Tag: summer

What’s for supper? Vol. 390: In which it is still summer

Happy Friday! In haste, in haste, for I have spent the week dashing around trying to get all the summer things done while there’s still time, and have therefore put off doing my actual job, and now it is Friday and, while the wolf is not at the door yet, but it’s only a matter of time before he figures out GPS steered him wrong and we’re just a little ways down the street. 

However, the hummingbirds are humming, the peaches are swelling, and it’s still summer, dammit. Sonny’s battle wounds from his little fracas last week are healing up just fine and haven’t slowed him down one tiny bit. My pictures are pretty terrible this week, not really sure why; but we had a couple pretty good meals, plus HOMEMADE ICE CREAM SANDWICHES.

And peaches. You simply cannot fathom the number of peaches. 

SATURDAY
Chicken burgers, chips, watermelon

Just a regliar shopping day with a quick, easy meal. After supper, I WD40’d my clippers and attacked the chokecherry tree that’s been suffocating my blueberry bushes for many years, and I hope next year we’ll get more blueberries. 

We did try making chokecherry syrup one year, and let me tell you, it tasted exactly like something called “chokecherry syrup.” Bleh. So the blueberries get the nod. 

I offered to take the kids to the pond after dinner, and ONLY ONE PERSON WANTED TO GO. We used to spend alll summer at the pond, and the most devastating thing I could say was that it was time to leave. Ah well. Anyway, Benny and I went, and it was a little too nippy to swim, but we heard some loons and saw a gorgeous sunset. 

A wonderful, blessed spot. 

SUNDAY
Chinese food and McDonald’s

Sunday after Mass, we drove to Alewife and then took the T further into the city and got to Chinatown for the Harvest Moon Festival. A successful trip! We saw some lion dancers and other impressive performances on the street, and everyone got a snack from a bakery.

 

If I lived near a Chinese bakery, I would be 400 lbs and rising. I chose some kind of matcha cake with red bean filling. I would fight through miles of cake to get to red bean filling. 

Then, as is traditional, I got bullied by a Chinese lady while buying tea on the street, and the kids all picked out some authentic tourist tchotchkes, and we got some smoothies with boba pearls, and heard lots of exciting drumming and singing. Good stuff. 

We walked through The Boston Common, and Corrie got sopping wet in the fountain, and then we went in search of the Make Way for Ducklings Statues, but instead found “The Embrace.”

Now, this statue got a lot of derision when it was unveiled, and was fairly universally mocked and derided. You may have heard that this piece is an abject conceptual failure, and that there is no angle at which it looks anything other than obscene and grotesque. But now that we’ve been there, and walked all around it and touched it and experienced it first-hand, listen to me when I tell you: it’s so much worse in person.

It this a wienie statue? Is an homage to the idea of a giant bronze turd? It is an incredible work that truly invites the viewer to decide! Anyway, sorry about that, MLK. 

Then we got back on the T, and Corrie dried off a bit in front of one of those enormous subway fans, and then we drove homeward, stopping for burgers and then stopping again for ice cream, because, believe it or not, the soft serve machine in the first McDonald’s was out of order. And then we got home and collapsed like bunches of broccoli, respectively. 

MONDAY
Oven fried chicken, corn on the cob, lemony string beans

Monday I had promised I would go to Millie’s house and help her deal with her oriental bittersweet, which was taking over her mock orange tree. If you’re not familiar with oriental bittersweet, it’s a truly dreadful invasive vine that grows at a breakneck pace, climbs and twines around everything it touches and strangles it to death, and tunnels underground in several directions at once, so you can pull it up everywhere it sprouts and it still has secret infiltrations in a dozen other spots.

You have to attack it several times a year with clippers and glyphosate for several years to get on top of it, and then you find out your neighbor thought the flowers were pretty (which they are!) and was letting it grow, so you’re right back where you started. BOOOO. 

So I got to Millie’s house with my clippers and herbicide feeling a little grim, and guess what? She doesn’t have bittersweet! She has a mock orange tree that has gone crazy with all the rain, and it was sending up tons of shoots that looked suspicious. So that was a happy ending. I weeded her garden and did some odds and ends, and then decided that as long as I had all my killing crap out, I might as well go home and tackle my own bittersweet. So I did that for about three hours, and I got . . . some of it. HORRIBLE STUFF. 

But I was so glad that I had started prepping the chicken early in the day, because I was HONGRY by late afternoon. Here’s the recipe for oven fried chicken, which is several orders of magnitude easier than pan fried chicken, and I think it’s just as crispy and tasty. 

Jump to Recipe

I had drumsticks and wings, which were on sale. While that was cooking, I boiled some corn on the cob and then quickly sautéed some string beans in butter and then squeezed a few lemons over them.

Not a great picture, but a terrific summer meal. 

OH, was I hungry. 

TUESDAY
Carnitas, guacamole and chips, fresh corn salad (?)

Tuesday morning, I started some pork cooking for carnitas.

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and then started on the guacamole. Some interfamilial fights broke out at this point, but luckily I couldn’t find my garlic press, so I needed someone to smash some garlic for me. Inviting the most upset person to walk away from sister and come smash some garlic is one of my best parenting tips; no charge. 

And if the person in question believes a Rainbow Dash figurine to be the best possible tool for the job, then yes it is. 

I forgot to buy tomatoes for the guac, but didn’t really miss them, so I may skip them going forward. 

We had tons of corn leftover, so I cut it off the cobs and then just started adding likely-looking stuff to the bowl: kidney beans, black beans, canned tomatoes, diced chili peppers, lime juice, cayenne pepper, salt, cumin, and cilantro, if I remember right. 

I knew perfectly well that nobody but me was going to eat it, and I was fine with that. I did have it for lunch a few times during the week. I love this kind of dish. 

The carnitas turned out great. I seared the meat before putting it in the pot with the soda and oranges and whatnot, and I don’t know if that’s what made the difference or what, but it was so tasty. 

Awkward photo, great little meal. 

Corrie’s little pal came over and they ran around wrecking up the place for awhile, which is their charism. What a gift it is to see your kid playing with a good friend who’s just right. 

We also tried out the little ice cream sandwich making device I got at Aldi for like $6. Benny made chocolate chip cookies and I had made some plain vanilla ice cream the night before, and spread it in a cake pan, rather than putting it in a tub to freeze. 

It’s a very simple device: Just basically a cookie cutter with a handle and a plunger. You press it into the ice cream and then push the plunger and pop out a puck of ice cream. 

After they made the ice cream sandwiches, they rolled the outside of the filling in mini chocolate chips. 

Success! 

I did a ton more yard work on Tuesday. The poor, overburdened peach tree is drooping very badly, and the peaches are very close to being ripe, so I decided to wait a few more days before picking them, and instead propped a bunch of wooden beams and ladders and whatnot under the branches.

I also pruned the rose bush (yes, I know it’s the wrong time of year, but this rose bush is like 60 years old and I think it can deal with it) and weeded out a ton of goldenrod and jewelweed and other intruders, and it looks so much better in front of the house now. To me, anyway. I tend to leave the piles of whatever I’ve clipped or weeded lying around for a day or so, just to impress Damien. He doesn’t necessarily notice when something outdoors looks much better, but the upside to this is that he also doesn’t notice when it looks horrible and overgrown! I used to wish we could switch brains temporarily so we could see how each other sees the world, but at this point, I think I would rather just leave it alone. I tell him when I did a good job on something, and point to the giant heap of refuse I created, and he praises and compliments me, and we’re both happy. There’s another fee tip for you. 

WEDNESDAY
Sausage and pepper subs

Wednesday Benny had a couple friends over, so Damien handled dinner at home and I took the girls to the pond with some sandwiches and popcorn, fruit and cookies. 

Then we got home and roasted marshmallows over the propane fire.

Summer things! Doing all the summer things! 

THURSDAY
Lemon garlic shrimp pasta

Thursday,  also went back to Millie’s house after Mass to help her with a dead mouse that turned out to be alive, and let me tell you, Millie and I ran around and screamed like cartoon characters, but eventually I had to acknowledge that I was the one in charge of this situation, and, well, if your stream is downstream from our stream and you see a mouse with its head stuck in a trap float by, just mind your business. 

On Thursday another kid moved out. We now have only six kids at home, which means I only made two pounds of pasta for dinner.

I truly don’t know if this is an appropriate amount, because (a) I never, ever, ever learned how to judge how much pasta to make for any amount of people, and (b) I was making pasta with shrimp, and most of my kids hate shrimp. 

