Tag: chicken

What’s for supper? Vol. 144: Chocolate garnicht

Welcome, again, to new readers! And also old readers, you old bats. Most Fridays, I write a food post, wherein I describe the meals I cooked over the past week. I have ten kids and not a giant budget, so if you’re here to find recipe ideas or just to gawk, please pull up a chair. That sounded rude. I didn’t mean it to be rude. I gawk at myself all the time.

Anyway, I haven’t written up the recipe cards for this week yet; will add them when I get back.

And my big kitchen revelation this week: I have needed a paella pan all my life. I got one on sale last week. I still haven’t made or ever eaten paella or fully understand what it is, but boy, is that a useful pan. It has a lot of hot surface area and high, sloped sides, which makes it ideal for cooking or heating large quantities of sloppy food for large quantities of sloppy people. Get you one!

Here’s what we had this week:

SATURDAY
Chicken basil cutlets, garlic bread, salad, chocolate cupcakes

Birthday! The birthday girl — or technically birthday adult. We now have three technically adults children. Gevalt — requested Damien’s world-stopping chicken cutlets with fresh basil and provolone with homemade red sauce. If there were no heaven but only food, this is what the saints would be served. He made it with panko crumbs, too, cranking the scrumptious fluffiness up to eleven, and the sauce was bright and sweet and a little spicy.

You pound the chicken, bread it, and fry it, then lay a basil leaf on top, cover that with provolone, and ladle the sauce over all to make the cheese melt.

It only takes about eleven hours to prepare, and the rest of us who don’t spend eleven hours preparing it think we should eat it every day! So freaking good, especially since he cooked it in the wonderful, dark olive oil he found for cheap in this weird, off-brand store that carries such things for cheap.

The Birthday One requested chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting for dessert, but I had just been diagnosed with bronchitis that morning and knew that my already feeble and pathetic baking skills would dialed down to be nil; so I got boxed mix and canned frosting, and concentrated my efforts on the garnish.

Speaking of garnish, in German, gar nicht means “not at all.” This doesn’t mean anything; I just can’t stop thinking about it, and maybe now that I’ve told you, I can move along.

So I — well, I didn’t look up a recipe for some reason, but texted my husband to pick up a bar of Baker’s chocolate and some confectioner’s sugar. These I melted in a double boiler until it was more or less smooth. Then we put the melted chocolate in a sandwich bag (we had a pastry bag once, but do we have one now? Gar nicht.), lined a pan with waxed paper, and piped the chocolate into different shapes. Here she is, doing her magic:

She just piped out whatever popped into her head.

I was afraid it wouldn’t set, so we put the finished designs in the freezer for a few hours. They came out great! They peeled right off the wax paper and held their shapes perfectly when we stuck them in the frosting. Here are a few. A chocolate fishie:

 

a chocolate pumpkin:

a chocolate rose:

and of course a chocolate duck:

Changes I will make next time: I will use bittersweet or semisweet chocolate. The sugar I added barely made a dent in the baker’s chocolate taste! I will maybe add a little shortening, to make the chocolate smoother and a little more viscous. Or do I mean less viscous? I mean squeezy. And I will let it cool a bit in the bag before squeezing it (ow). Other than that, this turned out great. It was quite easy, and I’m sure we’ll be using this technique in the future. One friend said she doesn’t have much artistic talent, so she prints out designs and puts them under the wax paper to trace in chocolate. Brilliant!

 

SUNDAY
Basil chicken on spaghetti

There was so much food left over, we ate it again. Damien cut up the chicken and heated it up in the sauce, then served it all over spaghetti. Scrumptious.

MONDAY
Aunt Rosie’s Thai steak salad

Steak was on sale and my husband’s sister texted him about a salad that sounded good, so I took a stab at it. We had mixed greens, chopped red, yellow, and orange peppers, chili lime cashews, chopped cilantro, and mandarin oranges

and sliced steak, which I cooked under the broiler with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then sliced thin. Okay, it was actually a roast, not steak. I realize there is a difference between different cuts of meat, but deep in the cheapness of my heart, I refuse to acknowledge that it really matters, especially if it’s the difference between pretending roast is steak and just buying pork again.

It was good. It was tasty and fun.

But here is where I went wrong: I made a dressing which would have been excellent as a marinade for the steak. But as a dressing, it was savage. I mean, I had seconds, but it was savage. The dressing was rice vinegar, sesame oil, fish sauce, minced garlic, and cilantro. I know, fish sauce. The children reminded me once again that it smells like cat frow-up, and once again, they were right.

Anyway, this meal is definitely going on the list, but next time I’ll marinate the meat in the sauce, and then we’ll just have a little vinaigrette to dress the salad. And I won’t open the cans of mandarin oranges until dinner is ready; or else I’ll buy five cans just for Corrie. Conversation we had about the mandarin oranges:

Me: No more, now. We have to save some for the others.
Corrie: Awwwwww!
Me: Okay, two more, but that’s all.
Corrie: Siddy Mama. [helps herself to six more]

And I let her get away with it, too, because I’m just so old. So old.

TUESDAY
Honey garlic chicken thighs with broccoli, potato, and squash

Sheet pan meals! They’re the best. This one is really easy, and susceptible to many adaptions, depending on what vegetables you have hanging around. I’ve somehow turned into the kind of person that gasps in delight to see squash on sale at the supermarket, so I snapped up a nice big one.

Butternut squash is about as easy to peel as a cinder block, but I know a trick! Cut both ends up and chuck it in the microwave for three minutes. Then you can peel it. It’s also helpful to have one of those horizontal peelers, rather than a vertical one.

So you put the vegetables on the pan, put the chicken on the pan, make the sauce and slop that over the chicken, and cook it most of the way. Then add broccoli and finish cooking, then lay on table next to decorative gourds.

Easy squeazy broccolisi, and if someone doesn’t like some part of it (squash), it’s easy to pick it out.

I like squash, though, and I love this meal. The honey sauce makes the chicken skin crisp and tasty, and the sweetness of it seeps into the vegetables in a lovely way. You don’t have to season the broccoli, even though it sits on top, gar nicht! It draws up the juice like a sponge.

WEDNESDAY
Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, peas

Oh, the hosannas. I don’t know how many times I could produce this meal and still be considered a hero by my kids, but I haven’t hit that number yet. Behold the splendor of this meal above all other meals:

My meatloaf is nothing special. I used five pounds of ground beef and two pounds of ground turkey, seven eggs, four cups of bread crumbs, Worcestershire sauce, minced garlic, salt, pepper, and oregano. I form the loaves on a broiler pan with drainage, so it doesn’t get all soggy as it cooks.

