Category: What’s for Supper?

What’s for supper? Vol. 102: Barely soup

IT IS OCTOBER AND NOW WE CAN HAVE SOUP! I’m trying to pace myself, though. Just one per week. BUT OH BOY!

SATURDAY
Jalapeno chicken quesadillas, tortilla chips and salsa

I had tons of leftover chicken from last week, so I roughed it up a bit and added it to the cheddar quesadillas, along with some sliced jalapenos from a jar and some chopped scallions. Excellent, if a little difficult to flip intact. Jarred jalapenos are finding their way into more and more of our meals.

Also on Saturday, we harvested the last thing from our garden

and thanked the Lord of the harvest that we don’t have to survive on things we grow in our garden.

***

SUNDAY
Beef vegetable soup, pumpkin bread, caramel apples

This was supposed to be beef barley soup, but I lost my list

at the beginning of a 3.5-hour shopping trip involving five stores.

 

Guess what? I remembered every last damn thing on the list, except barley. So I threw some macaroni in the pot, instead, and it was fine.

This may be my favorite soup. First I sauteed up two diced carrots and a diced onion in olive oil, salt and pepper, then I added a few pounds of cubed flank steak and lightly browned it. A couple of cans of diced tomatoes with the juice, about a pound of sliced mushrooms, about eight cups of beef broth, a little water, and a bottle of hard cider (I usually use red wine, but I think the cider is even better), and let it simmer all day. I added the pasta twenty minutes before it was time to eat.

As I made the pumpkin bread, I thought happily to myself what a foolproof, reliable recipe it is, and how it never, ever comes out bad. So you know what happened next. It was flabby and dense, with a harsh, unpleasant taste.

I have no idea what I did. I think maybe the baking soda was too old, and . . . the pumpkin was cursed? I don’t know. I’ll make it again, because I’ve made it fifteen times before with great results. But I’m buying new baking soda first. Oh well.

The soup was so good, I ate it for lunch the rest of the week. Every time I reheated it, the macaroni got a little bigger. It was like an edible coming of age story.

After years of struggling with candy thermometers, I have discovered that those caramel wraps you can buy are so worth the money. The kids can make them almost unassisted, and there is no mess.

We put ours in the oven to soften up and then tried to press rainbow sprinkles in. That was probably the most labor intensive part, and they didn’t stick well. Next time, we’ll just leave them be.

***

MONDAY
Pulled pork, roast butternut squash, tater tots

Another excellent meal for fall weather (and also a good one to prep ahead, if you are going on a Girl Scout hike and coming home hungry from all that confidence-building).

I have a picture of this meal, but where? Well, pulled pork doesn’t look like much of anything anyway. The squash is so pretty, though.

I put a pork shoulder into the slow cooker with salt and pepper, a quartered onion, several cloves of garlic sliced, and a can of beer. Nice and easy.

I was feeling all cozy and nostalgic about the return of squash season, until I tried peeling the squash. Ten minutes later, I was out of breath, my arms were trembling, I had removed about three square inches of squash skin, and Corrie was looking at me anxiously, trying to figure out why I was so mad.

Happily, I found this cheat. You poke the skin with a fork, cut off the top and bottom, and microwave it for three minutes.  So easy! Then, it says, you “Delight at how easily the skin comes off.” That was the only part that didn’t work. I ended up cutting the squash into pieces and microwaving it several times. It became slightly easier to peel, but there was definitely no delight involved.

I eventually cubed the squash, mixed it with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and laid it on a shallow pan and roasted it at 400 for maybe 35-40 minutes. To me, the sweet, buttery taste of squash goes perfectly with pulled pork. To everyone else, there certainly was a lot of squash for Mama to eat.

(Dramatization)

***

TUESDAY
Frozen chicken, chips

We tried one of those bags of violently red, ludicrously spicy chicken things, plus a bag of some kind of batter fried honey chicken things. We ate them.

***

WEDNESDAY
French toast, sausage, grapes

That was for the kids. Damien and I went out to Applebee’s because did you know they have $1 margaritas all through October? Normally we avoid Applebee’s, because the food is shiny and limp, the service is indifferent, the music is worthless and way too loud, and the decor makes you feel like you’re inside a pinball machine. However: $1 margaritas. I had some kind of Asian shrimp and rice ladyfood vegetable nonsense, and Damien had a bacon burger, and we both had . . . kind of a lot of margaritas. Oh, we’ll be back.

(Reminder from a friend: If you send your waitress back and forth many times to fetch you lots of cheap margaritas, calculate your tip based on all that trotting, rather than on the artificially low bill.)

***

THURSDAY
Sausage spinach skillet

Almost good. It certainly is easy and cheap (recipe from Budget Bytes). It’s supposed to be a stand-alone dish, but I made fettucine to serve it over, because I can see into the future and I knew we’d need a back-up dish. My husband thought it would be better in some kind of garlicky sauce, possibly a light cream sauce. Maybe I’ll come back to it. Or maybe I’ll just sit on a mountain and watch my tail grow.

***

FRIDAY
Pizza

Birthday party! The theme is Clash of the Titans, so we’ll see how that goes. The one thing I know is if you invite a bunch of rail-thin teenage girls over for a party, there needs to be a lot of pizza. A lot.

***
Book illustration photos from Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel and The Funny Thing by Wanda Ga’g

What’s for supper? Vol. 100: Same as it ever was

Once, an single young man tried to persuade me that NFP was bad because you might not be able to have sex on Valentine’s Day. He had me there.

Along not-really-similar lines, here we are at this momentous occasion of my one hundredth “What’s for Supper?” post, and I’m just marking it by telling you what we had for supper. Hey, at least I know what day it is. I even put on this special potholder just for you.

SATURDAY
Grilled ham, apple, and cheddar sandwiches on sourdough bread; pickles; chips

It was so good last week, we had it again.

