? That’s crazy, right? One more week! Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Boy cookout

Our eighth grader wanted an end-of-year party, and since he has not recently angered us, we agreed. Damien got a bunch of cheap hot dogs and pre-made burger patties, all the chips in the tri-state area, and a million sodas, plus water balloons and squirters. A bunch of boys came over and it was a howling success, literally. I got no pictures because I couldn’t trust those crumbs not to squirt my camera.

SUNDAY
Sugar rub chicken, grilled mussels in wine sauce, chips

Beautiful man makes beautiful chicken. Here’s Damien’s sugar chicken rub:

Brown sugar 1.5 cups
White Sugar .5 cups
Chili powder 2 table spoons
Garlic powder 2 table spoons
Salt/Pepper
2 tsp chili pepper flakes

Last week’s grilled chicken was good, but maybe a little too charred, so this time, he shoved all the coals to one side, and set the chicken on the other side to cook slowwwwwwly:

Did it come out better? OH MY YES.

But before we even laid eyes on these lovely thighs, we flexed our mussels. That doesn’t mean anything, does it? Damien scrubbed the mussels, discarding the despondent ones, and laid them on the grill until they popped open.

Then he mixed them up with a swanky sauce of half a bottle of white wine, the juice of many lemons, twelve vats of melted butter, and two sweet, darling red onions.

Hot damn, they were good. Tender meat, tart sauce, so good. I was gonna take a picture of one of the mussels opened up, but this is a family blog.

It was another beautiful, golden weekend. We got some good runs in. I got a lot of overdue planting in — a plum and nectarine tree, some gladioli, some tomatoes in their own little fenced playground. The kids picked out tomatoes called, no kidding, “Lemon Boys.” I even mulched, like a fancy person! We cut down the old fence and put up a new fence. I paid the kids to lug rocks, and now we have a new fire pit and a strange, lumpy spot where the old fire pit used to be. My husband pretended to agree that this plan made sense. The first firefly moved into the living room. We ate outside and drank domestic beer. A golden weekend.

MONDAY
Muffaletta sandwiches, fruit salad in DORAMELON

Monday was Dora’s birthday, but her party was the next day. However, we had a stray watermelon, so I carved it up, and added sliced mango and strawberries to the cubed watermelon.

As I’m carving it, Irene comes by and says indignantly, “How come you didn’t make one of those for meeee on myyyyyy birthday?”
I said, defensively, despite myself, “Because it didn’t occur to me! I think of things when I think of them! And anyway, your birthday is in April! They weren’t even selling watermelons then!”
She says, “Yes, they were.”
Me: “They were?”
Irene: “Yeah. You made me a watermelon pirate ship, remember?”

Irene, in happier times

Creep! They’re all creeps. Several others came by and made their creepy watermelon demands, so I ended up promising all of them, one by one, that when it was their birthday, I’d make them each a watermelon with “Dora” carved in it, too. Fair’s fair.

We had muffaletta sandwiches, or some approximation thereof. All I could find was sourdough bread, and there were no complaints. I bought honey ham, genoa salami, a little prosciutto, pepper salami, hot capocollo (I checked the package, and that’s what it says. Not capicola), hot calabrese, hot richard, and provolone.

Then, I put one jar of giardiniera vegetables, a can of black olives, and a small jar of green olives into la bella machina, gave it a few whirs, and we had olive salad. Hot damn.

It’s a party on bread, confetti and everything! Some of the kids also put mayo on their sandwiches, but I thought the olive salad covered all the bases, sandwich-wise. I suppose you could drizzle it with olive oil, if your olive needs had not yet been met.

TUESDAY
Chicken shawarma, ice cream pies

For her party, the child wanted shawarama. That’s a can do. They had these weird boneless chicken legs in five-pound bags for $4.99. Not being made of stone, I bought three bags, even though I’ve never heard of boneless legs before. It’s a little weird.

I had a recipe that called for two pounds, which I had scaled up to eight pounds, and then I tripled it for fifteen, and . . . it was a lot of meat. We had to marinate it in a garbage bag. I mean, it’s just a bag. So what if it’s called “garbage?”

We set it to marinate Sunday night, actually, and I don’t know what happened, but, because the food processor makes things a little too easy, we ended up with enough onion to fill a minor league stadium. You could have marinated meat in the smell alone.

Here’s the marinade, a simplified version of the NYT recipe. This is enough marinade for about eight pounds of chicken and four or five red onions:

1.5 cups lemon juice
2 c olive oil
4 tsp kosher salt
2 Tbs, 2 tsp pepper
2 Tbs, 2 tsp cumin
1 Tbs red pepper flakes
1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbs minced garlic

When you’re ready to cook, oil a rimmed pan and lay the chicken and onions on with a little of the marinade. Cook at 425 for about forty minutes, until the edges of the chicken are crisp. Let it cool a little and then slice or break it up. It should be ridiculously tender.

We served it with triangles of pita bread, black and kalamata olives, wedges of tomato and cucumbers, feta, fresh parsley, and plenty of yogurt sauce. Here’s the yogurt sauce recipe:

32-oz tub of full fat Greek yogurt
1/4 cup lemon juice
salt and pepper
2 Tbs. minced garlic

Sadly, I got zero pics of the shawarma or the ice cream pies, which Dora made with mini graham cracker crusts, ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, jimmies, candy, and cherries. She made individual pies so it would be easier to tote up the carbs for Lucy. I do love my kids.

WEDNESDAY
Nachos

I threw together chips topped with ground beef and taco seasoning from envelopes, shredded cheese, and salsa and sour cream on the side. I started to take a picture and said, “Ohh, this doesn’t look very good.” So the kids helped it look better.

Thanks, kids!

THURSDAY
Korean beef bowl, rice, peas

I made a quintuple recipe of this old standby. Thursday afternoon sorely tried my patience. Sorely. I was terribly grateful for how easy this dish is. Cook up de meat, put in the stuff, done. Pot of rice, choppy-uppy-scallions, done. Sesame seeds. I put out peas on the side for no particular reason.

Here’s a pic from previous times:

This is also a good meal to make in the morning and keep in the slow cooker all day. All the better if you make rice in the Instant Pot. Put them food robots to work!

FRIDAY
Pizza

Five large ones. See if I don’t.

***

I’m gonna skip the carbs this week, because there were so many meals I didn’t write down. At one point during the week, Lucy had a frozen pizza, two marshmallows, and a popsicle for dinner, because we knew how many carbs there were in a frozen pizza, two marshmallows, and a popsicle. And that’s how you diabetes!

What’s for supper? Vol. 131: Paint with all the colors of the food!

Lots of pretty summer food this week! Here’s what we had (carbs at the end). I struggled mightily with the photos in this post. If they turned out sideways or upside down, it’s because WordPress is evil, and no other reason.

SATURDAY
Burgers, chips, salad

No pics, but mighty tasty, cooked on the grill.

SUNDAY
Grilled clams in wine sauce, grilled chicken, grilled corn; ice cream and berries

This was a glorious meal. Damien went out for chicken and corn to grill, and discovered that clams were a dollar a pound, so he bought many pounds.

Here cleaned the clams, then made this sauce:

Coarsely chop a big onion, and saute it lightly in a little olive oil and a small pinch of red pepper flakes. Add salt and pepper. Once cooked, add a 1/4 bottle of white wine and two sticks of melted butter.

Then put the clams on the grill and let them cook, without turning them, until they pop open. Then put them in a bowl and cover them with the sauce.

You guys, they were so good. I’m predisposed to any kind of seafood, but the flavor of that sauce was out of this world.

The chicken was also fabulous! A sweet char on the outside, juicy on the inside, and the combination worked well. Really good outdoor food.

Here’s the rub he made, for 20 chicken thighs:

1.5 cups brown sugar 1.5 cups
.5 cups white sugar
2 Tbs chili powder
2 Tbs garlic powder
salt and pepper

Then he grilled it all!

 

The corn, you can grill right in the husks until they’re charred, and it comes out so very sweet and juicy.

We buttered it and sprinkled it with chili lime powder.

Look at the carnage. Look at that lake of butter and wine! I completely shamed myself with the number of clams I scarfed down.

We had it with cans of Narragansett Beer, Made On Honor.

Dessert: vanilla ice cream with blueberries and strawberries. Oh sweet, sweet summertime (almost).

MONDAY
Pulled pork sandwiches, apple-cabbage-broccoli slaw, steak fries

This meal looked nicer in person, I promise. I put a pork shoulder in the crock pot with a can of beer, half a jar of jalapeno slices and juice, some minced garlic, and salt and pepper. Possibly an onion.

I really wanted to use my new used food processor, but all the recipes for broccoli slaw that I found online started with “take one bag of broccoli slaw,” and people who write stuff like that should feel bad about themselves. I guess they can follow up with a cake recipe, with first ingredient: cake. Then they can mentor some young people and advise them that the best way to find a job is to make up a resume in which they describe their current successful career. Bah!

