Tag: middle eastern food

What’s for supper? Vol. 165: Levanted and enchanted

This post is full of moaning and complaining, some great food I didn’t make, plus one really excellent recipe I did make.

SATURDAY
Bacon cheeseburgers

Damien made this, and took care of everything all day. On Friday night, I suddenly got mysteriously sick and haven’t completely recovered yet. Horrible vertigo and nausea, no other symptoms. I went to the doctor and of course I felt fine while I was there, so who knows. It seems to be going away slowly. Anyway, Damien did everything while I lay in bed and whimpered, and the kids have been picking up the slack magnificently.

SUNDAY
Grilled pork chops, red cole slaw, chips

I did manage to do the rest of the shopping that day, but hit a parked car in the Aldi lot. I blame the vertigo, as I’ve been driving oversized vehicles for 13 years and hardly ever hit anybody. Happily, the other car was at least as tattered and junky as ours, and we haven’t gotten a call from anyone’s insurance company.

Damien made a sugar rub (the card below says “chicken thighs with sugar rub,” but it’s the same rub) for the chops and grilled them outside (first time grilling outside this year, hooray!). They were magnificent.

I made a simple coleslaw with a red cabbage, mayo, vinegar, and sugar. I love a sour, snappy coleslaw with savory pork. Mm-mm-mm.

MONDAY
Pork ramen, pineapple

Nuttin’ fancy. I made a bunch of chicken ramen (the only flavor my kids will eat) and sliced up the leftover pork into strips and heated it up. I soft boiled a bunch of eggs and set those out with crunchy noodles and raw snap peas. I had mine with a little hot sauce. It didn’t blow anyone’s mind, but it’s a filling meal.

As I prepared to carve up the pineapple, I briefly considered the viral video where astonished people were today days old when they discovered you could serve a pineapple but just trimming off the ends and then grasping the individual — listen, I went on a bit of a wild goose chase trying to find out what the separate bumps on a pineapple are called, and what I learned is that a pineapple’s ovaries coalesce into berries. Anyway, there is this video where you just grab the bumps and they come away in your hand like nature intended, and then white people feel stupid because they didn’t know about pineapples. Then I thought, “Screw it, I already got a knife.”

TUESDAY
Salami caprese sandwiches

This was a little sad. The plan was ciabatta rolls with genoa salami, tomato and mozzarella, lots of fresh basil, olive oil and vinegar, and a little salt and pepper. These sandwiches are so much better than they have any reason to be. But the basil got shoved to the back of the fridge, where it froze. Bleh. So we had the sandwiches without basil, and they were really lackluster.

The only bright spot was that I was down for the count again, and when I woke up, Clara made me a sandwich to be consumed on the couch, so that was nice.

Then Corrie brought me “a clementine in its own special holder,” and that was nice, too.

WEDNESDAY
Jerusalem mixed grill with pita and Israeli salad

Wednesday I was feeling much better, and this meal was a real bright spot. Most definitely making it again. The NYT has the recipe (which is, at least for now, not behind a paywall), but calls for baharat, which I couldn’t find in the stores. It’s one of those mixes of spices that varies by region, and I wasn’t sure which taste was the most important. I finally ended up just mixing together a bunch of stuff that seemed likely. I’ll put a card at the end for this. And look at this pretty picture! Yay, daylight savings time!

It’s a really easy recipe. I took a bunch of boneless, skinless chicken thighs and cut them into largeish chunks, mixed them up with a bunch of chicken livers, and stirred it all up with the spice mixture. I also bought chicken hearts, but somehow lost them. We may need a smaller refrigerator.

Previously, I had set a big pot of red onions to caramelize. I left a full hour to let them finish, since I know about onions. And then . . . I forgot to turn the stove off, so they caramelized for over three hours. And apparently that’s what it takes! Now you know.

So basically you heat up some oil in a big skillet, sear the chicken and livers on both sides, then turn the heat down and let it finish cooking with the caramelized onions. You can see I crowded my pan here:

It turned out well, but be aware the livers cook much faster than thighs. You dish up your meat and squeeze a little fresh lemon over it. We had it with pita bread, lots of yogurt sauce, hummus, nice dill pickles, and something called Israeli salad, which is apparently a regional staple.

My version had European cucumbers, tomatoes, some kind of orange grape tomatoes, parsley, a little red onion, lemon juice, a little olive oil, and kosher salt. Oh my gosh, it was such a wonderful meal. We are absolutely adding this whole meal to the rotation. The cool, bright, acidic salad made a wonderful companion for the sort of dusky intensity of the chicken.