The pickles, sadly, were not Siberian this time.

***

SUNDAY
BBQ Korean pork ribs with rice and nori, roast broccoli, strawberries

I made a marinade with about 3/4 cup of gochujang, 1/3 cup of honey, 2 Tbs sugar, 2 Tbs soy sauce, and a bunch of minced garlic (which I’ve started buying in jars), mixed in some sliced onions, and let the meat sit and dream beautiful dreams about the future all day. Then my husband cooked the meat over the coals, and there was rejoicing.

I cut the broccoli into small pieces, mixed them up with olive oil, pepper, a little soy sauce, and sesame seeds, and put them in a shallow pan in a hot oven for twelve minutes or so, until it was a little blackened at the tips. Sesame oil is better, but I was out.

The rice was from the Instant Pot, using the 1:1 method. I prefer the Instant Pot if you want the rice a little sticky but are too cheap to spring for good rice. I ate as much pork as I could manage, then made a roll out of seaweed, rice, and the spicy onions. Hot damn.

***

MONDAY
Honey mustard chicken thighs with red potatoes and broccoli 

I actually didn’t have any honey left after the Korean pork (a worthy sacrifice), so I made sauce with a little maple syrup and brown sugar, plus dijon mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, and whatever, salt and pepper and garlic powder or something.

Probably I should have mixed the sauce with the potato wedges, then added the meat and seasoned it separately, and then added the broccoli near the end of the cooking, but I just tossed it all up together and put it in a greased pan and cooked it at 425 for about forty minutes. It turned out fine. The broccoli soaked up a lot of the sauce, which made it damp but tasty. Not bad at all.

I have a strong memory of taking pictures of this dish — the crisp chicken skin was especially pretty in the last dying light of afternoon — but I have no idea where they went.

***

TUESDAY
Egg-in-toast, grapes

So nice. Such a reassuring food. Use plenty of butter.

***

WEDNESDAY
Nachos

I says to my kids, I says, Someday you’re going to grow up and begin your own life and form new relationships, and then someone’s going to give you a tray of actual nachos, and you’re going to be very angry at me.

Just chips, ground beef, and pepper jack cheese. I bought sour cream, but it got pushed to the back of the fridge and froze. We had salsa, but it got pushed to the back of the fridge, and then it worked its way back up to the front, where it presented itself as fresh. IT WAS NOT. It was fermented. I spent the next three hours going “Phbbbbblehhh.”

***

THURSDAY
Spaghetti with sausage, salad

Just jarred sauce with hot sausage, peppers, and onions added in.

Everyone was hungry, so it went over well.

***

FRIDAY
Chicken shawarma and pita

It’s Friday, but it’s also CLARA’S BIRTHDAY! And when the birthday girl wants shawarma on Friday, she gets shawarma on Friday. She will also eventually get presents. Amazon Prime ain’t what it used to be.

Clara, however, will always be this:

in my head, anyway.

What’s for supper? Vol. 99! The best meal in town!

Not really. Do they have The 99 Restaurant and Pub where you live? Do I have a jingle stuck in my head that no one else remembers? I can’t recall if I’ve ever eaten a meal there, but I have definitely been there, and it did not feel like the kind of place at which the best meal in town could possibly be provided.

I just Googled “The 99 the” to see if the slogan in my head is still in current use, and here is what I got:

Now you know as much as I do.

***

SATURDAY
Grilled cheese with ham and apple on sourdough, chips, Siberian pickles

Got the idea from a Kraft ad on Facebook. Deli ham, cheddar cheese, and granny smith apples on sourdough bread, with lots of mayo spread on the outside before grilling. Really delicious (made by Damien). I seem to have lost the photo, though.

I don’t know if they were really specifically Siberian pickles, but my husband was visiting #1 daughter at college, and they popped into a Siberian market, as one does. He brought home pickles, pumpkin seeds, and . . . something. White, poofy balls, sort of like gritty meringue marshmallows. My cyrillic is not up to speed. I ate one and got a blinding headache, so I stuck with the pickles.

***

SUNDAY
Beef bourguignon, fresh bread

I’ve been hearing about beef bourguignon for years, and didn’t really know what it was. It turns out it’s . . . stew.

This is exactly how I make stew. I followed this Sur La Table recipe, designed for the Instant Pot, and served it over noodles, and baked three loaves of bread from readymade frozen dough.

It was good, and the meat was very tender, but not blow-your-face-off-amazing, as I’d been led to expect. And it did taste better than my regular stew, which kind of ticked me off.

I think it’s the same principle at work as when someone loses weight and feels more energetic, and their skin clears up, when they start eating acai berries or rubbing charcoal in their armpits or whatever stupid bullshit people are doing now.

It’s not that the thing itself is especially effective. It’s that once you’ve done some research and bought some products and committed to using it, you’re signalling to yourself that you’re worth the effort, and that makes you feel better, which triggers other good self-care habits. And those are what’s making you feel better, but you paid money for it, so you’re like, “Wow, this acai charcoal is changing my life!”

In this case, I was actually following a recipe for something with a French name, rather than just schlepping around my kitchen making some fwiggin’ stew; and that prompted me to take the trouble to slice the garlic thin and patiently brown each piece of meat, or whatever. So it tasted better than stew. Whatever.

We had chocolate pudding with cool whip for dessert. I was planning to make tiny, individual pie shells by cutting flower shapes out of pie crust and folding up the petals before baking, but I forgot I had to write a thing, so I ran out of time. No one complained about pudding that wasn’t in piecrust flowers. I heroically didn’t have any dessert, but then I ate the leftover cool whip for lunch the next day. I did use a spoon, even though no one was watching.