Where I really shine, though, is in my mashed potatoes. I make them with potatoes, butter, and milk, and also salt and pepper, if you can believe it. For the peas, I used my special technique of grasping a bag between my fingers and then opening it. I also use a pot and some water, but I don’t want to overwhelm you, so I’ll tell you about that next week.

THURSDAY
Bacon, eggs, and Brussels sprouts in balsamic honey sauce

Another excellent sheet pan meal, very tasty and satisfying. We got home so freaking late because of a cross country meet, so I was glad I had halved four pounds of Brussels sprouts and chopped up three pounds of bacon earlier in the day. Then you just make up a quick sauce, mix it with the sprouts and the bacon, and spread it in a pan and cook. Once the Brussels sprouts are tender and the bacon is just about done, you crack a bunch of eggs over the food, sprinkle with parmesan and red pepper flakes, and let the eggs cook up. That’s it! It would be great with a crusty bread or maybe pita or even cinnamon buns.

It’s a shame the daylight was gone by the time we ate, because this doesn’t look nearly as good as it tasted (even though I did undercook the bacon and overcook the eggs).

FRIDAY
Pizza

And not a moment too soon.

Well nuts, I still haven’t put together those recipe cards. I’m not on trial here! This week, I’ve been to urgent care, my old therapist, my new therapist, adoration, and my new spiritual director. So this is basically me now:

However, I will get those recipe cards to you soon.

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Thai Steak Salad

Ingredients

  • steak
  • mixed salad greens
  • cashews (chili lime are good)
  • bell peppers (red, green, yellow, or orange)
  • mandarin oranges, drained

marinade:

  • 3/4 cup rice vinegar
  • 3 Tbsp sesame oil
  • 1 Tbsp fish sauce
  • 1 Tbsp minced garlic
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

Instructions

  1. Mix together all marinade ingredients and marinate steak a few hours. 

  2. Grill or broil steak; slice thinly. 

  3. Put together salad, add steak on top. Dress with more wine vinegar if you like. 

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One pan honey garlic chicken thighs with fall veg

Adapted from Damn Delicious 

Ingredients

  • 18 chicken thighs
  • 2 lbs broccoli in spears
  • 4-5 lbs potatoes in wedges, skin on if you like
  • 1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed

sauce:

  • 1/3+ cup honey
  • 1/3+ cup brown sugar
  • 3 tbsp dijon or yellow mustard
  • 9 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 tsp oregano
  • 2 tsp dried basil
  • salt and pepper
  • 6 tbsp olive oil
  • olive oil for drizzing

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400. Prepare the sauce. 

  2. In a large, greased sheet pan, spread the potatoes and squash. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. 

  3. Lay the chicken thighs on top of the potatoes and squash. Brush the sauce over the chicken skins. 

  4. Roast the chicken for thirty minutes or more until they are almost cooked.

  5. Add the broccoli, arranging it on top of the potatoes and in between the chicken. Return the pan to the oven and let it finish cooking another 10 -20 minutes so you don't die. The skins should be golden and the broccoli should be a little charred. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 142: In which I hit nobody with a baseball bat

No real new recipes this week, but no complaints, either. Except from me. I complained nonstop, and I’m still just warming up. Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY
Caprese sandwiches with salami

I guess this is technically new, actually. And so much tastier than I expected, and easier than the chicken version. I toasted a bunch of ciabatta rolls, and set them out with sliced mozzarella, sliced tomatoes, basil, and genoa salami, plus olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. Simple and fabulous. Everyone loved them. A nice valediction for summer.

I recommend putting more than one layer of olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper in among the other ingredients.

SUNDAY
Chicken shawarma, zaatar pita and yogurt sauce

I forget why I planned a rather involved meal for the day before a big party. Probably because someone told me about zaatar paste, and I had to build a meal around it.

The oven chicken shawarma recipe, which I’ve simplified from the NYT recipe, is on a recipe card below. I put together the marinade the night before and cussingly skinned, trimmed, and boned about eight pounds of chicken thighs (worth it. We’ve had this dish with bone-in meat, and it’s good, but not scrumptious) and set it to marinate in a ziplock bag with a couple of sliced red onions.

That’s the hard part (and it’s not hard if you have boneless meat!). Before dinner, it’s quick enough to spread the chicken out in a shallow pan and broil it up. I like to chop it up a bit a few minutes before it’s quite done, so you get more crisp pieces.

While it’s cooking, you assemble the fixings. We had it with chopped cukes, parsley, green and black olives, plenty of pita, feta, and of course yogurt sauce (whole Greek yogurt with minced garlic, lemon juice, salt, and pepper, and a little fresh parsley). And grapes. You just put everything you like on your plate, and hop to it.

I planned to make zaatar bread by mixing zaatar with olive oil, spreading it on the pita, and heating it, but shortly before dinner, my will to do even one tiny speck more of work leaked out the back of my ankle

so I mopped that up with a baby wipe and just set out zaatar paste for dipping, and that was lovely, too.

We sometimes have this meal with tomatoes, many other kinds of olives, or something made of eggplant, or pomegranates. All good. So good. The zaatar was a welcome addition, too. Now that I think of it, it does taste like sumac smells, which is also very summery.

MONDAY
Cookout!

Back in July, our annual family reunion was sparsely attended; so we tried again for Labor Day. It was nice! Cousins galore, and such lovely ones.

Some of them needed to become acquainted with the lizard:

and some of them just needed to cool their heads with a little chess:

My father brought burgers and hot dogs, and Damien made his sugar rub chicken thighs and, well, all the mahogany clams in the world. Fine, just all the clams in the supermarket.

Look at that price! I’m not made of stone! I bought all 75. He scrubs them good, then sets them over the coals until they pop open (and they really do pop. I watched them this time. It was pretty cute), then put them in the sauce (white wine, melted butter, lemon juice, and chopped onion cooked in olive oil with red pepper), and mix ’em up, then row back to Spain like there’s no mañana!

Or, just suck down four or five helpings while your family politely averts their gaze. If you don’t have memories that include buttery clams in wine sauce with a reflection of the blue September sky in ’em, I feel bad for you, son. I got ninety nine clams, but I don’t actually know this song.