If you don’t like chicken livers, you might try this meal anyway. Of course you can just skip them; but the cinnamon and nutmeg really soften the bitterness, and they taste more like especially savory dark meat.

THURSDAY
Pizza

I managed to get the dough on the pans and then had to go lie down. No, I’m not freaking pregnant. I’m just dying. My 40’s have been one long list of things I can no longer handle. First afternoon coffee, then chocolate, then sugar, then perfume, then salt; and now apparently being upright is asking too much. Anyway, the kids finished the pizza while I went to lie down. Then I got up to eat some pizza; then I went back to bed.

FRIDAY

This is what I seem to have written at the beginning of the week:

because Damien and I are going to a reporter thing, leaving behind a house full of competent children, and cheese. However, Dora had a yen to bake yesterday, and made two giant cheesecakes for dessert. We don’t usually have Thursday dessert, much lest Thursday in Lent dessert; but on the other hand, cheesecake. She left me with blackberries and chocolate so I could make toppings for them, but instead, I fell asleep on the couch. So it looks like the children will be having cheesecake for supper tonight. The graham cracker crust is the vegetable.

And now I have four parent-teacher meetings to attend. Should probably put pants on.

Recipe cards:

Print

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. 

Print

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. 

Print

Jerusalem mixed grill

May not be the most authentic spice mix, but it sure tastes good. Serve with pita bread, hummus, yogurt sauce, dill pickles, and Israeli salad 

Ingredients

  • 4 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs trimmed and cut into pieces
  • 8 oz chicken livers
  • 6-7 red onions, sliced thin
  • olive oil for cooking
  • 4 lemons

spices:

  • 2 tsp cumin
  • 4 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 tsp paprika
  • 4 tsp thyme
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp salt

Instructions

  1. First caramelize the onions. You know this will take at least an hour. Set the onions aside. 

  2. Toss the chicken thigh pieces, hearts, and spices together. 

  3. Heat the oil in a large skillet. When it's very hot, add the meats and sear on all sides. Then turn the heat to medium and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the meat is cooked all the way through. Note that livers cook faster than thighs, so make sure the thighs are done all the way. 

  4. Serve with pita and yogurt sauce. Squeeze the fresh lemon over the meat. 

What’s for Supper? Vol. 155: I didn’t get a fa la la out of that guy!

Fast away the old year passes! Fa la la la la, la la la la!
Glad it’s gone, you bet your asses! Fa la la la la, la la la la!

I skipped What’s For Supper? last week because we had a ton of convenience food, since everything else last week was so very far from convenient. You know how it is. There were a few standout meals, though, mainly on my birthday.

Damien made me a wonderful shrimp fettuccine, which includes cooking the pasta in water in which the shrimp shells have been boiled, so the whole meal has a bright oceanic feel to it. He uses the Deadspin recipe.  Love this meal so much.

Then we had cheesecake with cherry topping, which Corrie volunteered to deliver while singing “Happy Birthday.” I died.

The next day the man and I went to the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton MA. If there’s any way you can go, I can’t recommend it enough. But, like, eat some protein first, and rest up, because it is intense. It’s small and well-organized, and offers a good amount of information without getting in the way of the icons. We had all day to be there, but we had to leave after about an hour and a quarter, because I was full up. Just absolutely full up.

Then we stopped at the Old Timer, which is everything a beloved little old creaky varnished wooden Irish tavern with cloudy windows ought to be. We had a couple of pints and then told the bartender we were ready to head out. Then he brought us another round. I guess he misheard us, but I wasn’t going to argue, because it was my birthday. We did leave eventually, strolled around in the nippy air, and decided that middle eastern food was calling us from a little place called Zaytoon. Not fancy, but oh man, that food. I had some kind of lamb thing

with rice and lentil soup and all sorts of yumminess

who can say what? (I mean obviously that is hummus and bean salad, but there were mysteries sprinkled throughout.) The guy running it was also immensely genial and hospitable. They had a lavish buffet, too, which I will definitely check out if we ever go back. All in all, it was a perfect day, and I don’t deserve to be this happy, but I just can’t help it!

SATURDAY
Grilled ham and cheese, chips

You guys know what grilled ham and cheese looks like! Like this, from some other Saturday. We have this sandwich on Saturdays a lot, it’s true.

