Tag: broccoli salad

What’s for supper? Vol. 257: Something you didn’t know about Charles Bronson*

Happy Friday! I forgot I promised to take the kids to the library! Does anybody want to take the kids to the library for me!!!

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Pizza

According to my camera roll, on Saturday I made a pizza that had black olives, fresh garlic, red onion, ricotta, artichoke hearts, parmesan, and anchovies on it. Sounds like a good idea.

As I was making it, they announced on the radio that they were sentencing the guy who put razor blades in that same brand of pizza dough (Portland Pie, which is wonderfully elastic) a year ago. I forgot about that! What the heck? You should be able to trust pizza. 

SUNDAY
Shrimp cocktail, steak, baguettes, strawberry shortcake

Fadder’s Day. Damien wanted to cook, and I graciously allowed it. He made a spice rub for some steaks and grilled them outside, and they were juicy and scrumptious. Man knows how to cook a steak. 

He requested strawberry shortcake for dessert, and my baking skills are kind of unreliable, so I bought some supermarket poundcake. He likes the strawberries mashed with a little sugar and almond extract, and fresh whipped cream. 

And it was a good idea!

MONDAY
Steak nachos and baby nachos

We had tons of steak left over, and the spice rub turned out a little more Mexicany than anticipated, so it naturally lent itself to becoming nachos. I try not to stand in the way of these natural processes. I cut up the meat and spread it over tortilla chips, topped it with jalapeño slices and lots of cheese, and heated it in the oven to melt the cheese, then served it with salsa and sour cream.

I also made a tray with chips, cheese, and completely unseasoned ground beef, for the GIANT BABIES whom we allow to live in our house. 

TUESDAY
Chicken parm sandwiches, grapes

One of the kids had a sudden memory of this sandwich and became obsessed, so I was happy to oblige, especially since her memory included frozen breaded chicken patties and jarred sauce. 

Bottom bun, chicken, a basil leaf or two, a slice of provolone, and a scoop of hot sauce, top bun. Give it a minute to melt the cheese, and you’re off to the races, by which I mean you’re eating a hot, tasty sandwich.

WEDNESDAY
Grilled chicken, Greek salad, pita and yogurt sauce

I didn’t have a clear plan for this meal, but it worked out very nicely indeed. I made a salad out of grape tomatoes, baby cukes, red bell peppers, black and kalamata olives, feta cheese, red onion, and fresh parsley, glugged on some olive oil and lemon juice, and sprinkled salt, pepper, and oregano over it. SO GOOD.

So summery and refreshing, cool and crunchy, and also cheerful and pretty. A kid-pleaser, too. 

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I broiled the chicken and sliced it up, and I folded up the chicken and a scoop of salad in some pita bread with lots of highly garlicky yogurt sauce.

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And more greek salad on the side.

THURSDAY
Muffaletta sandwiches, fries

Finally a chance to use the food processor my friend Tina gave me when my old Salvation Army one finally crapped out! It is a Cuisinart, and my friends, it means business. I came pretty close to puréeing the olive salad before I realized what I was doing. I’m going to have some fun with this machine. 

The olive salad was black and kalamata and manzanilla olives, some giardiniera, some roasted red peppers, parsley, olive oil and red wine vinegar, and I forget what else. We have a lot of little almost-empty jars of things, and olive salad became their destiny, and a glorious destiny it was.

I used baguettes sliced the long way for the bread, and for the fillings, ham, two kinds of salami, prosciutto, and provolone, and then some uncanonical smoked turkey and muenster, which was on sale. 

There was plenty of Greek salad left over, so I had that instead of fries.

Make sure you tell everybody: I had that instead of fries.

FRIDAY
Salmon burgers, broccoli slaw

Every so often, I re-discover that individual portions of frozen salmon are actually about the same price as frozen battered whateverfish fillets with a man in a yellow raincoat on the box. So I bought a dozen or so, and now I guess I have to cook them. Looks like we also possess some potato chips, which I will no doubt not eat, except maybe a few. 

I have some kaiser rolls, and I intend to make a tartar sauce with, I don’t know, mayonnaise and fresh dill, I guess pickles and . . . sugar? I don’t know. Pepper. 

I also have some broccoli, which I have been threatening all week to turn into broccoli slaw. That was Charles Bronson’s real name, you know. Karol Broccoslaw. He changed it on Ellis Island. 

