I hope you had a somewhat relaxing weekend. I’ve reached the point in quarantine where I’ve got nothing much to say—at dinner my husband and I jokingly ask each other, “How was your day?” as if we don’t all know everything about everything.
Oh wait, I do have something to share: Here’s that article I mentioned, the one I wrote for WebMD about which coronavirus precautions you really need to do. I hope it helps you sleep better tonight!
Meanwhile, though, how are things in your world? What did you cook this weekend? I baked bread, first time in ages, and banana chocolate chip muffins. I also roasted a chicken, which was heavenly. And now I’ve got bones for soup!
Whoa you guys I stumbled upon some eggplant this weekend so I was going to roast them and add to the grain bowl on Friday but then I heard that Clarkson Potter (where I used to work, many moons ago) had put together a free mini-cookbook of pantry recipes. So I browsed it and saw this amazing Middle Eastern musaqa'a recipe so I'm trying it and our apartment smells amazing. Eggplant + tomatoes (canned and fresh) + bell pepper + chickpeas + onions/garlic/plenty of spices = you need to try this. Page 12: http://www.randomhousebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Potter-TenSpeed_SpringCookbookSampler_2020.pdf?snp
I baked 2 batches of blondies (delicious -- from Dinneralovestory). And I fed my kids nachos, grilled cheese, and mac and cheese. Everyone's nerves are getting frayed and I just could not tolerate any complaining about what was on the table. We are healthy and we have enough food; I don't want anyone to complain about anything.
I thought I was winning tonight when both kids ate a small scoop of chili and also agreed to eat it for lunch later in the week. But then...the two year old threw a fit 2/3 of the way into our Covid Post Dinner Walk. Neighbors were coming out to investigate the noise. I want SC to go on lockdown for health reasons but also so maybe they can all forget the incident so I don’t have to be embarrassed.
Also we have TONS of food but the fridge shelves are a little bare and it makes my brain jump when I open the door. We are fine, we are fine.
My family is in Philly, and thankfully we are mostly introverts (the youngest is more extroverted, but he’s managing pretty well). I love cooking and baking, but since I can’t find flour anywhere, I’m slowing down on my bread baking. I keep looking for recipes that I can make but use less of my precious white flour and more of another kind....like cornmeal. I have plans to try a rye bread recipe I’ve made before. I had the smashed chickpea salad for lunch - Yum! My plan for dinner is a cream of cabbage soup I found recently on David Lebovitz’s site. It sounds good to me, let’s hope my family agrees!
hi Debbie - We're hanging in here Manhattan. Last week I made a big pot of beef bone broth (Melissa Clark's recipe) for the freezer and started a sourdough starter to share with a few neighbors in a safe, non-contact exchange in freshly sanitized jars only handled by gloved hands. I made pretty awesome sourdough waffles (Epicurious Cinnamon Sugar Sourdough Waffles) and a really good fridge dump salad that was raddichio, fresh moz, assorted lettuce, stale bread made into croutons and some grape tomatoes all pulled together with lots of olive oil, vinegar, and salt. So far we've baked a cake, cookies, brownies, gingerbread, and a focaccia. I am jump-roping with the kids to burn the extra calories (hopefully) and doing a lot of breathing exercises and yoga in between conference calls for work. I've got two not so small people who seems to want 6 meals a day and suddenly think waffles are a Tuesday morning breakfast - OMG the amount of dishes!! We're trying to split chores more equally and make sure the cook doesn't clean the kitchen which should have probably been a rule ages ago. Our neighborhood and some assorted friends in NYC have started a 7PM hang out your windows and clap/make noise to thank essential workers followed by playing Sinatra's NY NY up loud on speakers and phones and whatever. It is a nice way to end the day and brings us all to dinner a bit more calm. Looking forward to chili and strata this week. Thanks for keeping the newsletter going during this weird cooking time.
Where is all of this "extra time" that I keep reading about on the interwebs? Between home schooling two reluctant kids (frustrating), managing work (grateful that I am still collecting a pay check), managing a household and stressing about the state of the nation, I feel I don't have endless hours. By the end of the afternoon, I'm just tired. I'm watching TV and making the least stressful meals possible. Is it just me? I would *seriously* welcome any advice or insights about how anyone else is managing time, cooking, schooling or working out. (The latter is not even on my radar, especially after the 2 batched of blondies.)
We're managing. On Sunday when we always used to go out to eat, we braved curbside pickup of pizza for a change of pace. Saturday was my most improvised dinner of the week - wheat berries, roast butternut squash, Swiss chard, dates, craisins, chickpeas, shallots(Penzey's dried ones), almonds. Thanks to you (and Leslie!) for all the great links to draw inspiration from.