TUESDAY
Chicken berry walnut salad

Back to school. Back to school. (We started last Wednesday, but had Monday off.) In the morning, I put dem chicken breasts under the broiler with some olive oil and basic seasonings, and when they were cool, I cut them into cubes. Spread some walnuts in a pan and let them toast for a few minutes. (Yep, the microwave way is easier, and gives more even results. But someone broke our microwave, and now it cooks for three seconds and then it goes ZUUUUUUUUL. I haven’t thrown it out yet, in case it fixes itself, but it hasn’t yet.)

Mixed greens, crumbled feta, dried berries (cranberries, blueberries, and cherries, but to be honest, they tasted all the same), and diced red onion. And some broccoli we happened to have, which went along with the rest better than I expected.

A little balsamic vinegar, and it’s a nice, filling meal. Everything was set up ahead of time, which makes me feel so smart.

WEDNESDAY
Pizza ala furry bastard

Now you’ll see how smart I really am. I had twenty minutes before it was time to go, so I buttered and floured five pans and stretched out the pizza dough, and left them on the counter to finish up when I got back. And when I got back, here is what I found:

So I took a baseball bat, and I . . . no I didn’t. I threw out the dough and complained about the cat for the next 48 hours. This is also the day that we went for a run and got a dramatic flat tire on the way back, and then the tire wouldn’t come off, so while we were waiting for AAA to come and hit it with a stick, we saw we had missed a phone call from the kid at home, who wanted to know how much to worry about the smoke that was coming out of the dryer. I blame the cat. He did catch a mouse the other day, though. I came pretty close to emitting an “eek,” let me tell you.

THURSDAY
Chicken burgers, chips, carrots and hummus

I called one of my teenagers to make this meal while I was teaching one of my other teenagers to drive. She did fine. They did fine. We all did fine. We needed new tires anyway.

FRIDAY
Tuna noodle

I must have been feeling guilty about something to agree to this. I bought them all new shoes! What the hell do I have to feel guilty about? Do I go stomping around on vulnerable pizza dough? No! Do I buy up all the clams? Well yes I do, but it was for a good cause. Do I hit anyone with baseball bats? Not at all. And yet here I am feeling bad and squeezing the juice out of six cans of tune. Line-caught tuna, because I feel guilty about the frickin’ dolphins, too. What a world.

Well, here’s your recipe cards.

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Caprese sandwiches

Ingredients

  • Ciabatta, baguettes, sourdough, or other dense bread
  • sliced tomatoes
  • sliced mozzarella
  • fresh basil leaves
  • salt and pepper
  • olive oil
  • vinegar
  • prosciutto, genoa salami, or sliced grilled chicken (optional)
  • pesto sauce or pesto mayo (optional)

Instructions

  1. You know how to make a sandwich. 

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Chicken shawarma

Ingredients

  • 8 lbs boned, skinned chicken thighs
  • 4-5 red onions
  • 1.5 cups lemon juice
  • 2 cups olive oil
  • 4 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 Tbs, 2 tsp pepper
  • 2 Tbs, 2 tsp cumin
  • 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 entire head garlic, crushed

Instructions

  1. Mix marinade ingredients together, then add chicken. Put in ziplock bag and let marinate several hours or overnight.

  2. Preheat the oven to 425.

  3. Grease a shallow pan. Take the chicken out of the marinade and spread it in a single layer on the pan, and top with the onions (sliced or quartered). Cook for 45 minutes or more. 

  4. Chop up the chicken a bit, if you like, and finish cooking it so it crisps up a bit more.

  5. Serve chicken and onions with pita bread triangles, cucumbers, tomatoes, assorted olives, feta cheese, fresh parsley, pomegranates or grapes, fried eggplant, and yogurt sauce.

 

 

 

 

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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. 

 

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Grilled clams or mussels in wine sauce

Ingredients

  • 1 white or red onion
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
  • live clams or mussels
  • salt and pepper
  • 3 cups white wine
  • 2 sticks butter
  • 1/2 cup lemon juice

Instructions

  1. Prepare sauce: Coarsely chop the onion and sautee it in the olive oil with the red pepper flakes. Add salt and pepper. 


  2. Add two sticks of butter and let them melt. Add the wine and lemon juice. 

  3. Light the fire and let it burn to coals. While it's burning down, sort and clean the shellfish, discarding any damaged or dead ones. (If they're open, tap them. If they don't close, they're dead. If they're closed, they're fine.)

  4. Lay shellfish on grill until they pop open. The hotter the fire, the shorter the time it will take - five minutes or more. 

  5. Add shellfish to sauce and stir to mix. 

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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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Chicken berry nut salad

Any number of variations. Use whatever fruit is in season and whatever nuts are on sale. Dried fruit is also fine. 

Ingredients

  • chicken breast, seasoned, cooked, diced
  • salad greens
  • blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, fresh or dried
  • toasted walnuts, pecans, almonds, etc.
  • feta or blue cheese, crumbled
  • diced red onions
  • balsamic vinegar or other light dressing

Instructions

  1. To toast the nuts: Spread them in a single layer on a plate and microwaving them on high for three minutes. This is the easiest, most reliable way to toast nuts, which improves the flavor and texture immensely for salad. 

    You can also toast them in the oven in a single layer on a pan in a 350 oven for 6-7 minutes, but watch carefully, as they burn quickly. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 140: Is it too late to be Colombian?

Food! Still important. Here’s what we had this week:

SATURDAY
Birthday party!

Birthday girl requested a cookout. We had a luau-themed party (and yes, I realize that a luau is a party, but the decorations were the only thing anywhere close to a luau, and that only in a passing and culturally insensitive way, so I’m calling it luau-themed. I know, nobody cares. I care.), and the kids got up early and made themselves a tiki bar for serving ice cream sodas.

I took the birthday girl and her friends to the beach, where we had it mostly to ourselves, possibly because of the driving rain. This happened last year, too. It’s okay with me.

She wanted the guests to decorate their own cupcakes. This, too, was okay with me!

SUNDAY
Cookout for home folks, Columbian feast for me

On Sunday, we went to Mass and, after Damien assured me they would eat food, I just scarpered. I drove down to Revere, which is right outside of Boston on the waterfront, and had a sleepover with my friends. Check it out: Melanie Bettinelli, Elisa Low, and Kyra Matsui.