***

MONDAY
Hamburgers, broccoli

That’s what it says. I have no memory of Monday. Oh wait, here’s a picture:

I do remember! It tasted so good, because we went running in the dark, and then Damien cooked me a burger and made it all gloppy with ketchup and mustard, just the way I like it. It was good.

***

TUESDAY
Hot dogs, hot pretzels, grapes

We had fixings left over from our Hot Dogs O’ Many Nations buffet, so I really had to buy more hot dogs. I had a buffalo dog with bleu cheese, scallions, and buffalo sauce. It did not disappoint.

***

WEDNESDAY
Kids had pork ramen, we went running and then went to Chili’s

I haven’t adjusted to having two fewer teenagers in the house yet, so I bought way too many pork ribs last week, and then sliced up the leftovers and froze them. On Wednesday, I heated the meat up in a little water while the ramen was cooking. Cooked up some frozen spinach and boiled a bunch of eggs, and put it all on the table in separate bowls with sesame seeds and crunchy chow mein noodles, which were the most expensive part of this meal.

Because my special gift is ordering food a restaurant doesn’t specialize in, I had Chili’s unfamous clam chowder and fresca salad, plus about eleven cubic yards of those hot, thin, salty, greasy tostada chips, and a couple of margaritas.

***

THURSDAY
Meatball subs, watermelon

I used about five pounds of beef and a pound of ground turkey, six eggs, three or four cups of breadcrumbs, and whatever seasonings were in the front of the Clementine box. I put the meatballs on a double pan with drainage and put them in a 450 oven for probably 25 minutes, then moved them to a baking pan with tomato sauce to warm them up before supper.

I hope this is the last watermelon of the year. The kids insisted on buying it, but it makes me sad because you can’t find watermelons with seeds anymore. I like watermelon, but it’s so sad that it doesn’t have seeds.

Probably I should note that on my chart. “CD 26: Fatigue; irritability; food cravings; thinks it’s sad that watermelons don’t have seeds anymore.”

***

FRIDAY
The ever longed-for tuna noodle casserole.

Tuna fish, cream of mushroom soup, and egg noodles, topped with crushed potato chips and corn flakes, drizzled with a sauce of ketchup, mayo, and vinegar. If you didn’t grow up eating it, you’ll never enjoy it. If you grew up eating it, it will make you feel five years old again, in a good way.

***

Guess what? I just remembered it’s actually “The 99! The best deal in town!” not the best meal in town. That explains a thing or two.

What’s for supper? Vol. 98: Sometimes a hot dog is more than a hot dog

Well, let’s see.

SATURDAY
Spaghetti carbonara, caprese salad

A lovely meal that comes together very quickly. For our newly shrunken family, I used a scant two pounds of pasta and two pounds of bacon, which turned out to be almost enough. I followed this simple carbonara recipe from that noted Italian chef, Fannie Farmer.

For the caprese salad, we visited our squalid little garden and got the last of the basil and the few tomatoes that the woodchuck missed, and supplemented it with supermarket tomatoes. Package of mozzarella pearls, some olive oil and vinegar, some freshly-ground salt and pepper.

So yummy, and easy enough that you can shout some vague directions toward your lovely daughter as you fry the bacon, and she throws together a lovely dish with no trouble.

***

SUNDAY
Deconstructed shish kebab, corn on the cob

On Sunday, we had a sudden break in the dark, rainy, oppressive weather. The sun came out, the water sparkled, a fresh breeze came up, and we headed to the beach for one last happy wallow, bringing strawberries, grapes, and the traditional Giant Bag of Candy with us.

Before we left, I cut up a bone-in pork shoulder(?) into chunks and set it to marinate. I wanted to use the spiedie marinade in the NYT, but I guess I looked up that recipe too many times, and it’s now behind a paywall for me. (I know you can clear cookies or switch browsers, but that feels stealy.) So I put together lemon juice, white wine, wine vinegar, oregano, minced garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and dried basil. Pretty darn close.

When we got home, I cut up peppers, red onions, and mushrooms, mixed them with the pork, and spread it out in my two giant sheet pans [Amazon affiliate link]. I set the oven to broil, and when the first pan was a little charred, I took it out and moved the other one up.

So juicy and delicious. We ate it on potato rolls.

I also boiled up some corn, just plain old, good, good-bye-summer corn.

***

MONDAY
Hot Dogs of Many Nations, chips, root beer floats

My father came over and we played stinky pinkies until we couldn’t stand it anymore. For supper, I got a bunch of natural casing hot dogs and a bunch of Hebrew National Hot Dogs. It was raining again, so we skipped the outdoor grill, but laid out every kind of hot dog topping that seemed good.

We had ketchup, yellow mustard, Dijon mustard, sauerkraut, chili, pickle relish, chopped onions, buffalo sauce, bleu cheese, chopped scallions, pickled peppers, pickles, tomatoes, cheese sauce, and a cute little bulbous jar of onion chutney. I didn’t really know what chutney was. It turns out it’s some kind of purple nightmare jelly. I still don’t know what it’s for, except not for hot dogs.

My two favorite combos: The Chicago hot dog (“dragged through the garden), which is topped with chopped onion, pickle relish, pickled peppers, tomatoes, a dill pickle, mustard, and celery salt:

and even better, the buffalo dog, which has bleu cheese, scallions, and buffalo sauce:

This is a really swell combination. Makes the hot dog worth eating. I think we have a new Labor Day tradition, and it’s not very laborious.

***

TUESDAY
English muffin pizzas

Nothing to report.

***

WEDNESDAY
Oven roasted pork ribs, roast potatoes, cole slaw

The only interesting thing to report is that a bag of shredded cabbage mixed with carrot is sometimes cheaper than a whole cabbage. What a world.