I was a little nervous myself, since the last time I had shrimp, I was violently sick for a week. I don’t even remember why I decided to make it — shrimp was on sale, I guess — but it’s a good, easy recipe, and it turned out fine. And I found out that I am able to eat shrimp without fear and revulsion, but also the sparkle has gone out of it. I only had one little bowl of it and then I was ready to go somewhere else.

I realize this is normal behavior for other people, but shrimp used to be one of my absolute favorite treat foods, and the thing I ordered most often when we go to a restaurant. But now it’s just . . . fine. Ah well. Himmel und Erde müssen vergeh’n.

Aber das Eiscreme, aber das Eiscreme, aber des Eiscreme bleiben besteh’n! Oh yes, I made ice cream, and the kids made more cookies, so we have that going for us. This is now the third time I’ve churned ice cream inside a cooler with an ice pack, and I can definitively say the extra cold makes a difference! Comes out good and thick.

I spread it in a cake pan again, but it was still a little soft by evening, so we let it continue to freeze.

FRIDAY
Aldi pizza

Today after adoration we are going to see Clara in The Importance of Being Earnest, and . . . that appears to be all I wrote on the menu for today. So I guess I am picking up some Aldi pizza!And now they are making more ice cream sandwiches. 

And there is still a little summer left. We’re going to Trap Falls this Sunday, most likely, and my eggplant is finally growing. I think my sugar snap peas are done for the year, so I’m probably gonna pull them out and throw some spinach seeds in that spot and get a second crop, which I’m not usually organized enough to do. I have maybe half a dozen lovely giant pumpkins growing, and also various squash ad gourds, and I found some Joe Pye Weed in the yard for the first time, which I’m unreasonably excited about.

And uh I found this at the thrift store:

We’re about to be hip deep in sweet little peaches in about 72 hours, as you can see here, and the throngs have demanded peach cobbler. That can be arranged. 

Maybe also a peach burrata salad with prosciutto and balsamic glaze. Maybe grilled peaches with coconut ice cream and praline topping. Maybe peach marmalade. MAYBE JUST PEACHES. 

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Oven-fried chicken

so much easier than pan frying, and you still get that crisp skin and juicy meat

Ingredients

  • chicken parts (wings, drumsticks, thighs)
  • milk (enough to cover the chicken at least halfway up)
  • eggs (two eggs per cup of milk)
  • flour
  • your choice of seasonings (I usually use salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and chili powder)
  • oil and butter for cooking

Instructions

  1. At least three hours before you start to cook, make an egg and milk mixture and salt it heavily, using two eggs per cup of milk, so there's enough to soak the chicken at least halfway up. Beat the eggs, add the milk, stir in salt, and let the chicken soak in this. This helps to make the chicken moist and tender.

  2. About 40 minutes before dinner, turn the oven to 425, and put a pan with sides into the oven. I use a 15"x21" sheet pan and I put about a cup of oil and one or two sticks of butter. Let the pan and the butter and oil heat up.

  3. While it is heating up, put a lot of flour in a bowl and add all your seasonings. Use more than you think is reasonable! Take the chicken parts out of the milk mixture and roll them around in the flour until they are coated on all sides.

  4. Lay the floured chicken in the hot pan, skin side down. Let it cook for 25 minutes.

  5. Flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes.

  6. Check for doneness and serve immediately. It's also great cold.

 

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Carnitas (very slightly altered from John Herreid's recipe)

Ingredients

  • large hunk pork (butt or shoulder, but can get away with loin)
  • 2 oranges, quartered
  • 2-3 cinnamon sticks
  • 4-5 bay leaves
  • salt, pepper, oregano
  • 1 cup oil
  • 1 can Coke

Instructions

  1. Cut the pork into chunks and season them heavily with salt, pepper, and oregano.

  2. Put them in a heavy pot with the cup of oil, the Coke, the quartered orange, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves

  3. Simmer, uncovered, for at least two hours

  4. Remove the orange peels, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves

  5. Turn up the heat and continue cooking the meat until it darkens and becomes very tender and crisp on the outside

  6. Remove the meat and shred it. Serve on tortillas.

On my summer list: Less screen time

This is the time of year when I make a list of things I definitely want to do this summer.

Some of it is just for fun, and I consult with all the kids to make sure nobody’s idea of fun gets overlooked (which can happen to the quieter kids in a big family). Visit that aquarium before our membership runs out! Learn how to make mozzarella! Go back to that state park with the waterfalls! Try our hand at paper marbling! Spend time at the ocean!

Some of it is things I must force myself to do: Teach at least one teenager to drive! Do something about the attic! Do something about the bathroom ceiling and the mold thereon! Do something about the teenagers in general!

There is also one thing I must force myself to do, that the kids definitely don’t want to do, but it’s so we can all have fun: Institute a weekly screen-free evening. We already do this during Lent, and most years, we do it during Advent, too. It’s stupidly hard. But the rewards are almost immediate; and I hope they are long-term, as well.

The thing about screen time — whether it’s video games, or TV, or movies, or social media or whatever — is that it doesn’t just take up the time it takes up. If you spend two hours staring at a screen, it’s very hard to just snap back into other activities where you use your body and heart and senses and imagination at the end of those two hours. Screen time leeches the life out of the rest of your day, and makes everything non-screen begin to feel arduous and irrelevant, and before you know it, you can’t really remember how to do anything else. So you don’t. You just look at your screen.

I say this as a screen fiend. I have a very hard time putting my phone down, even if I’m busy and really need to do something else, or if I’m exhausted and really need to sleep, or if everything I see and hear on my screen is intensely irritating or deathly boring. It’s just so easy to scroll, scroll, scroll, and the more I scroll, the harder it is to do anything else. So I have a lot of sympathy for my kids when they don’t want to put their devices down.

But I’m still their mom, and I still get to say what goes on in my house. Here’s one of the great secrets of doing what’s best for children: It often forces you into doing things that are good for you, too, even if only so they can’t accuse you of hypocrisy (which is a child’s greatest joy in life).

Read the rest of my latest for Our Sunday Visitor. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 339: Inshallah, I’ll take pistachio

Happy Friday! I see lots of you poor suckers are going back to school already. We, on the other hand, are still enjoying the last lazy days of summer, by which I mean frantically running around Doing Vacation Things and feeling terrible and panicked about summer being almost over, and also mortality (maybe that’s just me. I am fun). 

I also made two wonderful culinary discoveries this week: Collard greens, and lamb breast plate. We had two days of rather elaborate meals and then a bunch of very much not so meals. Read on!

SATURDAY
Varia 

On Saturday, the Fishers were uncharacteristically sociable. Lena was carousing with a friend in Boston, Clara met up with Dora and they went off to see The Mountain Goats; Sophia, Lucy, and Irene had tickets to see Ricky Montgomery; and Damien, after bowing to his fate and driving them to said concert, brought Benny and Corrie to see the new turtle movie. That just left Elijah, who had to work, and me, who had ten minutes at home COMPLETELY ALONE, which I spent eating TWO cartons of yogurt without explaining myself to anybody, and going to the bathroom with the door open, before going shopping. Then I picked up Elijah and, since it was just the two of us, we had dinner at Chili’s. I had some kind of salad with shrimp. I almost always order some kind of shrimp when I eat at a restaurant. It’s just good! Elijah had a burger, presumably for the same reason. We talked about Godzilla.

SUNDAY
McDonald’s 

Sunday we got to the ocean! The sky was blue, the sun was hot, and the water was about twelve degrees. Seriously, that one year when we went a few miles further south with slightly warmer water has absolutely ruined me for frigid New Hampshire beaches. I did go in the water, out of sheer honesty, but I spent most of my time on the shore saying, “Whoa, that was a big one! Woo, look at you!” and wondering if it’s as much fun to be a seagull as it looks like. 

Bunch of pictures here:

We chose Hampton Beach because, if you’re only going to have one day at the ocean, it should be ocean that has fried dough and skee ball. We packed sandwiches and fruit and Twizzlers for lunch, and hit the drive-thru on the way back for dinner. 

MONDAY
Hot dogs, chips, corn on the cob

A little yellow dinner. Sometimes that’s just what you want. (And if that’s a thing on Urban Dictionary, I don’t want to know about it.) 

TUESDAY
Nachos, pineapple

Damien mentioned that maybe the nachos I make could use a little more cheese, so I thought I would be fancy and buy a second KIND of cheese, and a Mexican one, at that.

Sadly, I am dumb, so I picked something called “queso fresco,” which is apparently known for its incredible ability to withstand heat. So we had tortilla chips with seasoned ground beef, cheddar that melted and queso fresco that did not, jalapeños, and some corn I shaved off the leftover corn from yesterday, and then sour cream and salsa. Pineapple on the side. 