Oh my gosh, we had so much fun. We found ourselves a tiny little Columbian restaurant called La Esquina del Sabor, where we were welcomed like honored guests. While we waited for our food, they treated us to empanadas and some kind of fried cheese with pineapple sauce

I don’t know what kind of cheese it was — it was sort of sweet and firm, but a little bit runny. Heavenly.  I will admit that I didn’t really know what I was ordering, but the whole place smelled so great, I didn’t think I could miss. It turned out to be a kind of Everything Soup

I could identify savory beans and possibly peas or lentils, sausage, big chunks of pork, I think fried plantains, possibly mango, avocado, and shoestring potatoes? on the top, with white rice and a fried egg on the side, and some kind of toasted flat bread. It was wonderful. Wonderful. It made me want to embrace the whole world and then fall asleep in its lap.

So then we stayed up until after 2 am drinking and laughing, slept late, woke up with the salt breeze coming in the windows, and sat on the bed eating baguettes and cheeses and grapes and salami with our coffee, and talking and laughing some more. That grey area in the window on the left is the ocean!

I had to drag myself away eventually, but Elisa and Kyra went on to many more adventures with more friends (and have visited at least two world class museums, so I fully expect another explosion of creativity). And what is the moral of this story? Internet friends are real friends. Oh, yes.

MONDAY
Bagel and egg sandwiches

I got home theoretically in time to make dinner, but all that scarpering wore me out, so the kids made supper. I mentioned ham, but had no takers.

TUESDAY
Chicken salad with walnuts and feta

This is how you actually eat that big box of mixed organic greens you keep buying and then not eating and then throwing away, by the way. Don’t plan to have salad on the side; made salad the main course.

I put the chicken breasts in the Instant Pot with salt, pepper, and lime juice and set it to high pressure for about eight minutes, then did a quick release, let the chicken cool, and cut it up.

So we had mixed greens, chicken, diced red onions, toasted walnuts, and feta cheese. I had balsamic vinegar on mine, and it was very good.

Oh, and thanks to whoever suggested toasting nuts in the microwave! So much easier and less perilous than doing in in the oven. I just spread the nuts out on a plate (not even a single layer like you’re supposed to) and set it for two minutes, and they came out perfect. Toasted nuts make salads so much more exciting.

WEDNESDAY
Chicken burgers, fake Pringles, frozen peas

Wednesday, Lucy had her 3-month visit to the endocrinologist. We love our doctors, but man that is a long trip. Happily, she is doing just great. Here she is enjoying a post-visit treat, because diabetes care comes in many flavors.

THURSDAY
Chicken fajitas with salsa verde, yellow rice

I used to make chicken fajitas allll the time, a long time ago, and it was my signature Delicious Meal of Great Effort. So I was kind of excited about resurrecting this dish, even though I was just planning to use fajita seasoning packets. And what do you know, I’ve turned into a fancypants. It tasted fine; it just wan’t much to write home about.

I sliced up green peppers, red onions, and chicken breast, and marinated it in the spice mix for a few hours, then fried it up in some oil on the stovetop.

I made soooo much, thinking the kids would go gaga over it. I also thought I’d give them a treat by buying several boxes of that violently yellow “Spanish rice” stuff. Well, they didn’t care! Oh well.

I did make another batch of salsa verde, with tomatillos, onions, jalapenos, and lots of garlic

plus chicken broth, lime juice, a little sugar, and a ton of cilantro. Full recipe at the end.

I let it cook too long and it was very thick, but somehow I muscled through and ate . . . kind of a lot of it on the fajitas, with sour cream.

Fine, I like yellow rice from a box. I like it. I had taken the kids to the long-promised outdoor pool for almost three hours, and I was hongry. Then, after supper, I opened up a speech I’m giving next week, thinking it needed a little tweaking. It needed . . . a lot of tweaking. Thank goodness I ate all that salsa verde, to fortify me.

FRIDAY
Pasta and sauce

With a little bit of end-of-summer-panic on the side!

I guess I just have one recipe card to share today: The salsa verde. If anybody knows what kind of Columbian soup that was, hit me up with the recipe! I don’t think my family would eat it, but I just want to know.

5 from 2 votes
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Salsa verde

Ingredients

  • 10-12 tomatillos
  • 3 jalapeno peppers
  • 10 cloves garlic with wrappers on
  • 1-2 medium onions, peeled and quartered
  • 3/4 tsp sugar
  • 3/4 cup chicken broth
  • 1/4 cup lime juice
  • 1 bunch cilantro
  • olive oil for cooking

Instructions

  1. Preheat the broiler. 

  2. Put unwrapped tomatillos, whole jalapenos, garlic cloves with wrappers on, and peeled, quartered onions in a shallow pan, and broil until slightly blackened - about 5 minutes. 

  3. Let the vegetables cool. Pull the wrappers off the garlic, cut the tops off the jalapenos (but leave the seeds and insides), and trim the ends off the onions.   

  4. Put all vegetables inside a food processor, and add a big handful of cilantro and 3/4 tsp sugar. Blend until it's pulpy. It will be runny.

  5. Heat a little olive oil in a saute pan and add the vegetable mixture. Heat, stirring, until it thickens up a bit. 

  6. Add 3/4 cup chicken broth and 1/4 cup lime juice and continue heating, stirring from time to time, until it thickens up again. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 138: Notes from Bism

Trying something new this week. I’ll blab about my cooking as usual, then put recipe cards at the end, so you can save them if you like. Just for the things that turn out good, mind you. Do let me know if this is useful or not.

SATURDAY
Spaghetti and Sausage with What Can Only Rightly Be Called Awesomesauce

Damien says he wants to try some kind of new tomato sauce, and I’m all: silly husband, there is no such thing as “new tomato sauce.” But when the man wants to cook, the woman lets him cook. So he made this ridiculous recipe by the apparently famous Marcella Hazan. (recipe card below)

You put canned tomatoes in a pot. You put a bunch of butter in the pot. You peel a couple of onions and put them in the pot. You cook the pot things for a while. You take out the onions. And that’s freaking it.

He says he kept wanting to add, you know, tomato sauce things. Bay leaf, garlic, oregano, something.  Nopey, just the three things. Okay, salt if you’re fancy. It was so good. I don’t know why! It tasted like a whole meal in itself! It tasted like meat and wine! So savory, so interesting! Crazy, man. I couldn’t get enough of it.

He also made about a roomful of garlic bread, which I ate as if it were the only way to save the world.