***

THURSDAY
Chicken breast and salad

By 5:00, my life force was hanging down around my ankles like a pair of decrepit underwear. I had a package of chicken and several bags of greens. The greens went in a bowl; the chicken went on a pan, and then, o my friends, I sprayed it with butter-flavored cooking spray. With my last scrap of integrity, I flung some salt and pepper in its general direction and nudged it toward the oven with my foot. We also had cheez puffs.

***

FRIDAY
Giant chocolate pancake!

In which our heroine pours an entire box of pancake mix into a bowl, adds enough water to make it spreadable, stirs in a bag of chocolate chips, butters a pan, dumps in the batter, and chucks it in a medium oven. We are ditching the school BBQ today because Mama Can’t, so maybe I will take the critters out for ice cream instead.

***

Well, I notice that we are nearing VOLUME 100 of this What’s for Supper feature. How should I celebrate? As you may know, I am open to ideas of every kind, including and even giving pride of place to stupid ideas.

What’s for supper? Vol. 96: Tearwater tea

This week was what we call a “dramatic airport.”

(Sorry about the weird framing. I guess it’s to get around copyright?) Anyway, this week, two kids packed and left for college for the first time. High school started, the the other school starts next week; Benny starts kindergarten; and I’ll be home with one child for the first time in eighteen years. In addition to pretty much the whole world leaving, there’s a bunch of serious trouble and turmoil with folks I love. And this is the short version! It has been a hard week, and we would appreciate prayers! Thank you.

Happily, you can always count on food. Here’s what we had this week:

SATURDAY
Lasagna, challah, salad, cake

And I didn’t cook any of it! It was a family reunion and goodbye party for my niece Mary, who is entering a cloistered convent.
My parents have forty-two grandchildren, most of whom are pictured here:

along with two great-grandchild, one not born yet. Here is my father with all of his children:

My mother, who has Alzheimer’s, is no longer able to go to events like this. She would have loved it.

***

SUNDAY
Grilled hamburgers and bratwurst

The eight girls and I had a “spa day” at home.

Me: “. . So it will be a special afternoon just for girls! Maybe we can watch a girly movie for once.”
Benny: “LIKE THE TEMPLE OF DOOM????”

Well, sure. We also dragged in nail polish, make up, facial masks, and fancy snacks and drinks, plus some intergenerational compromise music, which turned out to be Graceland.

It turns out that cold cucumbers are super hard to keep on your eyes

unless you just camp out on the floor

and that weird sensation of pulling off a dried facial mask is an acquired taste

Corrie’s piggies look good in any color

and Dora had a roomful of jewelry looking for a new home

Corrie may or may not have a future as an aesthetician

and girly stuff is actually completely exhausting.

I also discovered that, while I’ve loosened up enough to let my little girls try on makeup at home, I am not loose enough to share pictures of them on the internet.

My husband and the boys went to the laundromat, went bowling, and picked up supper, which involved meat, charcoal, and magic. I had a dream someone was trying to tell me how handsome he is, and I was like YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TELL ME.

***

MONDAY
Steak, baked potatoes, veggies and dip

Last day with my second-oldest daughter home. My husband, who is the only one qualified to handle steak, had tons of delays at work, so I was reduced to cooking them under the broiler and topping them with fried onions. We had baked potatoes with the requisite sour cream and bits of bacon flavored whathaveyou, and ice cream.

It was good, but it did not make up for my second-oldest daughter leaving. It really didn’t.

***

TUESDAY
Chicken burgers, chips, strawberries, watermelon

Last beach day of the year. (Okay, maybe not, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a “closed” sign on nature and on happiness in general.)

***

WEDNESDAY
Korean beef bowl, white rice, watermelon and grapes

Last day with my oldest daughter home. It’s a good recipe, but not good enough to make up for my oldest daughter leaving. It really isn’t.

***

THURSDAY
Penne with sausage and creamy tomato sauce, garlic bread, salad

A new recipe for the Instant Pot (affiliate link) from a very thorough Instant Pot recipe site called Paint the Kitchen Red. Turned out quite tasty.

 

I only doubled the recipe, and it was enough for our suddenly tiny family of ten. You guys.

***

FRIDAY
Waffles with whipped cream, scrambled eggs

I bought too much cream for the previous recipe, so we’ll whip it up for waffles. And maybe have some tea.

What’s for supper? Vol. 95: Life in the fast lane!

Oh, hello! I didn’t see you there. My name is Simcha Fisher, and you may remember me as that lady who used to blog occasionally, a long time ago. This week, more urgent things came up than I could shake a stick at, and so blogging here just had to go shake a stick at itself. Sorry! Back in the saddle we go. Right after I set up this rock tumbler it seemed important to buy and set up. What is the matter with me.

SATURDAY
Papa Gino’s

On Saturday, we went to the fabulous, thrilling amusement park/water park and stayed for ten hours! We had such a good time, I took almost no pictures! This is the first time we’ve gone to a place like this all together. The kids went on the upside-down roller coaster and everything. I confined myself to rides that were only a little terrifying, like the log flume. My absolute favorite: DaVinci’s Dream, which is like a giant rotating mushroom with swings on long chains, so when it comes up to speed and starts to tilt, you float through the night like a, like a, night air manta ray. It does something mystical to my brain pan.

Seeing the little girls on the carousel, on the other hand, makes my heart explode.

Boy, did they have a good time.

For dinner, we dragged ourselves into a Papa Gino’s right before they closed and devoured some pizzas on the way home.

Very hot pizza. I’ll say it again: Papa Gino’s pizza is better than you have any reason to expect. They are a Pepsi, not a Coke establishment, though. Forewarned is forearmed.

Anyway, if you’re in NH, I heartily recommend Canobie Lake Park. It’s reasonably priced, you can come and go so you can eat lunch outside the park, and there is a huge variety of rides, and everything was very clean and orderly. The layout was very smart, so you never get stuck in dead patches with nothing to do. They had live music (nice music! Not horrible music!) and little shows and attractions everywhere, and weren’t constantly haranguing you to pay for extra stuff; and there were fireworks over the lake at the end of the night. There are tons of benches and shade trees throughout the park, and the whole thing is just as pleasant as can be.

