Tag: chili

What’s for supper? Vol. 400 and other milestones

Happy Fr–

wait. It’s Friday, seriously? AGAIN? ALREADY??

Yes, all right, fine, happy Friday, then [fetches head which has fallen off shoulders in dismay and rolled under the bed; dusts it off, glues it back on neck with hot glue, ouch, hot, ouch].

Here is what we had this apparently past week:

SUNDAY
Leftover chili, egg rolls, apple pie and ice cream

Saturday Leftover Buffet was a bit of a bust this week because the kid on refrigerator duty forgot it was a thing, and threw all the week’s leftovers away. But you know what, guys. I was like, “The chili, too?” and she was like, “Yeah, sorry” and I was like, “Wait, is this it, in the trash?” and she was like, “Yeah, I threw it away” and I was like, “BUT IT’S THE ONLY THING IN THE TRASH.”

A brand new trash liner, with no trash in it, just chili.

So,,,

when you think about it, really all that happened is that she moved the chili from the pot to an unused plastic bag.

So,,,

I moved it back from the bag onto the stove and heated it up again. I’m not sorry! I’m not sorry!!! It was a brand new liner! And I was really looking forward to that chili! 

To my credit, I did tell Damien what happened before I served it, and he said it was okay. Then 

DAMIEN DON’T READ THIS PART

I found out that actually the kid had also thrown out some leftover fried rice, and poured the chili on top of it, and I didn’t notice, and just heated it up all together.

And this, I did not tell anyone. 

It was still good chili! Had a little more rice, pork, and scrambled eggs in it than absolutely necessary, but who among us. 

Anyway, for some reason I had blurted out that we never had any apple desserts from all those apples we picked the other week, and then I blurted out that I would make some pies, so, I did. 

Truly, they were not the finest-looking pies known to mankind. I made a cute little extra pie for Millie but then ran out of crust for the second of the two big pies, so I went back to that cake mix streusel recipe that I made several weeks ago for the peach whatnot. 

Here is my apple pie dough recipe:

Jump to Recipe

and then I just mixed up the apple slices with a bunch of sugar, a tiny bit of salt, some cinnamon, and a bit of flour, and then piled it onto the crust and dotted it with butter. No recipe, just vibes. I brushed the top crust with egg white beaten up with water, and then sprinkled it with sugar. Baked at 450 for ten minutes and then turned it down to 350 for another 35 minutes or so, covered with tinfoil toward the end. 

I used Macintosh apples even though they cook down really flat and mushy, because Macintosh apples are the best tasting apples, no question. So the pies kind of looked like someone had stepped on them, but they were fresh, hot pies from fresh, local apples! Good stuff. 

The streusel topping was a little weird. I used yellow cake mix and only had a few tablespoons of butter in the house, so I hastily sloshed in some vegetable oil, scrunched it up, and baked it until it was firm. It was actually fine that way. I sprinkled the baked streusel on top of the unbaked pie, sprinkled some cinnamon on top, and baked it that way. It’s not my absolute favorite – it’s very sweet, as cake mix is, and has a tiny bit of a starchy taste. But it’s a great trick to have up your sleeve if you’re unexpectedly short of pie crust. 

And then we went to bed earlyish! Big day tomorrow! 

SUNDAY 
Park food and McDonald’s 

We missed the Cheshire Fair over the summer, so we decided to go to The Big E fair in September, but we were down to like .75 of a car at that point, so we truly had no choice but to go to  Screeemfest at Canobie Lake Park in October. And there was screeeming! It’s all the regular amusement park stuff, minus the water park area, but plus weird Halloween decoration, lots of music of varying scariness, fog machines, and people stomping around in costumes. I guess there is a parade, and probably some other stuff as it gets darker. They also have four themed haunted houses, which I stayed out of completely because I don’t like being scared. 

Bunch o’ pictures here:

In food news, before we left the house around 11:30, I dry brined two enormous, fatty pork shoulders, wrapped them up, and stowed them in the fridge. It takes a little less than two hours to get to the park, and we had some sandwiches in the parking lot first, according to tradition. 

We had such a nice time at Canobie. I love that place. All the lights — the colored lights on the rides, and the little globe lights dotted all over the park — started to come on just as Benny and I got on the Ferris Wheel, and oh, it was lovely. 

We stayed almost eight hours! Life is just so much more POSSIBLE when your kids aren’t all little. We stopped for burgers on the way home and then collapsed into bed. 

MONDAY
Bo ssam, rice, pineapple and mango 

The next day was a school day and, well, you can take the Fishers out of homeschool, but you can’t take the homeschool out of the Fishers. I told everyone they could stay home on account of we were tired. Poor Irene had a dentist appointment, but not first thing in the morning, and the kids devoted the rest of the day to lounging about.

Around 11, I put both hunks of pork in the oven at 300, on pans double wrapped in tin foil. 

About six hours later, I slathered a paste of brown sugar, cider vinegar, and salt on top and cranked the oven up to 500 for ten minutes or so. (More detailed recipe here, with lots of delicious extras, but I have pared it down to the bare minimum, and all I do is the salt and sugar brine and then the glaze at the end.)

I made a big pot of rice, prepped some lettuce leaves, and cut up a bunch of mangoes and pineapples. 

Out comes the pork roasts:

Lovely. It was collapsably tender and juicy like you wouldn’t believe. Everyone just pulls off however much meat they want, and we eat it in little bundles of lettuce with rice. 

Fruit on the side to refresh the mouth after the intensely salty meat. Good stuff, everybody happy. 

TUESDAY
Bibimbap

In the morning, I prepped all the fixings for dinner: I chopped up some sugar snap peas, sliced up a bunch of cucumbers, and quick-pickled a bunch of thinly-sliced carrots in rice vinegar, water, a little salt, and some sugar. 

I had a busy, busy day, doing interviews and driving here and there, and poor Millie is having a bunch of medical problems again, so please pray for her. I love her dearly and she is feeling really poorly. 

I got home on the late side and started another big pot of rice and cut up all the leftover pork and heated it up in the microwave.

This is actually what was leftover after dinner. There was SO much pork. No regrets, though! I was just so pleased with myself for planning this all out: I started it on Sunday morning, cooked and ate it on Monday, and heated up the leftovers on Tuesday, so we had yummy full meals even though I was running around all three days. 

I fried up a bunch of eggs, and we piled it all up in bowls. My egg got overcooked. Sad. It’s amazing when the yolk is runny and soaks down into the rice where it meats the meat juice. 

So it was rice, then meat, then cucumbers, sugar snap peas, pickled carrots, and also crunchy noodles and fried onions if you wanted them, then a fried egg, and then I put some yum yum sauce on top. I wasn’t really sure what it was, to be honest, but I suspect it’s what we used to call “pink stuff” when I was little and my mother made tuna noodle casserole. Pink stuff is mayonnaise, ketchup, and vinegar, and I guess it probably tastes normal if you’re used to eating it in the context of Asian food, but my context is tuna noodle, and it was a little bit like I had just put marshmallow fluff on a croissant. Not completely wrong, but definitely not right. Oh well! I was super hungry and it all tasted good enough. 

I was a little worried the meat would be dried out on the second day, because it’s SO salty, but it came through just fine. 

Also on Thursday I finally acknowledged that we are all done with collard greens for the year, possibly forever.

I pulled them all out, trucked over a bunch of compost, planted a few dozen garlic bulbs, and tucked it in with a ton of used duck straw. And that’s that! It’s supposed to take root before a hard frost comes, and then start up sprouting in the spring. Same for the carrots, which are in the other half of that bed. 

WEDNESDAY
Zuppa Toscana, squash muffins

Wednesday I got the soup cooking in the morning. I made Zuppa Toscana

Jump to Recipe

which really only Damien and I like, but we like it quite a bit. He got back from his morning run in the cold drizzle as I was frying up Italian sausage with garlic and onion, and I think he would have proposed marriage if we weren’t already, you know. It is quite a nice soup. Tender red potatoes in thin slices, plenty of kale, and a savory, cozy, cream base. 