SUNDAY
Hamburgers, brats, chips, dip

He built this gargantuan grill for himself out of cinder blocks in the backyard

and he cooked supper on it. And sent me gifs of the fire while I was lying down. I still have more calculating to do, but I think I got a good deal.

MONDAY
Chicken sorta caprese sandwiches; cucumber salad; cherry pie with whipped cream

These sandwiches were so good last week, I made them again. This time, I used ciabatta bread instead of kaiser rolls and provolone instead of mozzarella. Grilled chicken, prosciutto, provolone, fresh basil, sliced tomatoes, olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Yuhm.

For some reason I dug in my heels about buying frozen fries this week, so I made a cucumber salad instead. I mostly-peeled about four cucumbers (I like to leave some festive stripes of green peel like Chef Pat always did. It makes me think of the early 90’s, Squeeze, things like that) into half circles and mixed them with a red onion sliced very thin. Then I mixed together some white wine vinegar and water and some sugar tossed it together.

I wish I had had some fresh dill. It wasn’t fabulous, but it was refreshing, and fine for a summery side. Would have gone well with fries.

The cherry pies, I had actually made Sunday night, but Lucy’s pancreas was having some kind of fit, so we saved the pie for Monday. I was in a rush, so I just made the cherry filling and poured it into pre-made pie shells and baked them that way, no lattice topor anything. I served it with whipped, unsweetened cream, and that was the right choice because the pie was so very sweet.

It was a bit of a mess when I cut it, but oh, cherries. So wonderful.

Also, so dramatic as they sat there macerating in the sun, like the juiceable gemstones from Bism.

TUESDAY
Mac and cheese with chicken and broccoli

My friend Maureen’s sister once made me a cheesy chicken casserole after I had a baby, and it was the best damn thing I ever ate in my life. I’ve been trying to replicate it ever since, even though I know perfectly well the missing ingredient is “just had a baby.” Once I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that was the best damn sandwich I ever had, right after I had a baby. Really, it brought tears to my eyes. Such jelly! Such peanut butter! Gevalt.

Anyway, this was not terrible, unlike the picture I took but can’t find.

I made mac and cheese in the Instant Pot (using farfalle instead of macaroni) based off this recipe from Copy Kat, only I realized for the first time that her recipe calls for one pound of one kind of cheese, and one cup of another kind. What the hell kind of recipe is that? I also ran across a recipe that called for ten teaspoons of something. Ten teaspoons. Honest to goodness, I’m the only adult on the internet.

So then (okay, first I burned the noodles because I’m too stupid to push a button without burning something) I steamed some cut-up broccoli spears and some chicken that I had I guess cooked in the Instant Pot previously. Okay, this is also a terrible recipe. I’m sorry.

Upshot: It was fine. I guess I put it in a buttered pan and put it in the oven until it melted together a bit. It would have been better if I had just had a baby, but I don’t think you can do that in the Instant Pot.

WEDNESDAY
Tacos with lime crema; tortilla chips with more lime crema

Just regular old tacos, but!!!!! I got this easy recipe for lime crema from Budget Bytes, and now I realize how brave I’ve been to have gotten through 43 years without lime crema. SO BRAVE.

I zested and juiced a couple of limes and then thought, “Oh, let’s not be stingy!” and zested and juiced one more. I added the zest and juice to a 16-oz tub of sour cream, glopped in a few tablespoons of minced garlic, and stirred it all in with a little salt.

I did get some help cutting up the tomatoes from a . . . blue fairy of some sort.

See? We finally redid the floor, just like we said we would this summer! Shut up! It’s still August! *sob*

We had some lettuce, but no fairies appeared to cut it up for me, and I discovered plenty of leftover pea shoots from the fancy ramen last week. I thought it would be weird, but it was great! Spicy meat, fresh tomatoes, springy pea shoots, and plenty of that wonderful lime crema. You don’t have to tell your abuela that this is what we call tacos, but we’re not going to stop.

THURSDAY
Chicken quesadillas

I saw to my dismay that there was yet more chicken in the fridge, so I slumped over to the Instant Pot and snarled, “You know what to do.” I threw a bunch of chili lime powder in there with the chicken and a cup or so of water and set it for 7 minutes high pressure, but it came out tasting like just water anyway. I let the chicken cool, but not enough, and skinned, boned, and shredded it. Ow, still hot.

Some people had cheddar, some had pepper jack, some had jalapenos from a jar. I always regret letting people order special combinations, but then again, some people are easy to please.

 

Yes, we had potato chips with quesadillas. Don’t tell abuela.

FRIDAY
Eggs and harsh browns

And that’s it! It’s the end of the week! Ha! I win again!

And here are my nearly professional recipe cards. Lemme know what you think.

Print

Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce

We made a quadruple recipe of this for twelve people. 

Keyword Marcella Hazan, pasta, spaghetti, tomatoes

Ingredients

  • 28 oz can crushed tomatoes or whole tomatoes, broken up
  • 1 onion peeled and cut in half
  • salt to taste
  • 5 Tbsp butter

Instructions

  1. Put all ingredients in a heavy pot.

  2. Simmer at least 90 minutes. 

  3. Take out the onions.

  4. I'm freaking serious, that's it!

 

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Cherry pie filling for TWO pies

Keyword cherries, cherry pie, desserts, fruit desserts, pie

Ingredients

  • 7 cups cherries pitted
  • 2-2/2 cups white sugar
  • 2 tsp almond extract
  • 1/2 cup cornstarch
  • 3 Tbsp butter

Instructions

To pit cherries:

  1. Pull the stem off the cherry and place it, stem-side down, in a bottle with a narrow neck, like a beer bottle. Drive the blunt end of a chopstick down through the cherry, forcing the pit out into the bottle.

To make the filling:

  1. Mix together the pitted cherries, sugar, and cornstarch in a bowl and let it sit for ten minutes or so until they get juicy. 

  2. Stir the almond extract into the cherry mixture and heat in a heavy pot over medium heat. Bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer over medium heat, stirring constantly, for several minutes. Stir in the butter.

  3. Let the mixture cool a bit, then pour into pie shells. 

Recipe Notes

This would also be fine over ice cream. 

 

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Lime Crema

Keyword Budget Bytes, crema, lime, lime crema, sour cream, tacos

Ingredients

  • 16 oz sour cream
  • 3 limes zested and juiced
  • 2 Tbsp minced garlic
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together. 