 

*because it’s not true

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Greek salad

Serve with grilled chicken, pita, and yogurt sauce

Ingredients

  • 3 pints cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
  • 3-4 red or yellow bell peppers, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 sm red onion, diced
  • 2 cucumbers, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 2 6-oz.cans black olives, drained
  • 12 oz kalamata olives, pitted
  • 8 oz feta cheese, cubed
  • 1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
  • salt, pepper, dried oregano
  • lemon juice, olive oil

Instructions

  1. Mix together vegetables, olives, and cheese.

  2. Drizzle with lemon juice and olive oil to taste and salt, pepper, and oregano to taste. Stir to combine.

 

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Yogurt sauce

Ingredients

  • 32 oz full fat Greek yogurt
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • fresh parsley or dill, chopped (optional)

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together. Use for spreading on grilled meats, dipping pita or vegetables, etc. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 222: Back to Zuul

Sorry, there will be no follow-up Ghostbusters reference in this What’s For Supper. I just ran out of title ideas. We did go back to school, though. 

If you look closely, you’ll notice that all the food photos this week were taken either outside, or in my bedroom. This is because I’m spending half my time pining for the kids because they’re at school, and the other half hiding from them because they’re home.

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Pork ribs, mashed potatoes, corn

Damien made his lovely sugar rub for the pork ribs, and cooked them on the grill. Scrumptious as always. Great little char, great caramelization, a little sweet, a little hot, nice and juicy inside.

You could make a big batch of this sugar rub and have it on hand in a baggie for just about any kind of meat, and it really makes it special. 

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I made seven pounds of mashed potatoes, and it wasn’t enough. Next time, a full ten. I also remembered too late about garlic parmesan mashed potatoes, where you boil the garlic cloves right along with the potatoes and then mash them in, then embarrass yourself with how much cheese you add.

 

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Next time! 

SUNDAY
Spaghetti carbonara

Always popular.

Damien made dinner while I languished or something. Oh, wait, I was doing school supply shopping! Really down to the wire this year. I remember the first year I did school shopping, when we were SO broke and having SO much culture shock after years of home schooling. I remember being so heartbroken and outraged that I was expected to buy a thumb drive for my innocent sixth grader. It seemed like they were trying to turn her into a faceless drone, enslaved to technology and commercialism. So, this year, Corrie got a P.J. Masks backpack and Frozen II water bottle and a shiny gold Wonder Woman dress and Lion King socks and whatever the hell else she wanted. And all Crayola, no Rose Art at all. You can judge for yourself if that’s progress or not. Anyway, Damien made dinner.

 

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MONDAY
Aldi pizza

For the first day of school, a nice, easy meal was in order, especially since I had somehow made myself believe school was still a full week away, so we had zero acclimatization to the new bed times. 

School is . . . okay. The kids are okay with masks. The school has set up tents for outdoor classes and lunch, and the kids sit on yoga mats, and no one spends more than 45 minutes in a room with other people, and they have fans going all the time. They do temperature checks every morning. They ask my five-year-old if she’s been out of the country (and I always listen closely for her answer, because you never know). It is okay. I have no idea if they’re learning anything. Corrie has learned a dinosaur song and a fishie song and has a friend named Greta. She has a classmate named Oliver who is silly. We have no idea how long this all will last, but for now, it’s okay. 

Mirabile dictu, no one in the school has life-threatening allergies this year, so we can pack whatever we want for lunch, so there’s that. In a few weeks, we’ll add in hybrid public high school and Catholic high school, and eventually the college kids will go back to college. Moe is in quarantine. It’s been several days since anyone called Clara “Hitler” for enforcing mask rules in the store.  Walmart is selling unscented hand sanitizer again, so you don’t have to go around smelling like fermented cranberry fart. It’s okay. How are you?

TUESDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, carrots and hummus, broccoli salad

I cleaned out the cabinet and discovered I’ve been diligently stocking up on sunflower seeds and dried cranberries, for some reason. So I poked around and found a recipe that uses both of them, along with broccoli and a basic dressing (mayo, white vinegar, sugar, pepper). 

Everyone liked it well enough, and it was a nice change from coleslaw. Vaguely autumnal. Some people also add bacon, but I was trying to pretend it was a vegetable. You could also put minced red onion.  Maybe a little blue cheese. But it was nice in its simple form. 