Here is my recipe, which I have tweaked a bit since last time I shared it.

Jump to Recipe

I considered adding a bit of instant mashed potatoes to thicken it up, but the broth tasted so nice, I decided to leave it alone.

I was gonna make some crusty french bread, but realized I would be out of the house too much to supervise the rising. Somewhat disappointed, I decided to make pumpkin muffins, which might mollify the kids a bit. So I stared making them, and you’ll never guess: We didn’t have any pumpkin. SO, I decided to make squash muffins, using acorn squash from my garden. 

Sounds so thrifty and commendable, right? It wasn’t. I could have easily run to the store down the road to buy a can of pumpkin, or even more easily sent Elijah to do it. Instead, I did it this way because my frame of mind was such that, when I saw we had no canned pumpkin, I snarled, “Oh??? Two can play that game!!” and started hacking at the squash.

Two who? What game? I don’t know. It wasn’t very fascinating womanhood of me, though. 

I cut four acorn squashes in half, scooped out the seeds, and then inadvisably cooked them in the microwave, which took so long, I might as well have used the oven; and they came out really unevenly cooked, too. Then I burned the hell out of my fingers scooping out the flesh, and jammed the pieces into the Ninja blender.

It came out quite a bit more liquid-y than the canned pumpkin you buy, but I was running out of time and also still pretty angry at the shadowy forces that had forced me into this corner, so I just slapped it all together and baked it. I put it in the oven right away so at least the dog wouldn’t eat it this time. 

They came out . . . low.

They tasted fine and normal and they were very soft.  Just kind of humble, I guess. And at least you can tell it’s all organic and home-grown and whatnot, because some of the peel made it into the muffins. 

Hey, great soup, though! And so we move on. 

THURSDAY
Hamburgers and chips

Thursday, two of the kids didn’t have school because there were parent-teacher conferences, and then one kid wasn’t feeling well, and the final kid and I kinda looked at each other, and we agreed that she probably had a stuffy nose. So we all went back to bed. Listen. I pay the tax dollars, I get to say if we get our money’s worth or not on any given day. 

So we did get the two kids in for their conferences, with varying levels of enthusiasm

and stopped at a thrift store on the way home, and Corrie found a mini sewing machine she fell in love with, and Benny found a hand-knit squid hat (we really do have pretty great thrift stores), and then NOBODY HAD TO GO ANYWHERE.

I have ever so much writing this week, so I tappa-tappa-tappa’d for a while, and took some time to deal out breathtaking injustices toward my children, then I showed Corrie how to use her new sewing machine, and then we decided they might as well carve pumpkins.

I told Cub Scouts we would just have to see them next time. The kid who is a bit young to be using such a big knife did, in fact, cut her hand, but it wasn’t too deep and we even had some of those giant bandaids in the house. Then I made hamburgers, and then spent several more hours writing while Damien folded clothes with the kids, and . . . that’s how twenty-seven years go by, folks. 

FRIDAY
Spaghetti?

Yes, today is our ANNIVERSARY. 27 years!

We’re gonna go out and do something nice on Sunday, probably involving kayaks and Indian food. I think the bigger kids have a library lock-in tonight, which means it will just be me and Damien and Corrie home for dinner, which sounds really nice! Perhaps pizza and a movie. 

Also, I just found out Millie is home from a short stay at the hospital and feeling much better! 

In conclusion, did you notice that this is What’s For Supper Vol. 400, including some chili I got out of the garbage, and that my very first blog post ever, a free Blogger blog that I started something like 17 years ago, was about my toddler eating spaghetti out of the garbage? Did you know that sometimes people ask me for tips on how to live a good life? It really makes you think. 

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Basic pie crust

Ingredients

  • 2-1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1-1/2 sticks butter, FROZEN
  • 1/4 cup water, with an ice cube

Instructions

  1. Freeze the butter for at least 20 minutes, then shred it on a box grater. Set aside.

  2. Put the water in a cup and throw an ice cube in it. Set aside.

  3. In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Then add the shredded butter and combine with a butter knife or your fingers until there are no piles of loose, dry flour. Try not to work it too hard. It's fine if there are still visible nuggets of butter.

  4. Sprinkle the dough ball with a little iced water at a time until the dough starts to become pliable but not sticky. Use the water to incorporate any remaining dry flour.

  5. If you're ready to roll out the dough, flour a surface, place the dough in the middle, flour a rolling pin, and roll it out from the center.

  6. If you're going to use it later, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. You can keep it in the fridge for several days or in the freezer for several months, if you wrap it with enough layers. Let it return to room temperature before attempting to roll it out!

  7. If the crust is too crumbly, you can add extra water, but make sure it's at room temp. Sometimes perfect dough is crumbly just because it's too cold, so give it time to warm up.

  8. You can easily patch cracked dough by rolling out a patch and attaching it to the cracked part with a little water. Pinch it together.

 

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Zuppa Toscana

Ingredients

  • 1.25 lbs. sweet Italian sausages
  • 1-2 red onion(s), diced
  • 4 medium red potatoes, sliced thin with skin on
  • 8 oz mushrooms, sliced (optional)
  • 3-5 cups kale, chopped
  • 4 cups half and half
  • 8 cups chicken broth
  • 1 Tbsp minced garlic
  • olive oil for cooking
  • pepper
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • instant mashed potato (optional!)

Instructions

  1. Squeeze the sausage out of the casings. Saute it up in a little olive oil, breaking it into pieces as it cooks. When it's almost done, add the minced garlic, diced onion, and sliced potatoes. Drain off excess olive oil.

  2. When onions and potatoes are soft, add flour, stir to coat, and cook for another five minutes. 

  3. Add chicken broth and half and half. Let soup simmer all day, or keep warm in slow cooker or Instant Pot. 

  4. Before serving, add chopped kale (and sliced mushrooms, optional) and cook for another ten minutes (or set Instant Pot for three minutes) until kale and mushrooms are soft. Add pepper. Add salt if necessary, but the sausage and broth contribute salt already. 

  5. This makes a creamy soup. If you want it thicker, you can add a flour or cornstarch roux or even a few tablespoons of instant mashed potato at the end and cook a little longer. 

 

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Pumpkin quick bread or muffins

Makes 2 loaves or 18+ muffins

Ingredients

  • 30 oz canned pumpkin puree
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup veg or canola oil
  • 1.5 cups sugar
  • 3.5 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1.5 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/4 tsp ground ginger
  • oats, wheat germ, turbinado sugar, chopped dates, almonds, raisins, etc. optional

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter two loaf pans or butter or line 18 muffin tins.

  2. In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients except for sugar.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix together wet ingredients and sugar. Stir wet mixture into dry mixture and mix just to blend. 

  4. Optional: add toppings or stir-ins of your choice. 

  5. Spoon batter into pans or tins. Bake about 25 minutes for muffins, about 40 minutes for loaves. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 399: In which my flan is flerfect

Happy Friday! I have zero introductory quips, so let’s just get to it. Here’s what we ate this week: 

SATURDAY
Leftovers with burritos and fried rice

Busy-busy! Damien picked up Corrie from a sleepover and took the kids to the Pumpkin Festival while I went shopping, and then he picked up other kids and brought them to their friend’s house and took other friends from that house to their own house, and I don’t know what all. I was a little sad to miss the festival, but the appeal of just plain going home by myself was pretty overwhelming, even if it meant bringing the groceries in by myself like some kind of peasant. And then I put them away like a SANE PERSON, which is more than I can say for, nevermind. It’s fine. 

We had our now-traditional “leftover plus something frozen” Saturday meal — this week, frozen burritos. And a Frankenstein head, as you can see.

We turned out to have some leftover char siu as well as leftover rice, so I chopped it up and made some fried rice. 