Recipe Notes

So good on tacos and tortilla chips Looking forward to having it on tortilla soup, enchiladas, MAYBE BAKED POTATOES, I DON'T EVEN KNOW.

 

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Chicken Caprese Sandwiches

Keyword basil, chicken, mozzarella, prosciutto, provolone, sandwiches, tomatoes

Ingredients

  • Ciabatta rolls, Italian bread, or any nice bread
  • Sliced grilled, seasoned chicken
  • Sliced tomatoes
  • Fresh basil leaves
  • Sliced prosciutto
  • Sliced mozzarella or provolone
  • olive oil
  • balsamic vinegar
  • salt and pepper
  • Optional: Pesto mayonnaise

Instructions

  1. Preheat broiler. Drizzle chicken breasts with olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, whatever. Put chicken on shallow pan with drainage, and shove under broiler, turning once, until chicken is browned on both sides. Let cool and slice thickly, you animal. 

  2. Toast bread if you like. Spread pesto mayo on roll if you like. Slice tomatoes. 

  3. Pile chicken, tomatoes, basil, cheese, and a slice or two of prosciutto, sprinkling with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper a few times as you layer. 

What was for supper last week? Vol. 137: Ah’m a-splurgin’!

It was vacation week! We ate like kings!

SATURDAY
Steak and lobster

We had a lot of kid activities planned, so Damien wanted to make sure we had one fine grown-up meal. (The kids had hot dogs and chips at home.) He packed up a cooler and we went here:

We swam for a while, with nobody else in the entire pond except for some loons and a bunch of amorous dragonflies. Then he made a fire and we had bread and cheese, strawberries and blackberries while the flames died down.

He put some steaks and lobsters over the coals:

The lobster only needed a few minutes on each side, and we ate it with herbed butter and lemons while the steaks finished cooking. I’ve never had grilled lobster before. The sweet flesh with a smoky edge is completely wonderful. The steak had a simple rub of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and came out insanely tender with lots of juice.

 

Also, having visible cooking marks on the lobster really helps me get over that last psychological “you are cracking apart and devouring an entire creature here, you psychopath” obstacle. It just looks more like food. Score another point for charring your food! I’ll take my charred lobster cancer like a man.

We also brought some peaches to grill (most desserts are out for me because they are migraine triggers), but we were both stuffed to the gills and couldn’t eat any more.

And that is how you kick off vacation week!

SUNDAY
Buffalo chicken salad, fries, cherries

One of my kids has a job in a deli, and she’d been hungrily eyeing their buffalo chicken salad. I couldn’t find an exact recipe, but since she had never actually tasted it, I didn’t think I could really get it wrong.

I cooked a few pounds of pasta (I believe it was radiatori. Here is a nice guide to pasta shapes), then I took 3 large chicken breasts and put them in the Instant Pot with a cup of water, high pressure for 7 minutes. I cut the cooked chicken into chunks and mixed it together with the pasta and:

4 stalks celery diced
3/4 cup sour cream
10 oz blue cheese dressing
1/2 cup buffalo sauce
2 Tbs paprika
It was pretty good. Not knock-your-socks-off, but if you like buffalo sauce, it’s something a little different, and it sure was easy to make. It’s supposed to have carrots, but I don’t think that would have added much (but you definitely want the celery in there, for texture and to cool your tongue from the hot sauce). I also made plain pasta, which is what most of the kids ate, which is why there was enough left over for me to eat lunch all week.
I hadn’t really planned out any sides. I have a hard time coming up with sides to pasta salads. It’s like when my grandmother went to the pet store asking for food for her daughter’s Sea Monkeys, and the man said, “Lady, Sea Monkeys are food.” So I ended up with a kind of self-inflicted one-family potluck meal of buffalo chicken salad, french fries, and cherries. Well, they ate it!
MONDAY
Chicken caprese sandwiches

Now this was a good idea. I had more chicken breasts (I guess they must have been on sale), so I roasted them under the broiler with salt and pepper, then sliced them. Then we laid out chicken, sliced mozzarella, sliced tomatoes, fresh basil, prosciutto, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and let people build their own sandwiches.

I also put out some mayonnaise and pesto sauce, but I didn’t end up using it. This was an extremely tasty summer sandwich, very fresh and pleasant and filling. I should have used Italian bread instead of Kaiser rolls, was the only thing. Next time!

TUESDAY
Ocean!

Tuesday was ocean day. New Hampshire really only has one beach, about two hours from us, and it’s terribly trashy at night, but gorgeous during the day. We brought along subs, nectarines, chips, and cookies from the supermarket for lunch, and managed to eat most of it before the very bold seagulls had their way with it. I love the ocean.

It was a completely wonderful day. We didn’t bring any shovels or buckets or kites or floaties or anything. Just played in the cold waves and the fresh breeze and the glittering sun for hours and hours. Irene got lost and we, um, forgot to bring Lucy’s insulin. But the lifeguards found Irene again and Damien squeezed some insulin out of a local pharmacy and it was still fun. I love the ocean.

For dinner, I had my heart set on eating somewhere that served food in plastic baskets and had sand in the bathroom, so that’s what we did. It was called Swampy’s Sea Shack or Chunko’s Squid Hut or something along those lines. There were a bunch of drunken louts singing “Sweet Caroline” over their beers. I had the calamari platter. The coleslaw was terrible. I love the ocean.

WEDNESDAY
Deconstructed shish kabob; pineapple cucumber salad; Tweezlaires

I took a big hunk of pork and cut it into big cubes and mixed it up with wedges of red onion and green pepper. I had mushrooms, too, but they had gotten all slimy, alas. I stirred it up with a marinade of lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, garlic powder, and red pepper flakes and let it sit for a few hours.

We briefly considered putting the food on skewers and grilling it outside, but we were still exhaustipated from the beach, so I just spread the meat and veggies in a shallow pan and put it under the broiler until it was a little blackened. Good stuff.

Again I needed a side dish, but hadn’t made solid plans. My friend Jennifer suggested this pineapple cucumber salad, which calls for pineapple and cucumber, which I had, and lime zest and fresh cilantro, which I didn’t. So I used bottled lime juice and chili lime seasoning. It was nice! Just something different. May try again when I have cilantro.

We also had Tweezlaires, because that’s what I told the kids we were having before I found the pineapple recipe.