So I took slaw matters into my own hands and made this:

I fed into the food processor:

Half a head of red cabbage
one pound of broccoli, stem and florets
two cored green apples with skin on

Then I mixed that up with:

1/3 cup mayo
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup white sugar
chili lime seasoning
It didn’t strictly need the sugar, with the apples in there, and I’ll probably skip it next time. I thought it went very well with the pulled pork, and Damien liked it, too. The rotten kids wouldn’t even try it, even though I told them about the sugar.
TUESDAY
Sausage, mushroom, and cheese omelettes; hash browns

Normally, I can make omelettes. The trick is not to turn it too soon, but the real trick is to have a decent pan, either nonstick or stainless steel. Then I go through a stage of self-recrimination where I demand to know why I thought it would be quick and easy to whip up twelve omelettes to order. But normally, I can make omelettes.

Well, not today! The damn things just wouldn’t hold together. This was the very best one I made, and it’s a tough little beast:

Then Damien came home and had pity on me, so he made his own. Guess what? This is how his turned out:

I think it was the eggs. I think they froze and then thawed, and they turned against us. We need this entire generation of eggs to die out before we can ever have omelettes again.

WEDNESDAY
Pork ramen

Chicken ramen with sliced pork, mixed vegetables, sriracha sesame seeds, soft boiled eggs, and a little dulse (seaweed), with crunchy noodles. Good stuff.

I took some boneless pork chops and sauteed them in olive oil. When they were almost done cooking, I gave them a good dousing with soy sauce, then finished cooking, and sliced them thinly.

THURSDAY
Chicken drumsticks; homemade tortilla chips with corn and bean salad

We had to be out around dinner time, so I made the food ahead of time and served it cold. The drumsticks, I just drizzled with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted them.

 

I still have a ludicrous backlog of tortillas, so I cut them into triangles, tossed them with olive oil, and sprinkled them with chili lime powder. I spread the triangles in shallow pans and baked them for . . . I dunno, a while. A good idea, but the execution left something to be desired. These really need more room, and more shuffling around, then I had time to give them. Still, not bad. I made them as a delivery device for this pretty corn salad I made:

I mixed together:

12 oz sweet corn
a can of black beans (1.5 cups)
a bunch of chopped cilantro
a 10 oz Ro-Tel diced tomatoes with chili, lime juice and cilantro
1/2 small red onion, diced (1/3 cup)
plenty of salt, pepper,  and chili lime Taijin seasoning
and probably 1/4 cup of lime juice
and set it to cool in the fridge for a few hours.
I thought it was really good! Lots of flavor and crunch, and a refreshing way to eat vegetables. Sweeter than I expected. I would not be ashamed to bring this to a potluck, either.
FRIDAY
Tuna noodle casserole

Shh, don’t tell the kids. We’re making steaks and eating them all by ourselves, in honor of the Sacred Heart.

Here come the carbs!

HAMBURGERS:

hamburger: 0

ketchup 1 Tbs 5g
mustard: 0
pickles:0
bun: 23
15 chips: 16
mixed greens: 1

PULLED PORK:

pork: 1

1/2 deli roll (L’Oven Fresh center split deli roll): 19.5
10 steak fries: 36
ketchup 2 Tbs: 10

OMELETTES:

2 Season’s Choice hash browns: 42

ketchup: 2 Tbs, 10
eggs: 0
butter: 0
sausage: 0
1/4 cup cheese: 1g

RAMEN:

1 package Top Ramen, chicken flavor: 26
Pork cooked in olive oil and sesame oil: 0

soft boiled egg: 0
1/4 cup mixed asian veg: 2

CHICKEN, CORN SALAD:

chips:

2 medium tortillas, 16 chips: 48

olive oil: 0
Tajin seasoning: 0
drumsticks:
chicken, oil, salt, pepper: 0
bean and corn mix:
12 oz sweet corn: 64
black beans,1.5 cups: 72
cilantro: negligible
10 oz Ro-Tel diced tomatoes with chili, lime juice and cilantro: 15
1/2 sm red onion (1/3 cup): 16
salt, pepper: 0
lime juice: 0
Taijin seasoning: 0
Makes about 4.5 cups;
64 + 72 + 15 + 16 = 167
18.55g per half cup

TUNA NOODLE:

1-1/4 cups dry egg noodles: 38
tuna: 0
cream of mushroom: 1/2 c : 11
1 oz chips: 16
1-1/2 cups corn flakes: 39

mayo:0
ketchup,  1 Tbs: 5
vinegar: 0

What’s for supper? Vol. 130: Spiedie trial

I don’t know which of you bastards put a hex on me, but nothing I cooked came out well this week. Also my best cow went dry and the tallow kept lumping on me no matter how I boiled it. And I lost my best mob cap. But I did go running every single day this week, seven days in a row! Now I have a . . . strained toe tendon? Or something? This doesn’t mix well with lots and lots of driving. Ow. But still, I ran.

Here’s what we ate, carb counts at the end:

SATURDAY
Chicken strawberry salad with almonds

I seem to remember my husband made this while I . . . did something important. Probably lay down. I think he roasted the chicken in the oven, the served it with mixed greens, sliced strawberries, feta cheese, toasted almonds, and balsamic vinegar. This dark picture doesn’t do justice to how pretty this meal was, even if the almonds did get a little over-toasted:

It was not easy for me to make the transition to seeing fruit as a natural part of savory meals, rather than as dessert, but once you put balsamic vinegar on fresh strawberries, you’ll never go back.

SUNDAY
Spiedies, peppers and hummus

I couldn’t find my excellent spiedie marinade recipe, so I made one up, and it just wasn’t as zippy.

2 tsp red pepper flakes
red wine vinegar 1/2 cup
1.5 c oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
salt and pepper
1.5 tsp mint
1 Tbs minced garlic
2 Tbs sugar

I think I’ve used one with lemon zest in the past. This was good, just not amazing. I cubed a boneless pork loin and set it to marinate early in the day, and then the kids put it on skewers (soaked in water to keep the meat moist) and my husband grilled it in the evening.

We served it on toasted rolls with mayonnaise, and had raw peppers and hummus on the side.

Operation Enough With The Chips All The Time proceeds apace.

MONDAY
Hot Dogs of Many Nations, nacho chips, grilled corn, watermelon

We didn’t want to trivialize the memory of our fallen heroes by grilling hamburgers, so we had hot dogs after the parade, instead.

I put out an assortment of toppings: Ketchup, mustard, relish, sauerkraut, chopped cukes, grape tomatoes, diced onions, pickled pepper rings, blue cheese, celery salt, sliced pickles, buffalo sauce, and chopped scallions, if I remember correctly, which I never do.  Several of the kids had a Chicago hot dog, which is  yellow mustard,  pickle relish, onion, tomato, pickle, peppers, and celery salt.

My favorite: Blue cheese, buffalo sauce, and scallions.

I think it’s actually supposed to be chives, but whatever. It’s yuhm.
We like grilling corn on the cob slowly right in the husks, which makes it immensely sweet and juicy, but I forgot, and had the kids shuck the corn. So Damien grilled it anyway, and we buttered it, then sprinkled it with chili lime powder.

It was supposed to be ice cream pie for dessert (you mash up ice cream with a potato masher until it’s soft and spreadable, then spread it in a graham cracker crust, and dress it up with chocolate sauce, peanut butter, marshmallows, whipped cream, candy, sprinkles, nuts, cherries, whatever, and then freeze for a couple of hours) but we forgot to make it, so we just had ice cream.

TUESDAY
Taco Tuesday

I didn’t take any pictures. I did add the chili lime powder to the meat, and it made it much brighter and more interesting. I was also starving because we had the final high school concert of the year and ate super late. I also added chili lime powder to a can of refried beans I had for lunch the next day. I keep thinking it’s not very good, but then I keep using it, so I guess I like it.

WEDNESDAY
Cobb salad

This is a cute meal. I took my biggest pan and arranged stripes of chopped bacon, sliced avocado, halved hard boiled eggs, grape tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, chopped Romaine lettuce, and diced chicken.

It was okay. I made the chicken in the instant pot and basically just steamed it in lemon juice, which made it kind of damp and lemony, which is not my absolute favorite way to enjoy chicken. Oh well. I left my feet in the picture to prove that I’m not one of those fancy food bloggers who doesn’t have feet.

THURSDAY
Pork ribs, coleslaw, some kind of rice thing

The pork, I seasoned generously with salt and pepper and put it under a hot broiler in a pan with some drainage, and turned it once.

I planned to make biscuits, only my planning didn’t extend to having flour in the house, so I decided to make risotto instead, which doesn’t really go with coleslaw, but it didn’t matter because I was also out of parmesan cheese, so it wasn’t really risotto.