It wasn’t bad, but next time I’ll just buy extra cheddar for that “more cheese” experience.

I was feeling pretty good on Tuesday, though, because I got home from my annual physical knowing my blood pressure is NORMAL. I cannot tell you how good it feels to have that back under control, after it was so bonkers for so long. I also haven’t lost the weight I gained when I tried Lexapro, but I haven’t gained any more, and I been eating nachos, so that seemed fair. And I’m not anemic and my lungs seem more or less back to normal. I guess I had Covid, I don’t know. My OBGYN was trying to convince me to go on an IUD for medical reasons, and I was trying to tell her that I don’t have any ethical problems with getting one for medical reasons, but right now I have all my other symptoms like 

and I don’t want to MESS with anything.

Anyway, we had nachos. 

WEDNESDAY
Oven fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits, collard greens, watermelon

This meal came about because a few months ago, I was looking for strawberry plants and they were sold out, but they had some collard greens on clearance, so I got a few plants and stuck them in my garden. Now they look like this

and everything else in my garden is making flowers or vegetables or something, but the collard greens are just getting bigger and bigger, so it was time to figure out what they heck they are for. 

Chicken drumsticks and thighs were 99 cents a pound, so I figured chicken and collard greens sounded like a thing. First thing in the morning, I started soaking the chicken in milk and eggs (one cup of milk per two eggs) with salt and pepper.

Then I made some biscuits.  I actually have an excellent biscuit recipe

Jump to Recipe

but it only turns out really well if you bake them right after you make the dough; or maybe if you refrigerate the dough and then bake it. I never remember this, though, and always make the dough and cut out the biscuits in the morning, when I have time, and then bake them in the afternoon, because I want hot biscuits, and so the butter has softened and the biscuits turn out flat. I swear, it’s a good recipe! Just don’t leave the dough out like I do. 

Anyway, the chicken “recipe” I followed last time calls for putting a few inches of melted butter and canola oil (half and half) in a couple of roasting pans in a 425-degree oven and letting that heat up, but I had used up all the butter in the biscuits, and all I had in the house was olive oil, so OH WELL, I guess I had to use that. 

So I put plenty of flour in a bowl and heavily seasoned it salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika and I think some chili powder. I put the chicken in the pans of oil, skin side down, and let it cook for about half an hour, then turned it and let it finish cooking for another 25 minutes or so, baking the biscuits at the same time. 

And yes, I felt might accomplished pulling these two huge pans of hot food out of the oven. 

But back to the collard greens! You can make them with bacon or ham hocks, but I didn’t have either one, so I poked around until, to my immense relief, I found the website that carried the information I was too shy to google directly: BlackPeoplesRecipes.com. This is the link for vegan collard greens, and it uses liquid smoke. I always feel like that’s cheating, but at what, I’m not exactly sure. 

Anyway, you fry up some onions and garlic, smoked paprika and hot pepper flakes, and then add in some cider vinegar to sweeten the bitter collard greens. 

I washed the greens very well (because I’ve been watering them with duck poo water) and then stripped the stems off

and cut them into strips, and put them into the hot onion mixture and cooked them down a bit, then added chicken broth (no longer a vegan recipe, but that’s what I had) and liquid smoke, and some salt and pepper. Then I moved it to the Instant Pot and set it on “slow cook” for the rest of the day.

They were magnificent. 

Just a beautifully intense, smoky, savory dish. The closest flavor I can think of is kale, but the texture was much more tender, between cabbage and spinach. Damien and I thought it was just wonderful, and we’ll definitely be having this again. 

Benny helped me make a giant pot of mashed potatoes (I saved out a little pat of butter for this purpose), and I made a pot of gravy with the chicken pan drippings and some flour and some leftover chicken broth from the collard greens. 

OH WHAT A MEAL. 

I didn’t even finish the chicken or the mashed potatoes, although they were very good, but I went back for seconds of the collard greens.

Okay, I had three biscuits, because I’m a monster.

But wow, everything was so tasty. The chicken was crisp on the outside and juice and tender inside, just perfect. It felt so good to cook a big meal from scratch, which I haven’t done in a while. 

And it was nice having leftover baked goods in the house, which certain other people enjoy with jelly the next morning.

Also on Wednesday, I started some ice cream going for the next day. Mid-August, and I’ve barely made any ice cream! I made one batch of strawberry, using the Ben and Jerry’s recipe

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and one of mango-peach-nectarine, which less fancy than it sounds. I just couldn’t find any pureed mango in cans, which I usually use, so I ended up mashing up all the fruit in the house that was about the same color and just blending it together.

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When the ice cream was done churning, I put the freezer bowls back in the freezer, hoping to make at least another batch the next day. 

THURSDAY
Lamb breast plate, stuffed grape leaves, yogurt sauce, taboon; strawberry, mango, and almond ice cream

Thursday was the day I was ready to find out what I had bought on Saturday. I can’t remember what the original plan was, but I got to Aldi and discovered several packs of something called “lamb breast plate” for $2.99 a pound.

Nothing lamb is ever $2.99 a pound, so I bought three three-to-four-pound packs of it, and then went back for a fourth pack later. I put two packs in the freezer and cooked two on Thursday. 

Moses and his girlfriend were coming over, and I wanted a middle eastern meal, and I briefly, longingly considered a recipe where you slit the meat open to make a pocket, and stuff it with rice, dried fruit, nuts, and more ground lamb, and then sew it shut; but prudence prevailed, and I went with this recipe from I’mHungryForThat, because all you do is marinade it, cook it slowly, and then pour a little sauce on at the end. 

The marinade is hot pepper flakes, cumin, sumac, pepper, brown sugar, minced garlic, vinegar, olive oil, and sea salt, all of which I had, and juniper berries, which I did not, but I substituted fresh rosemary. 

Then I just rubbed it all over the meat and let it be.

So, you can see that lamb breast plate has little ribs and is quite fatty, and the meat is mostly in between the bones, plus there are sort of flaps of meat on the other side. Everything I read said that this is a severely underrated cut of meat, and is very tasty and tender as long as you prepare it properly. 

While that was marinating, I went out to gather grape leaves. I usually only make stuffed grape leaves once a year, when they are flush and green and tender. This is mid-August, and they are somewhat past their prime, and many had succumbed to beetles, but were also twining all over the place, in places grapes have never been before (I have three Concord grape vines I planted, and several wild grape vines in other spots in the yard). I found one enormous leaf, the size of a dinner plate, sagging under the burden of two overgrown wild blackberries that had fallen under their own weight and half rotted already, too much for even the birds and bugs to keep up with, and I suddenly realized I was standing right next to the spot where my old garden used to be.

When we moved here, the whole yard was overgrown and formless, and I hacked and chopped and mowed and cleared, and dug and sifted and cultivated, and moved so many rocks around, and made a clear spot to grow my little patch of vegetables, and I kept it up for several years.

I have raised beds now, in a different spot, and the old garden spot has disappeared. It’s hip-high in green again, all overgrown and thorny, just wild grapes, wild blackberries, goldenrod, whatever. And it happened so fast.

I’ll tell you, people worry about not leaving a trace when they go out in nature, and they fret about disruptive hikers piling up rocks or disturbing the natural balance of things. They don’t want the world to know that they were ever here. They don’t want to be arrogant and intrusive. Let me tell you, “leave no trace” is going happen anyway, faster than you think. You pass through and it closes right up behind you, and that’s that. 

Anyway, I got a good pile of leaves and went back inside.  Washed ’em good to get rid of any leggy passengers, and dunked them in boiling water for two minutes to soften them up, and then left them in cold water. 

Last time, we tried making stuffed grape leaves with leftover cooked rice, and it was pretty sloppy. This time, I used raw rice with a bunch of herbs and spices (chopped wild mint, salt and pepper, I think sumac, nutmeg, cinnamon, I think coriander and cumin, and I don’t know what, and minced onions) and rolled them. Corrie helped this time. 

Not the absolute tidiest production, but we made plenty of them, and for once I ran out of grape leaves and filling at about the same time. 

Then I line the Instant Pot with parchment paper, carefully piled the rolled grape leaves in it, threw some lemon slices in, and filled it about halfway up with chicken broth. Then I somewhat recklessly pressed the “rice” button.

I think they may have come out okay with this cooking method, but then I just left them there for quite a bit longer, and the end result was some rather overcooked rice. They were okay! Just kinda, well, you know what overcooked rice is like. I also wish I had used more of every kind of seasoning I put in. It was a good flavor, but I wanted more of it. 

