In haste! In haste! I am running out to buy a new (to me) cabinet and countertop from Facebook Marketplace. Where will it go? There are several reasonable possibilities, but I have my eye on this spot:
which is . . . fine. I JUST cleaned the floor a couple days ago, and it already looks like this again because of that huge gap, and there is an immobile piece of wood that makes it really hard to get pans in and out, and the open shelves mean everything is constantly filthy, and the whole thing wobbles, and SO ON. But it’s fine.
The countertop itself is also kind of
. . .not the worst thing I have ever seen. HOWMEVER, I am pretty excited about the new piece! A cherry cabinet WITH DOORS and little sliding drawers on the shelves, and a marble countertop. Don’t tell me anything bad about marble. I cannot hear it right now. Tell me later.
Okay, here’s what we ate this week!
SATURDAY
Turkey wraps, hot pretzels
Slightly weird combination of things that we either happened to have, or happened to be on sale: Turkey, salami, capicola, some kind of cheese, and lettuce.
I guess that’s not actually that weird. I had mine with ranch dressing and it was pretty tasty. The wraps are allegedly spinach-flavored, but this was not discernible.
SUNDAY
Jambalaya, corn bread
Kielbasa was on sale and I found a bag of shrimp in the freezer, and I thought there might be leftover chicken in the fridge. There turned out not to be, but I made the jambalaya anyway
Jump to Recipewhich is my own cobbled-together recipe, and is reasonably spicy and easy. I did start out with the “holy trinity” of onions, pepper, and celery, and here’s that with the kielbasa and shrimp added:
Purty.
I had a little corn meal, so I made a corn bread just following the recipe on the bag:
Que bella luna!
Then I finished up the jambalaya and took a rather arty photo of it:
It was a little dry, but not bad.
MONDAY
Bagel, egg, and cheese sandwiches with sausages, OJ
What’s not to like?
and yes, American cheese is the correct cheese for this meal.
TUESDAY
Oven fried chicken, mashed potatoes, terrible kale
Oven fried chicken delights again. I got the thighs and drumsticks soaking in milk, egg, and salt in the morning, and made a bunch of mashed potatoes and put them in the slow cooker to stay warm. Then I tried to figure out what the third thing would be. I settled on kale cooked in the manner of collard greens.
This . . . should have worked. I sauteed up the garlic and onions and spices and added in the cider vinegar, and then started stuffing in the kale
and then I stirred in the broth and liquid smoke. Then my Instant Pot had a fit, and started exploding steam (I just about caca’d myself, let me tell you) and then started burning, so I had some doubts about how it would come out. I think it could have survived those things, but I made some kind of fatal error with measuring, and it tasted FOUL. Hard to believe, when it has such an exquisite appearance, I know:
but take my word for it, it was disgusting. It tasted like rotten greens soaked in penny juice, with gym socks. Bleh.
However, the oven fried chicken turned out great. Did I put the recipe yet? Here it is:
Jump to Recipethen seasoned the flour and dredged the soaked chicken in in. I put a pan in the oven with the oil and butter. I took a picture of this for some reason, so here’s that:
and then you just lay the chicken down in the heated-up pan, and you have to turn it one time, but otherwise it just takes care of itself
Comes out really nice. Crisp skin, juicy meat. What’s not to like.
The potatoes were good, too. I took this picture before I realized what I was in for, kale-wise:
Can’t win ’em all.
WEDNESDAY
Chicken burgers, guacamole and chips
I had a bunch of avocados I had bought for the wraps, but they weren’t ripe, so I made some guacamole
Jump to Recipeand picked up some tortilla chips.
Boop, dinner.
THURSDAY
Cheater char siu . . . bowls?
I don’t know what to call this. The plan was bibimbap, but I just had this hunk of pork without a specific recipe in mind, and Thursday instantly revealed itself to b a crazy-go-nuts day. So I threw the pork in the Instant Pot along with this easy sauce I invented
Jump to Recipeand cooked it for I think 25 minutes. I also cut up some cucumbers, dished up some raw sugar snap peas, and quick-pickled some carrots.
Here’s my recipe for quick-pickled vegetables
but I was rushing too much to look it up, so I did a cup of white vinegar, a cup of water, and probably 1/4 cup white sugar, and it turned out fine.