I sauteed two diced Vidalia onions in olive oil with salt and pepper and a tablespoon of minced onion in the Instant Pot, then added four cups of white rice, and stirred it up until the rice was opaque. Then I added eight cups of chicken broth, closed the lid and valve, and set it on high for seven minutes, then did a quick release. Heck, everyone ate it. They kept asking me if it was flavored rice or brown rice, and I kept telling them to shut up.

FRIDAY

It seems we have some kind of effing potluck to go to. We were supposed to have scrambled eggs and hash browns, which is not all that great, but at least we wouldn’t have to talk to anyone or put pants on. Effing potluck. What do you recommend that requires almost no effort on my part and that pairs well with a bad attitude?

And now for the carbs:

SPIEDIES:
roll – 39 or 40

pork: 0

2 tsp red pepper flakes 2g

red wine vinegar 1/2 cup: 8 Tbs
1.5 c oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
salt and pepper
1.5 tsp mint
1 Tbs minced garlic]
2 Tbs sugar: 25.2
——-
2g per Tbs, 2 Tbs per kebab
hummus: 2 Tbs, 4g
1/2 yellow pepper: 6
marinade: 4
l’oven Deli roll: 39
—–
53
dessert:
ice cream 2/3 c rocky road Hannaford: 23
choc sauce1 Tbs: 12
1/3 cup marshmallows: 11.5

3 Reese’s peanut butter mini cups: 15

2 maraschino cherries: 4
_____
65.5
supper and dessert: 118.5

HOT DOGS:

1 hot dogs: 3

1 frankfurter buns: 21
2 Tbs ketchup: 10
mustard: 0
2 Tbs chopped onions: 8
5 grape tomatoes: 1.55
pickles: 0
1/4 cup chopped cucumbers with skin: 4
corn on the cob: 17
chili lime powder: doesn’t want
butter: 0
11 nacho chips: 15
watermelon, 1 cup equivalent: 46

COBB SALAD:

chicken cooked in lemon juice: 0

romaine lettuce: 1
avocado: doesn’t want
5 grape tomatoes: 1.6
bacon: 0
cukes: .5
hard boiled egg: 0
balsamic vinegar, 2 Tbs: 8
11.1 carbs
12 tsp iced tea powder (3 c): 54
total meal: 65.1

PORK, COLE SLAW, RISOTTO:

pork, salt, pepper: 0

cole slaw:

1  head cabbage -72 g
1 cup mayo -1.3 g
1 1/2cup white vinegar -0 g
1/2 cup.lime juice 8.23 g
10 carrots 8 g
1 cup sugar- 200 g
Total carbs: 289.53

risotto:
rice 4 cups uncooked: 576

chicken broth 8 cups: 4

olive oil: 0

2 vidalia onions: 32

garlic minced 1 Tbs: 3 g
salt and pepper: .5 (1/2 tsp pepper)
rice: 615.5 for ten cups of cooked risotto

about 61.55g per cup

What’s for supper? Vol. 129: In which I let the extra mile fend for itself

Can’t remember the last time I was so glad to see a week be over. The food was good, though. Here’s what we had (carb counts at the end of the post):

SATURDAY
Grilled ham, cheddar, and apple sandwiches; onion rings 

Sometimes you show up at Aldi, and in the place where there’s supposed to be those wonderful, heavy sourdough loaves, they just have a torn-up bag with some stale, loose bread sprinkled around on the shelf. So, with a heavy heart, you buy some ciabatta rolls instead, and ask your husband to make dinner.

Sliced cheddar cheese, deli ham, slices of Granny Smith apples, and a little mayonnaise on the outside to help it fry nicely. Lemon meringue pie was supposed to be for dessert, but I got started way too late. The onion rings were from frozen, obviously.

SUNDAY
Gochujang pork ribs, rice with nori, raw broccoli; lemon meringue pie

I set the pork to marinate the night before, using a double recipe of this sauce:

5 generous Tbs gochujang
2 Tbs honey
2 tsp sugar
2 Tbs soy sauce
5 cloves minced garlic

But I didn’t feel like slicing the pork up, and I didn’t feel like slicing up carrots or onions, even though I had splurged on a real working $7 food processor from the Salivation Army. So I just dunked the meat in the sauce and walked away. I just walked away! Well, I sat on the couch and drank gin. On Sunday, Damien cooked the meat on the grill, and it was fab.

But someday soon, I’m going to go the whole nine yards and make bulgoki. We did have seaweed to wrap up the rice in. Guess who likes seaweed? The cat. Too bad.

I made some sort of promise regarding lemon meringue pie to a certain Amelia Bedelia fan, and it seemed like as good a time as any to get that over with. Oh lord, what a pain in the neck. I even bought ready-made crusts and bought boxes of pudding mix, but it still consumed far, far too much time. So much stirring! Meringue is pretty easy to make, though. I bought four boxes of pudding, for some reason, so I had way more pie filling than crust; so I filled up a bunch of ramekins.

Simcha Fisher, Person Who Owns Ramekins. Take that, alumni association.

MONDAY
Hamburgers, chips, strawberries

Nothing to report. I was expecting Damien home not too late, so I just made burgers for the kids, and set aside the ones for the adults to cook later. Then, after watching the kids tear into their burgers, I made myself a burger. What, do you want me to get anemic?

TUESDAY
Kielbasa, red potato, and cabbage with mustard sauce

A good one-pan meal, pretty popular. You just chop up kielbasa, slice up potatoes, and slice up cabbage (just don’t call it steak!), oil and season it, and shove it in the oven. The sauce is good, but way too oily in the recipe from Budget Bytes. I changed the proportions to 1/2 cup olive oil, 4 Tbs red wine vinegar, 3 Tbs mustard, and 2 Tbs minced garlic, plus plenty of salt and pepper. Much better.

As you can see, I had parsley in the house. I’m a big believer in fresh parsley. I don’t know if it actually makes food taste better, or if it just signals to the 8-year-old in my brain, “ooooh, we’re going to get something fancy!” but I like it.

WEDNESDAY
Chicken enchiladas

How, do you wonder, do I manage to fulfill all my obligations and still produce a fabulous meal for my family at the end of the day? Really all you have to do is plan ahead. Specifically, eighteen years previously, you give birth to a daughter who will one day offer to make enchiladas for supper. And there you go.

She used Pioneer Woman’s recipe. I mysteriously only bought half the sauce we needed, but they truly did not suffer by not being smothered into hot tortilla flab by all that sauce.  I may make them this way deliberately in the future. So good.

THURSDAY
Chicken and chickpeas, yogurt sauce

This meal is normally almost panic-inducingly delicious, but I skipped a few steps, and it was just quite good, instead. I had about ten pounds of chicken thighs and 64 ounces of Greek yogurt to work with, but was short on red onions, and lost my cilantro altogether (but still had parsley, as you can see). I also would have liked some pita bread, and some grapes or pomegranates. Still, a pretty meal, and tasty.Full recipe in this previous post.

These particular chicken thighs had tons of skin attached, which is perfect for this recipe.

Check out that skin. It would make a meal in itself, if you’re some kind of a weirdo.

I was too impatient to let the chickpeas and the onions get crunchy. Will definitely keep making, but the extra steps and garnishes are worth while.

I took tons of pictures, so here’s another one:

Mustn’t waste film.

FRIDAY
Ziti with jarred sauce

But I’m not going to swear I won’t be sneaking into the bedroom with a platter of sopressata, mozzarella, and sun dried tomatoes, just in case there’s a husband in there who likes that kind of thing.

***

And now for the carbs. I really struggled with working out carbs this week. I don’t know if my brain was just sluggish, or I chose recipes where the math was especially vexatious, but it sucked. If you’re cooking for a diabetic, please be alert when using my numbers!

GRILLED HAM AND CHEESE SANDWICHES:
I don’t seem to have written this down. Ham, cheese, mayo, and pickles are all low- or no-carb, though, so you just have to count the bread and apple.

