Recently, there came about in the Fisher household an unusual convergence of a little money, enough time, and sufficient paperwork-filling-outness, and I signed the kids up for classes at the Y as I’ve been promising to do forever. So now, along with Shakespeare club, school paper, part time jobs, drama club, choir practice, and knitting club, we have gymnastics and rock climbing. What I’m trying to say is: Get ready for a lot of frozen chicken burgers.
SATURDAY
Roast beef sandwiches with chimichurri
$2.99 a pound! I got a couple of big roasts which Damien seasoned and seared, then roasted in the oven; and I made a batch of chimichurri (recipe card at the end), and we had it on rolls with Swiss cheese.
It may please you to know that, because of my terrible, cumbersome system for transferring photos from my phone to my computer, I managed to email this photo of a roast beef sandwich to . . . someone who definitely didn’t ask for it.
SUNDAY
Lasagna, Irish biscuit cake
Confirmation day!
And a gratuitous picture of Benny with flowers in her hair.
Confirmation kid picked Catherine of Bologna as a patron saint. She’s the patron of artists. We ordered a print of a painting of her by Cecelia Lawrence.
Lots more detail and depth in the print than it appears here. Her gallery is here, and you can order very reasonably priced prints by emailing her.
This led me to realize we hadn’t bought confirmation presents for the last two kids who got confirmed, so I ordered some. I gave one kid her present, and we had the following conversation:
Me: Here is your confirmation present.
Kid: And it’s only a year late.
Me: Yes. You’re very gracious.
Kid: Let’s talk about the other times you failed us!
Me: I can’t wait for you to have kids. I cannot wait.
Kid: Maybe I’ll be a nun!
Me: Then I can’t wait for you to disappoint JESUS!
Kid: MAYBE I ALREADY HAVE!
Come, Holy Spirit.
Anyway, Damien made this Platonic ideal of lasagna, just absolutely quivering with fresh cheese and basil and homemade sausage ragu. We were so starving when we got home, I didn’t pause to get a great picture, but it was spectacular.
The boy asked for a dessert he had at a fundraiser one time, which turned out to be ridiculously easy to make: chocolate biscuit cake. Basically you crunch up a bunch of graham crackers and animal crackers, then make a simple sauce out of butter, chocolate chips, and condensed milk, mix it together, press it into pans, and refrigerate it, and slice it up. It makes sort of fudgy biscotti. I didn’t have any, but the kids said it was good.
The internet calls it Irish, but they must mean Irish American. Anyway, good recipe to know if you need a treat but don’t want to turn on the oven.
MONDAY
Chicken quesadillas, corn, guacamole and tortilla chips
For my sins, my kids insist on pronouncing quesadillas “kwassadilllas” and guacamole “gwackamowl.” I’m sure I deserve it. Anyway, it finally stopped raining and I ate my food OUTSIDE!
I seasoned the chicken breasts with lots of chili lime powder and roasted and sliced them. A few people didn’t want chicken in the kwassadilllas. Corrie said she wanted hers plain, so I made her one with just cheese. Turns out she wanted it plain, as in just a hot tortilla. I SAID COME HOLY SPIRIT.
TUESDAY
Hot dogs, chips, snap peas
Actually, I directed dinner remotely while crouching on metal bleachers and wondering when gymnastics class gets to be more than just flopping around; and Damien and I did so much driving, we decided to stay out in between trips and grab some dinner for ourselves. We landed at a little Thai restaurant, and let me tell you, those Thai people have some pretty good ideas. I had some kind of coconut curry with carrot, squash, pepper, melon, and squid, and it arrived in this . . . apparatus with a little candle in it.
Whee! It was delicious. I also had some kind of thing rolled up in rice wrappers with little basil leaves tucked inside.
Lovely.
WEDNESDAY
Omelettes, oven fries, salad
When I make my weekly menu, I think, “Oh, I’ll just put omelettes on Wednesday. Just eggs, easy peasy.” This is because I am somehow still not aware that making eleven separate omelettes to order is neither easy nor peasy, but actually takes eleven hours and your arms will fall off.
By the time I got around to making mine, I had lost my will to live, much less my will to make an omelette turn out pretty for the picture. But it was good. I had mine with cheddar, ham, and scallions.
THURSDAY
Pork sliders with coleslaw and spicy curly fries
New recipe. The idea is to serve thin slices of pork on fresh biscuits with a little honey and peach preserves, with coleslaw right in the stack. It’s actually a fine, tasty idea, the only hitch being that if someone came up to me and said, “Make a decent biscuit or I will kill you,” I’d be writing this from the grave. Please don’t give me your biscuit tips. I’ve tried all the techniques and all the recipes and all the special tools and and all the fresh baking powder and everybody’s grandmother’s no-nonsense methods, and I’m just a biscuit moron. That’s all there is to it.
Yummy supper anyway, though.
I had a pork butt which I sliced as thin as I could and just sautéed it quickly in olive oil with salt and pepper. Basic tangy coleslaw with cabbage, carrot, mayo, vinegar, sugar, and pepper.
I think you are supposed to pull the biscuit apart to make a top and bottom, but I just built up little open-faced sandwiches. I skipped the preserves and just put a little honey on the biscuit under the pork.
Next time, I’ll make this same meal but use Hawaiian rolls or some other soft roll. It was a great combination and nice and easy, very summery.
FRIDAY
They howled for tuna noodle casserole and I succumbed.
Damien is chaperoning a school field trip to a farm in the rain and heroically brought along Corrie, who heroically brought along her stuffed monkey and of course her ukulele. I’m headed out to pick up kid #1, who’s home from college for the summer! And that’s what it’s all about.
Here’s a few recipe cards. I just linked to the recipes for the chocolate biscuit cake and the lasagna.
Chimichurri
Dipping sauce, marinade, you name it
Ingredients
- 2 cups curly parsley
- 1 cup Italian parsley
- 1/4 cup dried oregano (or fresh if you have it)
- 1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
- 2 Tbsp minced garlic
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
- 1 cup olive oil
Instructions
-
Put all ingredients except olive oil in food processor. Whir until it's blended but a little chunky.
-
Slowly pour olive oil in while continuing to blend.
Coleslaw
Ingredients
- 1 head cabbage, shredded
- 2 carrots, grated
- 5 radishes, grated or sliced thin (optional)
Dressing
- 1 cup mayo
- 1 cup cider or white vinegar
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- 1/2 cup sugar
- pepper to taste
Instructions
-
Mix together shredded vegetables.
Mix dressing ingredients together and stir into cabbage mix.
White Lady From NH's Guacamole
Ingredients
- 4 avocados
- 1 medium tomato, diced
- 1 medium jalapeno, minced
- 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped roughly
- 1 Tbsp minced garlic
- 2 limes juiced
- 1 tsp chili powder
- salt and pepper
- 1/2 red onion, diced
Instructions
-
Peel avocados. Mash two and dice two.
-
Mix together with rest of ingredients and add seasonings.
-
Cover tightly, as it becomes discolored quickly.
Pork sliders with coleslaw
I made these with biscuits, but you could use Hawaiian rolls or other rolls
Ingredients
- Pork butt
- salt, pepper, olive oil
- cole slaw
- honey
- peach or apricot preserves
- biscuits or soft rolls
Instructions
-
Slice the pork thinly and sauté in hot olive oil, seasoning with salt and pepper toward the end.
-
Split biscuits or open rolls and spread with preserves. Add the pork slices, drizzle with a little honey, and add a small scoop of cole slaw.
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Serve as little sandwiches or open faced sandwiches.