About two hours before dinner, I put the lamb into the oven, covered with tinfoil. I also made a batch of dough for taboon bread

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which I think I like even more than pita, and it’s easier, because you’re not trying to get a pocket to form. Sometimes, if I’m make a juicy meat dish, I’ll make a big slab of taboon bread and serve the meat right on top of it; but sometimes I made separate little pieces, and that’s what I did this time. This recipe is enough for twelve little loaves about 8-10 inches across. I love this recipe because it only has to rise once, and it bakes in about twelve minutes, so you can decide almost at the last minute that you feel like making bread after all. 

Oh, and I made a bowl of yogurt sauce with fresh garlic and fresh lemon juice, and a little salt and pepper. I misread the lamb recipe, and you’re supposed to take the tinfoil off and finish cooking it and then pour some sauce on; but I poured the sauce on and then finished cooking it. (The sauce is chopped mint, lemon juice, and brown sugar.)

IT WAS STILL VERY GOOD INDEED.

Super juicy.

I would recommend getting some shears to separate the ribs, though. We struggled a little with cutting it, not because the meat was tough, but because it was so fatty. The meat itself was so good, though. Tremendously savory and tender. If you like lamb, this is a wonderful way to prepare it. 

The bread and the lamb finished cooking at the same time, and I once again felt pretty pleased with myself for hauling out all these giant, laden pans of food onto the table. 

I had hoped to make some kind of ice cream with at least a middle eastern nod, but I just ran out of time. People needed to be driven here and there and Thursday was the day the cat, as Damien put it, took his vows, and I went to drop off a kid at work and take another kid for a haircut, and I was like, I think that’s it? That’s all the people I’m responsible for right this minute? So I started to drive home, and then I remembered OH THE CAT.

Pretty rough day for the little guy. First the cut his balls off, then they forget to pick him up. To add insult to injury, we found out that this cat which we got a month ago, and who was allegedly eight weeks old at the time, is NOW eight weeks old. So he was only four weeks old when we got him, poor baby!

We knew he was younger than they claimed, but didn’t realize how much younger. No wonder he sucks on blankets. Anyway, today he is feeling frisk and fine and we just have to keep the dog away from his stitches for a week, which should be easy as pie, hahah ahaha hahahhaaa. 

Anyway, I decided to make some almond ice cream, which is the same as the strawberry ice cream recipe, below, except you add a few teaspoons of almond extract, you skip strawberries of course, and you let the ice cream freeze for a few hours, and then stir in 2/3 of a cup or so of toasted almonds, and then let it finish freezing. 

The kitchen was pretty hot by the time I got around to making this third batch of ice cream, so it didn’t really freeze up right. I don’t actually mind when this happens, as it results in a kind of ice milk with a pleasant crystalized texture. The flavor was great (I actually used 1 tsp of almond extract and 1 tsp of vanilla) and it was quite popular. It would be great with some bittersweet chocolate chips, but it was good on its own. 

Here’s the three ice creams, looking dramatic:

I also discovered that, if I really wanted to make middle eastern ice cream, I would make something called booza, which has mastic in it and is stretchy. I am fascinated with this idea and would absolutely love to try some, but chances of me making it myself are pretty low, because anything that depends on being a certain texture is not my forte. Perhaps in paradise. The leaves will close over me, all traces will disappear, and Allah will appear in a blaze of glory and hand me a bowl of stretchy ice cream. That sounds pretty great. I’ll take pistachio. 

FRIDAY
I believe we’re going to have scrambled eggs, maybe beans and rice, and leftovers. There MUST be leftovers in this house.

I leave you with one final image. This is the white board which I mounted to the front door, the door through which everyone goes when they leave the house. As you can see, it has the days of the week on it, and I BEGGED and PLEADED and IMPLORED and ABASED MYSELF to the kids, in the hopes that they might deign to write their schedules on it, so I would know before the last minute who needed to be where and when. 

Here is that white board now: 

Little bastards. Good thing I love them. Maybe I’ll make them some more biscuits, or some ice cream. 

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moron biscuits

Because I've been trying all my life to make nice biscuits and I was too much of a moron, until I discovered this recipe. It has egg and cream of tartar, which is weird, but they come out great every time. Flaky little crust, lovely, lofty insides, rich, buttery taste.

Ingredients

  • 6 cups flour
  • 6 Tbsp sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, chilled
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups milk

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 450.

  2. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and cream of tartar.

  3. Grate the chilled butter with a box grater into the dry ingredients.

  4. Stir in the milk and egg and mix until just combined. Don't overwork it. It's fine to see little bits of butter.

  5. On a floured surface, knead the dough 10-15 times. If it's very sticky, add a little flour.

  6. With your hands, press the dough out until it's about an inch thick. Cut biscuits. Depending on the size, you can probably get 20 medium-sized biscuits with this recipe.

  7. Grease a pan and bake for 10-15 minutes or until tops are golden brown.

 

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Ben and Jerry's Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

For the strawberries

  • 1 pint fresh strawberries
  • 1-1/2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

For the ice cream base

  • 2 eggs
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 cups heavy or whipping cream
  • 1 cup milk

Instructions

  1. Hull and slice the strawberries. Mix them with the sugar and lemon juice, cover, and refrigerate for an hour.

Make the ice cream base:

  1. In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs for two minutes until fluffy.

  2. Add in the sugar gradually and whisk another minute.

  3. Pour in the milk and cream and continue whisking to blend.

Put it together:

  1. Mash the strawberries well, or puree them in a food processor. Stir into the ice cream base.

  2. Add to your ice cream maker and follow the directions. (I use a Cuisinart ICE-20P1 and churn it for 30 minutes, then transfer the ice cream to a container, cover it, and put it in the freezer.)

 

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Mango ice cream

Ingredients

  • 30 oz (about 3 cups) mango pulp
  • 2 cups heavy or whipping cream
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 mango, chopped into bits

Instructions

  1. In a bowl, whisk the milk, sugar, and salt until blended.

  2. Add in the mango pulp and cream and stir with a spoon until blended.

  3. Cover and refrigerate two hours.

  4. Stir and transfer to ice cream maker. Follow instructions to make ice cream. (I use a Cuisinart ICE-20P1 and churn it for 30 minutes.)

  5. After ice cream is churned, stir in fresh mango bits, then transfer to a freezer-safe container, cover, and freeze for several hours.

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taboon bread

You can make separate pieces, like pita bread, or you can make one giant slab of taboon. This makes enough to easily stretch over a 15x21" sheet pan.

Ingredients

  • 6 cups bread flour
  • 4 packets yeast
  • 3 cups water
  • 2 Tbsp salt
  • 1/3 cup olive oil

Instructions

  1. Mix the flour, salt, and yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer.

  2. While it is running, add the olive oil. Then gradually add the water until the dough is soft and sticky. You may not need all of it. Let it run for a while to see if the dough will pull together before you need all the water. Knead or run with the dough hook for another few minutes.

  3. Put the dough in a greased bowl, grease the top, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm spot for at least an hour until it has doubled in size.

  4. Preheat the oven to 400. Put a greased pan or a baking stone in the oven to heat up.

  5. If you are making separate pieces, divide it now and cover with a damp cloth. If you're making one big taboon, just handle it a bit, then put it back in the bowl and cover it with a damp cloth. Let rest ten minutes.

  6. Using a little flour, roll out the dough into the shape or shapes you want. Poke it all over with your fingertips to give it the characterstic dimpled appearance.

  7. Bake for 10-12 minutes until it's just slightly browned.

What’s for supper? Vol. 334: Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high

Happy summer! This is the week that always starts to feel like real summer to me, because the big family party is over and we get going on all the other stuff we haven’t quite had time for, mainly lounging around, eating ice pops, and watching Buffy. 

I didn’t get a WFS out last week, because of all the running around, so the quick version is: I don’t remember. Probably really easy, fast, boring stuff; except one day we had 

Kielbasa, Brussels sprouts, and potatoes sheet pan dinner with honey mustard sauce

I have stopped consulting a recipe for this meal.  (Here is one if you want, though! Jump to Recipe

I had three ropes of kielbasa cut into chunks, three pounds of Brussels sprouts halved, and probably three pounds of potato wedges with the skin on, tossed with salt and pepper and olive oil and spread on a sheet pan, and I cooked them at 425 for about 20 minutes. I mixed up a sauce from a bunch of dijon mustard, honey, balsamic vinegar or maybe wine vinegar, and pepper, kosher salt, and crushed garlic, then drizzled the sauce on the food

and stirred it up, and slid it back in the oven for another maybe 10-15 minutes until it was a little browned.

Sorry, not really a recipe, but you can just make it according to your taste and then cook it until it looks done. 