GOCHUJANG meal:

Gochujang sauce

10 Tbs gochujang: 100

4 Tbs honey : 68
4 tsp sugar: 16.8
4Tbs soy sauce: 3.2
2 Tbs minced garlic : 6 g
100+68+16.8+3.2+6 = 194
12.94 in Lucy’s serving
____
Total sauce:
sauce on Lucy’s portion: 12.94
pork: 0
seaweed: 1 per sheet
cooked rice: 45 g per cup
broccoli: 1/2 cup: 3
quadruple recipe for some reason:
Lemon meringue pie:
My-T-Fine lemon pudding mix:  272
sugar: 400
8 egg yolks: 0
crust: 88
meringue (egg white, sugar, cream of tartar): 201.8
____
961.8 per four pies
240.85 per pie
30.6 per 1/8 pie
40.14 per 1/6 pie

HAMBURGERS:

hamburger with salt and pepper: 0

l’Oven Fresh hamburger bun: 23
ketchup, 1 Tbs: 5
1 onion slice: 1
mustard: 0
15 chips: 16g
5 medium strawberries: 4.5
16 +23 + 4.5 = 48.5
2 ice pops: 18
____
67.5 meal

CABBAGE, POTATO, KIELBASA:

cabbage: 4.1g per cup

red potato: 26g per potato
kielbasa: 21 g per 14-oz kielbasa; .875 per piece, cut into 24 pieces each
olive oil, salt, pepper: 0
—–
2 potatoes: 52
cup cabbage: 4.1
5 pieces kielbasa: 4.375
sauce:
olive oil: 0
red vinegar: 0
mustard:0
minced garlic: 2 tsp, 2 carbs
salt: 0
pepper: 0
8.475 + 52 = 60.475
ice tea: 18
—-
78.475
ENCHILADAS:

2 Tbs green enchilada sauce: 2.25g

tortilla: 34
chicken, salt, pepper, chili powder, oil: 0
onions, 2 Tbs: 3g
cheese: 2 Tbs., .5 g
sour cream: 2 Tbs, 2g
salsa: (doesn’t want)
32 corn chips: 16

CHICKEN AND CHICKPEA:

Marinade:
Greek yogurt: 35g
1/2 cup lemon juice: 0
1/2 cup water: 0
1/4 cup cumin:10.8g
45.8g in 32 oz/ 65 Tbs of marinade; 2 Tbs per chicken = .073 per tablespoon of marinade
chicken:
chicken thighs: 0
red onions: 3.84 per large ring
olive oil: 0
cumin: 2.7g per Tbs
sat and pepper: 0
chickpeas: 8g per Tbs
sauce:
yogurt 35g per 32 oz/65 Tbs
lemon juice :0
garlic powder: 7g per Tbs
salt: 0
pepper: 0
.65 per Tbs of sauce

parsley: negligible

What’s for supper? Vol. 128: My love language is pork.

We may be sabbages, but we’re sabbages who eat like kings. Here’s what we had (carb counts at the end): 

SATURDAY
Chicken burgers, tater tots, salad

I have no memory of Saturday. Oh wait, yes I do! I went to pick up the final kid from college. Hooray!

SUNDAY
Oysters, banh mi, grilled peaches with ice cream

Mother’s day! What a wonderful day I had. When we got back from Mass, we did some food prep, and then went for a hike in a nearby gorge. How I love gorges.

Did I mention all the kids are home?

I was showered with thoughtful gifts and attentions all day long. And gin!

For banh mi, we use this Serious Eats recipe, using onions instead of shallots – and, obviously, pork instead of steak this time. If you’ve never made banh mi before, there’s no way I can prepare you for the horrendous smell of the meat marinating in fish sauce. I sealed it up in a ziplock bag as fast as I could, but not before much gagging and groaning. It also stinks when you’re cooking it, so moving this show outdoors was a good plan.

We have always heretofore made banh mi inside in the oven, and I was a little concerned that thin slices of meat would fall through the grate, so I took the pork loin and hasselbacked it, cutting it into thin slices 3/4 of the way through, before marinating it for several hours.

It cooked up so nicely. Damien wrapped it loosely in foil and let it cook for a long time off to the side, not right over the coals, with the cover on and the vent open, until it was cooked all the way through

and then unwrapped it and put it right over the coals, and let it develop that gorgeous glazey finish.

Then it was easy to separate the meat the rest of the way into individual slices for the sandwiches. It was so moist and tender!

While it was cooking, I sliced some baguettes into thirds and toasted it. I had also made some pickled carrots in the morning (slice carrots thin, set to pickle in vinegar with a little sugar mixed it) and sliced up a bunch of cucumbers (I didn’t pickle them, because I wanted something cool in the sandwich) and chopped up a bunch of cilantro, and set out mayonnaise and sriracha sauce. I forgot the jalapenos, but the flavor was sufficiently intense and exciting. Just a wonderful sandwich, a real mouth party.

While we were waiting for the meat to cook, we had ourselves some oysters.

My husband bought enough for the kids to try one and reject it

and then we got to scarf down the rest in peace with tabasco sauce, horseradish, lemon wedges, cocktail sauce, and beer. Look at that blue, blue sky.

And check out the fancy nubbly ice! I picked up a hand-cranked ice crusher at a yard sale last year. I’m basically a Proverbs 31 woman, what with the yard sales and the pickling. Damien also pronounced his new oyster gloves and knife (affiliate link) the best $15 he spent all week.

For dessert, I had my heart set on grilled peaches. It’s truly not peach season, and the selection of peaches reflected this fact, but my husband dutifully hunted some down. I split them in half and dug out the pits, and then set them to macerate in a mixture of melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon. I thought this might help them ripen up or something, I dunno. Then, after dinner, my husband grilled them over the coals

until they were lovely

and we served them with a scoop of vanilla ice cream topped with chopped pecans. Someday, I’ll serve this again, but I’ll make a bourbon caramel sauce, and I’ll candy them pecans. For lady reasons I can’t explain, I had mine with Greek yogurt instead of ice cream.

It was good! The whole day was so good.

MONDAY
Pizza

Two pepperoni, two black olive, 16 inches each. I’m ready to face the fact that, with the college kids home, we’ve graduated into a five-pizza family.

This has nothing to do with food, but here was our morning at the pediatrician’s office.

They are contemplating all the poor sick people that are likely there today.

TUESDAY
Hot dogs, chips

On Tuesday, I gave a speech in the morning, and then we had a concert in the evening. Here’s the grouse I’m still cherishing: I dislike wistful pop songs about the glories of childhood and the misery of being a weary, cynical adult. I despise such songs all to billions of pieces when actual, current children are made to sing several of them in spring concerts. I’m still cranky enough about this to mention that the choir director position in our school is sort of like the drummer position in Spinal Tap, so maybe next year they children can sing songs written for children, rather than for people who spend their lives smoking weed and then wondering why adulthood is so disappointing. Bah!

There was cake after the concert, and I prepared by buying a lovely bakery cupcake for Lucy, so we’d know how many carbs there would be, and she could dose accordingly. Well, the label that looked like 31 carbs in the supermarket turned out to be 81 carbs right before she dosed up. Sheesh. I think that, before a kid gets diabetes, they should have the mom take a test that says, “Can you read? All the time, or just sometimes?” and if the answer is “sometimes,” then the kid should not be allowed to get diabetes.

WEDNESDAY
Southwest chicken salad

I wanted to recreate this excellent salad I got from McDonald’s. I did hear myself say that, and I stand by it.

Mixed greens, grilled chicken, avocado, shredded, spicy cheese, corn, black beans, red and green peppers, cilantro, fresh lime, and toasted tortilla strips, with a spicy ranch dresssing. Hooray, another pretty and delicious salad meal!

I always have a ludicrous backlog of tortillas in the house, so I was happy to take a ton of them and hack them into pieces. I mixed the strips up with a drizzle of olive oil and plenty of salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Then I put them in a single layer in shallow pans and toasted them at 350 for about 25 minutes or more. I think the time has come for me to start buying chili lime powder.

For the corn, I intended to buy a few cans of ¡Mexicorn!, because it makes me giggle, but I came across a bag of frozen “Chipotle corn,” which comes with the beans and peppers and some kind of honey sauce. Easy peasy. I just let it defrost and set it out in a bowl. This meal is definitely going in the rotation. You can make everything ahead of time.

Oh, and I accidentally bought “taco cheese,” which I thought was cheese destined for tacos, but it’s actually seasoned with taco spices. You know what? It tasted good, so I’m going to buy it again, so there.

THURSDAY
Miso soup, brown rice with egg and pork floss, asparagus

So, I had these foods. Kyra sends me foods. I had this miso paste, which I definitely wanted, and then also this pork floss, which . . . I was reserving judgment about.

Pork floss, also known as “meat wool,” is pork that has been transformed into a sort of savory, gritty lint. So I says to myself, I says, you’re never too old to stop learning! Why don’t you look up some authentic recipes and find out how deliciously this gritty meat lint should be prepared in a way that, with a slight tweak of cultural expectations, will open broad new vistas of culinary delight?

Well, most of the recipes were like, “My grandfather used to put a scoop of it in some Wonder Bread and then ball it up, and then he would shout at me if I didn’t eat it in one bite” or “I guess maybe with porridge?”

So I settled for cooking some brown rice, sprinkling it with pork floss, and topping it with a fried egg.

Boy, it did not taste good. It tasted like pork in the same way as I look like my wedding picture: Clearly the same subject, and yet the alterations are undeniable, troubling, and profound.

I did feel a little well of schadenfreude bubble up in my arid soul. Ooh, ooh, Asian cuisine! Ooh, it’s so delicate and exquisite, so what do you know, you great cloddish westerner, with your big chomping face and your gurgling cheeseburger stomach?