THURSDAY
Bibimbap

Oh son. If you haven’t made bibimbap, then this is your time. It is absolutely the party that your mouth deserves to have.

I sliced up some pork as thin as I could and set it to marinate in gochujang sauce, which I made with gochujang, honey, sugar, garlic, and soy sauce (proportions here).

I also sliced up a bunch of carrots and cucumbers very thin with the wide end of a cheese grater, because someone has absconded with the spindle part of my food processor. I set them to pickle in water with some white vinegar and sugar mixed in.

I made a ton of rice in the Instant Pot. It comes out good and sticky when you use the 1:1 method. When the rice was almost done, I fried up the meat in a skillet, and sliced and sauteed some mushrooms.

Then, when the rice was done, everyone put some in a bowl, and piled on their choice of pork, pickled vegetables, pea sprouts, and mushrooms, with sesame seeds, soy sauce, and wasabi sauce. And then a fricken fried egg on top. It’s so good. The various juices trickle down through the rice and you just have to focus on not passing out with joy before you get to the bottom.

FRIDAY
Canobie Lake Park!

Friday was our long-awaited trip to the excellent amusement park that’s a couple of hours away. We went with the Girl Scouts, who picked up a big part of the tab, so we splurged on actual park food for lunch, and then we had monstrous ice cream sundaes around dinner time.

We stayed eleven hours. Would have been longer, but there came a crashing, thundering downpour and they had to close the park and evacuate everyone. We made our way to Papa Ginos. I don’t care what you say, it’s really quite good pizza. Also, we only ever seem to eat there when we are wet, exhausted, and completely starving. But I still think it’s good pizza!

And that’s what we did on our summer vacation.

What’s for supper? Vol. 135: Booooo!

This week’s menu is brought to you by inappropriate guilt. Actual temperature: 96 degrees with 94% humidity. Real feel: I’m a failure as a human being because I turned on the air conditioner.

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Hamburgers, chips, ice cream sundaes

Can you imagine a world without hamburgers? I can’t.

SUNDAY
Carnitas; berries and cream

I took a nice, fatty pork shoulder and put it in the crock pot (actually two crock pots) with some Narragansett bear and some cans of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, and then we went to the beach. Several hours later, the meat was nice and tender.

I pulled off the fat, shredded it, and spread it in a shallow pan along with most of the peppers, and put it under the broiler for a few minutes until it was slightly browned and crisp.

Then we served it on tortillas with fresh lime juice, pepper jack cheese, and sour cream.

I was very happy with the flavor of the meat. Some parts of it soaked up more heat than others, so it was exciting to eat. I’m now motivated to start adding more things to these lovely carnitas. What do you like on yours? Beans? Rice? Lettuce or something? Help the yankee out.

Dessert was supposed to be fruit cobbler or crisp, but it was so dangedly hot, I couldn’t bring myself to turn on the oven; so we just had strawberries and blueberries with fresh whipped cream. No complaints.

MONDAY
Citrus salad with chicken and almonds

A new meal, a new meal! Refreshing but substantial, and the flavors combined much better than I expected.

It was again far too hot and steamy to even look at the oven, so I cooked the chicken breasts in the Instant Pot with about 3/4 cup of lime juice and a heavy sprinkling of chili lime powder. I set it to manual for seven minutes, did a quick release, then let the chicken cool and cut it into cubes.

So we had mixed greens, chicken, tangerine segments, feta cheese, toasted almonds, diced red onion, and very thin cucumber slices.

(Okay, I turned on the oven for eight minutes to toast the almonds.) Someone has stolen the post thingy for my food processor, but it turns out you can slice cukes pretty easily on the wide part of a manual grater. I meant to make a honey lime dressing, but couldn’t find the honey; so I just squeezed fresh lime juice onto my salad, and it was very good.

Next time I make this salad, I will try grapefruit. I looked up directions for peeling the tangerines so they don’t have a membrane, but I honestly don’t own a sharp enough knife, and also am not raising any kids who refuse to eat membranes. Harumph!

TUESDAY
BLTs

It was Lucy’s turn to plan and make dinner. Normally BLTs is a birthday-level treat meal, but I’m trying not to quash anybody, so I agreed to her plan and bought five pounds of bacon. She laid them out in two giant pans and put them in a 400 oven for about twelve minutes. They were overlapping each other a bit, and some came out overdone and some underdone, but most if it turned out well and it was SO much easier than frying it in a pan.

My father used to have a BLT for lunch every day. When noon approached, my mother would set a place for him at the old maple kitchen table we inherited from my grandmother. I remember hearing the tea kettle start to sing as the bacon hissed and popped in the old iron frying pan, and my mother would slice off a wedge of lemon for my father’s tea. She’d slit the center of the wedge to make it easier to squeeze, and deftly flick the seeds out into the sink with the tip of a knife. Then my father would arrive, and he’d have a quiet, leisurely meal while reading the daily paper before heading back to work for the afternoon.

From my mother’s example, I learned that when you grow up, people will make you BLTs. And here I am!

WEDNESDAY
Hot dogs, corn on the cob, ice cream

Normally, we have a giant family cookout and firework extravaganza for our giant family on the 4th of July, but several people couldn’t make it, so we moved the party to the weekend.  Seeing as the country really needs more of an intervention than a birthday party, I’m okay with missing the 4th. Boo.

We ate our hotdogs and drove to the beach in the next town, where the local boating club generously hosts a firework show over the lake from a raft. Smiling old men hand out sparklers to the children as the sun sinks below the water, the rich and the poor mingle in peace, and it’s a lovely time.

Except I guess they got sick of the riffraff this year, and we had to go sit in a cemetery across the street. Oh well! Fireworks is fireworks. Corrie booed, because she is a terrible person. Who boos fireworks? Boooo!

THURSDAY
Honey garlic chicken thighs with broccoli and potato

I planned this one actual-cooking meal for the end of the week, knowing it would be cooler. Well, it wasn’t all that freaking cool. And we were out of garlic, of all things. And half the chicken had gone bad! Boooooooo!

Still, it’s a good recipe, a true one-pan recipe, and pretty simple. You make a simple sauce, cut up potatoes and broccoli, put the potatoes and chicken in a pan, spread sauce on the chicken, cook for a while, and then add broccoli toward the end.

It’s a sweet, pleasant sauce, and tastes wonderful with the broccoli. A fine dish if you’re not dripping with sweat and angry about rotten chicken and lost garlic. I really can’t fault Damn Delicious for any of that. The recipe actually calls for chicken breast, but thighs with skin are much better.