I minced up a bunch of garlic, onion, and ginger, and browned it in sesame oil, then added a bunch of brown sugar and stirred that over the heat until the sugar was bubbly and darker. Then I put in the meat and rice, and dumped on a bunch of soy sauce and a little fish sauce. Couldn’t find the hoisin sauce. Then I stirred in scrambled eggs (I pre-scramble them) and some chopped scallions and there it was. 

Quite yummy. 

I think we watched Signs that night. Very solid scary movie, weird and interesting and perfectly paced.

SUNDAY
Domino’s

Sunday after Mass, we had been planning a trip to the apple orchard for weeks, but it was raining. But it really was the only day we could go, so we forged ahead, and the rain held off!

 

Clara and her boyfriend met us there, and we did all the things: Hayride, apple picking (and the timing was perfect. We got some HUGE wonderful fruit), petting zoo, donuts and hot cider. It started raining as we were finishing up, so we made a little side trip to Runnings, which is basically Redneck Walmart, and then met some more family members at my parents’ grave. 

Looks like everything I planted is dead except for one little stub of a rose bush, so I guess I’ll just start over. My sister and her husband built a truly spectacular reliquary for the St. Peter and St. Helena relics (which are still being restored and documented), and it was a strange and good visit. We all agreed it would be nice to meet again soon, maybe not in the rain in a graveyard, even. 

The kids wanted to make caramel apples when we got home, and I had bought those quick caramel sheets you just stretch over the apple and heat up.

I had a sudden memory of how I used to save those paper squares, because FREE PAPER. Feeling pretty rich these days. I buy my paper in the paper aisle!

I also started some caramel for the next day’s dessert, which I will explain in a moment. 

MONDAY
Chili con carne, fry bread, flan with mango and pecans

Monday we had a little lull because the kids had the day off for what our legislature apparently decided must legally be referred to as “Columbus Day” in official communications. If I had that much time on my hands, I’d . . . make even more chili for Indigenous Peoples Day than I actually did, which was quite a bit of chili. (We used to celebrate Columbus Day as Eat Italian Food day, but we transferred that to St. Joseph’s day, which makes as much sense as anything else.) 

Anyway, I made a big pot of chili. I basically followed this recipe from Recipe Tin Eats, except that I tripled it, and used two pounds of ground beef and one pound of ground turkey; I used two cans of kidney beans and one can of black beans; and I couldn’t find the paprika so I subbed chili powder. 

Turned out great. Pretty standard recipe, but there’s nothing wrong with that. 

I decided I wanted to make some kind of dessert, and I was 900% sure my kids would not eat anything made with hot blueberries and cornmeal, so I decided that flan was indigenous to somewhere (Spain if you use egg yolks, Mexico if you use the whole egg, and my backyard if you have a bunch of ducks), so flan it was. I honestly mostly wanted to use up eggs. 

I followed this recipe from The Spruce Eats, which I’ve made once before. Last time I made one big flan, but since then, I got my hands on a set of twelve ramekins, and could still find eleven of them! Not a bad record for this vicinity. 

Like I said, I made the caramel the night before. It’s just heating up and stirring white sugar until it’s liquidy, and then pouring it into the ramekins. I was so afraid of burning it, it took forever, but I didn’t burn it! I poured it into the ramekins, where it hardened very quickly, and then I just covered it and left it out overnight. 

Monday I made the custard and poured it on top of the caramel, and then poured water into the pan for a water bath.

Then you just bake it, let it cool, and then chill it for a few hours. BUT I FORGOT TO COVER IT. So much of the purpose of the water bath was defeated. Boo. But I got it into the fridge in plenty of time. 

I also decided I wanted to try something new to go along with the chili, so I made some fry bread, which many native peoples have a version of. I followed this very simple recipe and I don’t know what the heck happened, but it was really sloppy and sticky, really batter and not dough. So I kept adding and adding and adding flour until it was thick enough to handle, and fried that it hot oil. 

I continued adding flour as I went, and by the end, they were turning up more bread-like. 

The kids did not actually mind that the first several pieces were all crunchy and crinkly. I had mine as a side to the chili, but some of the kids put powdered sugar on theirs. 

No argument from me. 

Then it was flan time! You run a knife around the edge, then flip them over onto a plate and give them a shake or a tap, or maybe a thump, and they schlorp out onto the plate. The caramel has turned back into a syrup, and it pools on what is now the top, and runs down the sides. 

Nice, right? I was so pleased. I cut up a few mangoes and chopped up some leftover sugared pecans for the top, and oh, it was yummy. 

The custard was, as I was afraid, a little on the gummy side because it baked without a cover, but it wasn’t a disaster. Still rich and creamy, and a beautiful yellow with the duck eggs. 

I am unreasonably fond of custards, and would probably eat them every day if not for, well, various reasons. And it’s good to know I can totally make the caramel part ahead of time! 

TUESDAY
Shepherd’s pie

Tuesday I hustled to make a shepherd’s pie in the morning (and a shepherd’s pielet for Millie). I have a sort of vague recipe, which uses leftover meat, but obviously you can just cook the meat specifically for the pie. I’m sorry, I’m extremely tired and I’m probably babbling. Anyway, here’s the recipe:

Jump to Recipe

And here’s the pie: 

It should have been in the oven maybe eight more minutes, to the top could finish browning up. Oh well. It actually held together really nicely as individual pieces, but I kind of dropped it into the bowl, where it fell apart. 

Tuesday we had a frost in the morning

(not the first frost, but the first one that hit everything, not just shadowy spots), so I decided to go ahead and harvest that wild mob of gourds.

I dragged them in, washed and dried them, and counted them, and now they’re drying on the porch for a while, and pretty soon I’ll move them into the attic or something, to cure.

GUESS how many gourds. 

Sixty nine! And yes, when I told my husband how many there were, he said “nice.”

Well, they are nice! They will take several months to cure and completely dry on the inside, and then I can make all kinds of things with them. I’m thinking of vases and bowls, birdhouses, ocarinas, and maybe Christmas decorations, although they may not be ready by Christmas. 

I also got another six acorn squash and another four large pumpkins. And half a dozen eggplants that I forgot about and they look pretty wretched, so I think I’ll just throw them away. It’s going to be warm this weekend (high 60’s), so this may be my last chance to get my fall stuff in the ground. I have a bunch of striped red Gregeii tulips to intersperse with the daffodils that are pretty well-established in back, and then a bunch of random bulbs I got on clearance that I honestly might just put in planters, to simplify things. And I might get some garlic going, which I haven’t ever tried before. Goodness knows we do go through garlic. 

Oh, on Tuesday I also dragged myself to the doctor and had the immense pleasure of showing them what my inguinal hernia was up to, and we all decided it was time to show it who is boss (some stranger I just met who says she is a surgeon). So that’s something to look forward to.

WEDNESDAY
Muffalettish sandwiches, fries

Wednesday I had a nutty day. I was up all night and then slept late and basically rocketed into an interview, which actually turned out great. I really love doing these artist interviews! Then I had to shuffle a kid off to work and get a mammogram, stopped at the store for milk and whatnot, and while I was out, on the spur of the moment I ran to Supercuts, quickly googled “short wavy haircut,” and got me a short wavy haircut. 

Phew! I like it. Then picked up kids, dropped one off at catechism, picked up other kids, brought them home, went back for the catechism kid, and was very grateful to myself for planning a simple meal: SANDWICHES. And fries. 

I threw two cans of black olives, one jar of green olives, and one jar of kalamata olives, and a handful of banana peppers into the food processor, and then sloshed in a little red wine vinegar and olive oil. Sometimes I get fancier than that, but this was fine. 

I just had some prepackaged deli meats and cheeses and soft rolls, but gosh I was HUNGRY, and it tasted amazing. 

The fries also tasted amazing. The ketchup tasted amazing. I guess I was really hungry. 