I used to make this meal with wedges of cabbage, but the kids vastly prefer Brussels sprouts. I also used to make it with the sauce to dip, but now I do the “cook, then add sauce and finish cooking” thing, and it comes out flavorful and keeps everything from drying out. Great summer meal, easy and hearty. 

And another day we had

Taijin chicken with scallions, mango, hot pretzels

This was supposed to be a NYT recipe, buuut I forgot to buy oranges, and you’re supposed to add orange zest and juice. So instead, I looked around furtively, opened a can of mandarin oranges, smushed up the contents, and dumped it into the sauce. 

The original recipe calls for 2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs, sea salt, 1/2 cup honey, 1/2 cup orange juice, 1 tsp orange zest, 3 chipotle chiles in adobo sauce and 1/4 cup adobo sauce, 6 garlic cloves, 2 Tbs. olive oil, and 1 Tbsp Taijin, which is the ingredient that caught my attention in the first place, but which we turned out to have two almost-empty bottles of, along with only a small can of chipotle chiles and only a little honey.

I also broiled this in the oven, rather than grilling it; so it was basically a Ship of Theseus recipe at this point.

But honestly, it still tasted fine. Kinda citrusy, quite spicy. If you like the taste of Taijin, you will like this chicken. It didn’t knock my socks off, but it was easy and tasty.

(I threw in some scallions, as directed, but those didn’t fare very well under the broiler, and weren’t terribly appealing.) For sides, I cut up a bunch of mangoes and served the hot pretzels I was too tired to cook the other day.

A decent if slightly weird meal.

SUNDAY
Independence Day Party!

I spent most of last week scurrying around finishing the infamous patio, (which I am sitting on right now, and let me tell you, it is birdy and lovely)

and getting all the other stuff ready for the party, knowing all along that it was going to rain all day. I did have the option to change the party to Saturday, which was supposed to be sunny and hot, but not everyone could make it. Argh!

Eventually I decided it made more sense to have a family party with rain and all the family, then a family party with sun and lots of people missing. It was a good choice! It did rain quite a bit, but we had two canopies and a tarp, 

and my sister brought another giant tarp which two of my brothers-in-law set up like a giant tent. 

Easy for me to say it was the right choice, since I didn’t have to drive home long distance in soggy clothes, but it seemed like everyone had a nice time. I love my family and I’m so glad we get together like this every year. I didn’t put up my father’s monstrous (in size, I mean) American flag, because of the rain, and we forgot to read the Declaration of Independence, but it was still a very good party.

Glow sticks, snappers, sparklers, fireworks, shiny necklaces, and the dog got bossed around by so many little girls, which is his heart’s desire.

Our July 4th menu is not very exotic; we go for volume, rather than novelty. Damien cooked hamburgers and hot dogs, veggie burgers and tofu dogs, and three racks of pork ribs

Jump to Recipe

This year, in addition to the rub he usually puts on them before smoking, he sprayed them with cider vinegar as they cooked. They were done a long time after the rest of the food,

which actually worked out great, because it had gotten a little chilly by then, and we were all ready for a second course, and it was pretty great to sit by the fire gobbling up sizzling, tender ribs

I made potato salad and bought I think 18 bags of chips, and made several big platters of raw veggies. My brother’s BF also brought some delicious spicy peanut noodles, which everyone loved. We had watermelon, which we shared with the ducks, and for dessert, the traditional red and blue Jello cups with Kool Whip

as well as ice cream cups and brownies, which Benny made.

And then candy after the fireworks, to ease the pain of the party winding down. 

Bunch more photos here if you want to take a look.

MONDAY
Leftovers

Monday we were all smooshed into a paste of exhaustion, so I cooked the leftover hot dogs and set out some cold ribs and that was perfect. The town fireworks we were planning to go to got rained out and postponed until July 28, to my great relief. 

TUESDAY
Burgers

Tuesday we went with some friends to The Caterpillar Lab, which we’ve been meaning to do forever. If you’re anywhere in Southwest NH and looking for a way to spend an hour or two, this is an excellent little free visit, fascinating and educational for kids and adults.

We saw amazing things unfolding right before our eyes, on the counter at eye level, and also magnified on a big screen; and the staff was very chill and well-informed and ready to answer questions and chat about what we were seeing. There were lots of things for the kids to touch, and I liked how it was set up in a beautiful way, including a long wooden table set with decorative bottles, each holding a green branch with a different kind of caterpillar living on it, with an informational card on the table. Sort of reminiscent of a Victorian curiosity cabinet, but with things you could handle. A very pleasant and exciting way to spend a rainy morning. 

(I actually have a bit of a moth and butterfly phobia, which I have been working on, but there was nothing flapping around being horrible and out of control, so the experience was well within my tolerance zone. Very different from a butterfly garden, for instance, which is a nightmare for me.) 

Then we came home and played Forbidden Island, which I reviewed here.

Damien bought more meat and cooked more burgers.

We ate late and they were absolutely scrumptious. Definitely starting to get that vacation feel. 

WEDNESDAY
Aldi pizza

Wednesday Benny hosted a tea party, with animal crackers topped with Kool Whip, hot dog ends on toothpicks, and candy, and of course tea

and then we went to the library, and Damien brought home Aldi pizzas. Then I went on the library website and looked up their actual policies, and discovered that, newp, I’m not imagining it, the librarian is actually being a jerk to our family and possibly breaking the law. So we’ll see about that. Humph. (This is why, don’t talk to me about “ohhh, if only WXMYN could be in power, THEN we would see an end to all this terrible CORRUPTION! You give women a teensy tiny bit of power and they will find a way to abuse it. Which is not to say that women shouldn’t have power! Just don’t expect it to magically fix corruption.)

THURSDAY
Italian sandwiches

Thursday it was HOT HOT HOT (for New Hampshire), so I finally broke down and put in the air conditioner

Then I couldn’t put off shopping any longer, so I got some sandwich ingredients, and then when I got my other work done, I took four of the kids to the town pond, ahhh.

They swam for a while, and played Parco Molo, and then we had Italian sandwiches, cherries, and cheezy weezies. 

What a lovely spot it is. I opened my Merlin app and it picked up something like twenty different birds. I did some actual reading from an actual book (The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope, who is so unkind to some of his characters), and wow has my life gotten easier than it used to be. 

FRIDAY
Fish tacos

Moe and his lovely GF and I think Dora are coming by for dinner, and we’re having fish tacos (just frozen batter fried fish fillets) on tortillas with shredded cabbage, sour cream, limes, salsa, and I guess guacamole.

Jump to Recipe

Am I forgetting something? Maybe I will make some lime crema. 

Jump to Recipe

I started some ice cream this morning, but it was so hot in the kitchen, the first batch (made with that Neopolitan trail mix from Aldi) didn’t freeze properly, so I turned on the AC and I’m currently making the second batch (strawberry with a little lime) in the cooler room. 

The ducks are frolicking in the sprinkler

the birds are singing, lots of things are blooming, I’m sitting in the shade in my own yard for the first time ever, and if this ain’t the life, I don’t know what is!

***

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sugar smoked ribs

the proportions are flexible here. You can adjust the sugar rub to make it more or less spicy or sweet. Just pile tons of everything on and give it puh-lenty of time to smoke.

Ingredients

  • rack pork ribs
  • yellow mustard
  • Coke
  • extra brown sugar

For the sugar rub:

  • 1-1/2 cups brown sugar
  • 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 2 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 2 Tbsp salt
  • 1 Tbsp white pepper

Instructions

  1. Coat the ribs in yellow mustard and cover them with sugar rub mixture

  2. Smoke at 225 for 3 hours

  3. Take ribs out, make a sort of envelope of tin foil and pour Coke and brown sugar over them. close up the envelope.

  4. Return ribs to smoker and cook another 2 hours.

  5. Remove tinfoil and smoke another 45-min.

  6. Finish on grill to give it a char.

 

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White Lady From NH's Guacamole

Ingredients

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

Instructions

  1. Peel avocados. Mash two and dice two. 

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

  3. Cover tightly, as it becomes discolored quickly. 

 

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Lime Crema

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

Ingredients

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

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together. 

Recipe Notes

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

 

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One-pan kielbasa, cabbage, and red potato dinner with mustard sauce

This meal has all the fun and salt of a wiener cookout, but it's a tiny bit fancier, and you can legit eat it in the winter. 

Ingredients

  • 3-4 lbs kielbasa
  • 3-4 lbs red potatoes
  • 1-2 medium cabbages
  • (optional) parsley for garnish
  • salt and pepper and olive oil

mustard sauce (sorry, I make this different each time):

  • mustard
  • red wine if you like
  • honey
  • a little olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • fresh garlic, crushed

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400. 