Yeah, well, pork floss is Asian, and it’s garbage. It was like in Bonfire of the Vanities (RIP Tom Wolfe, by the way) where they’re so thrilled to discover their intimidatingly flawless nanny is a flaming racist. Phew!

We also had miso soup, which I love, and which you can tart up in all kinds of ways, but it’s really supposed to be simple. Exquisite, if you will. So I boiled some water, added some dulse (I don’t know what dulse is, either), mixed the miso paste with hot water and added that, then threw in some cubed tofu. If it hadn’t been a hot, muggy day, it would have been a great soup. As it was, it was a little bit challenging.

I also had some asparagus, which I steamed and served with lemon wedges. Guess what the kids ate? That’s right, bagels.

FRIDAY
Mac and cheese

Probably gonna use this recipe doubled or tripled and top it with buttered bread crumbs.

And there it is.

***

Here come the carbs:

Banh mi, oysters, and peaches:

pork:0
2/3 cup fish sauce: 74

g 2 tbs minced garlic: 6
8 Tbs sugar: 100
1/2 cup onion: 8
_____
total pork and all sauce: 188, but of course you’re not eating all the sauce.
If she eats 1 tbs, that’s 11.75
bread: 1/3 baguette: 56
pickled carrots: 7
cukes: 1
———-
64
peaches: 7 per half peach
2 Tbs sugar: 25.2
1 Tbs cinnamon: 6
1 stick butter: 0
dash of salt: 0
olive oil: 0
31.2 divided by 12 = 2.6 per sauce on each half peach
pecans: 1/8 cup, 2 carbs
ice cream 1/2 cup, 15 carbs
_____
half sauced peach with 1/2 cup ice cream and 1/8 cup nuts: 26.6
102.35 total meal including dessert
***

pizza:

portland pie pizza dough beer 20 oz: 208
1/2 cup Reggano sauce: 13
3 cups shredded Happy Farmer mozzarella cheese: 12
olives: 0
Pepperoni: 0
—–
Total pizza: 233
1/4 pizza: 58.25

ice cream cone: 39

total meal: 97.25
***

Southwest chicken salad:

1/4 an avocado: 2.15 g
Season’s Choice Chipotle corn blend (corn, black beans, red peppers, poblano peppers in honey butter sauce): 3/4 cup 24 g

tortilla strips with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder, 1 sm tortilla: 19
chicken with olive oil, salt, and pepper: 0
spicy ranch dressing Tuscan Garden: 2 Tbs, 1 g
2 cups green leaf lettuce and baby spinach: 2g
Happy Farms taco style shredded cheese: 1/4 cup, 1g
1/4 lime: 1.75
cilantro: negligible

***

Miso soup meal (amounts are not scaled to serving size, because Lucy didn’t want any of it, so I stopped calculating)

Tbs miso: 5.3g

Maine Coast Sea Vegetables dulse: 1/3 cup, 3 g; whole bag: 24g
scallions:
Nasoya sesame ginger tofu: 8g per 8 oz package
Simply Nature quick cook brown rice: 3 cups uncooked: 408g
fried egg: 0
T&T dried pork floss: 6 Tbs, 11g
asparagus: .6g per spear
lemon: 5g per lemon
***
Mac and cheese:

3 lbs macaroni : 1008
Burman’s hot sauce: 0

6 Tbs butter: 0
3 Tbs mustard: 0
3 c milk: 39
1 lb Happy Farms pre-shredded mild cheddar: 16
24 oz Happy Farms aged New York sharp cheddar: 0
Total without breadcrumbs: 1063

Optional:

Hannaford Italian style bread crumbs: 1 cup, 80 g
butter: 0

Total with breadcrumbs: 1143

What’s for supper? Vol. 127: Berry the lede

Too tired to hear any stupid jokes about food? You’re in luck, because I’m too tired to make any. Here is some factual information about seven meals we ate. Carb counts at the end of the post.

SATURDAY
Chicken salad with berries, nuts, and cheese

Oh, what a pretty meal!

I doused the chicken breasts with olive oil, then sprinkled them with salt, pepper, and oregano, and slid them in a pan under a hot broiler, turning once. Cook, cool, slice, then serve over greens with diced red onions, blueberries, sliced strawberries, crumbled feta, and toasted hazelnuts.

I don’t think I’ve ever even seen hazelnuts for sale before, but there they were, on sale. I spread them in a shallow pan and put them in a 350 oven for about six minutes.

Good with balsamic vinegar or a sweet dressing.

SUNDAY
Pork carnitas, chili lime corn, pineapple

Yuhm. I took a 4-5 pound pork loin and put it in the Instant Pot with a can of beer, salt and pepper, and about a cup of jalapeno peppers and juice, then set it to cook on high pressure for an hour. I wish I had given it another 15 minutes. Not all of it fell apart as tenderly as it should. Still tasty and spicy, though.

I oiled a shallow pan and spread the shredded meat and jalapenos in it, with a sprinkle of chili powder and cumin, then put it under a hot broiler until it was a little crisp. Then I served it on tortillas with salsa and sour cream. I forgot to put out the cilantro.

We also had chili lime corn on the cob. This is really much better if you grill the corn, but I just boiled it. When it’s cooked, squeeze some fresh lime juice over it and sprinkle it with chili powder. It’s exciting!

I did the same thing, lime and chili, with fresh pineapple. The roof of my mouth was swollen to twice its normal size by the end of the meal, but it was worth it.

MONDAY
BLTs and garlic bread

That’s what the birthday boy wanted. I bought six pounds of bacon, and there was bacon left over. I didn’t even know there was such a thing.

TUESDAY
Chicken shawarma with pita, yogurt sauce, and veggies; frozen grapes

One college girl home, one to go! I wanted to make something nice, and shawarma is nice as can be.

I started the chicken marinating the night before. Here’s the marinade (simplified from this NYT recipe) for about eight pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs and 4-5 quartered red onions. Note: this is a ridiculously delicious meal, so buy more chicken than you think you will need.

1.5 cups lemon juice
2 c olive oil
4 tsp kosher salt
2 Tbs, 2 tsp pepper
2 Tbs, 2 tsp cumin
1 Tbs red pepper flakes
1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbs minced garlic

When you’re ready to cook, oil a rimmed pan and lay the chicken and onions on with a little of the marinade. Cook at 425 for about forty minutes, until the edges of the chicken are crisp. Let it cool a little and then slice or break it up. It should be ridiculously tender.

We served it with triangles of pita bread, black and kalamata olives, wedges of tomato and cucumbers, feta, and plenty of yogurt sauce. Here’s the yogurt sauce recipe:

32-oz tub of full fat Greek yogurt
1/4 cup lemon juice
salt and pepper
2 Tbs. minced garlic

You really should have fresh parsley, but I forgot.

A splendid meal. Frozen grapes are also very nice and refreshing. You can use them to cool your drink, too, if you don’t want it watered down.

WEDNESDAY
Spaghetti with sausages

A much-requested meal. Okay by me.

THURSDAY
Grilled ham and cheese on sourdough bread, spinach salad

Another longed-for treat. I did put salad out, but nobody ate it, not even me.

Check out that cheese lace in the evening sun.

FRIDAY
Tuna boats, salt and vinegar chips, mangos

I’m including a picture in case you don’t know what tuna looks like..

Do people know how to peel mangoes? It’s easy. You locate the pit and cut away the two “cheeks” as close to the pit as possible. Then take each one and, using the rim of a drinking glass or metal cup, gently scoop away the fruit from the peel. So much easier than trying to get the peel off the fruit.

Then you’re left with the pit surrounded by some salvageable fruit, and you have to whittle that away, or just gnaw on it like an animal, and then floss a lot like an animal.