***

SUNDAY
Blueberry chicken salad

Probably the last one of the summer. I roasted some chicken breasts with oil, salt, and pepper, and cut it into chunks. Served on top of mixed greens with feta cheese, blueberries, red onion, toasted pecans, and dijon vinaigrette (recipe here).

I chopped the greens up small so as to make it taste fancier, but it just kind of pre-wilted everything. Oops.

***

MONDAY
Scrambled eggs, sausages, oven roasted home fries

Three dozen eggs, fifty sausages, and about six pounds of potatoes, if you’re interested. The Amazing Elongated 13-year-old Boy still made himself a few sandwiches after supper, as usual. He actually makes two sandwiches, one for each hand, and somehow eats them both at the same time. I’ve seen it happen and I still can’t believe it.

***

TUESDAY
Honey sesame chicken, rice rolls

I had high hopes for this slow cooker recipe from Damn Delicious, but it was damn disappointing. The flavor was kind of harsh, and it turned out drippy. I also made the mistake of serving it with crunchy rice rolls from Aldi, too, instead of on a bed of rice. Everyone was a pretty good sport, but lots of people were making sandwiches.

***

WEDNESDAY
English muffin pizzas

I have no memory of Wednesday. It’s like there has to be one day out of each week that just gets sucked down a memory hole, as a propitiation to Hectic and Frantic, the twin gods of late August.

***

THURSDAY
Pork ribs, french fries, peas

Some cousins magically appeared, so I ran out for more pork ribs and french fries, and then somehow burned all the pork and undercooked the fries. The peas were a hit, though. By which I mean they hit each other with peas.

***

FRIDAY
Quesadillas, corn chips, beans and rice

Or maybe not, because one of the cousins just threw up! And our really quite new washing machine, for which we bought a warranty and an extended warranty, has been broken for almost two weeks. They are apparently now mining for the ore with which to fashion a new lid lock, which we told them it needed over a week ago and which we can expect to arrive sometime next week. But don’t worry, they will partially reimburse us for laundromat expenses! If we can produce receipts. You know, the receipt you get when you put a bunch of quarters into a washing machine. And we’re going to Rhode Island for a family reunion tomorrow, and I cleverly left all the carseats out in the driveway, and it poured rain last night. SO MAKE YOUR OWN QUESADILLAS.

What’s for supper? Vol. 94: Meat the rainbow!

Sorry this post is so long. I just can’t seem to stop talking.

Quick question: Do the photos load up more slowly or look different from usual? I’m trying a slightly different thing. Let me know!

On to the food.

SATURDAY
Birthday party!

It was a beach party, so of course the day started with thunder and downpours. But it cleared up! The rain just chased all the cowards away, so we had the place to ourselves by party time.

It was sort of a Moana party, so we cleaned out the last of the luau decorations and leis from the dollar store. The cake was the Heart of Te Fiti:

Ehh, close enough. If we needed it to restore the life to our island, I would have looked harder for the green sugar.

I tried Wilton food color spray (affiliate link, certified Kosher, not for sale in Catalina Island. Now you know) for the first time. I was terrified of making it like amateurish graffiti, so I didn’t use enough. Will probably try this stuff again if I need to do a sunset cake or an underwater effect. It smelled like chicken noodle soup, though.

I honestly can’t remember what we had for supper. Maybe burgers.

***

SUNDAY
Kids had hot dogs, chips, strawberries and blueberries; we had steak

What happened, see, was we are planning to take the kids to a giant water-and-amusement park this weekend, so we felt okay skipping the county fair this year. But then I had a sudden thought. What if we just went ourselves? 

We do have happy times at the fair, but it’s so exhausting and stressful with a crowd of kids. Without them, there would be no bracelets that cost a million dollars, no emotional agony as one kid sorely regrets squandering his One Food Treat on fried dough instead of cotton candy, no sunburned babies, no panic when kids wander away to check out the goats, no grousing, no exhausted toddlers, no “sorry, you’re still not tall enough to ride this ride,” no throwing up, no dehydration, etc.

None of this:

Just fun! Fun fun fun!

So off we went, and . . . very quickly ran out of things to do. I got some fried pickles. We pretended to consider buying a piglet. We went on the Tilt-a-Whirl, and that was nice, but then Pharaoh’s Fury was horrible. HORRIBLE. Just plain scary, with no delightful terror or exquisite tingle of fear. We just both felt like we were going to die the whole time, which we were, and it went on and on and on as death whistled past our ears and everything familiar and safe careened far, far away. When it was finally over, we staggered over to a bench and just sat there wobbling for a while. Then we gave our tickets to some kid and went to Chili’s.

***

MONDAY
Cilantro lime chicken, rice

A new-to-me recipe from Damn Delicious. It’s supposed to be for the slow cooker, but Fisher quantities didn’t fit in one Crock Pot, and I feel like the Instant Pot slow cooker isn’t hot enough.

I took a “before” picture because it was so pretty, and I wasn’t sure what it would look like cooked:

So I started it out in the IP for a few hours, then put it on high pressure manual for five minutes. I added a little water, because I wasn’t sure if there was enough liquid for the IP, but it would have been better without; it was a little soupy. I shredded the chicken easily with a fork and served it over white rice or wrapped in tortillas.

It was a good combination of flavors and textures, subject to lots of variation. Will definitely make again. Damn Delicious bills this as a make-ahead freezer meal, because you just prep everything and then throw it into the pot all together, and that’s it.