    Whisk together the mustard dressing ingredients and set aside. Chop parsley (optional).

    Cut the kielbasa into thick coins and the potatoes into thick coins or small wedges. Mix them up with olive oil, salt, and pepper and spread them in a shallow pan. 

    Cut the cabbage into "steaks." Push the kielbasa and potatoes aside to make room to lay the cabbage down. Brush the cabbage with more olive oil and sprinkle with more salt and pepper. It should be a single layer of food, and not too crowded, so it will brown well. 

    Roast for 20 minutes, then turn the food as well as you can and roast for another 15 minutes.  

    Serve hot with dressing and parsley for a garnish. 

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Ben and Jerry's Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

For the strawberries

  • 1 pint fresh strawberries
  • 1-1/2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

For the ice cream base

  • 2 eggs
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 cups heavy or whipping cream
  • 1 cup milk

Instructions

  1. Hull and slice the strawberries. Mix them with the sugar and lemon juice, cover, and refrigerate for an hour.

Make the ice cream base:

  1. In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs for two minutes until fluffy.

  2. Add in the sugar gradually and whisk another minute.

  3. Pour in the milk and cream and continue whisking to blend.

Put it together:

  1. Mash the strawberries well, or puree them in a food processor. Stir into the ice cream base.

  2. Add to your ice cream maker and follow the directions. (I use a Cuisinart ICE-20P1 and churn it for 30 minutes, then transfer the ice cream to a container, cover it, and put it in the freezer.)

What’s for supper? Vol. 306: In which I talk myself into, then out of, then into making ice cream again

By SIMCHA FISHER with additional reporting by CORNELIA FISHER 

Happy Friday! It’s summer for another, like, eleven minutes, and we’re squeezing the last few drops out. We told the kids we couldn’t afford to go to an amusement park this year, and we were right, but then, I don’t know, we went anyway. Do not take financial advice from me. All I know is eat fried dough & lie. 

Here’s what else we ate this week: 

SATURDAY
Smoked ribs, cole slaw, chips and salsa

Saturday morning, I drove up to see some of my siblings and tend to our parents’ grave a bit. Look, ma! I remembered soapy water and a scrubbing brush!

Did some planting, sat on the grass telling some old stories in the hot hot sun, left the cemetery and got some lunch, and then drove back home, and one of my sisters was able to come too and join us for a bit, much to the dog’s delight. And of course everyone’s delight, but the dog was very especially delighted.

Damien smoked up a pile of ribs most wonderfully, and made a big bowl of coleslaw. 

He made his nice spicy sugar rub

Jump to Recipe

and smoked the ribs for about four hours, then brushed them with Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce and gave them a little char in the fire, and then moved them into the oven for a while, just to make absolutely sure they were cooked all the way.

They came out so juicy and tender. 

SUNDAY
Burgers, chips

I guess I must have gone shopping on Sunday, and Damien made supper. I have no memory of this day at all. 

From the looks of it, I had been suffering from some kind of pickle deficiency. Took care of that. 

MONDAY
Blueberry chicken salad with homemade croutons 

Roast chicken breast on mixed greens with fresh blueberries with diced red onions and homemade croutons. I forgot to buy nuts, and for some reason I decided to get a wedge of parmesan instead of a bunch of feta, which was a little sad. Then, to be perfectly honest, I ate so many hot buttered croutons right out of the oven that I didn’t really feel like eating a chicken salad, so I skipped supper, and then I think I had a bunch of crackers and fruit roll-ups at night, and I feel like I also ate some candy. Not been my most stellar week, nutritionally. I got really excited about having lost four pounds, and have been celebrating by oh you know.

Also it’s the end of summer and I’m sad. Which is the only appropriate way to feel, and if the reason you don’t feel that way is because you live in Arizona, then that’s just an inappropriate place to live. Have some croutons, it will help, temporarily. Have some ice cream. 

I also forgot to take a picture of the salad, but here is a similar salad from the past: 

Moe moved out and left behind some of his bougie sesame rolls, which I also made into croutons and also ate. 

TUESDAY
Chili verde 

The idea of chili verde has become more and more insistent over the last few weeks, and finally on Tuesday it manifested itself right on my stovetop.

Jump to Recipe

Actually it was much more fun than that, in that I got to unwrap a dozen sticky, crackly little tomatillos and chop the heads of a variety of peppers

rrrrroast them up

pull their skins off and then hurl them into the food processor with a bunch of onions, an entire peeled head of garlic, and a big bunch of cilantro. And I seared up some lovely seasoned pork in hot oil until it was crackling brown, and then into the big heavy pot goes the meat and all the peppers and whatnot, and I let it simmer for the whole rest of the day. The dog got so much pork fat that he became overwhelmed and started to growl at it (not at me; at the pork fat. He’s not smart), which I understand completely. I also am not smart, but I do know how to make chili verde. 

Sometimes I break up the meat into shreds after it cooks, but this time I left it as hunks. Sometimes I add some chicken broth to loosen up the pepper sauce, but this time I just let it be. Served it just plain, with cilantro and sour cream. Forgot to cut up limes. 

My friends, it was so good. AND THO THPYTHY. Spicy enough that it required me start talking funny. At no point did I remove any seeds or membranes from the peppers, and I stand by this! I do kind of regret not making a pot of rice or anything, and in fact went around spooning up extra pepper sauce from other people’s bowls. 

I went to bed happy, but the next day, things that were not entirely excellent occurred in and around my stomach. Totally worth it. But next time, I’ll make rice. 

I had also intended to grill some pineapple spears, and totally forgot. Grilled pineapple is ahhhhmazing. The juice turns to golden-sweet nectar and the little charred bits set off the creamy sweet flesh of the rest.

Especially nice with a little vanilla ice cream. IF you’re the kind of person who always has ice cream in the house, which I now am. 

WEDNESDAY
Canobie! Lake! Park! 

This was the day! We left a mere half an hour behind schedule, and I only took one wrong exit. I actually heard my GPS say “sorry,” which I don’t really understand, but we got right back on track, parked, ate our supermarket sandwiches, and it was off to the races. Well, Damien had to sit in the parking lot and listen to a hearing for a while and then write about it, but then he was off to the races, and we had a great day. Canobie is a wonderful place, clean, friendly, safe, well-run, and beautiful. 

 Here are more photos of the day on Facebook, if you want to take a peek. I ate a piece of fried dough the size of a 

and here is where I am reflecting that I’m not looking forward to school starting at all, but on the other hand, Corrie is watching me write and, whenever my fingers pause, she shouts words that she thinks should come next. I’m know I’m only writing about fried dough, but still.

Okay, so it was a very large piece of fried dough, and I ate it all, and then we stopped at McDonald’s on the way home anyway, and when we got home, I waited for the kids to get out of the car and then I ate some of the emergency diabetes candy that was in the glove box. This is why I generally steer clear of sugar. Once I have a little bit of it (or a lot of it, like a piece of fried dough the size of, okay Corrie, the size of a ROCK), then I turn into a panicky sugar-seeking machine. 

THURSDAY
Old Bay chicken drumsticks, carrots, and chips; homemade ice cream

The plan was to spend all day at the beach, according to a summer-long sword of Damocles promise, but various situations conspired against me, and instead a friend came over, we made ice cream, and we did some back-to-school shopping, which I’ve elected to make easier on myself by doing it in tiny increments, over and over again over the course of several weeks instead of getting it all over with at once. I am just chock full of good ideas these days. Then we went to a thrift store and to *ptui* Spirit. 

Anyway, one good idea I had was that, when we finally got home, I melted a couple of sticks of butter, poured them over the drumsticks, and sprinkled both sides liberally with Old Bay seasoning, and broiled them on both sides, with a little half-hearted basting halfway through. 

Well, I did this eventually. First I pre-heated the oven and set up the pan of chicken with butter and seasoning, and then I went into the living room with a can of seltzer and my phone, and put my feet up, and gradually began to wonder why the smell of chicken wasn’t filling the house. The answer turned out to be “because you have to put the chicken into the oven.” Live and learn. 

Delicious, because how could it not be, eventually? I served it with carrots and not hummus, because that turned out to be moldy, and chips. 

Worth noting: When I was labelling photo files, my phone changed this one to “bowl of old bat chicken.” So what?

Earlier that day, we made two batches of ice cream, both using Ben and Jerry’s basic sweet cream base (two eggs, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 cup milk, 2 cups heavy cream). For one, I added 1.5 teaspoons of mint extract and most of a bag of frozen mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, and three drops of green food coloring and a good mixing before freezing it for five or six hours.