SUNDAY
Roast beef sandwiches, fries

Chuck roast was super cheap, so I got two big ‘uns, and Damien crusted them with tons of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and oregano, then browned them up in a heavy pot in olive oil, then put them in a 325 oven for about an hour and forty minutes. Then he let them rest a bit and sliced it up.

We had the meat on toasted rolls with horseradish sauce and provolone.

This, too, is actually a previous sandwich. It’s hard to believe, but I think I may have eaten this week’s roast beef sandwich without taking a picture first.

MONDAY
Creamy roast mushroom soup, deli sandwiches

I tried this nice recipe from Damn Delicious, knowing full well that two kids and I would enjoy it, and the rest of them would be complete jerks about it, even though we were also having sandwiches and I had no intention of forcing soup on anyone. Here’s a picture of one such sandwich, just to prove I did sustain them in their sorrow.

They were nice sandwiches, too, with ciabatta bread, olive oil and vinegar, smoked turkey, salami, and even some shredded prosciutto, because my daughter who works in a deli got her hands on a prosciutto end, duh-rool, duh-rool.

Look, look at the lovely roasted mushrooms! Lovely.

The soup was rich and gently savory, just what a creamy roasted mushroom soup ought to be. I took this pic before it finished cooking, so the finished product was an earthier shade.

Sometimes I rush through soups and just chuck everything in and let it sort itself out, but this time I did it step by step and let the flavor develop.

I . . . couldn’t tell the difference. I like soup. Good soup, bad soup, hurry-up soup, proper soup, whatever. The only time I absolutely refused to eat some soup was when I had thriftily turned a Thanksgiving turkey carcass into about four gallons of soup, slipped in a puddle, and spilled the entire pot under the refrigerator, and all the kids cheered. I forget what it was that was so horrible about that soup, but it was bad enough that I was relieved I only had to clean it up, and not eat it.

Damien also made Alton Brown’s eggnog, which is superb. It’s like dessert in a cup, and nicely boozy. He snickered at me (Damien, not Alton Brown) for licking out my cup to get all the boozy, nutmeggy, creamy foam, but whose fault was that?

TUESDAY
Christmas brunch, Chinese food

Christmas! Yes. We went to 10 PM Mass (no midnight Mass available this year, to my mixture of disappointment and relief) the night before. Corrie was Corrie.

and we are we.

and then we bundled them off to bed, finished up the stockings and such, and then in the morning we could just chilllllll out with our presents and our candy and our filthy eastern ways.

We had our traditional brunch of Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls, a mountain of bacon, grapes and clementines. I made the dough for the cinnamon rolls the night before, and honestly, this year ends that tradition. It’s not hard, but they somehow turn out a little worse each year, and nobody really looks forward to them except out of habit. So I need to come up with some other kind of nice baked good for a Christmas morning tradition. I didn’t even take a picture this year. Here is some Christmas morning cinnamons rolls of yesteryear:

For supper, we always have Chinese take out. I didn’t even know this is a Jew thing to do; we just happen to have very good restaurant 1/10 of a mile down the road from us, and we all realized one year that Christmas is delicious enough, and we didn’t need to salt it with the tears of an exhausted cook. Behold the Pu Pu Platter for 16:

I did cook up a giant pot of rice, because I love my family. BUT NO VEGETABLE.

WEDNESDAY
Pu Pu leftovers, shrimp cocktail

The shrimp was actually supposed to be for Christmas eve, but we found ourselves unable to find even a shrimp-sized empty spot in our bellies. I made a concerted effort not to have too much food this year, but guess what? We had too much food.

THURSDAY
Spaghetti and meatballs

The children had begun to develop a bad attitude toward Chinese food, so we had the opposite, which is spaghetti and meatballs. You need to shut about about spaghetti being Chinese. Nobody wants to hear that. I’ll put my recipe card for basic meatballs at the end.

Maybe you noticed, we had a misunderstanding and one of the kids used the big holes to grate up the parmesan cheese, so we had parmesan shreds. You know? It was pretty good! Parmesan will melt when it’s not grated up with bits of fluffy wood pulp. Guys, we have so much nice cheese in the house, I have lost track of what cheeses we currently have.

FRIDAY
Pizza

And we’re off to learn everything we need to know about insulin pumps! Alas, our insurance doesn’t cover traditional pumps such as what you can buy from Home Depot, so we have a bit of a trip ahead of us.