Also really tired! Benny and Corrie were working on some kind of Tell-Tale Heart related project, and I fell asleep on the couch and Benny wrote “tired” on a little piece of paper and taped it to my face, so that was helpful. 

THURSDAY
Roast pork ribs, steamed broccoli, rice

Thursday was another crazy-go-nuts day, and I can’t even remember why. I considered various Asian options for dinner, and then just decided to go super kid friendly, because they’re tired, too. I made a bunch of rice in the Instant Pot with chicken broth instead of water, steamed a few bags of frozen broccoli, and roasted the pork ribs with just salt and pepper. 

Not a thing wrong with it. I had peach butter with my meat, but most of them had bottled BBQ sauce. 

One kid had PSAT, and Corrie had cub scouts in the evening, but it was (heavenly choir singing) Damien’s turn to take her; and then he also went and picked up Elijah. So I stayed home and had a little tantrum over how much TV the kids had been watching, so we all hung around and gloomily read books, and I of course fell asleep. But then I woke up insisted that we all drive over to the pond and see if we could see the comet. We saw Venus and decided that was impressive enough, because it was cold out. So we went home and I read a chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring to Corrie, and it was the part where Galadriel is tempted by the Ring, but passes the test. That was fun to read out loud!

And then I diminished and went to bed. 

FRIDAY
Quesadillas, chips and salsa

Yep, that’s the plan. Elijah and Damien are gonna go look at a used car after adoration, and at some point Corrie is going to get home from her field trip the Polar Caves, which I just realized I forgot to pay for. But I will. I’ll do everything, eventually. And make Halloween costumes!

I still plan to be beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night, fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain, dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning, stronger than the foundations of the earth. But first I need to get some sleep. We all need to get some sleep. 

5 from 1 vote
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Leftover lamb shepherd's pie

This recipe uses lots of shortcuts and it is delicious.

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350.

  2. Prepare the mashed potatoes and set aside.

  3. Heat and drain the corn. (I heated mine up in beef broth for extra flavor.)

  4. In a saucepan, melt the butter and saute the onion and garlic until soft. Stir in pepper.

  5. Add the flour gradually, stirring with a fork, until it becomes a thick paste. Add in the cream and continue stirring until it is blended. Add in the cooked meat and stir in the Worcestershire sauce.

  6. Add enough broth until the meat mixture is the consistency you want.

  7. Grease a casserole dish and spread the meat mixture on the bottom. Spread the corn over the meat. Top with the mashed potatoes and spread it out to cover the corn. Use a fork to add texture to mashed potatoes, so they brown nicely.

  8. Cook for about forty minutes, until the top is lightly browned and the meat mixture is bubbly. (Finish browning under broiler if necessary.)

What’s for supper? Vol. 347: Wouldn’t it be chili with no skin on?

In elementary school, we used to sing this Halloween round:

Have you seen the ghost of John?
Long white bones, 
With the rest all go-o-o-o-ne,
Oooooooh!
O00-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooooh!
Wouldn’t it be chilly with no skin on?

WELL, it all comes together in today’s post. 

SATURDAY
Hot dogs, hot pretzels, raw broccoli and dip

I woke up SO late on Saturday and everything got pushed forward SO far, I’m pretty impressed we had three actual distinct things for supper. 

Nothing else to report, except that I suddenly remembered a kid going through a phase of playing restaurant, and one of the featured items was “pretziles.” Which makes me remember I haven’t made homemade hot pretzels in a while. 

[Daphne Moon voice:] I don’t know whyyyy.

On Saturday, I also finally put up an extra little shelf that I’ve been meaning to put up, and now I officially have room for all my spices! If you’ll recall, this is what it looked like before. 

Then I got a bunch of spice jars and bunch of mason jars; and now I have an extra shelf as well, so here it is:

It’s . . . sigh . . . better. I swear it’s better. Only a few things are still in sacks, and everything is labelled, top and side. And I have hooks for red and yellow onions, and a little basket for my ginger and garlic. 

I haven’t organized the spices, though. There are just too many other people using them, and trying to keep them in the order I want would be asking for constant heartache.

I also still haven’t managed to re-hang the other shelf that came crashing down, that used to hold all my oils and vinegars, so that’s all crammed in there as well. It’s less upsetting if I think of it all as WEALTH, which it is. Never thought I’d need a spot just for all my various salts and peppers! My various oil! Look how lucky I am. 

SUNDAY
Hamburgers, chips, further raw broccoli

On Sunday I did a bunch of tragic gardening (I planted a few hundred bulbs and spent the time repeatedly reminding myself that absolutely none of them are going to come up and everything just dies anyway and what’s the point, oh boo hoo hoo hoo) and also put up some more skeletons. For, uh, self care. 

We have a number of skeletons year-round, partly because it helps Instacart find our house when GPS insists on sending them to the fence company and saying that’s our house; but mostly because I have had a lifelong love for skeletons. 

This one, I think the kids named Shakespeare 

and this one, Insulon, is new this year (his eyes light up):

Then we have Baba Mailbox, which doesn’t really make sense, but whatcha gonna do:

and of course The Gardener:

and also new this year is Horbert, who lives by himself.

Here is a short video of The Hoisting of Horbert:

 

who didn’t end up as high as I expected, considering how hard it was to hold that tree down. 

Then we had hamburgers for supper.

I don’t know if it’s been a long time since we’ve had burgers, or maybe I just worked up a good appetite tragically gardening and tree wrestling, but those were some especially delicious burgers. 

MONDAY
Chili verde on rice; corn

This is a nice recipe that I discovered a little shortcut for this week.

Jump to Recipe

Normally when I make chili verde, I blister the peppers and tomatillos under the broiler, then let them sit and loosen, then pull off the skins and put the insides in the food processor, along with onion, garlic, and cilantro.

This time, I suddenly wondered what would happen if I left the skins on. I also put the onions in the oven, rather than adding them raw to the blender. Time to find out! Exciting! 

I cut the pork shoulder into chunks, seasoned it heavily with salt and pepper, browned it in oil, blended up the vegetables, and then added the resulting green salsa to the pot with the pork, and let it cook slowly on the stovetop all day. 

It turned out thicker than usual and quite a bit spicier than usual, a real sinus clearer. And absolutely delicious. Mayyybe a tiny bit bitter, but not in an unpleasant way. The family polished it off, to my delight. I might add some chicken broth in the future, to make it a little thinner, but I think I will stick with leaving the skins on. It made my life easier, and the flavor was great. If anyone knows of some reason why I should be taking the skins off, speak now! 

I was gonna make corn bread or corn muffins, but a quick poll revealed that nobody actually wants that, so I just cooked up some frozen corn, and made a bunch of white rice, and that was what they wanted. We had lime wedges and sour cream for toppings, and we really needed that sour cream to ease up the spice!

Wish I had had a little more cilantro to top it off. But it was a good meal. Everyone either has, just had, or is about to get a cold, and it’s been damp and foggy out, so this worked nicely. 

On Wednesday I also got a very subtle haircut. Usually I got to Head Whompers and pay $12 to get most of my hair chopped off, but this time I went to a Fancy Place and paid quite a bit more to get little bits here and there removed.

I’m still not sure how I feel about it, but Damien said my head looked fluffier, so I think that’s good. 

TUESDAY
Beef barley soup, pumpkin muffins

Jubilation. This is a highly-anticipated meal (second only to ham-peas-mashed potatoes) that I hold off making until the frost is on the pumpkin or whatever. I forgot to get mushrooms, but it was still very tasty.

Here’s the soup recipe: 

Jump to Recipe

This is the soup I make in my head when I can’t fall asleep. I go through it as slowly and meticulously as possible, paying close attention to each detail, cleaning as I go, and if I don’t actually fall asleep by the end, I usually at least feel less anxious. Thanks, soup!