My husband is really struggling with not having whatever we usually have, but I do 100% of the meal planning and well over 90% of the cooking so I keep telling him not to worry.
I baked a cake last week but I'll need cookies or something midweek this week once the cake is done.
I think tonight will be a chicken & leek pie with puff pastry (I've got pepperidge farm puff in the freezer). I've got some proteins that are use or freeze over the next few days so they need to go first.
I made beef stew, mostly following the good old Betty Crocker Cookbook recipe. Instead of stew meat I used sirloin tip steak (because why not) and potatoes, carrots, parsnips, red pepper, sweet potatoes, onions, and fresh garlic. And made cheesy baking powder biscuits. Winner!
We've got a moody pre-teen here. I sobbed this morning when i dropped a pan of eggs on the floor and burnt a bagel. My husband went to his office to get some time in with his (literal) punching bag today. So, to quote a dear departed relative on his deathbed "about as well as can be expected!"
I think we cooked just enough to feed us for the weekend. I keep thinking we'll bake - I'm having a serious carb craving but I haven't pinned down what exactly I want. Muffins? cookies? Something. We made Sunday morning waffles (used to be routine before the 9 year old went to religious school on Sunday mornings), and last night was Tofu Pot Pie - we're clearly in comfort food land. If I get my grading done before COB (that's a lovely wish) I may start baking something even if no one else wants to.
I've been doing pretty ok food wise this week! I made that butternut squash dish you recommended the other day with a sweet potato thrown in instead of peas and ohmygoodness it was a serious comfort meal!
My mother and uncle in law keep panic buying and realizing they're getting to much so they'll drop it off with me and my boyfriend! So were actually eating better than ever for once.
We got gifted some ground turkey that's going to get used for tonight. And I stumbled across butcher while getting a few more canned items that actually had some lamb left. So there's a pound of that for thursday!
It appears that everyone is making stuff I usually make for my son in normal times. No yeast or baking soda for bread, and no frozen fruit for smoothies. Plus no pasta shells, so he will have to make due with different shapes! Wondering if demand for these things will continue when this is over. Otherwise, plenty of food on the shelves.
I have been volunteering at both school lunch delivery and the food pantry, and the issue isn't lack of available food, but buyers' lack of money. :-(
I'm a stress baker and the stores around us are out of flour, which is *definitely* not helping my stress. Tonight I'm making a lemon cornmeal cake with the lemons that have been in the fridge allllmost too long to go with our St. Patrick's Day redux-because-corned beef-was-on-sale dinner. Hopefully that means we get to have Reubens for lunch tomorrow, but corned beef doesn't last very long around here.
Saturday was grilled plums, prosciutto and burrata with aged balsamic over arugula and radicchio. Broccoli rabe. Royal reds with spicy garlic confit. Sunday was the fantastic Cacio e pepe pie you recommended. I subbed spaghetti squash (no grains for me) and it was soooo delish. Also made roasted baby turnips with greens and chimichurri and mushrooms with tarragon butter. Today I am rolling around like a greased beach ball. I think I need to slow down. Too much food!!!
I love your meal plans! I don't follow them specifically, but I've gotten lots of ideas and new recipes and I thank you for that. I'm such a restless cook; I am always looking for ways to break out of the boredom and these times make that all the more crucial! The weekend was hard,not gonna lie. The four of us (hubs and two teen boys) aren't getting on one another's nerves at all (we're pretty self-contained as a foursome anyway, and my kids are introverts like me, to their benefit in shut-down conditions). BUT, we're all dealing with rollercoaster emotions. Trying to manage one kid who just started a weight loss regimen before corona hit (he's down 9lbs!), and another who is wraith-skinny and has to be reminded to eat. Yesterday I made rice and beans, with two cans of cuban-"flavored" black beans that were the only beans left on the shelf early in everyone's food-panic shopping. To that I added chopped up chicken from some thighs I roasted a few days ago. I would LOVE to just bake and eat breads and cookies but ... see older kid and weight loss, above, sigh. Thank you for doing this! Keep the ideas and the conversation coming!