Speaking of ahead of us, New Year’s Eve is coming right up, so if you hold out a little bit longer, you can make it the rest of the year without eating any more vegetables. Last year, we had a make-your-own sushi party, and it was so so so much fun, so we’re doing it again.

Last year’s shopping list: Nishiki rice and several packages of nori, soy sauce, rice vinegar, wasabi, pickled ginger, roe, tuna steaks, some seared and seasoned tuna, maybe some canned salmon for the sissies, fake crab legs, toasted sesame seeds, avocados, mangos, and carrots and cucumbers for pickling. We made cones, rather than rolls, and everyone found something to like.

Not sure what we will do for dessert. A few weeks ago, I snapped up some cannoli shells, which are hard to find around here, so we may have the cannoli we didn’t manage to make on Columbus Day. If crab rangoon goes with a Pu Pu platter, than cannoli go with sushi. Fa la la la la!

Print

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. 

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

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

SATURDAY
Hamburgers, chips

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

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

***

SUNDAY
Chicken shawarma, grilled baby eggplant

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

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

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

We also cooked up the red onions from the marinade.

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

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

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

I am fun!

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

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

Impudent strumpets.

***

MONDAY
Chicken nuggets, broccoli

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

Look how cultured:

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

***

TUESDAY
Pizza

Tuesday escapes me. I imagine we were running around.

***

WEDNESDAY
Chicken pesto pasta salad

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

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

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

***

THURSDAY
Pork enchiladas, chips and salsa

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

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

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

***

FRIDAY
Mac and cheese

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

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

What’s for supper? Vol. 71: Your feta has given me wings!

Another week has come and gone and kicked my butt. Here’s what we had to eat:

SATURDAY
Aldi pizza 

All of Saturday was consumed with the installation of our new couch from Craigslist. Sometimes, living in a 5/8ths-scale house is just stupid, especially if you just got a swell deal on a truly enormous overstuffed sectional.

If you think Valentine’s Day is romantic, you should see my husband obligingly sweating his way through an absurd, five-hour, perpetually escalating “if you give a mouse a cookie” situation, and not even swearing.

Here, we see the old, faithful couch cast out after years of service, and the new one being broken in with My Little Pony and cheese sticks.

That’s how it goes. It’s a hard knock life for couch.

***

SUNDAY
Chicken shawarma

Shawarma is one of the greatest contributions the east has ever made to the west. Almost makes up for algebra. It’s even better if you marinate it starting the night before, but marinating all day is good, too.

Like a maniac, I bought sixteen pounds of chicken thighs, and by the time I skinned and trimmed them all, I was pretty much over the raw chicken experience, so I left the bones in and marinated and cooked them that way, rather than de-boning.

It wasn’t a mistake, exactly, but it definitely detracted from the delectability of this dish (NYT recipe here). This is a meal that you want to be able to gather up with eager fingers and pop into your mouth with glee, while mumbling insincere resolves to stop eating soon. Bones just slow you down.

We served it with pita bread, cucumbers, feta cheese, red pepper hummus, olives, parsley, and yogurt mixed with fresh garlic and lemon juice.

I also fried up some eggplant, but that did not turn out great. I couldn’t get enough of that cool, sharp yogurt sauce, though. Man.

I give this meal a A for content, B+ for execution. Wish I had gotten some tomatoes.

***

MONDAY
Penne with sausage sauce, salad

Snow day! Again! A good day for hearty pasta. Damien took the kids sledding, while I bravely stayed home and fried up diced onions and loose sausage, basil, and oregano, added a few jars of spaghetti sauce, and some red wine, and let it cook for a while, then served the sauce over penne with parmesan.

I also made hot chocolate again, which is why, this morning, I had to stop at the minimart and buy a gallon of milk for $4.79 to get us through the day. Humph.

***

TUESDAY
Corn dogs, chips

I have no memory of Tuesday. Oh, wait: I remember seeing a plate holding a pile of tattered and discarded corn dog batter. Animals.

Oh, wait, I remember more. It was Valentine’s Day, which I like, so there. I made a cheesecake using this basic Philly cheesecake recipe, and it turned out just fine. (It did crack, but I don’t care.) I made a chocolate ganache which turned out garbage, so we just had strawberries on top. I also made some fudge using Skaarup’s Lunatic Fudge recipe, which is fast and easy, no candy thermometer required. I made it in a heart-shaped pan, because I like that.