In real life, it was a soccer day, so I made the soup in the morning, except for the barley, and then put together the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients for the pumpkin muffins

Jump to Recipe

and then combined them when I got home, and quickly baked them right before supper. 

Full disclosure, the muffins were a tiny bit squashy (I mean technically they were 100% squashy, since canned pumpkin is actually squash; but I meant they were somewhat underdone) and the barley was a little bit chompy, because I forgot how long it takes to cook; but it was still a well-received meal. 

Piping hot muffins and a bowl of soup with tender beef, lots of wine and tomatoes, plenty of carrots and onions and pepper. What’s not to love?

Next time I need to make more soup! Some people have come around to soup recently, to my delight.

This is why I stick to my policy of just making food that seems good to me, and offering it over and over and over again. People really do come around eventually, often enough. Or if they don’t, that’s also fine. I just don’t want to fight about food. There’s enough fights. 

WEDNESDAY
Pizza

One cheese, one pepperoni, and one Things Mother Likes. To wit: Black olive, fresh garlic, red onion, fresh basil, ricotta, anchovy.

This absolute cartoon cat got to clean out the anchovy can for recycling

and I got to eat two pieces of this scrumptious pizza

so everybody was happy.

THURSDAY
Asian meatballs, pork fried rice, pineapple

I made extra rice when I made the chili verde, for the express purpose of having leftovers for fried rice. Wasn’t that smart? I feel like I am waking up out of a fog this week. I’ll probably live to regret saying this, but I stopped taking Propranalol because it wasn’t doing anything for my headaches anyway, and within a few days I felt much more awake and much less pukey; and without changing my diet, I lost three pounds. So. Go to hell, Propranalol. I have a real live appointment with an honest-to-goodness neurologist, and I’m going to insist they stick needles in my cheeks or install a skull steam valve or something. But no more stupid drugs that make me stupid! I’m already stupid enough! 

Anyway, the fried rice was good. I minced some ginger and garlic and threw it in the pan with hot oil for a bit, then added pieces of leftover pork and diced red onion, and then I dumped a bunch of brown sugar on top of that and let it get bubbly and dark.

Then I added scrambled egg (I didn’t think I was up for scrambling the egg directly into the rice today), some bagged broccoli, carrot, and water chestnut, and the leftover rice, and then I dumped on a bunch of oyster sauce, a little fish sauce, and quite a bit of soy sauce, and heated it all up.

Pretty tasty!

I made the meatballs in the morning, and cooked them while I was making the rice. I used a recipe I’ve used before (it’s not letting me put the “jump to recipe” button in, for some reason, but the recipe is at the bottom of the page: Vaguely Asian Meatballs), except instead of ground beef, I used ground turkey, which happened to be $3 a pound. I cooked them at 425 for about 20 minutes before dinner

and served them with a jar of sweet chili sauce, and they were delicious. Light and garlicky and just very pleasant to eat. 

I also cut up a couple of pineapples and sprinkled some more chopped scallions over everything, and it was an easy, successful meal. 

When I make two kinds of Asian-inspired food, my goal is to not use the exact same ingredients in both dishes, and I achieved this by refraining from putting ginger in the meatballs. My breath was still glowing in the dark that night from all the garlic. 

FRIDAY
Quesadillas? 

Yes, I think quesadillas. I have a bunch of spinach in the fridge that I never used, so I think I’ll make spinach quesadillas, which are very nice. 

 It occurs to me that one of those skeletons should be named John, or Chili Verde, or Tomatillo, or something. Well, there’s always next year. 

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Spicy Chili Verde

You can decrease the heat by seeding the peppers, using fewer habañeros, or substituting some milder pepper. It does get less spicy as it cooks, so don't be alarmed if you make the salsa and it's overwhelming!

Ingredients

  • 5 lbs pork shoulder
  • salt and pepper
  • oil for cooking
  • 2 cups chicken broth or beer (optional)

For the salsa verde:

  • 4 Anaheim peppers
  • 2 habañero peppers
  • 4 jalapeño peppers
  • 4 medium onions
  • 12 tomatillos
  • 1 head garlic, cloves peeled
  • 1 bunch cilantro

For serving:

  • lime wedges
  • sour cream
  • additional cilantro for topping

Instructions

  1. Preheat the broiler.

  2. Pull the husks and stems off the tomatillos and rinse them. Cut the ends off all the peppers. Grease a large pan and put the tomatillos, peppers, and onions on it. Broil five minutes, turn, and broil five minutes more, until they are slightly charred.

  3. When they are cool enough to handle, you can at this point remove the seeds from the peppers to decrease the spiciness, if you want.

  4. Put the tomatillos, peppers, and onions in a food processor or blender with the garlic and cilantro. Purée.

  5. In a heavy pot, heat some oil. Salt and pepper the pork chunks and brown them in the oil. You will need to do it in batches so the pork has enough room and browns, rather than simmering.

  6. When all the meat is browned, return it all to the pot and add the puréed ingredients.

  7. Simmer at a low heat for at least three hours until the meat is tender. If you want thinner chili verde, stir in the chicken broth or beer. If you don't want the pork in large chunks, press the meat with the back of a spoon to make it collapse into shreds.

  8. Spoon the chili verde into bowls, squeeze some lime juice over the top, and top with sour cream and fresh cilantro.

 

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Beef barley soup (Instant Pot or stovetop)

Makes about a gallon of lovely soup

Ingredients

  • olive oil
  • 1 medium onion or red onion, diced
  • 1 Tbsp minced garlic
  • 3-4 medium carrots, peeled and diced
  • 2-3 lbs beef, cubed
  • 16 oz mushrooms, trimmed and sliced
  • 6 cups beef bouillon
  • 1 cup merlot or other red wine
  • 29 oz canned diced tomatoes (fire roasted is nice) with juice
  • 1 cup uncooked barley
  • salt and pepper

Instructions

  1. Heat the oil in a heavy pot. If using Instant Pot, choose "saute." Add the minced garlic, diced onion, and diced carrot. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions and carrots are softened. 


  2. Add the cubes of beef and cook until slightly browned.

  3. Add the canned tomatoes with their juice, the beef broth, and the merlot, plus 3 cups of water. Stir and add the mushrooms and barley. 

  4. If cooking on stovetop, cover loosely and let simmer for several hours. If using Instant Pot, close top, close valve, and set to high pressure for 30 minutes. 

  5. Before serving, add pepper to taste. Salt if necessary. 

 

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Pumpkin quick bread or muffins

Makes 2 loaves or 18+ muffins

Ingredients

  • 30 oz canned pumpkin puree
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup veg or canola oil
  • 1.5 cups sugar
  • 3.5 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1.5 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/4 tsp ground ginger
  • oats, wheat germ, turbinado sugar, chopped dates, almonds, raisins, etc. optional

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter two loaf pans or butter or line 18 muffin tins.

  2. In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients except for sugar.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix together wet ingredients and sugar. Stir wet mixture into dry mixture and mix just to blend. 

  4. Optional: add toppings or stir-ins of your choice. 

  5. Spoon batter into pans or tins. Bake about 25 minutes for muffins, about 40 minutes for loaves. 

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Vaguely Asian meatballs with dipping sauce

Very simple meatballs with a vaguely Korean flavor. These are mild enough that kids will eat them happily, but if you want to kick up the Korean taste, you can serve them with dipping sauces and pickled vegetables. Serve with rice.

Servings 30 large meatballs

Ingredients

  • 2.5 lbs ground beef
  • 1 sleeve Ritz crackers, crushed finely
  • 1/3 cup soy sauce
  • 1/2 head garlic, minced
  • 1 bunch scallions, chopped (save out a bit for a garnish)
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 Tbsp ground white pepper

For dipping sauce:

  • mirin or rice vinegar
  • soy sauce

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 425.

  2. Mix together the meat and all the meatball ingredients with your hands until they are well combined. Form large balls and lay them on a baking pan with a rim.