I know it’s tiresome, but it really is true that fresh ingredients make food so much better. Some days I feel very bitter about going to the trouble of those extra steps (usually because I forgot to buy the quickie version), but I’m always glad I did it when it’s time to eat. Fresh lime juice, fresh cilantro, fresh garlic, yaaas. I did use frozen corn, and it was snappy and flavorful.

***

TUESDAY
Deconstructed pork shish kabob, watermelon

Bone-in pork picnic was super cheap, so I bought two, for maybe seven pounds total. I cut the meat off the bone, trimmed the fat, and cubed it, then mixed it up with four sweet peppers, about 16 ounces of halved mushrooms, two red onions, and a few cups of marinade. All the food was cut to the size you’d want for threading it on a skewer.

The marinade: olive oil, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, minced garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, red pepper flakes.

I didn’t have time to let it marinate, but just spread it in a single layer on my two giant sheet pans (which I continue to love. We’ve put them through their paces and they have not warped a bit)

and put them under a hot broiler (one pan at a time, so they could get direct heat) until it was blackened.

Everyone loved it. It wasn’t quite the same as food cooked on the grill, because what is? But it was still delicious.

Definitely making this again. You could easily use bottled Italian dressing for the marinade. Although [irritating ticking noise made with my cheek] fresh ingredients, ya know.

***

WEDNESDAY
Kids had fish tacos, we had Chinese

Our plan was to ditch the kids again (because it’s summer! Adults should have fun in summer, too!) and I’d meet my husband at his office an hour away, and we’d have Indian take-out on a blanket for an outdoor Bollywood movie.

But I had only cleared half my schedule, and realized I’d be a country mouse fighting rush-hour traffic in the city, and then we’d have to go home in separate cars at the end of the night. Too much like dorm life with curfews! So we ditched the kids anyway, and he taught me how to drive stick shift in a parking lot. Our last stick shift lesson was almost twenty years ago. This one went better than the last time, in the same way that . . . well, you’ll just have to supply your own joke about something that was a miserable disaster the first time, but then was fine the second time. Then we got Chinese food (I had hot and sour soup, a dragon roll, and a silly drink called a Fog Cutter) and a little walk and a little drive in the dark. I do love that man.

And I love having kids who can put together a meal at home! They cooked, ate, cleaned up, changed the baby, and organized tooth brushing before we got back. IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU. All you need is five teenagers.

***

THURSDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, hot pretzels

I was completely wiped out by dinner time, so I asked the kids to deal with it. It seems I forgot to buy extra bread for sandwiches, so dinner was on the feeble side. Oh, well. We were supposed to have string beans from the garden, but nobody felt like picking them except for the really incompetent ones.

***

FRIDAY
I think spaghetti.

***
And it’s time to start thinking about last hurrah of summer meals! Or maybe special eclipse meals. Or Perseid meals. Whatcha got?

What’s for supper? Vol. 93: Bei mir bist du shwarm

In which I cook and complain my way through another week. Join me, won’t you?

SATURDAY
Hamburgers, chips

Saturday seems like so long ago, and yet the week flew by. Good thing I wrote down meals so there’s some evidence the week even existed.

Speaking of which, have I told you lately how much it helps to have a meal plan blackboard? I’m not the super organized type [the universe chuckles mirthlessly, choking back a sob of agreement], but I lurve my blackboard menu. I have one similar to this one hanging in my kitchen. Some days, there is no more wonderful feeling than lifting up your eyes and seeing right there in black and white what you’re supposed to be doing. One damn thing settled, anyway.

***

SUNDAY
Chicken shawarma, grilled baby eggplant

This meal never fails. We usually use this recipe from the New York Times and cook boneless, skinless chicken thighs in the oven. (Note: If you want to save a NYT recipe, copy it for your records now! You only get a certain number of free views, and you’ll definitely want to return to this one repeatedly.) I set the meat marinating, and then we went to the beach, where the water is clear as clear can be, the salamanders are plentiful, and everything is nice.

It’s a pond at the peak of a series of hills, so I suppose the water is all fresh and new.

This time, for the shawarma, we used the same marinade but cooked bone-in thighs with skin on the grill. The marinade didn’t permeate the meat as much as it does when it’s skinless, of course, but it was a reasonable trade-off, as the skin was fabulous.

We also cooked up the red onions from the marinade.

We may have told the kids to go sit down for dinner and then stood out by the grill sopping up marinade with pita bread for a good ten minutes while the chicken “finished cooking.”

We served it with pita bread, four kinds of olives, feta cheese, cucumbers, a variety of tomatoes, and yogurt quivering with crushed garlic, lemon juice, and fresh parsley.

This is one of those meals where, if you were an ancient Roman elite guy and you were rich and happy and well-respected and you just ate the shawarma, you’d start to think about warm baths and sharp blades, because it’s all downhill from here.

I am fun!

We had these cute little baby eggplants. It says on the internet that baby eggplant skin is tender enough to eat, but it kind of wasn’t. We sliced it pretty thick (the long way, so it wouldn’t fall through the grill. We need one of those veg basket things), then brushed it with olive oil and sprinkled on salt and pepper, and put them on the grill.

Not bad, not ravishing. Looking at the eggplants, that was ravishing.

Impudent strumpets.

***

MONDAY
Chicken nuggets, broccoli

I chose an easy dinner because Monday night was ANNUAL OPERA AND FANCY SNACK NITE!! Last summer, we showed the kids Don Giovanni, which we all, even the illiterate ones, enjoyed immensely. I really wanted them to see The Marriage of Figaro, but it seemed like we should watch The Barber of Seville First. We set up a free trial of Met Opera On Demand. I dunno, I almost fell asleep. Rosina could go suck an egg. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for a bunch of people fussing over letters. Anyway, we assembled fancy crackers and an assortment of cheeses (brie, sharp cheddar, some kind of herbed gouda or something, and some honey goat cheese), mini eclairs, rolled chocolate wafers, and cherries and strawberries. This is where Aldi really shines.