Okay, here’s the carbs we done carbed this week:

Chicken salad:

chicken with olive oil, wine vinegar, salt, pepper, oregano: negligible

2 Tbs of chopped hazelnuts: 10
blueberries 10 g per 50 berries – about 1/2 a cup): 10 g
strawberries (.9 per medium): 4 strawberries, 3.6
feta cheese (1.2 g per ounce): doesn’t want
green leaf lettuce: (1 g per cup): 2
red onions, diced, 1 Tbs: 1
______
26.6
ice cream: Specially selected chocolate super premium: 48 per cup
whipped cream: 4 Tbs, 2 carbs
cherry: 2 cherries, 2 carbs
______
52 for dessert
Total meal: 78.6
***

Carnitas

tortilla: medium soft taco size: 24

meat with jalapenos, beer, chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper: 2
sour cream: 2 Tbs, 2 carbs
salsa: doesn’t want
pineapple: doesn’t want
corn on the cob: 32
chili powder: doesn’t want
lime juice, 1/4 lime: 1.5
______
61.5
dessert:
Sundae Shoppe crunch bar: 15
76.5 total meal

***

garlic bread and BLTs

1/4 baguette: 27
butter: 0

garlic powder: negligible
—-
27
2 slices L’Oven Fresh soft rye bread: 34
bacon: 0
tomatoes: 5 carbs per tomato, 2.5 for half
lettuce: 1
mayo: .1 per Tbsp
—–
37.6
cookie: 25
ice cream: 2/3 cup, 27g
—–
52
116.6 entire meal

***

Shawarma

1.5 cups lemon juice:
2 c olive oil
4 tsp kosher salt
2 Tbs, 2 tsp pepper
” cumin
1 Tbs red pepper flakes
1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbs minced garlic

2 tsp marinade (?): 5

onion slices: 1

(32 oz greek yogurt: 35 carbs
1/4 cup lemon juice
salt and pepper)
roma tomatoes: 6
cukes: 1/6 with skin, 2 carbs
kalamata olives: doesn’t want
black olives: 0
pita bread 1/2 small pocket: 19
33 for dinner (doesn’t want yogurt sauce)
9 ice pop
1 cup green grapes: 28
______
70 total meal

***
Spaghetti

sausage: .7 per link

spaghetti, 1 cup: 43
Reggano marinara Sauce, 1/2 cup: 13
cheese: 0
2 ice pops: 18
18 pretzels: 25
_______
99.7

***

Ham and cheese

??
I guess I didn’t write this down.

***

Tuna

potato bun: 25

1/2 c skipjack tuna in water: 2
mayo: 0
26 salt and vinegar chips: 26
mango: doesn’t want
1 cup oyster crackers: 44
97 total meal

What’s for supper? Vol. 126: In which I eat a lot and feel sorry for myself

Like the guy in the back of the horse costume, I’m always behind.

My food photos are mostly scattered to the four winds, sadly. Some are on the phone of my son, who is at a party. Some are being held hostage by my iPad. Some, I may have just dreamed. You’ll be glad to know the one of the glistening, tumescent sausage made it through.

Here’s what we had for supper this past week. Carb counts at the end (some of them, anyway).

SATURDAY
Hamburgers, chips

 

Oh yes, spring has finally come to the Fisher house, and the Fisher husband immediately started cooking outside. Delicious. The burgers were also very good.

SUNDAY
Gochujang pork, rice, sesame asparagus

 

My very dear and slightly crazy friend Kyra (YOU KNOW KYRA) sent me a completely marvelous package which included a ten-pound tub of gochujang. TEN. A ten-pound tub, of gochujang. And I’m not sure it’s going to be enough. 

 

Okay, that wasn’t even the most startling thing in the package, though. Smoked dried squid. Vegetable twists — “Lonely God” brand, of course. Pork . . . Floss? I don’t know what to do with pork floss. Help me out here!

 

Kyra and a bunch of friends also worked together to make the most amazing thing for Lucy. It’s a stainless steel-and-jasper chainmail medical alert bracelet. It has my cell phone number engraved on the back, and she loves it. I will share the pic as soon as my stupid iPad will talk to my computer. They’re currently angry about something.

 

My dad was over for dinner, and my brother and his five awesome kids and their nice little dog came over, too! We had a great time. It was the worst day of the cat’s life. He caught four mice in the next four days. I guess he thought we were holding job interviews for his replacement.

 

We christened the gochujang with pork and more cookout. In the morning, I mixed 1.5 cups of gochujang with 2/3 cup of honey, 4 Tbs sugar, 4 Tbs soy sauce, and a ton of minced garlic, and set a bunch of boneless pork ribs in it to marinate all day. We also did a big batch of pork ribs with just salt, pepper, and garlic powder for those not on team gochujang.

 

I made a bunch of white rice in the Instant Pot using the 1:1 method (all you have to do is rinse the rice thoroughly, then add one cup of water for each cup of rice, close the top, close the valve, and press “rice.” IP rice comes out nice and sticky).

 

For the asparagus, we doused it with olive oil and a little sesame oil, salt and pepper, and a lot of sesame seeds. I spread it in a shallow pan and put it under a hot broiler until it was a little charred. Tasty.

 

MONDAY
Oven shish kebob, corn on the cob, cherry tomatoes

 

I cut a boneless pork loin into cubes and mixed it up with chunks of green pepper, portobello mushroom cut in half, and red onion wedges, and dumped an entire bottle of Italian salad dressing over everything, then let it marinate for several hours.

 

At dinner, I spread everything out in some shallow pans and put them under a hot broiler until, you guessed it, it was a little charred.

 

I love this meal so much. It’s not as good as actual shish kebob, of course, but it’s so freaking easy, and people can pick out whatever they want. You can serve the food on toasted buns if you like, or just eat it plain. The kids call it “shishkombobulated,” but I don’t think that’s necessary.

 

We also had cherry tomatoes, mostly for the color, and the first corn on the cob of the season. Guys, if winter hadn’t stopped, I was gonna die. It was so awful this year.

 

TUESDAY
Hot dogs and surely some other things. Maybe beans? Carrots?
???
WEDNESDAY
Bangers and mash, peas

 

This is what it looked like, okay?

When I make a big batch of something, I keep track of all the carbs that go into it, then measure the whole thing, then divide it up and arrive at carbs per serving. I thought I’d be a smarty and make an individual portion of mashed potatoes, but it’s harder than you’d think to choose measurements of stuff you’ve always eyeballed before! I used one medium potato, 1/3 of a cup of milk, and 1 Tbs of butter, plus salt and pepper. It was pretty milky.

 

I don’t know if you’re supposed to have gravy or what, but we didn’t. Everyone got a heap of mashed potatoes and a couple of sweet Italian sausages, and some peas. I actually made this meal the day before, because we spent most of Wednesday at the pediatric endocrinologist. Then we were supposed to go to Diabetes Group for lunch, but instead we found a spot by the river and enjoyed not being with people.

You know, I spent most of Monday at the hospital myself. I think of myself as a healthy person, but when I look at all the different effing meds I’m on, I guess I’m not. I went to the ER on Monday because I could no longer ignore the increasingly severe chest pains I’d been having all week, plus disruptive dizzy spells and nausea. My heart looks okay, thanks be to God, but we don’t really know what is causing this nonsense, except possibly my migraine medication isn’t helping. I had high blood pressure, which is unusual for me, so I got a prescription for that. So, it’s a big ball of ugh and I am trying to just get on with life, but it’s a bit discouraging. This week sucked.

 

Yes, I have been eating less meat and salt and whatnot since then. I ran two miles today, and I had a salad for lunch!

 

THURSDAY
Nachos

 

I had a small amount of nachos.

FRIDAY
Ravioli

 

I had a small amount of ravioli. Look, I’m not on trial here! My heart looked fine!

 

Well, here’s the carbs, or some:

Bangers and mash

1 med potato: 37
1/3 cup milk – turned out to be too much: 4
1 Tbs butter: 0
sweet Italian sausage: 0

2/3 cup peas: 13

Nachos
Clancy’s White Round tortilla chips: 11 chips, 19 carbs
meat with Casa Mamita taco seasoning, 2 envelopes, 36 total
meat: 0
(2.39 lbs raw, 4.5 cups cooked. Seasoned meat is about 4.5 carbs per 1/2 cup)
salsa: 3 g for 2 Tbs
sour cream: 1 carb per Tbs
Happy Farms finely shredded taco style cheese: 1/4 cup, 1 carb
Lucy:
chips: 22 chips, 38 carbs
meat with seasoning: 4.5 carbs per 1/2 cup
sour cream: 2 Tbs, 2 carbs
popsicle: 10
apple: 15
70.5 carbs total Lucy meal
I guess we just did the rest of the carb calculations on the fly, because that’s all I have! Smell ya later!

What’s for supper? Vol. 125: Tuesday is the new Friday

Sorry for the delay! Last week was a week of great stupitude and everything is late. Here’s what we had. Carb counts at the end.

SATURDAY
Chicken quesadillas, tortilla chips, strawberries

I drizzled a bunch of chicken breasts with olive oil and dusted them thoroughly with salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder, then broiled them, let them cool a bit, and sliced them.

People could choose a combination of cheddar cheese, chicken, jalapeño slices, and chopped scallions for their quesadillas.

Served with sour cream and salsa, strawberries on the side. Lovely.

SUNDAY
Chicken sandwiches with bacon, green apple, and cheddar on sourdough; spicy fries

A very fine sandwich. My husband used olive oil, salt, and pepper and broiled the chicken, then cut it into thick slices. Each sandwich had chicken, a few pieces of crisp bacon, a slice or two of Granny Smith apple, and a thick slice of sharp cheddar, all on thick, toasted sourdough bread with honey mustard dressing. So good.

We had spicy fries, from frozen, on the side.