I love getting your emails. I made the Medit. Chicken and couscous last night and it was a big hit with the family. I made it an assemble your own bowl kind of thing, that seems to work well for my family, everyone likes different things and flavors. I also baked banana bread and made a cherry crisp from a bag of frozen cherries that had been in the freezer too long. It turned out to be very good. I have a list of 50 questions that won't annoy your teens that we use at dinner--we are on question #3. Keep your ideas coming, I look forward to them. Kathy
Whoa you guys I stumbled upon some eggplant this weekend so I was going to roast them and add to the grain bowl on Friday but then I heard that Clarkson Potter (where I used to work, many moons ago) had put together a free mini-cookbook of pantry recipes. So I browsed it and saw this amazing Middle Eastern musaqa'a recipe so I'm trying it and our apartment smells amazing. Eggplant + tomatoes (canned and fresh) + bell pepper + chickpeas + onions/garlic/plenty of spices = you need to try this. Page 12: http://www.randomhousebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Potter-TenSpeed_SpringCookbookSampler_2020.pdf?snp
I baked 2 batches of blondies (delicious -- from Dinneralovestory). And I fed my kids nachos, grilled cheese, and mac and cheese. Everyone's nerves are getting frayed and I just could not tolerate any complaining about what was on the table. We are healthy and we have enough food; I don't want anyone to complain about anything.
I thought I was winning tonight when both kids ate a small scoop of chili and also agreed to eat it for lunch later in the week. But then...the two year old threw a fit 2/3 of the way into our Covid Post Dinner Walk. Neighbors were coming out to investigate the noise. I want SC to go on lockdown for health reasons but also so maybe they can all forget the incident so I don’t have to be embarrassed.
Also we have TONS of food but the fridge shelves are a little bare and it makes my brain jump when I open the door. We are fine, we are fine.
(I'm a freelance event planner so I'm basically out of work for the moment, which is where the "extra time" comes from.)
I just made a "Dutch Baby" for the first time. It was a delicious snack!
My family is in Philly, and thankfully we are mostly introverts (the youngest is more extroverted, but he’s managing pretty well). I love cooking and baking, but since I can’t find flour anywhere, I’m slowing down on my bread baking. I keep looking for recipes that I can make but use less of my precious white flour and more of another kind....like cornmeal. I have plans to try a rye bread recipe I’ve made before. I had the smashed chickpea salad for lunch - Yum! My plan for dinner is a cream of cabbage soup I found recently on David Lebovitz’s site. It sounds good to me, let’s hope my family agrees!
hi Debbie - We're hanging in here Manhattan. Last week I made a big pot of beef bone broth (Melissa Clark's recipe) for the freezer and started a sourdough starter to share with a few neighbors in a safe, non-contact exchange in freshly sanitized jars only handled by gloved hands. I made pretty awesome sourdough waffles (Epicurious Cinnamon Sugar Sourdough Waffles) and a really good fridge dump salad that was raddichio, fresh moz, assorted lettuce, stale bread made into croutons and some grape tomatoes all pulled together with lots of olive oil, vinegar, and salt. So far we've baked a cake, cookies, brownies, gingerbread, and a focaccia. I am jump-roping with the kids to burn the extra calories (hopefully) and doing a lot of breathing exercises and yoga in between conference calls for work. I've got two not so small people who seems to want 6 meals a day and suddenly think waffles are a Tuesday morning breakfast - OMG the amount of dishes!! We're trying to split chores more equally and make sure the cook doesn't clean the kitchen which should have probably been a rule ages ago. Our neighborhood and some assorted friends in NYC have started a 7PM hang out your windows and clap/make noise to thank essential workers followed by playing Sinatra's NY NY up loud on speakers and phones and whatever. It is a nice way to end the day and brings us all to dinner a bit more calm. Looking forward to chili and strata this week. Thanks for keeping the newsletter going during this weird cooking time.
May I ask about something else?
Where is all of this "extra time" that I keep reading about on the interwebs? Between home schooling two reluctant kids (frustrating), managing work (grateful that I am still collecting a pay check), managing a household and stressing about the state of the nation, I feel I don't have endless hours. By the end of the afternoon, I'm just tired. I'm watching TV and making the least stressful meals possible. Is it just me? I would *seriously* welcome any advice or insights about how anyone else is managing time, cooking, schooling or working out. (The latter is not even on my radar, especially after the 2 batched of blondies.)
We're managing. On Sunday when we always used to go out to eat, we braved curbside pickup of pizza for a change of pace. Saturday was my most improvised dinner of the week - wheat berries, roast butternut squash, Swiss chard, dates, craisins, chickpeas, shallots(Penzey's dried ones), almonds. Thanks to you (and Leslie!) for all the great links to draw inspiration from.
My husband is really struggling with not having whatever we usually have, but I do 100% of the meal planning and well over 90% of the cooking so I keep telling him not to worry.