The other one got a few teaspoons of vanilla, a jar of halved maraschino cherries (drained), about half a bag of frozen white chocolate chips, and two big handfuls of cashews before it went into the freezer. 

Both great! Both hits. The cherry one honestly would have been better with peanuts, which certainly would have been cheaper, as well. I was going for a sort of sundae-in-a scoop taste, but without chocolate, and this achieved that. I adore frozen maraschino cherries. They make me feel like a little kid who feels like a grownup. 

I really love making ice cream. It’s like cooking, because once you understand the basics, you can more or less go with your gut about what will be yummy; but it’s like baking, because you do all the work in the front end and then just let it go, and end up with dessert. And I get the fun of doing something homemade with whole ingredients, but I know the kids will actually enjoy and appreciate it. Usually you have to pick either one or the other. But honest to goodness, if you see me eating anything with sugar it in today, please hit me with a rock, or a piece of fried dough, whichever’s bigger. 

FRIDAY
Quesadillas 

Today one kid had new student orientation, and then we’re going to do more school shopping with the remaining two kids who somehow still haven’t gone, and it’s supposed to rain, so we can’t go to the beach. I wish I was back on the carousel. I wish I was back in the ocean. Truly, if I end up just making more ice cream, there are worse things. 

That reminds me, I have a really good fried dough recipe. Fried dough is easy to make, and if you do it at home, you can put a reasonable amount of sugar on it. Just a light dusting. 

And you can make it in a reasonable size, the size of a small boulder.

Do it. Fry some dough. Maybe scoop a li’l ice cream on top. For tomorrow we die. 

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Fried dough

Makes about 15 slabs of fried dough the size of a small plate

Ingredients

  • 4 cups flour
  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • 1-1/2 tsp salt
  • 4 Tbsp (half a stick) cold butter
  • 1-1/2 cups lurkworm water
  • 2 cups oil for frying
  • confectioner's sugar for sprinkling
  • cinnamon for sprinkling (optional)

Instructions

  1. Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Cut the cold butter into bits and work it gently into the dough.

  3. Add the water and stir until the dough is all combined.

  4. Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let it rest for 15 minutes

  5. Separate the dough into pieces and flatten each piece into a thin disk with your fingers. If it's sticky, put a little confectioner's sugar on your work surface.

  6. Heat the oil in a pan. You can deep fry it or use less oil and fry it in a small amount of oil; your choice. The oil is ready when you put a wooden spoon in and little bubbles form around it.

  7. Carefully lay the disc of dough in the hot oil. Let it cook a few minutes, just barely getting brown, and then turn it and cook the other side.

  8. Remove the dough, let the excess oil drain off, and sprinkle it immediately with sugar and cinnamon if you like.

  9. You can keep these hot in the oven for a bit, but they're best when they're very hot.

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Smoked chicken thighs with sugar rub

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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

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

 

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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.

Childhood is a wild bird

The first time I took my kids out to hand feed wild birds, it didn’t go well.

I had hit upon the activity out of desperation at the beginning of spring vacation. The kids were so bored, but I had COVID and was much too tired and contagious for outings. We had long since exhausted the charms of reading books via FaceTime, with and without silly filters, and even the kids were tired of TV.

But maybe we could feed the birds together! We could sit in chairs, safely distanced, enjoying nature, being quiet, doing something wholesome and memorable, and did I mention being quiet?

It didn’t go so well. But that was okay. It was pleasant enough just being outside, and I’m a firm believer in the value of unstructured, unplugged time for kids. We thought we might get a nibble or two, but you really do have to be quiet to attract birds, and my youngest is made out of monkeys. The first few times she squirmed or chattered, I fondly and gently shushed her; but I recalled that our goal was to have a nice time together, so before long, I released her, and we dispersed without having fed or even seen a single bird.

We agreed it was fun, though, or at least potentially fun. Apparently you really can train birds to get to know you. I talked about our attempt on social media, and people shared photos and videos of their kids’ success in making friends with these wild creatures.

The idea began to take hold. I started to see hand feeding wild birds as the ideal summer activity. By the end of vacation, I thought, this is how we would greet every morning: We would step into the backyard with a handful of seed, and our feathered friends, who knew our gentle ways, would flock to us like a gang of modern day St. Francises.

A eager twittering grew in my heart. It was everything I wanted for my kids: A break from screen time, a memorable bonding experience, and a naturally contemplative pastime that would sweetly, easily open the gates for all kinds of other goods of the spirit.

The idea took flight. This could be about so much more than birds, I thought…

Read the rest of my essay for Catholic San Francisco here. 

Quick and easy summer craft: Flower pounding

Here’s a little craft I’ve always wanted to try: Flower pounding. It combines two of our favorite things: Flowers, and hitting stuff. The results were not exactly spectacular, but it was so easy and fast, we want to keep experimenting. Corrie is away at theater camp, so Benny and I did this together. 

The materials:
-Light-colored cloth with a rough weave
-fresh flowers, leaves, and ferns
-parchment paper or wax paper
-a hammer

The procedure:
-Lay the cloth on a surface that can withstand hammering. 
-Arrange the flowers face down on the cloth. 
-Put a sheet of parchment paper or wax paper over them.
-Hammer the heck out of them. 
-Peel up the parchment paper and shake off whatever loose flower material didn’t get pounded into the cloth. You want just the color to be in the cloth.
-If you like, add decoration with markers, paint, embroidery thread, etc.. 

Here is Benny arranging some flowers. We chose ferns, rose petals, pansies, some wild yellow flowers with wide, flat petals (some kind of cinquefoil?), and cow vetch for our first round. We were looking for flowers with deep color and relatively flat blossoms.

And . . . bonk bonk bonk!

It was hard to know when to stop. We didn’t want the flowers to lose definition, but we wanted to make sure we were really driving the material into the weave of the cloth.

It did smell lovely as we pulverized those poor blossoms and ferns. 

Then we peeled the parchment paper up to see what we had . . .

And once we shook and brushed off the excess, the results were not too spectacular.

The ferns were nice, better in some spots than others

and the pansies came through well.

You can see the two different colors on the petals.

You could do a really pretty design, a wreath shape or something, with just ferns and pansies. But you can see the rose petals were faint and blurry.

The cow vetch gave a great, deep color (though much more blue than purple, interestingly!) but lost its shape completely, not surprisingly (the petals are small and fringe-like).

We decided the whole thing needed more color, so we added a day lily and a handful of geranium petals. This is the great thing about this project: You can just keep adding stuff.

and that brightened up the whole thing! The day lily released a surprising amount of dark red and purple when hammered, as well as orange and yellow. 

I did scrape off a bit more petal material after I took this picture, but the color that soaked into the fabric stayed very deep. The geranium petals were hard to separate from the cloth, but they certainly kept their shape and color. 

And there it is! Benny added a birthday message and we sent it off with some cookies. 

If we had more time, this would be a lovely project to combine with embroidery. I would love to experiment with making some symmetrical patterns and designs.

I will admit, I have no idea how well it keeps, but I’m pretty sure it will fade like any dried flower, although putting it behind glass would probably protect it somewhat. It would be smart to spray it with a fixative spray to preserve the colors. 

You could also do this on watercolor paper or canvas. We also wanted to try pounding daisies, white violets, and other light-colored flowers into dark fabric.  

Have you done this craft? Any tips? How long did it last? 

 

In real life, they are so big

Here is a little child sitting in the gondola of a Ferris wheel, nervously crushing fistfuls of cotton candy into nuggets as they wait for the ride to start. She and her mother are in number 16.

Her mother says that she may need to hold hands so she doesn’t get too scared. It’s not a trick, like something Grandfather Bear would say to give courage to Little Bear. The mother is some form of scared all the time. Most of the time, the mother’s fear gets crushed down into manageable handfuls. But not always.

She has found herself in charge of her youngest child on the final fun trip of the final week of vacation. The oldest kids are too busy to go on a day trip; the tweens band up and run off together, being cool; the dad is bonding with big sister who desperately needs to be treated like a little kid for once. So it’s the mother and her youngest, navigating the world of the amusement park alone together. It was a long ride to get there, and now there are long lines for everything.

There are rides that are out of the question. Some of them drag you up to ludicrous heights, turn you upside down, shake you very hard, drop you, shove you backwards, put you in the dark. Why would you pay someone to do this to you, when it happens to you anyway on some random Tuesday, just in the course of ordinary living?

But the rides with no lines are all the same: Around and around and around. It’s hard to know what to do. So the mother and kid alternate: Rides that are too boring, and rides that are too scary.