MONDAY
Ramen with pork and pickled vegetables

In the morning, I set some carrots and baby cucumbers pickling. I sliced the cukes into thin coins, and used a horizontal vegetable peeler to make wide ribbons of the carrots. I put them in a bowl with some white vinegar and a quarter cup or so of sugar. Pickled vegetables add a wonderful crunch and brightness to otherwise dull food.

Before dinner, I dusted some thick pork ribs with salt and pepper and sautéed them in olive oil. While they were cooing, I soft boiled a bunch of eggs, chopped scallions, and started some ramen cooking. Then I sliced the pork thin and served everything in separate bowls, along with sesame seeds, sriracha sesame seeds, wasabi sauce, and soy sauce.

And how delighted I am to be eating dinner while the sun is still up. HOW DELIGHTED.

TUESDAY
Stuffed shells, salad

Benny has been begging for lasagna, and I have a real mental block about making lasagna. I always end up like the Three Stooges in the one where they’re hanging wallpaper. So I made stuffed shells instead.

I cooked two 12-oz boxes of jumbo shells, and stuffed them with this filling:

2 32-oz tubs of ricotta cheese
8 oz. grated parmesan
4 beaten eggs
1 Tbs garlic powder
2 Tbs dried basil
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
3 cups of shredded mozzarella

I put sauce in the casserole dish, then put in the stuffed shells, then added more sauce and topped it with another cup of mozzarella cheese. I covered it and put it in a 350 oven for maybe 40 minutes. I forgot to eat that day, so I almost devoured my own hand in my haste to put stuffed shells inside my face. The kids who weren’t starving also thought they were quite good, too.

WEDNESDAY
Hamburgers, spicy roast cauliflower

I’m trying to serve chips less reflexively, so I tried cauliflower. Because I happen to like cauliflower, and not because I think it’s some kind of magical hylomorphic substance that can be browbeaten into becoming anything your carb-loving heart desires. Yes, I know that’s not what hylomorphic means. Don’t care. I just like cauliflower.

So I broke it into florets and mixed it up with olive oil, salt, pepper, tons of minced garlic, and some hot pepper flakes, and shoved the pan under a hot broiler until the cauliflower was a little charred. It was okay. I thought it would be exciting, but it was just kind of hot. I forgot to take a picture, but you can probably imagine.

THURSDAY
Pizza and birthday cake

A sleepover party with I don’t even know how many little nine-year-olds. Guess what? They were so much better behaved than the three high school kids who slept over the night before. Land.

This party was a pirate party. We’ve thrown a lot of parties, and my greatest tip is: Have a few bucks to spare so you can just run out and buy a bunch of crap right before the party. I spray painted a skull and crossbones on a plastic tablecloth and blew up balloons, and that was decorations.

I cut a watermelon into a pirate ship full of fruit salad, which is honest to goodness not that hard if you stay calm. Look at the little carrot cannons! The girls supplied little clay mermaids to lounge here and there.

You cut the melon in half lengthwise and slice the fruit in the bottom like a grid and scoop it out with a big spoon. Then scoop out the top rind and trim it into a few sail shapes, and put it together with wooden skewers for masts. I had to put some extra shell bits in the bottom to anchor the skewers. I also cut holes in the side for baby carrot cannons, and taped a little flag to the top. In other lifetime, I’ll go nuts with scrolling and scrimshaw and little flags and spars and rope ladders, but not this lifetime.

Then I made a treasure chest cake! Sort of!

It looks a little bit like a clam eating Oreos, but it also looks a little bit like a treasure chest, don’t you think?

I made a double recipe, and used about 1/4 of the batter to make a round base, which I frosted and then sprinkled with crushed graham cracker for sand (pirate sand). Then I poured the rest of the batter into a large loaf pan, to make the chest. When it was cool, I sliced the rounded top off for a lid, and frosted the bottom.

I used gold food grade spray (affiliate link!) to make gold coins out of Oreos. I have no idea why I didn’t use yellow Oreos, but I didn’t. (There were also gluten free cupcakes, and I topped them with GF chocolate chip cookies sprayed gold, to be gold nuggets, I guess.

Piratey! It took two cans of spray to cover all the cookies on both sides.) Then I arranged the coins on the bottom/chest part of the cake with a plastic necklace, put the top “lid” back on, and frosted that.

Then I added the trim.

If I had had more time, I would have mixed different shades of chocolate frosting together to make the chest look like wood, and I would have used chocolate chips for the rivets. Next time! I thought it turned out well, though, and the birthday girl was pleased.

The kids made their own pizzas. This is a great party activity, as it’s both project and meal.

Everyone had a red pirate head scarf ($1 each at Walmart) and an eye patch (which I bought in bulk here – affiliate link!). To make pirate scarves, fold the kerchief into a triangle. Lay it over the head, fold the two side corners in, tucking in the folds that makes, and tie a knot at the nape of the neck. Works best for kids without a cubic yard of curly hair.

They played “walk the plank” down by the stream. I don’t know what that entails, but everyone did come back.

FRIDAY
Blintzes and grits

Yep, that’s what we had. As befitted such a meal, I didn’t take any pictures.

***

So here’s the carb counts, more or less:

Chicken apple sandwiches:

Sourdough bread – 23 carbs per slice – 46 for sandwich
Chicken 0
Bacon 0
Honey Mustard dressing – 6 carb per 2 tablespoons
alternate:
Mustard – 0
Mayonnaise – 0

Spicy fries – 21 carbs per 14 fries
Ketchup – 10 carbs per two tablespoons
***

Chicken quesadillas:

Pueblo Lindo large burrito size tortilla: 34

Chicken with olive oil, cumin, pepper, salt, chili powder: negligible
Cheddar cheese: negligible
jalapenos: doesn’t want

scallions: doesn’t want

Clancy’s restaurant style tortilla chips: 14 chips, 38 carbs

salsa: doesn’t want
sour cream 2 Tbs: 2
4 medium-large strawberries: 4
orange cream bar: 17
___
total: 95
***

Pork ramen:

1 package Top Ramen, chicken flavor: 26
Pork cooked in olive oil and sesame oil: 0

soft boiled egg: 0
one 7″ carrot and 1 mini cuke, pickled in vinegar and sugar: 10
scallions: 1.1 per scallion
(sauteed mushrooms, 4 medium sliced: 2.4)
spinach: 1.1 per cup, raw
sesame seeds: .7 per teaspoon
(soy sauce: .8 per Tbs.)
sriracha sauce:

iced tea: 34 grams per two cups of Lipton lemonade/iced tea mix

***

Stuffed shells:

  • 2 32-oz tubs of ricotta cheese, approx 8 cups: 45 per container, 90 total recipe
  • 8 oz grated Parmesan cheese: 0
  • 4 eggs: 0
  • 1 Tbs garlic powder: 7
  • 2 Tbs dried basil: 4.2
  • 2 tsp salt: 0
    1 tsp pepper: negligible
    4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese: 16
  • Makes about 9 cups cheese filling: 117.2 total
    2 boxes of Jumbo Shells, 12 oz each: 246 per box,
  • carbs in six shells:
    41 g per six pasta shells
    Reggano marinara sauce, 1/2 cup (divided top and bottom): 13
    cheese filling, i cup: 13.02
    _______
    67.2 per six shells
salad made of iceberg, spinach, and greenleaf lettuce: 2 c, about 2 carbs
1 Tbs balsamic vinegar: 2.7
 
TOTAL MEAL: 71.9
***

Pizza and cake:

260 total ball of Portland Pie white dough

1/4 of a pizza:

65 carbs for 1/4 ball pizza dough
1/4 cup Hunts sauce: 5.5
1/2 cup shredded cheese: 2
72.5 for 1 mini pizza
cupcake:
1 of 12 Live GF yellow cake : 37
frosting:20
oreo: 866138.5 total meal
***

Blintz and grits:

blintz 13

grits, 3 Tbs: 29
apple: 15
granola bar: 19
milk, 2 cups: 24
—–
100

What’s for supper? Vol. 124: We put the bap in bibimbap

Another week under our belts, literally! Here’s what we had. At the end of the post, I’ll list the carb count for each meal, more or less.

SATURDAY
Bagel sandwiches with egg, cheese, and sausage

An easy, agreeable meal for yet another miserable, rainy, snowy, unreasonable day, which the menfolk spent climbing around on the roof to satisfy the insurance company.

SUNDAY
Bibimbap

Such a stupendous meal. The night before, I took a pork loin and cut it as thinly as I could, then set it to marinate with some prepared gochujang sauce. Sadly, I had no plain gochujang (which I have since rectified. Affiliate link!), so the flavor wasn’t as intense as I wanted. Then I browned up the meat in some olive oil while the rice was cooking.

I also set out the following dishes:

Sliced mushrooms sauteed in olive oil with soy sauce
Spinach sauteed in olive oil
Bean sprouts
Plain and sriracha-flavored sesame seeds
Wasabi sauce
Gochujan sauce
Soy sauce
Quick-pickled sliced carrots and mini cucumbers

I meant to add sesame oil to the sauteed foods, but I forgot.
Everyone put rice in their bowls and then added as many ingredients as they wanted, then reported to me for a fried egg on top.