Look how cultured:

The kids enjoyed the opera more than I did, so that was a win. But I want to watch The Marriage of Figaro next! Or Carmen. I’ve never seen Carmen.

***

TUESDAY
Pizza

Tuesday escapes me. I imagine we were running around.

***

WEDNESDAY
Chicken pesto pasta salad

I had high hopes for enchiladas on Wednesday, so I started some pork in the slow cooker with a can of Coke, half a jar of jalapenos, about six cloves of minced garlic, a chopped onion, salt, pepper, and maybe some chili powder. It cooked allllll day and smelled better and better and better, but then I had to go run 2.3 miles, do some writing, do an interview for SiriusXM radio, drive some kids to work and appointments, finish writing in the library, go home, and drag a washing machine, a TV, and a bunch of demolished cabinets to the dump (and got some dump mugs!), and then I realized I had promised to take four kids out for haircuts. So there was No Time For Enchiladas.

Instead, I poached about five chicken breasts, then cubed them and mixed the chicken up with bowtie pasta, olive oil, chopped fresh basil, minced garlic, a ton of parmesan cheese, salt and pepper, and some jarred pesto sauce just to help it along, because we all need a little help.

Tasted more interesting than it looks. Oh, pesto, you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind.

***

THURSDAY
Pork enchiladas, chips and salsa

All Thursday, the spicy pork howled and clamored from the fridge to be brought forth into new life as enchiladas, and it would not be denied. So fine, I dragged out the meat and shredded it onto a shallow pan, then browned it up until it was a little crisp under the broiler.

I more or less followed Pioneer Woman’s instructions for enchiladas, dipping both sides of the tortillas in warm sauce, then rolling them up with meat, cheese, and onions, and topping them with more sauce, cheese, green onions, chili powder, and tomatoes. I made some with red enchilada sauce and some with green, and served it with sour cream. Probably the green onions would have been better added after the enchiladas cooked, ooops. They were still divine.

A little gummy on the ends, but who isn’t?

***

FRIDAY
Mac and cheese

I’ll probably use this Instant Pot recipe for mac and cheese from Copy Kat recipes. It’s not anyone’s favorite, but it’s so very easy.

I’ll tell you what, I worked too freaking hard this week, and I am pigzausted. That’s like exhausted, but pig. So much running around, so many appointments and shows and concerts and trips and extra jobs and trotting back and forth and back and forth like a wind-up toy. I think I’ll declare next week lump it or leave it week. Frozen burritos all around, and keep ’em coming.

What’s for supper? Vol. 92: Never trust a man who skimps on garlic

Time’s a-wastin. Here’s what we had this week:

SATURDAY
Apple chicken pecan salad

A fine summer meal. I mixed up the chicken with bottled Italian dressing, then broiled it and sliced it. I served the warm chicken over salad greens along with diced green apples, bleu cheese, dried cranberries and toasted pecans.

I bought a bottle of raspberry vinaigrette. I love the combination of the tart apple and sour creese with the sweet cranberries and dressing.

Always toast your pecans! It makes the texture so much more pleasing, and brings out the flavor so much. Just run them into a medium oven in a shallow pan for 8-10 minutes, until the color darkens. So worth it.

***

SUNDAY
Garlic chicken thighs, bread, asparagus

I was agonizing over an essay about Pope Francis for an upcoming book, so I abandoned Damien with some trays of chicken thighs and two bags of asparagus. He proceeded to drive me insane with the aromas of paradise (namely, roasted garlic) as he prepared Roasted Garlic Clove Chicken from Food Network. He even sent me tantalizing pictures to distract me from my work:

Never trust a man who skimps on garlic.

The chicken was very good, the garlic was scrumptious, but the sauce was out of this world.

The bread was essential in that it stopped me from putting my face in the plate and doing unspeakable things with that sauce. Just remarkable. I’m definitely going to permit him to make this for us again.

***

MONDAY
Hot dogs, beans, chips

I have no memory of Monday.

***

TUESDAY
BBQ Korean pork ribs, mangoes, pasta

Another splendid meal. We spent the afternoon clambering about in a deep, romantic chasm of a local gorge. Gorges are my favorite kind of landscape. They have everything you need. I forgot to take pictures, though.

I had a bunch of country style pork ribs, so I mixed them up with gochujang, honey, sugar, soy sauce, onions, and fresh garlic (I found a spare head quaking in fear behind a bottle of corn syrup. It alone was spared in the great Garlic Massacre of Husband Cooking), and let them marinate most of the day. My husband cooked them up on the grill in the evening. Superb. The best possible meal for hungry gorge-clamberers.

We were supposed to have rice on the side, but we had run out, so I cooked up a bunch of plain noodles, thinking half the kids wouldn’t want spicy Korean pork anyway. The little creeps gobbled that meat up! I do remember wishing they would develop more sophisticated palates, but on the other hand, they are now eating all my spicy Korean pork. They ate the noodles, too.

We also had sliced mango, which was a wonderful, cooling side dish for the pork.

***

WEDNESDAY
Fish tacos, chips

The kids were excited about this meal, because then they could go, “Mmm, fish dinner!” in a creepy voice for a reason for once. I was a bit disappointed because I forgot so many of the ingredients, and plus the cabbage turned out to be a head of lettuce. A lot of guys were shouting stuff.

***

THURSDAY
Spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, salad

My sister and her kids came for a visit, hooray! We took ten pounds of ground beef and two pounds of ground turkey (you know, for our health), a dozen eggs, breadcrumbs and seasoning and  . . . well, then I left the house, and my oldest daughter magically transformed it into untold meatballs. I can’t believe she didn’t count them, but here is a blurry picture, pre-cooking:

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I need to again empower you to free yourself from the tyranny of individually-fried meatballs. Put them in a hot oven on shallow pans on something that allows the fat to drain, and there you are.