I won’t bore you with the details, but we had an insane afternoon (the low point was me yelling into the phone in the hospital lobby, “Well, they must have somebody else’s blood, then!” [they didn’t]), so I asked Damien to take the meat out of the IP and start some rice cooking; and when I got home, I sliced/shredded the meat and put it in a pan on the stove along with most of the sauce, and simmered and stirred it until the sauce thickened up and coated the meat
it took probably 25 minutes. Would have gotten thicker and stickier if I had kept going, but everyone was hungry! I fried up some eggs for anyone who wanted one (including the dog, because we’ve had some sharp words lately, and I had regrets).
For an insane day, it was a really good meal!
I don’t know what it was, exactly, but I’m not going to argue with a hot bowl of tasty things.
FRIDAY
Pizza
Oh, and Corrie’s box turtle came! In the mail! He’s just a baby, and is about the size of a half dollar.
This is her early birthday present, and she was and is absolutely smitten.
His name is Captain Cheez Whiz.
Here he is getting a tender and loving bath:
He’s surprisingly charming! He marches around intrepidly and is quite alert and bright-eyed, and when he gets tired, he just goes into his corner and buries himself. We all agreed that he may be onto something.
Okay! That’s it!
bastardized jambalaya
completely inauthentic, just things that seem tasty to me
Ingredients
- 2-3 tbsp cooking oil
- 1 rope jambalaya, cut into bite-size pieces
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 bell peppers, diced
- 5 stalks celery, diced
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- salt and pepper
- 2 tbsp chili powder
- 2 tbsp oregano
- 2 tbsp cajun seasoning
- raw shrimp
- 6 cups chicken broth
- 5 cups raw brown or long grain rice
- 10-oz can diced tomatoes with chilies
Instructions
-
In a heavy pot, heat up the oil. Brown up the kielbasa. Add in the onions, celery, and green pepper and continue stirring and cooking over medium heat until the vegetables are somewhat soft.
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Add in the garlic and spices and cook a few minutes more. Add in the raw shrimp and stir.
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Pour in the chicken broth, rice, and tomatoes with any juice. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes or until rice is cooked.
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.
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Mix together with rest of ingredients and add seasonings.
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Cover tightly, as it becomes discolored quickly.
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
-
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.
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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.
-
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.
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Lay the floured chicken in the hot pan, skin side down. Let it cook for 25 minutes.
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Flip the chicken over and cook for another 20 minutes.
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Check for doneness and serve immediately. It's also great cold.
Quick Chinese "Roast" Pork Strips
If you have a hankering for those intensely flavorful strips of sweet, sticky Chinese roast pork but you don't want to use the oven for some reason, this works well, and you can have it in about an hour and a half, start to finish. You will need to use a pressure cooker and then finish it on the stovetop.
Ingredients
- 4+ lbs pork roast
For sauce:
- 3/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup oyster sauce
- 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
- 1/4 cup mirin
- 3/4 cup honey
- 1 tsp white pepper
- 2 tsp Chinese five spice
Instructions
-
Blend all sauce ingredients together. Put the pork in the Instant Pot, pour the sauce over it, close the lid, close the valve, and set to high pressure for 22 minutes.
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When pork is done, vent. Remove pork and cut into strips, saving the sauce.
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Put the pork in a large sauté pan with the sauce and heat on medium high, stirring frequently, for half an hour or more, until sauce reduces and becomes thick and glossy and coats the meat.
quick-pickled carrots and/or cucumbers for banh mi, bibimbap, ramen, tacos, etc.
An easy way to add tons of bright flavor and crunch to a meal. We pickle carrots and cucumbers most often, but you can also use radishes, red onions, daikon, or any firm vegetable.
Ingredients
- 6-7 medium carrots, peeled
- 1 lb mini cucumbers (or 1 lg cucumber)
For the brine (make double if pickling both carrots and cukes)
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup rice vinegar (other vinegars will also work; you'll just get a slightly different flavor)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 Tbsp kosher salt
Instructions
-
Mix brine ingredients together until salt and sugar are dissolved.
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Slice or julienne the vegetables. The thinner they are, the more flavor they pick up, but the more quickly they will go soft, so decide how soon you are going to eat them and cut accordingly!
Add them to the brine so they are submerged.
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Cover and let sit for a few hours or overnight or longer. Refrigerate if you're going to leave them overnight or longer.