WEDNESDAY
Steak teriyaki stir fry, white rice

Feeling unambitious, I bought two bottles of ginger teriyaki sauce. I’m often unhappy with my stir fries because they are watery and the vegetables are overcooked, because I crowd the pan and overcook some ingredients while others are catching up. So this time, I cooked the food in batches and in stages. I heated up some sesame oil and cooked the strips of beef in batches until just barely not pink, then took the meat out of the pan. Then I cooked the broccoli in the meaty pan until just barely done, and then I added the red peppers and cooked them just a little. Then I put the meat back in and added the sauce and just stirred everything up quickly so it was heated through, and served it over rice.

Good results! The vegetables were crunchy, the meat wasn’t chewy, and the sauce did not get watery. I made a bunch of rice in the Instant Pot, and it was a tasty, pretty meal. 

Steak continues to be cheap, and I’m running out of ideas! We’ve had steak and cheese, steak salad, steak steak, and tortas. What else do you make with steak? Never thought I’d have this problem. 

THURSDAY
Carnitas with guacamole, corn on the cob

Not the very fine carnitas from J.R.’s Art Place that you cook in a pot until the meat’s all lacquered and lovely, but still not bad. I put a giant bone-in pork picnic in the Instant Pot with a can of Coke, some cinnamon sticks and bay leaves, orange quarters, salt, pepper, and oregano, and cooked it for 35 minutes on high. It wasn’t really tender, so I gave it another 35 minutes. It still wasn’t as tender as I wanted, but I was out of time, so I pulled the meat out and shredded what I could, and cut the rest off. Then I spread it in a pan and sprinkled it heavily with chili powder and salt, and crisped it up under the broiler.

I flirted with the notion of beans and rice, but it seemed hard, so we just had the meat with guacamole, and cheese, sour cream, salsa, lime wedges, and cilantro. 

I made some rather tomato-heavy guacamole with the few avocados that didn’t turn out to be all sad and grey inside. What the heck is wrong with avocados lately? They’re not overripe, they’re just blighted or something. What do you expect: These are Joe Biden’s avocados. Ask yourself if you’re really prepared for four more years of Joe Biden’s avocados.

FRIDAY
Tuna burgers, cheesy tomato soup

This may just be a fantasy. Most likely, people will request plain tuna with mayo. But I will offer the option of tuna burgers.

 

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And I will offer tomato soup from a can, and they can put cheese in it. Or they can act like it’s not even exciting that it’s finally almost soup season. But it is exciting! It is. 

 

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Smoked chicken thighs with sugar rub

Ingredients

  • 1.5 cups brown sugar
  • .5 cups white sugar
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 2 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp chili pepper flakes
  • salt and pepper
  • 20 chicken thighs

Instructions

  1. Mix dry ingredients together. Rub all over chicken and let marinate until the sugar melts a bit. 

  2. Light the fire, and let it burn down to coals. Shove the coals over to one side and lay the chicken on the grill. Lower the lid and let the chicken smoke for an hour or two until they are fully cooked. 

 

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Garlic parmesan mashed potatoes

Ingredients

  • 5-6 lbs potatoes
  • 8-10 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
  • 8 Tbsp butter
  • 1-1/2 cups milk
  • 8 oz grated parmesan
  • salt and pepper

Instructions

  1. Peel the potatoes and put them in a pot. Cover the with water. Add a bit of salt and the smashed garlic cloves.

  2. Cover and bring to a boil, then simmer with lid loosely on until the potatoes are tender, about 25 minutes.

  3. Drain the water out of the pot. Add the butter and milk and mash well.

  4. Add the parmesan and salt and pepper to taste and stir until combined.

 

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Spaghetti carbonara

An easy, delicious meal.

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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

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

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

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

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White Lady From NH's Guacamole

Ingredients

  • 4 avocados
  • 1 medium tomato, diced
  • 1 medium jalapeno, minced
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped roughly
  • 1 Tbsp minced garlic
  • 2 limes juiced
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • salt and pepper
  • 1/2 red onion, diced

Instructions

  1. Peel avocados. Mash two and dice two. 

  2. Mix together with rest of ingredients and add seasonings.

  3. Cover tightly, as it becomes discolored quickly. 

 

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Tuna burgers

Ingredients

  • 1 can tuna
  • 1/2 cup bread crumbs
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • seasonings, minced onion, etc.
  • oil for frying

Instructions

  1. Drain the tuna.

  2. Mix tuna thoroughly with egg, bread crumbs, and whatever seasonings you like. Form into two patties. 

  3. Heat oil in pan. Fry tuna patties on both sides until golden brown.