  3. Bake for about 15 minutes.

  4. Serve over rice with dipping sauce and a sprinkle of scallions.

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 269: In which I push my luck

Happy Fribeday! Today’s edition includes several delightful foods I certainly did not cook myself, plus some rolls which no one but me could or would have made. And I am wined and dined and manage to complain about it. 

So, Saturday and Sunday and part of Monday, Damien and I were away at a little getaway for an early anniversary trip. 24 years, just about! We somewhat randomly decided to go to Canobie Lake Park Screeemfest, which means their normal amusement park with miscellaneous spooky decorations, plus some haunted houses and shows.

American Halloween is weird, man. It’s such a mishmash of different aesthetics. We both discovered that we don’t like haunted houses at all anymore. I honestly think I would have just gotten completely overwhelmed and not been able to find my way out, so Damien basically grabbed me and pulled me through as fast as possible, and then we sat on a bench for a while until I could stop saying, “My goodness.”  We did go on a bunch of normal rides, including bumper cars, my favorite ecstatic swings-on-chains one, and one that is the same as a washing machine spin cycle, except that, instead of the dirty water going out, it is your blood trying to escape. 

The first thing we did was eat, though, which may have been a tactical error, but I was starving! We both had a smoked brisket sandwich with jalapeños, coleslaw, and beer. Holy cow, it was delicious.

Can’t remember the name of the vendor, but they were set up near the flying rooster ride. I really must learn how to smoke brisket. We used to occasionally have brisket when I was growing up, but Jewish brisket is not the same as smoked brisket on a sandwich. I have no desire to recreate the occasional brisket of my childhood. 

We stayed at the park for a few hours until we began to feel too old, and then made our way to the hotel. We had requested a second night, but hadn’t heard back, so Damien called the front desk, who rather rudely told him to talk to Priceline, who had him wait for a long time before letting him know that they didn’t really know what was going on and he should talk to the hotel, who then informed him that the hotel was all booked up. I was a tiny bit relieved, and it smelled somewhat like wee in there, and I also had it in my head that there might be bedbugs (there weren’t). Damien then booked a room at a much nicer hotel at Hampton Beach for the second night with no problem. This becomes important later. I was a little nervy, with the imaginary bedbugs, and my blood trying to escape, and only slept a few hours, but we were still having fun! I brought orange juice. 

SUNDAY

We got up, went to Mass — well, went to what turned out to be the wrong church, and then launched ourselves to the right church only a few minutes late for Mass — and then proceeded to Newburyport, MA. We didn’t really have a plan, but it looked like a pretty town, so we stopped for lunch.

I quickly realized that it was an aggressively nice town. Half the roads were cobblestone, either original or put in just to be cute, it was hard to say. Absolutely adorable architecture, gift shops selling silver and crystals and mermaid everything everywhere, touristy to the max. A trans woman with long white hair and a long white dress playing a harp in the town commons, and every single damn dog I saw was in a stroller. I quietly renamed it Painintheass, MA in my head. Honestly, a really nice town, but just Too Too Much.  However, after I browsed around the shops and Damien got some work done at a café, we got a table at a lovely restaurant by the riverwalk, and had a magnificent brunch at Sea Level Oyster Bar. 

We had an order of fried calamari that included batter fried hot peppers, very nice

but the real star was the oysters. I have never had such wonderfully fresh, luscious, tasty oysters. There were three different kinds

and one of the accompaniments was a tart pineapple mignonette. Wowzers. 

I ordered something called Sluice Juice IPA from Bent Water beer. Terrible name, but a really wonderful beer, very citrusy and refreshing, with lots of different flavors. I don’t really like beer unless I’m eating, and this was the absolute perfect beer to go with seafood. 

 

The only non-chocolate dessert was apple pie in a jar, so I ordered that. It came with what must have been a sugared mermaid or fishtail crust garnish, but it looked more like antlers and didn’t taste like much. The rest was lovely, though, tart and fresh with plenty of whipped cream and a kind of streusel on the bottom. 

We had a seat near the water (I think it’s the Merrimack River), the service was fast and friendly, and I would absolutely go back to that very pleasant restaurant.

We spent a little time browsing the antique market (which requires vaccines and masks), and stopped at a Greek gift store, where I had spotted a blue icon sun catcher I wanted, and then got bullied into buying a quite expensive bottle of olive oil from Sparta. Yia Yia was very persuasive. She kept shouting at us, and there was something about her three grandchildren in heaven that she cooks for every night using that same oil. I swear I only had one beer, and that’s what she said. I narrowly avoided buying an entire can of the oil, which was $50. She also threw in some oregano. 

We eventually got back on the road and found ourselves in Seabrook, which has a nuclear power plant, but it turns out you can only see it in the summer. And then we got to Hampton Beach. 

Here’s the short version of what happened next: We had allegedly checked in online, and should have been able to go straight to our room, but it didn’t work. When we tried to check in at the desk, the clerk seemed a little flustered, and asked if my name was [something other than Simcha]. Then she said that there was another family also called Fisher, and that was unusual.

Ok? I didn’t think much of it until we got up to our room and unlocked the door, and … There were already some people in that room! Goodness gracious. So embarrassing. 

At first we apologized, but then we realized our key had opened the door. So I said, “Wait a minute, is your last name Fisher?” And it was.

It turns out the other Fisher family’s credit card had been declined, but the clerk thought we were all together, so they went ahead and put them in the room and charged our card! And then when we checked in, they charged our card again! So we got charged twice, but did not get a room! So I sat down in the hall with our luggage, and Damien went to the desk to straighten things out. And see if they actually had a room for us!

Which they did, eventually. With an upgrade, as is meet and just. We had a great ocean view and a big ol’ bed and a big ol’ balcony, and I opened the door to the ocean and cranked up the heat and we just put our feet up for a while, whuffing the breeze and not doing anything for a while, because it was already evening by this point.  It was at this point that I began to think we had packed in too much walking for someone with arthritis in her hip, and too much driving for people who are supposed to be relaxing, and possibly not accounted for this much ridiculousness for a very short weekend, but what can you do.

We eventually made our way to the hotel restaurant, where I ordered maple bacon scallops and a white Russian

which tasted exactly like it sounds, hot and tasty if not terribly sophisticated. Then I ordered a Reuben and another white Russian, and we just kept reminding each other that there is an employment crisis and the waitress is obviously trying her best, because it took about five hours to get that damn sandwich. 

At this point, I was fairly white Russian, and wasn’t able to make much headway in the sandwich. I will say that that was the most goyishe pickle I’ve ever had in my life. It was just a piece of cucumber having a hard time, that’s all. (Yes, we tipped well. Everybody’s having a hard time.) 

So up to the room and I stashed my leftover Reuben in the mini fridge. All night long, the fridge was making these peculiar clattering, howling sounds, and I kept thinking, “This is the second night in a row that I’m not sleeping at all! I should get up an unplug the fridge! But no, my Reuben is in there!” Finally, around 5 a.m., I drifted off to sleep. At 7 a.m., the neighbors STARTED UP A KARAOKE PARTY. Sweet Caroline, You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling, the whole nine yards. Who does that?? Damien called the front desk to complain. This being the same crew that so adroitly arranged the whole Schrödinger’s Fishers rooming situation, they honestly did not do a great job making the neighbors be quiet; but eventually they sang themselves out, and we dozed off again, and then it was time to check out. We somewhat blearily packed up our stuff and put it all in the car, and then we had a few hours to enjoy the beach; only, to be honest we were both freaking exhausted, and it was cold. So we spent a little time breathing in the salt air and watching the seagulls swoop around, then picked out some candy for the kids, and then we were all done. And I forgot my Reuben.

It was a very pretty ride home, though, really the very peak of foliage glory. A few times, we would come around a bend and get smacked in the face with so much color, we both just started laughing. I do love that man. We have the weirdest anniversaries, though. 