***

FRIDAY
French toast

So let it be written; so let it be done.

I asked on Facebook for ideas for chicken thighs, and got tons of them, including the one Damien made on Sunday. Anyone interested in a separate post with just yummy-looking recipes for chicken thighs?

What’s for supper? Vol. 91: In which Aldi dreams of me

No, literally. The cashier at Aldi had a dream about me. (I turn up there three times a week, each time with a different child, and I fill two carts on Saturdays.) This is what happens when you come to Represent Something to strangers. I told her I would try to behave myself next time I haunted her subconscious, and then I gathered up my cut rate hummus and sauntered away. Then I came back to get my quarter.

SATURDAY
Muffaletta sandwiches, fries

Muffaletta sandwiches are something I’ve wanted to try forever. And very good they were, muffaletta sandwiches! I guess this sandwich originates from the Italian quarter of New Orleans or something (how many quarters does that place have, anyway), and “muffaletta” can refer either to the special bread, or to the sandwich itself.

Our version was made of ciabatta rolls with olive salad, sweet capicola, prosciutto, ham, and provolone. The olive salad was made of a jar each of green and black olives, about a quarter of a cup of capers, and a jar of giardiniera salad (pickled carrots, hot peppers, cauliflower, and little onions), drained and chopped up together.

I wish I had gotten a pic of just the olive salad, because it was awfully festive-looking.

You’re supposed to toast the bread, or wrap the sandwich in foil and bake the whole thing, but we were starving, so we just wolfed it down.

It was a little pricey because I went to an Actual Deli for the meat, but a nice treat. I also think recipe pages are a little bit insane when they show how much meat goes on a sandwich. It’s always, like, seven-and-a-half solid inches of ham, and then you start in with the cheese. I like sandwiches, but I like having the use of my legs after dinner, too.

***

SUNDAY
Lasagna, garlic bread, salad, ice cream cake

Birthday! Our newest ten-year-old requested meatless lasagna.  Lasagna is my least favorite thing to make. It’s just such a pain in the neck, and I burn my fingers and wreck the whole kitchen. But it was good, if sloppy and soupy. I just used the basic recipe on the side of the noodle box.

I added basil from the garden to the ricotta for the very first harvest this year. Our growing season is so ridiculously short, and it’s been a very cool summer, so there’s not much to show. Also, string beans don’t scream and hang onto my pants legs, so I tend to forget I have a garden.

Not that you asked, but we have tomatoes, basil, cabbage, jalapeno, eggplant, string beans, rainbow carrots, pumpkins, and broccoli. And a lot of weeds. And not enough watering. Thank goodness for rain.

My window boxes turned out a little scruffy this year, too.

That hemp liner looks like I feel. Aieeee!

But check out these weird tomatoes! They’re supposed to be dark like that.

They’re less blurry in real life. Anyway, no varmints have been eating the garden this year, except for bugs. I made a fence out of an upside-down trampoline frame (we had an extra, okay? I don’t want to talk about it), chicken wire, and some zip ties. Woodchucks are supposed to be able to dig under fences, but I guess ours isn’t that ambitious.

***

MONDAY
English muffin pizzas

Wherever I was, I wasn’t home for supper. One of the kids made pizzas. There were two (as in two halves) left over when I got back, so I inhaled them, and then I ate all the leftover ice cream. And justice was restored to the world.

***

TUESDAY
Pulled pork, risotto, peas

It was murderously hot and humid, so I set the slow cooker to work making pulled pork in the steambath kitchen, and brought the Instant Pot (affiliate link) into the air conditioned dining room to make the risotto. The peas, we just ate frozen, which my kids prefer.

The pulled pork had a good flavor, but I started it too late, so it was kind of tough. I put a half pork loin into the pot with a can of beer, plenty of salt, pepper, and chili powder, about six sliced garlic cloves, and a quartered onion. It tasted as good as it smelled, which is not always a given!

I used this recipe for the risotto, minus the squash. I tripled it and lost track of how many cups of broth, so it was a little dry, but still tasty. Not a meal worth taking a picture of, though.

***

WEDNESDAY
Roasted kielbasa, cabbage, and potato with mustard vinaigrette 

A very fine summer meal, great with cheap beer, magnificent after going for a run in the evening, swimming in the pond in the rain with your husband, and then eating a late dinner while watching TV. It’s like Platonic ideal of a hot dog with sauerkraut and fries. I used three packages of kielbasa (I think they are 14 oz. each), about six pounds of small potatoes, and a large cabbage, and I made a quadruple recipe of the dressing.

The color’s off in this picture. It’s prettier in real life, and looks less like an illustration from a cheap textbook covering the post-war years of Cabbagopolis.

Here’s the recipe from Budget Bytes. Again I say unto you: measure your oven and buy yourself the biggest pans that will fit. (I got two 15×21″ aluminum pans like these [affiliate link], and they make my life better several times a week. You’ll be amazed at how much easier it is to cook for a crowd when you can just lay it all out there.)

Look, garlic bread for twelve on a single pan:

Or, as I see it, almost enough garlic bread for me.

***

THURSDAY
Chicken burgers, chips

I had string beans, but they went bad. Soon, soon, we will have string beans from the garden! Well, in a few weeks. Stupid slow garden.

 

***

FRIDAY
Day trip! We’re headed out and will probably grab pizza somewhere.

Oh, Amazon announcement! I now have Amazon Associate accounts that will work for Canada and the UK!
For Canada: Amazon.ca
and for the UK: Amazon.co.uk.
I’d be so grateful if you’d bookmark these pages and use them anytime you shop on Amazon. This makes up a significant part of our income. Thank you!