Here are all the moms, draped along the fence, watching their baffled little toddlers swoop up and down, up and down inside metal dragons that beep and flash and whine. “WHEE! WHEE! WHEE!” shout the moms, grinning.

Here’s a little cluster of blonde cousins rushing and tumbling into the serpentine line barrier at the double decker carousel. One child wants desperately to ride the only giraffe, but there are many other people in line. “Whyn’t we just duck under the fence?” a woman rasps.

“We all have to wait our turn,” her sister answers mildly.

“Aunty will make sure you git that giraffe,” the first woman insists. “You’ve ben such a pretty girl all day. Aunty will make sure you git that giraffe. Pretty girl.”

The mother, shriveling a bit inside as she imagines meeting these pretty girls in fifteen years, is relieved to hear that her own daughter wants to ride the panda, instead.

She finds a horse next to the panda, and surprises herself by heavily climbing up on it. Her legs are the right length for the stirrups, so maybe it’s a normal thing to do. The horse’s tail looks like a real tail, and someone has taken so many pains painting scenes from Venice on the ceiling and brushing in little yellow and pink bouquets in between the mirrors.

A chubby hispanic man gives his shell-shaped bench a spin, and it twirls, and he beams like a baby. It is a beautiful carousel. There has never been such a beautiful carousel. It’s two stories high, and everyone on it is smiling. But the ride is very short.

Here are a set of tiny twins, dressed to the nines in identical new sneakers, athletic shorts, and patriotic tank tops, strapped carefully into a blinking helicopter. All the other kids are yanking on the bar, jerking and swooping and clanking up and down, but the boys are staring solemnly ahead and moving smoothly on their appointed rounds, around and around.

“Pull on the bar! Pull it toward your belly! Make it go up! Don’t you wanna fly?” the operator screams. They do not. Their father comes to collect them when the ride is over. God willing, he will understand that they did what seemed right to them. They are extremely small and the world is very big…Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

 

In which I convert a used swing set to a not-quite-deck for our pool

Anybody want to hear a rambling story about a pool improvement project of dubious value? I got you covered. 

Early last spring, we saw the pandemic writing on the wall and splurged on an above-ground pool to get us through the summer. It was a great! No regrets! (Well, the kids have regrets, because I forced them to dig rocks in the hot hot son for many weeks, but they did eventually get a pool out of it, plus plenty of invaluable “my parents are so cruel”stories.)

The only drawback was that the only way to get in and out of the pool was via a wobbly A-frame ladder, so you could either be completely in the water, or completely out of the water, but there wasn’t really any in between, i.e. lounging by the water while you keep your kids from drowning.

And I couldn’t do this:

Sitting in the sun and dangling your feet in the water is the main reason for owning a pool!  And no, I can’t sit on the top of the ladder and do it, because my hips don’t fit, okay? You go have ten kids and then squeeze yourself into the top of a ladder. 

So this year, I decided to build a deck. Yay, easy, fun! Then I got a look at lumber prices, and decided, well! Wow! My goodness! Maybe a used deck, then. I obsessively refreshed Facebook Marketplace pool deck listings all day long and had my heart broken over and over again. Lots of other people apparently had the same idea this summer, and so I finally gave up.

I cycled through progressively stupider ideas for some kind, any kind of platform to go next to the pool (maybe builder’s scaffolding! Maybe rotten and splintery wooden pallets that I collect a few at a time over the course of several years and ignore the fact that they’re soaked with industrial chemicals! Maybe those metal cage things they use to secure maple sap collection tubs! MAYBE AN OLD TRAIN CAR!!) Even I could tell these were dumb ideas.

However, I noticed that there were plenty of used play structures made of pressurized wood for sale, and they were quite cheap, even if you factor in rental of a pickup truck. I got a great deal on one in good condition. My first plan was to replace our old play structure with this slightly less old one, and convert the old one into a pool thing, but that was a bridge too far, dumbness-wise. So I lugged the platform part of the new-old play structure into the yard and set aside the slide and swings and appendages, and here is what I did to the platform:

First I reinforced the uprights. The platform part of a play structure is not designed to stand on its own; it’s supposed to have a slide and a whole other section with swings attached to it, so it was wobbly. I used some scrap pressurized wood, cut the ends into angles, and screwed a piece diagonally across each of the four sides. This made it much more stable. 

Now I needed a way to get up there. After many false tries with various kinds of ladders and steps, I ended up re-attaching the original climbing wall to one side. This is not ideal for adults, but it’s strong and it works well enough.

To one side, I attached ten large bicycle hooks for towels, swimsuits, etc. 

Actually I did this part first, because I wanted instant gratification. This part alone was worth the effort of the whole project, as the kids had been just dropping their wet towels in the dirt, and then not picking them up because ew, they’re wet and dirty. And then the dog was eating them.

I used duct tape to attach an umbrella to one upright, and Flex Tape to attach two solar-powered spotlights to the two uprights that face the pool, for night swimming. NIGHT SWIMMING.  Actually there is something wrong with them, even though I didn’t buy the cheapest kind, but eventually, NIGHT SWIMMING.

Then I used zip ties to attach a basket to a spot that already had holes drilled in it. This is a place for sun block and bug spray or books, and it’s a secure place for a phone and/or speaker for music. 

To the other side, I attached two shelves, for books, drinks, etc. I used the kind of shelf bracket with a hook at the end, designed to hold a closet rod, so we can keep the pool skimmer and brush there. 

You can reach the shelves when you’re inside on the platform. Corrie is quite taken with the idea of poolside a bowl of fruit.

Notice there is a stray sock. There is always a stray sock. 

And that’s it! Here’s the whole thing:

It’s kind of stupid, and far from luxurious, but it works, and I didn’t spend a lot of money on it, and I didn’t cry at all when I was working on it. Now I can sit down and have a clear view of the whole pool, get some shade if I want, and have a place to put drinks or sunglasses or whatever. It’s sort of a deluxe lifeguard chair, I guess. And I can do this:

I told the kids I would never turn down a foot massage, but Corrie was being really creepy about it, so I guess I have my limits after all. 

Haven’t decided what to put in the space underneath the platform yet (there’s a reason we didn’t put the pump and filter underneath, but I forget what it was). Maybe a tub or deck box to keep toys in, or possibly a trash can.  I’m trying to convince Damien we can attach a pool slide to the pool side, but he believes that would end in a collapsed pool and a rush of 9,000 gallons of water that carries your children away, and he’s usually right about these things. 

How about you? Got any dumb projects this summer? Got any pressurized wood? Got any pallets? Got any dirty towels? Got any duck food? 

In praise of trampolines

You’re thinking of buying a trampoline, aren’t you? You should.

Here are some thoughts:

Cons:

  • Every once in a while, someone’s tooth gets embedded in someone else’s skull and the sound of your child’s femur snapping in half will haunt you for the rest of your days. 
  • Passing truckers will honk at you.

Pros:

  • It’s really, truly fun for all ages. As long as your neck is strong enough to support your head, you can have some kind of good time on a trampoline, whether it’s gently bopping a little baby up and down, or turning ridiculous back flips designed to freak your mother out, or just gingerly springing up and down like a big gooney gooneybird. Also popular: running as fast as you can in a circle while chasing a shrieking toddler. Optional: pretending you’re on the moon.
  • It’s a great aid to those “Play with us, Mama!” “games” where you get to lie down. They climb on you and roll around and, because of the motion of the trampoline, they think you’re participating. You can call it the tiger game or the mummy game or the digging up dinosaur game, whatever, as long as you get to lie down in the sun and call it “parenting.”
  • It is damn near impossible to bounce for five minutes and still be mad when you get off.
  • There is no better sound than the sound that can float in through the window than the sound of previously surly, gloomy, crabby, sullen kids suddenly shouting and laughing together.
  • People look hilarious trying to get off a trampoline.
  • If you are pregnant and want to go into labor, it won’t actually unless the baby is ready; but, again, you look hilarious.
  • You always know the answer to the question, “What will we do with all these party guests?”
  • If you’re completely the most amazing parents ever, you will also add a sprinkler and a boatload of water balloons to said party activity.
  • No little kid can say “trampoline.” “Troppineen,” yes. “Chapoline,” probably. “Boing,” definitely. It’s cute. Cute is good. 
  • Add a trampoline to any formal photo shoot and get instant drama (poofy skirts and long hair are a bonus).
  • It’s the best possible viewing spot for a meteor shower. You can also rest a little cocktail on your collarbone and pretend you’re watching a meteor shower, as long as it’s not actually pouring rain.
  • Passing truckers will honk at you.

In conclusion:

  • You should get a trampoline.