MONDAY
Chili

We used to do a big Italian feast for Columbus Day, but we’ve moved that to St. Joseph’s day, because, c’mon. We didn’t have a lot of time to put together anything indigenous, but Damien made a highly delicious chili.

Jump to Recipe

Do you know, it’s not easy to take a photo of chili that shows it looking delicious, but I tried.

I might have knocked down the salt content a bit, but it was nicely spicy and the balance of meat to bean and corn was great. I had mine with sour cream, cheese, and chives.

Did eat leftovers for lunch.

TUESDAY
Chicken caprese sandwiches

On the theory that we may be dead tomorrow anyway, I went ahead and set out the good Greek olive oil and weakly warned the children that it was Very Expensive Indeed, and then just walked away. 

As you can see, I sloshed on as much as I liked. Maybe we’ll be dead tomorrow. It was really good. Tasted like olives. 

WEDNESDAY
Meatball subs on homemade french bread

On Wednesday, Dora borrowed my car and did my afternoon school pick-up, meaning I had the afternoon free to fritter away in whatever manner I pleased. So I made a bunch of meatballs in the morning.

Jump to Recipe

I made them with about four pounds of ground beef and two pounds of ground turkey, which happened to be on sale. This lightens meatballs up quite a bit, and I prefer them this way. I cook my meatballs on a broiler pan in a 450 oven, and then transfer them to a pot with sauce. This is ten thousand times easier, neater, and faster than pan-frying them, and they’re not quite as scrumptious, but they are meatballs, absolute balls of meat, and nobody every complains.

The roll, though.

Aldi was completely out of rolls when I went shopping. Aldi is like that. They have such great prices and some really wonderful products and treats, but then they’ll be like, “Oh sorry, we’re not doing the whole bread thing today” or they’ll act like they never heard of potatoes. You have to assume, when you go to Aldi, that you’ll also be going somewhere else afterward.

OR, you could think, “Wait, I don’t have to go anywhere this afternoon! I could MAKE MY OWN ROLLS!” Forgetting for the moment that you’re kind of a cruddy baker and your bread turns out well maybe one in five times. 

Jump to Recipe

Well, I did remember a good tip, which is that you can proof your dough in the Instant Pot. Grease the pot, plonk your dough in there, cover it with plastic wrap or a damp towel, and press the “yogurt” button. If you need more of a cover, use a plate or a pot lid, not the regular Instant Pot cover, because, as a few friends warned me, you’ll have a horrible time picking the dough out of the sealing ring and the valve and such if it rises too much. 

My dough rose pretty well the first time, but then I decided to start a huge bulb planting project, and I think here is where my bread went wrong, because I had to keep setting timers and dashing in and out of the house, and not always hearing the timer because I was planting bulbs next to the highway and it was pretty loud, what with trucks rushing past and people honking at me. I had a giant tub of cayenne pepper I was spreading around to keep the squirrels from digging up my bulbs, and the wind was blowing, and the cars were honking, and my alarm kept going off, and I kept running in and out, I don’t know. It always goes wrong somehow. Also I was kind of low on flour, so I had to throw some cornmeal in there. Anyway, I decided to make a bunch of short, skinny rolls, and some of them looked so flabby, I tried to scrunch them up a bit before putting them in to bake, and THAT  . . .

IS HOW I GOT TARDIGRADE ROLLS.

Water bear rolls!

Moss piglet(?) rolls!

A lot of them actually turned out looking like normal rolls, but I didn’t take pictures of those, because this isn’t actually a cooking post, sorry. 

They tasted okay. Slightly mealy, no doubt because of the cornmeal. 

THURSDAY
Yakitori chicken, rice

Damien made this fabulous Japanese chicken on the grill. He made a triple recipe of this sauce, and you’re supposed to use it on boneless, skinless chicken on skewers, but I got offended at the boneless, skinless chicken price, so I came home with about 20 intact chicken thighs, and he opted to cook it that way. Great choice. I don’t know if “yakitori” means that it’s on skewers, or if it refers to the sauce. I just don’t know. But look at this chicken!

This is how he prepared it: He whisked together the sauce ingredients and boiled and stirred for 5 minute until it thickened up. He set aside half the sauce and then smoked the chicken for about an hour, coating it on both sides with the sauce a few times. Then he grilled the chicken and coated it over indirect flames, and coated and smoked a little more to make sure everything was cooked all the way.

He served the chicken with the rest of the sauce, plus sesame seeds and chopped scallions. I made a big pot of rice cooked in chicken broth, which the kids consider a delicacy.  

Deee-licious. The sauce is sharp and dark savory and tasted wonderful with the charred chicken skin. I really hope we have this again. 

FRIDAY
Mac and cheese for the kids, possibly fried calamari 

On the way home from our wanderings on Monday, we stopped to pick up the chili ingredients, and I happened to see a bunch of frozen calamari rings, which I couldn’t turn down because they don’t sell it at my normal supermarkets. How much should I push my luck? How hard could it be? Actually I think Damien is going to make fried calamari. I don’t even know what I’m for around here, anymore. I guess I do yoga and eat, and sometimes I plant flowers for the spring, just in case. 

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Meatballs for a crowd

Make about 100 golf ball-sized meatballs. 

Ingredients

  • 5 lbs ground meat (I like to use mostly beef with some ground chicken or turkey or pork)
  • 6 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups panko bread crumbs
  • 8 oz grated parmesan cheese (about 2 cups)
  • salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400.

  2. Mix all ingredients together with your hands until it's fully blended.

  3. Form meatballs and put them in a single layer on a pan with drainage. Cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes or more until they're cooked all the way through.

  4. Add meatballs to sauce and keep warm until you're ready to serve. 

 

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French bread

Makes four long loaves. You can make the dough in one batch in a standard-sized standing mixer bowl if you are careful!

I have a hard time getting the water temperature right for yeast. One thing to know is if your water is too cool, the yeast will proof eventually; it will just take longer. So if you're nervous, err on the side of coolness.

Ingredients

  • 4-1/2 cups warm water
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 Tbsp active dry yeast
  • 5 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup olive or canola oil
  • 10-12 cups flour
  • butter for greasing the pan (can also use parchment paper) and for running over the hot bread (optional)
  • corn meal for sprinkling on pan (optional)

Instructions

  1. In the bowl of a standing mixer, put the warm water, and mix in the sugar and yeast until dissolved. Let stand at least five minutes until it foams a bit. If the water is too cool, it's okay; it will just take longer.

  2. Fit on the dough hook and add the salt, oil, and six of the cups of flour. Add the flour gradually, so it doesn't spurt all over the place. Mix and low and then medium speed. Gradually add more flour, one cup at a time, until the dough is smooth and comes away from the side of the bowl as you mix. It should be tender but not sticky.

  3. Lightly grease a bowl and put the dough ball in it. Cover with a damp towel or lightly cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise for about an hour, until it's about double in size.

  4. Flour a working surface. Divide the dough into four balls. Taking one at a time, roll, pat, and/or stretch it out until it's a rough rectangle about 9x13" (a little bigger than a piece of looseleaf paper).

  5. Roll the long side of the dough up into a long cylinder and pinch the seam shut, and pinch the ends, so it stays rolled up. It doesn't have to be super tight, but you don't want a ton of air trapped in it.

  6. Butter some large pans. Sprinkle them with cornmeal if you like. You can also line them with parchment paper. Lay the loaves on the pans.

  7. Cover them with damp cloths or plastic wrap again and set to rise in a warm place again, until they come close to double in size. Preheat the oven to 375.

  8. Give each loaf several deep, diagonal slashes with a sharp knife. This will allow the loaves to rise without exploding. Put the pans in the oven and throw some ice cubes in the bottom of the oven, or spray some water in with a mister, and close the oven quickly, to give the bread a nice crust.