FRIDAY
English muffin pizzas

Guess what? It finally rained, and then it went right back to being horribly hot and muggy again. I reserve the right to be cranky, eat too much sour cream, boo fireworks, or whatever works. Boooooooooooooooooooooo!

What’s for supper? Vol. 134: Damn that little bird

We really hit some high highs and some low lows this week, speaking in terms of foodwise. Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY
Sugar rub chicken, brats, mahogany clams

Damien made dinner, with some help from Corrie:

He put some brats and some clams on the grill:

and when the clams opened, he served them in a sauce of white wine, onions, and melted butter. Still the greatest way to end a Saturday afternoon; still too slimy and weird for the kids to want any.

He made a rub for the chicken thighs:

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

When the flames died down, he shoved the coals to one side and laid the chicken on the other side and put the lid down, and let it cook slowly. This makes the meat sweet and moist and gives the chicken skin a remarkable caramelized crust that you need to have in your life.

The brats were the vegetable.

SUNDAY
Steak salad

Steak was on sale, so I was powerless not to buy several pounds of it. Damien made another rub and grilled it lovely and rare:

I sliced the meat and set out bowls of mixed greens, blue cheese, and sliced Granny Smith apples. This dish is actually supposed to have pears, and I will admit that pears are really superior here; but the apples were good.

Very good!

Very good indeed. I put wine vinegar on mine. Any slightly sweet, non-creamy dressing would go well.

MONDAY
Chicken quesadillas

I don’t really remember Monday, but I’m pretty sure the kids made supper. I think I put oil and chili lime powder on some chicken breasts and put them under the broiler to cook, but I think they did the rest. We like quesadillas with cheddar cheese, chicken, and sliced jalapenos, with salsa and sour cream.

TUESDAY
Hot dogs, cheezy weezies

I remember even less about Tuesday. There was a lot of driving, a lot of running, a lot of rain, and a lot of writing.

WEDNESDAY
Pesto chicken burgers with sweet roast peppers; crispy circles

I had high hopes for these sandwiches. They were good, but a little bland for our tastes. First I put a bunch of peppers on a pan and put them in a 500 oven for about 30 minutes, until they were soft and a little charred.

Then I let them cool, then pulled off the skins and scooped out the seeds and cores. This is very satisfying and entertaining.

Then I sliced them up

and added a little olive oil and freshly-ground pepper. I served the peppers on the sandwiches, which were on Kaiser buns with sliced, roasted chicken and pesto sauce.

I made the pesto sauce with, um, a jar of pesto from Aldi. I know, I know.

1-1/4 cup yogurt
1/2 cup mayo
6.7 oz jar of Aldi pesto

fresh ground pepper

It was probably too much yogurt and I don’t know why I skipped the salt; and why no garlic? I don’t know. And we were out of lemon juice (but had three bottles of lime juice). It would have been good to chop the chicken and mix it with the sauce and let it sit for a while, but I was afraid the kids wouldn’t eat it.

A pretty sandwich, but it needed more texture and sharpness. Maybe some capers and red onions? Cheese?

 

The peppers are pretty, but also disappointingly bland. Help me out! Help this sandwich out. I want to like it. I want to like all sandwiches.

THURSDAY
The blight man was born for, with apricot

This pork I bought had been hanging over my head like a, like a hanging pork. That’s ominous enough, isn’t it?

Pork was on sale, so when I was planning the weekly menu, I looked around for a new recipe, and found one that tantalizingly already had the carbs toted up. Asian Pork and Cabbage Salad. Okay, sure, it looks a little peculiar, but maybe people will eat it, YOLO and whatnot. I even bought the right kind of cabbage, $1.99 a pound.

But the pork that was on sale didn’t look great, so I got more expensive pork. And the cabbage was more expensive than I expected, so I figured we could have noodles or something? Noodles and cabbage and almonds, with apricot? YOLO?

You can see where this meal is headed already, right? It was doomed. I sliced the pork up thin, but then decided that I didn’t like the sound of cucumbers and cabbage together; so I veered again, and after heating up the pan I started making a completely different recipe, distinctly non-Asian. Not even faux diabetic Asian, but faux. . . German? I don’t know. I did know I had apricot jam, so I made this Budget Bytes recipe for sauce. 

It gives you the choice of topping chops with sauce, or cooking the chops right in it. Only it called for chops, and I had already cut the meat in slices, and anyway, someone had left the Dijon mustard open in the cabinet for three months, so I threw that out and used regular mustard. Then I started some rice cooking, because I had a hunch we might need it, and we were out of noodles anyway.

Then I cooked up the meat in a skillet, then added the sauce. It didn’t look too terrible, really, and there was a chance a few good sports might eat it, especially over rice. I completely forgot about the cucumbers. Where were the almonds? I couldn’t find them, and a little bird told me to stop looking, because this probably wasn’t going to be a dish that deserved almonds.

Then, just when it seemed possible that all was not lost, another little bird, a real bastard of a little bird, was like, “Hey, this could just be a stir fry! Throw the chopped cabbage into the pan, and stir it up, you witless dinner monkey! Stir fries have mustard all the time! More cabbage, more! And now put a lid on it.”

You may or may not be aware, but when you heat up a chopped Napa cabbage, it sweats about six gallons of water.

So here’s what I put on the table:

Not with a bang, but with soaking wet cabbage and little bits of apricot. I wearily nodded toward the pizzas in the freezer, and they ate them. With rice.

FRIDAY
Tuna Noodle

Despite my unbroken record of making flawless dinners, the kids liked the idea of taking turns planning and making dinner each week. Sophia came up first, and what she wanted was tuna noodle, so that’s what we’re having.

Oh, Damien said I had to tell you about the squid jerky! Well, there’s not that much to tell. In the morning, I found and opened up Kyra’s package of smoked, dried squid, and, although the taste was not great, the smell was really dreadful, so I ate the rest of the package so it wouldn’t stink up the kitchen, and then I spent the rest of the day pooping. What top eleven things are the matter with me, would you say?

In my defense, eating the squid jerky was an entirely new experience for me. My brain couldn’t decide if it was candy, or fish, or waxy string, or what, and kept demanding additional data, so I kept eating it. Then I went for a 2.5 mile run in 93% humidity, with optional hill at the end.

And now my story is all told.

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