***

WEDNESDAY
Panic omelettes, biscuits, leftover chicken, salad

Because supper was going to be easy, I thought I’d go lie down for ten minutes and surf through Facebook until it was time to get things going. Next thing you know, I’ve accidentally made the acquaintance of some extraordinarily imaginative folks who, when they open their eyeballs in the morning, see nothing but a menacing horde of their fellow Catholics who are using NFP for the wrong reasons.

You know and I know that there is no worse use of one’s time than trying to make sense of a conversation like this, but I did it anyway. And so, suddenly, it’s half an hour after we should be sitting down to eat, and I’m just now staggering into the kitchen, wondering what would in the world would motivate someone to try and make marriage harder, and also where all the friggin eggs went.

(They went into the cheesecake, and also everyone has to make eggs on a snow day. It’s the rule.)

I usually make omelettes to order; but since I could only find eleven eggs, that seemed futile. So I made a six-egg omelette with pepper jack cheese, turned it too soon, got mad, and burned the rest. Then I ripped up some ham and did the same thing with the rest of the eggs. I divvied them up, and then discovered that my 12-year-old son was waiting for the next batch, which there warn’t none. SADNESS. Good thing I had made sixteen pounds of chicken not long ago.

We also had biscuits, which I made with Benny. Come to think of it, we made them before supper, so I can’t have been arguing about the scourge of wild, unrestrained Humanae Vitae parties at the same time. I guess that was a different day. Well, we used this recipe, anyway.

***

THURSDAY
Japanese-style beef stew, rice, rice rolls

This seemed like a really swell dish — chunks of beef and sweet potatoes and fresh ginger slices in chicken stock with soy sauce, pepper, honey, and lemon juice —  but it turned out no better than adequate. I don’t know what I did wrong, but it must have been more than one thing.

There weren’t any clean bowls, so I served it angrily over rice.

You know what’s going to make my cooking a lot better? Spring. So I can have some natural light to take food pictures with.

I also managed to cook it in a skillet, transfer it to a dutch oven, put it in the fridge, take it out of the fridge, transfer it into the crock of a crock pot, and heat it up in the microwave. Thank goodness for all these labor-saving devices. Next, I plan to pour the leftovers into one of those plastic bags that you seal up with a vacuum cleaner, then store it under my bed, sell the house at a stunning loss, and move into a wood-panelled van in Martha Stewart’s back yard.

Also on Thursday, I made 53 stained glass heart cookies, and Damien dipped sixty strawberries in chocolate, because I signed up to bring treats in for three separate classrooms for a belated Valentine’s Day party.

The cookies are not hard to make, but they take forehhhhhhhhver. You use this basic, no chill sugar cookie recipe, and cut out large cookies with a cookie cutter. Lay them on the baking sheet on parchment paper or silicone baking mats, cut out a smaller shape inside each cookie, and fill up the cut-out with crushed hard candies; then bake as usual, or a tiny bit longer. The candy melts and makes a little colored window, very pretty.

They turned out fine, if a little bleary. But they took forehhhhhhhhver.

***

FRIDAY
Shakshuka 

Here’s a pic from last time I made it:

There are many things to love about shakshuka, and not least is that you can sing it to the tune of “Volare” and really bother the children. If I have time, I want to try this pita recipe. I have until 3:45 to come up with an irritating pita song.

Oh, Dean. Just shut up.

What’s for supper? Vol. 68: A peaceful transfer of power, yum yum

At least we still have food.

I cooked my little heart out this week. No particular reason. Next week, it’ll be all hot dogs and heavy drinking, and then we’ll see who transfers what.

Here’s what we had:

SATURDAY
Bagel, egg, cheese, and sausage sandwiches, frozen hash browns

 

bagel-sandwiches

Great meal for a busy day. I love it.

SUNDAY
Broccoli, cheese, chicken pockets, French onion soup

broccoli-cheese-pockets

There was a recipe, but I made a ton of substitutions, so I’ll just tell you how I made it.

Put oil, salt, and pepper on some chicken breasts and roast them, then slice them.
Cut broccoli into small florets and steam them.
Mix together a tub of French onion dip, a few cups of shredded cheddar cheese and 3/4 cup of pepper jack, and about 1/4 cup of mayo.
Mix the broccoli and chicken in with the cheese mix, then stuff pita pockets with the mixture. (If you open the pita pockets by cutting them open in a straight line, they are more likely to tear, so cut them in a curved line.)

Preheat oven to 350.