I baked a cake last week but I'll need cookies or something midweek this week once the cake is done.
I think tonight will be a chicken & leek pie with puff pastry (I've got pepperidge farm puff in the freezer). I've got some proteins that are use or freeze over the next few days so they need to go first.
I made beef stew, mostly following the good old Betty Crocker Cookbook recipe. Instead of stew meat I used sirloin tip steak (because why not) and potatoes, carrots, parsnips, red pepper, sweet potatoes, onions, and fresh garlic. And made cheesy baking powder biscuits. Winner!
We've got a moody pre-teen here. I sobbed this morning when i dropped a pan of eggs on the floor and burnt a bagel. My husband went to his office to get some time in with his (literal) punching bag today. So, to quote a dear departed relative on his deathbed "about as well as can be expected!"
I think we cooked just enough to feed us for the weekend. I keep thinking we'll bake - I'm having a serious carb craving but I haven't pinned down what exactly I want. Muffins? cookies? Something. We made Sunday morning waffles (used to be routine before the 9 year old went to religious school on Sunday mornings), and last night was Tofu Pot Pie - we're clearly in comfort food land. If I get my grading done before COB (that's a lovely wish) I may start baking something even if no one else wants to.
I've been doing pretty ok food wise this week! I made that butternut squash dish you recommended the other day with a sweet potato thrown in instead of peas and ohmygoodness it was a serious comfort meal!
My mother and uncle in law keep panic buying and realizing they're getting to much so they'll drop it off with me and my boyfriend! So were actually eating better than ever for once.
We got gifted some ground turkey that's going to get used for tonight. And I stumbled across butcher while getting a few more canned items that actually had some lamb left. So there's a pound of that for thursday!
I finally made the red velvet cupcakes I've been talking about for ages, and my household promptly ate four of them so I'm counting them as a success.
We're okay but worried that nobody around our area is taking this seriously enough.
https://melanietheconstantreader.substack.com/
It appears that everyone is making stuff I usually make for my son in normal times. No yeast or baking soda for bread, and no frozen fruit for smoothies. Plus no pasta shells, so he will have to make due with different shapes! Wondering if demand for these things will continue when this is over. Otherwise, plenty of food on the shelves.
I have been volunteering at both school lunch delivery and the food pantry, and the issue isn't lack of available food, but buyers' lack of money. :-(
I'm a stress baker and the stores around us are out of flour, which is *definitely* not helping my stress. Tonight I'm making a lemon cornmeal cake with the lemons that have been in the fridge allllmost too long to go with our St. Patrick's Day redux-because-corned beef-was-on-sale dinner. Hopefully that means we get to have Reubens for lunch tomorrow, but corned beef doesn't last very long around here.
Saturday was grilled plums, prosciutto and burrata with aged balsamic over arugula and radicchio. Broccoli rabe. Royal reds with spicy garlic confit. Sunday was the fantastic Cacio e pepe pie you recommended. I subbed spaghetti squash (no grains for me) and it was soooo delish. Also made roasted baby turnips with greens and chimichurri and mushrooms with tarragon butter. Today I am rolling around like a greased beach ball. I think I need to slow down. Too much food!!!
I love your meal plans! I don't follow them specifically, but I've gotten lots of ideas and new recipes and I thank you for that. I'm such a restless cook; I am always looking for ways to break out of the boredom and these times make that all the more crucial! The weekend was hard,not gonna lie. The four of us (hubs and two teen boys) aren't getting on one another's nerves at all (we're pretty self-contained as a foursome anyway, and my kids are introverts like me, to their benefit in shut-down conditions). BUT, we're all dealing with rollercoaster emotions. Trying to manage one kid who just started a weight loss regimen before corona hit (he's down 9lbs!), and another who is wraith-skinny and has to be reminded to eat. Yesterday I made rice and beans, with two cans of cuban-"flavored" black beans that were the only beans left on the shelf early in everyone's food-panic shopping. To that I added chopped up chicken from some thighs I roasted a few days ago. I would LOVE to just bake and eat breads and cookies but ... see older kid and weight loss, above, sigh. Thank you for doing this! Keep the ideas and the conversation coming!
I love getting your emails. I made the Medit. Chicken and couscous last night and it was a big hit with the family. I made it an assemble your own bowl kind of thing, that seems to work well for my family, everyone likes different things and flavors. I also baked banana bread and made a cherry crisp from a bag of frozen cherries that had been in the freezer too long. It turned out to be very good. I have a list of 50 questions that won't annoy your teens that we use at dinner--we are on question #3. Keep your ideas coming, I look forward to them. Kathy