To make the pickled vegetables, I sliced the mini cucumbers thin and used the wide slot of the vegetable grater to make carrot strips. (I need a food processor!) I covered them with white vinegar and stirred in about half a cup of sugar, covered it, and let it sit all day. I did this in the morning, and they were nice and zippy by dinnertime. The kids love these.

Bibimbap is just a giant bowl of savory wonderful happiness with little treats all through it.

Once you get down to the rice, you just keep adding more ingredients in different combinations. Or at least I do!

MONDAY
Beef barley soup, hot pretzels

This is one of the most frustrating parts about relearning how to cook while keeping track of carbs: I can’t eyeball stuff like soup anymore; and if I happen to have weird ingredients on hand, I’ll have to recalculate the carbs all over again next time. Oh well. In the old days, if someone had T1 diabetes, the only treatment available was to restrict calories, and sometimes people would die of starvation instead of diabetes. So boo hoo, I have to adjust my soup recipe.

Here’s the recipe I came up with:

Cover the bottom of the pot with olive oil and saute one diced red onion, 1 Tbs minced garlic, and two diced carrots.
When they begin to soften, add beef trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces (I think I had about 2.5 pounds).
When beef is browned, add 2 small cans of diced tomatoes with the juice, and 1 cup Shiraz, 5 cups of beef broth, and about twelve ounces of sliced mushrooms. 
If you’re cooking on the stovetop, add 1/2 a cup of uncooked barley and simmer for about 40 minutes. I was using my Instant Pot, so I added the barley, sealed it, opened the vent, and set it for “soup,” then let it just cook itself the rest of the day. Add salt and pepper before serving.
I added some water, too, but this turned out to make it thinner than I wanted. It made a little less than a gallon of soup.

We also had hot pretzels, which everyone likes. Benny and Corrie were in charge of the salt, and their general approach is WOOHOOOO!

TUESDAY
Hot dogs, beans, cheezy weezies

Nothing to report.

WEDNESDAY
Terrible tahini chicken, rice, pineapple

I was sorrrrrt of following a recipe from the NYT? I was so thrilled because it said it was everyone’s favorite chicken thighs, and it only had five ingredients, and you just put the sauce on the chicken and cook it! So easy! No gathering purselane by moonlight or using special hand-braided cooking twine to whip the meat into tenderness before slowly poaching it over a steaming sea sponge while a bowl of fertilized quail eggs looks on. Of course, they did describe it as having a “salty, fungal deliciousness,” but that did not deter me.

Well, I couldn’t find miso for sale. I did a quick inquiry in the supermarket and discovered that there’s no real substitute for miso, which is fermented soybean paste, but sometimes people use tahini, so that’s what I got. And it said to use plain rice vinegar, not seasoned rice vinegar, but I used seasoned rice vinegar anyway, because Sim Sifton’s not the boss of me. And salted butter instead of unsalted.

WELL, that chicken wasn’t very good. It sure wasn’t. It came out of the oven looking intriguingly like a tray of toasted marshmallow thighs

and they tasted like . . . hot mealy peanut butter? And mud. Not great. Luckily, the chicken itself has no carbs, so Lucy just scraped the crap off the top, ate the chicken, and made up the carbs with some waffles or something.

We had white rice and fresh pineapple on the side.

And now there’s a giant platter of rejected chicken hulking in the fridge making me feel bad.

THURSDAY
Cheese pizza

Did I mention that this week was spirit week? That’s when the school drums up energy and excitement by making parents make fourteen quick stops to Walmart, and the kids can go to school disappointed and angry and slightly loopy on pink hairspray fumes. There’s color day, dress-up or twin day (when you dress up as twins with someone else. One of the kids decided to dress up as Dipper from Gravity Falls, because he is a twin. We let it ride), crazy hair or hat day, favorite character day, and of course pajama day.

So Thursday was character day, and dear sweet Benny wanted to be Amelia Bedelia. Here she is:

So I’m making the pizzas, and we calculated that Lucy could have three pieces, which is a quarter of a large pizza. I thought it would be funny to let her have it in a big slab, rather than cutting it up; so I let everyone have a big slab. Same amount of pizza, of course, just not cut into individual slices. Lucy (here dressed as Tonks, sort of) thought this was moderately amusing:

Guess which kid was upset because she only got one piece of pizza instead of three? That’s right, the one dressed up as Amelia Bedelia. File under “things any halfwit could have anticipated.” We gave her extra pizza, and yes, I promised her a lemon meringue pie at some point, so she’ll keep me around.

FRIDAY
Sourdough grilled cheese, salad

Haven’t worked out the carbs yet. I’m stalling. We had a bit of a scare yesterday. A combination of too many sugary carbs without enough fiber and fat, a slightly weird meal schedule, and extra running around, and Lucy’s blood sugar kept dropping and dropping, even after she ate dinner. So, BOO DIABETES. Boo. Argh. We did finally get her stabilized, but it was scary. But we’ll figure it out.

And now for the carb counts!

Last week I posted before I had worked out the carbs for mac and cheese, but I have them now, so I’ll include them here.

If you’re using these recipes to work out your own carb-counting diet, please note that carb counts can vary by brand, especially in things like sauces, so caveat comendenti, or something. Most of the ingredients I use are from Aldi, FYI. Right now, Lucy’s dinner carb target is 95 grams. If she falls short, we make it up with odds and ends. If she goes over, we give her extra insulin. I try to make low carb dinners on weekends so she can have dessert without going too far over the target.

THE CARBS

Bagel, egg, cheese, sausage sandwiches:

L’Oven Fresh everything bagel: 52
fried egg: 0.6
butter: 0
Breakfast Best maple flavor sausage patty: 3
Happy Farms white American cheese singles, 1 slice: 2
total: 57.6 carbs

***

Bibimbap:

I didn’t work out the carbs for this whole meal, because Lucy only wanted rice, pickled veg, and an egg. Here are those numbers:

rice 1 cup cooked: 45 g
one carrot and one mini cuke, pickled in vinegar and sugar: 10 g (this was hard, because it was pickled with sugar, but how much actually got into the vegetables? I just had to take a guess)
egg: 0

***

Beef barley soup and hot pretzel:

olive oil: 0

medium red onion:11
1 Tbs minced garlic: 3
salt: 0
ground pepper, 1 tsp: 1.5
beef: 0
mushrooms 12 oz (about 20 small to medium mushrooms): 11
2 carrots, about 7 inches each: 12
beef broth: 5
1 cup Shiraz: 8
5 cups beef bouillon from Chef’s Cupboard cubes: 5
(3 cups water)
Happy Harvest diced tomatoes with juice, 29 oz (2 cans): 34
1/2 cup barley (uncooked): 74
Total: 159 carbs for about 14 cups of soup (almost one gallon)
11.36 carbs per cup of soup

Hot pretzels – Hannaford baked soft pretzels: 34 g each

***

Hot dogs, cheese puffs (she didn’t want beans)

2 hot dogs Classic Parkview brand: 8
2 Aldi buns: 46
2 Tbs ketchup: 10
Clancy’s cheese puffs: 1.5 cups: 17

Total: 81

***

Terrible tahini chicken:
tahini 1 cup: 64 carbs
chicken: 0
butter: 0
4 Tbs honey: 68 carbs
rice vinegar: 2 Tbs 10 grams
____
Total recipe: 142 for 16 chicken thighs
each thigh: 8.88
Rice: 37 carbs per cup
Doesn’t like pineapple
***
Homemade cheese pizza with garlic crust:1 20-oz. ball of garlic pizza dough, Portland Pie Company : 520
1/2 cup Reggano traditional pasta sauce: 13
Happy Farms shredded mozzarella, 3 cups: 12

Total 16 inch pizza: 545
12 pieces, each: 45.42
136.26 for three pieces (1/4 of a pizza)
Note: This is high for pizza, considering how small the slices are. Either the garlic-flavored crust is especially carby, or the sauce is, or maybe I made a mistake. I dunno. Normally, you can figure that a slice of pizza is about 35 carbs.

***

Instant Pot mac and cheese:

I used this recipe, scaled up (which made a ludicrous amount of food. I won’t do that again! Double at most), and added buttered bread crumbs.

3 lbs macaroni : 1008
Burman’s hot sauce: 0

6 Tbs butter: 0
3 Tbs mustard: 0
3 c milk: 39
1 lb Happy Farms pre-shredded mild cheddar: 16
24 oz Happy Farms aged New York sharp cheddar: 0
Total without breadcrumbs: 1063

Optional:

Hannaford Italian style bread crumbs: 1 cup, 80 g
butter: 0

Total with breadcrumbs: 1143