Heat up some oil in a skillet and fry the pockets on both sides just until the pita bread is golden brown. Then move the pockets onto a pan in the oven and heat them up until the cheese is melty and nice.

This recipe would make a lot more sense if you already had leftover chicken, which I did not. Kind of a pain in the neck to do all those steps, but it sure tasted good. The kids didn’t like them, probably because I worked hard on them.

We also had sorta French onion soup. I should have done more than glance at the recipe, and I used chicken broth instead of beef, which was a mistake. I forgot to add sugar, and I couldn’t find any cheese, and I was too lazy to make croutons. Still, I spent over an hour hanging out in the afternoon sun, babysitting a heap of onions as they cozied up with melted butter. I regret nothing.

MONDAY
Zuppa Toscana, pumpkin bread

zuppa-toscana

See how it shines? That’s how soup is supposed to look. A shining soupy on a hill.

I fried up some sweet sausage (after squeezing it out of the casings, blushing faintly and calling upon Paul VI for aid and comfort) and fried it up with diced onions and minced garlic. Then I added in some diced up bacon (I still have five boxes of Christmas bacon that I now refuse to give to the poor. Let them start a tax-free savings account and withdraw their bacon from that, the lazies) and some thinly-sliced potatoes with the skin on. Red potatoes would have been good, but regular Idaho whatever was fine.

Then I added in several cups of chicken broth and let it simmer until the potatoes were soft.
Then a ton of half-and-half, and a bunch of chopped-up kale, and more simmering until the kale was soft. I had some mushrooms, but they didn’t seem quite right for this soup, so I skipped them.
A little salt and pepper at the end, and it was really swell. The bacon was fine, but it didn’t actually add much.

Here’s the recipe for pumpkin bread. The crumbs ran off with my can opener, so I was reduced to chopping the can open with a knife that I tapped with the other can of pumpkin, since the crumbs also ran off with my hammer. (Here are directions for how to open a can with a knife.)

pumpkin-bread-fox-plate
Since I needed one can to open the other can, I could only make one can’s worth of bread. This was actually good luck, because, as I always forget, a single recipe makes three loaves of bread. I sprinkled steel cut oats on the top, which was pleasantly crunchy.

This is a sweet, moist, fluffy bread, really almost cake. I usually reduce the sugar somewhat and put nuts or oats on top, so as to pretend it’s not cake.

TUESDAY
Shakshuka, pita 

Shakshuka has been on my radar forever, so I finally tried it. I guess it is Israeli, or maybe North African.

My husband came home unusually early, just in time to see me stirring feta cheese into the tomato sauce. The skepticism in the air was so thick, you could cut it with a knife and then fry it up with garlic, cumin, paprika, pepper flakes, onions, peppers and tomatoes and stir feta cheese into it, then crack some eggs on top and slide it into the oven, then overcook the eggs by just a minute or two, sprinkle parsley and a little hot sauce on top, and serve with pita.

shakshuka

Even my skeptical husband thought it was tasty, and several kids said it was better than they expected it to be, which is sky high praise. It didn’t rock my world, but it was good, very filling, and cheap. Next time I have the time, I’ll make challah. That would be a splendid meal.

Hey, now we have another meatless meal for the rotation, so that’s a win.

WEDNESDAY
Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, salad

I honestly can’t tell if this meatloaf picture looks amazing or horrifying. Look how it glistens!

 . . . look how it glistensssss . . . 

two-meatloaves

Pictures of food are weird.

I more or less followed the Fannie Farmer recipe (using five pounds of ground beef and two pounds of turkey). Feeling impulsive and jazzlike, I embellished the whole thing with ketchup before I put it in the oven. Baked ketchup tastes good on meat. (This is why you read my food posts: Because I have the guts to say stuff like that.) It’s like meat ketchup taffy. (Too far?)

We also had ten pounds of mashed potatoes, which, to my relief, turned out to be too much. Sometimes I feel like there can be no such thing as enough food, but there can.

Here is Corrie coaching Benny on proper mashing technique:

girls-mashing-potatoes

“It HAHHHT!” she counsels. So young, such wisdom.

THURSDAY
Roast chicken drumsticks, rice made with chicken broth, salad, mangoes

chicken-rice-salad-mango
Nothing thrilling, but I felt very good about going from zero to hot meal with vegetable in about 35 minutes. Mangoes keep being on sale.

FRIDAY

Corrie got into this week’s raw pasta, too, so we’ll see.