  9. Bake 25 minutes or more until the crust is golden. One pan may need to bake a few minutes longer.

  10. Run some butter over the crust of the hot bread if you like, to make it shiny and even yummier.

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Damien's Indigenous Chili

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs ground beef
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 1 head garlic, chopped
  • 1 shallot, chopped
  • 2 jalapeños, chopped
  • 28 oz crushed tomatoes
  • 16 oz canned kidney beans, drained
  • 16 oz canned corn, drained
  • 16 oz beer
  • 16 oz chicken broth
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 2+ Tbsp cumin
  • 2+ Tbsp chili powder
  • 1/4 cup white vinegar
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/2 bottle (?) Frank's Hot Sauce
  • olive oil for frying

sour cream, chopped chives, shredded cheese for serving

Instructions

  1. Cook up the onions garlic and peppers in a little olive oil until soft.

  2. Add meat, brown, and add salt and pepper.

  3. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir and then cover loosely and simmer a couple of hours.

  4. Serve with sour cream, chopped chives, and shredded cheese.

What’s for supper? Vol. 184: Treasures of the sea and other travesties

And just like that, it was fall. Crisp weather, slanted light, ripening apples and towering corn, ragged mists rising slowly over the fields of goldenrod, people dealing inappropriately with the stress of transition. It’s glorious. 

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Burgers, chips

I was gloomily making my shopping list, thinking about the rising tide of autumnal stews and squashes and other cold weather foods, and then I saw that lobsters were on sale. And a very good sale it was! Seized with a sudden urge to possess something carefree and summery, I boldly decided we would end our week with fresh steamed lobsters, and who could blame us?

But when I got to the store, they were all gone. So I ordered some for Sunday and arranged to pick them up before dinner, which felt somewhat less impetuous and madcap, but still. Lobster. 

We had hamburgers and chips on Saturday. 

SUNDAY
Lobster, risotto, corn, strawberries, chicken nuggets

Finally lobster time! But when I got to the store on Sunday, they wanted to charge me Sunday’s price, which was most assuredly not on sale. I was disappointed, and was about to go away sad, but then I said to myself, “I’m a grown woman. It’s not unreasonable for them to accommodate a loyal customer and give me the price I was expecting to pay. At very least, it couldn’t hurt to ask.” So I spoke up, using the kindly brontosaurus technique, and the fish man talked to his manager, and it worked! I got four 1.5-pound Sunday lobsters for a Saturday price.

They offered to steam them for me, but again, I didn’t want to settle for second best and let them get all rubbery on the ride home, so I took them alive. I felt very alive. Lobsters!

You know, when you get to be in your mid-forties, you find out you can do all kinds of things that used to seem scary. You can very often just take a deep breath, push your way through, and do the thing, and it turns out it doesn’t kill you after all. It’s very liberating to find out how strong and capable you actually are. 

Still, I was a little nervous about those lobsters, so I gave myself plenty of time. I set a big pot of salted water to heat up, melted a bunch of butter, and cut up some lemon wedges. I made the risotto in the Instant Pot, and I shucked the corn. The bag of lobsters sat quietly on the counter. I set out plates on the table and counted forks. 

Then lobster water began to boil. It was time. I peeked into the bag and those lobsters seemed really docile and resigned, and were only waving their antlers around a little bit. They were clearly alive, but not, you know, like, alive. I knew I could handle this, and I really do love steamed lobster. I gathered up all my womyncourage and dumped the bag out into a bowl so I could see what I was up against. 

Well, those horrible little fuckers started flopping around and scrabbling and trying to organize a mutiny in my kitchen. So I did the only thing I could do for an accomplished adult in my station in life: I screamed and ran away and stood in a corner and refused to talk to anyone. Then I sent one of my sons in to deal with the horror, one of my giant hulking sons who towers over my head, and he tried with some tongs, but then he also screamed and ran away.

So Damien had to do it. I was so proud of all of us. 

The lobster was delicious. I don’t know what else to say. It’s kind of liberating to eat lobster? Because it tastes good? I was glad I only bought four, because most of the kids were horrified and traumatized by the whole thing, not sure why. They had chicken nuggets. 

Oh hey, I’ll put my risotto recipe at the end. Because I’m a grown woman and I’m not afraid to use a pressure cooker. 

MONDAY
Chicken thighs with squash and Brussels sprouts

Normally a well-liked one-pan dish for cool weather. I don’t know where I went wrong, but it just wasn’t that great. I skipped potatoes, for one thing. That was wrong. Never skip the potatoes. 

Anyway, I’ll put my recipe at the end, and probably you’ll do it better. It’s just big pieces of hearty vegetables in a simple balsamic sauce with roast chicken thighs on top. It’s usually good, I promise! Maybe it’s supposed to have honey in it? I don’t know. 

TUESDAY
Chili and corny corn bread

Damien made chili. I’ll get his recipe when he gets home. I like chili, but I gave up making it many years ago, because nobody else liked it; but Damien’s cooking style is so different from mine, I thought there was a shot they would like his. I felt guilty about not cooking on a weekday, so I decided to make cornbread. Also nobody likes cornbread, but I figured it would be a fun and easy baking project for me and the little girls. 

Well, they wanted to play Just Dance instead. So I made the cornbread by myself. I had the bright idea to add some fresh corn from the leftover corn from Sunday, and then I threw in some chili powder. How did it turn out? Bad, that’s how. Flabby and weird, just like the rest of us. Hooray!

Damien and I liked the chili. Nobody else did. Hooray!

WEDNESDAY
Pizza

Everybody likes pizza. Here’s a picture of pizza. 

THURSDAY
Carnitas and rice

I took a half pork loin and put it in the slow cooker with a can of beer and a can of peppers in adobo sauce. By evening, it was falling apart. I fished the meat out, shredded it, and spread it in a pan and broiled it so it was slightly crisp. 

I had been planning beans and rice, but I realized the meat was quite spicy, and the kids would be sad if they didn’t have anything bland and white to eat. So I just served white rice.  Then for some reason I decided to put leftover chili on the tortilla along with the pork. I also had sour cream and cilantro, but the whole thing was just confusing.

I mean, I ate it, but I was confused. 

FRIDAY
Pizza?

My aunt and uncle are coming for a visit and they did say they would bring pizza.

In conclusion: Yes, I know I said “lobster antlers.” Fight me. 

***

 

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Instant Pot Risotto

Almost as good as stovetop risotto, and ten billion times easier. Makes about eight cups. 

Ingredients

  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground sage
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 4 cups rice, raw
  • 6 cups chicken stock
  • 2 cups dry white wine
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • pepper
  • 1.5 cups grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Turn IP on sautee, add oil, and sautee the onion, garlic, salt, and sage until onions are soft.

  2. Add rice and butter and cook for five minutes or more, stirring constantly, until rice is mostly opaque and butter is melted.

  3. Press "cancel," add the broth and wine, and stir.

  4. Close the top, close valve, set to high pressure for 9 minutes.

  5. Release the pressure and carefully stir in the parmesan cheese and pepper. Add salt if necessary. 

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One-pan balsamic chicken thighs and vegetables

A true one-pan dish that works well with lots of variations of seasonings and vegetables

Ingredients

  • 18 chicken thighs with skin and bone
  • 1 butternut squash in cubes
  • 3 lbs red potatoes in cubes
  • 1 lb baby carrots
  • 2 lbs brussels sprouts, halved
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
  • salt (preferably kosher)
  • pepper
  • oregano
  • basil

Instructions

  1. Grease a large, shallow pan. Preheat the oven to 400.

  2. Mix together the olive oil and vinegar with a tablespoon of salt and pepper. Spread the vegetables in the pan, pour the mixture over them, and stir them up to coat, then spread them out again. 

  3. Lay the chicken breasts on top of the vegetables. Sprinkle more salt and pepper, basil and oregano over the whole pan. 

  4. Cook for 30 minutes or more, until vegetables and chicken are cooked through and chicken skins are golden and crisp. 

  5. If necessary, broil for a few minutes to add a little char.