Well, I'm happy to report that we recovered from supper heck after Monday night's la-z-mama pizza special!
(did you notice Naomi Rivka put a sticker on my head?)
This Week in Suppers!
Tuesday: The long-awaited CHICKEN STIR-FRY... frozen stir-fry veg, but the real secret was frying the chicken in two batches in the wok before adding the veg. OK, that sounds so elementary, but I always add it in one batch. Then there's too much moisture from all that chicken in the bottom of the wok and the chicken steams/boils rather than fries. If you do it in TWO batches, there's enough room for each portion of chicken to skitter happily around the pan. Then take the chicken out entirely, fry up the veggies (again, don't let too much water accumulate from the veggies - steam is your enemy!), then re-add the chicken, add the sauce, and then the cornstarch slurry to make it slippery and nice... oooh, yum!
Wednesday: I had an awful headache in the morning and made Ted stay home from work to watch the kiddies. As a result, he had the horrible hectic child-blithering day I was supposed to have, so to be nice, I was feeling better by 4-ish and whipped up a respectable supper - PC CASARECCE (short twisty pasta) WITH TOMATO SAUCE. Okay, it sounds pretty drab, but I assure you, it was a very lovely sauce with fresh onions, garlic, mushrooms & red peppers, fried, then some red wine.
Thursday: Tonight is when I outdid myself and pulled together some delightful PULL-enta (get it?)... yes, I boiled up some polenta before heading out to our library program this morning, and it set up nicely while we were out so I made my layered polenta thingy for supper, with broccoli and mushroom sauce (see picture at left). Soup on the side was a brave first attempt: GOOD FOOD BOX WHITE SOUP, with various "white" elements including onion, roasted garlic, roasted parsnip, potatoes and white kidney beans. It was yummy - yay!
All in all, a decent supper week, but now I'm starting to panic because I'm falling WAaaay behind on the laundry and Purim / Pesach are coming. Elisheva needs a costume for tomorrow and everybody else has until motzaei Shabbos to decide what they're going to be. Still a vague, unformed "sock monkey" concept for Gavriel Zev, but no clue for Naomi Rivka. And I know if I leave it too long, she's going to decide on her own that she wants to dress up as Dora... heaven help us. I mean, she does look a lot like Dora, and might even consent to a haircut if I tell her it would make her look more like Dora, but still. I hate HATE hate all licensed characters. Even though hate is a word I generally save for evil dictatorships.
Just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Very interesting and apropos of my previous post about people who take on a "challenge" for one year. Because she makes it SO clear throughout the book that although it is about a one-year local-food challenge, that challenge is a natural and logical extension of her family's increasingly conscientious eating patterns. It was a refreshing change from the phony-food-challenge genre and really thought-provoking. Not sure yet how I can incorporate these insights into MY particular family's life - we can't exactly start raising and slaughtering our own turkeys - but it is (ahem) truly food for thought.
And in other food-related news... we have...
...PARSLEY!!!
May not look like much, but after a month of waving its cotyledons in the wind (cotyledons are seed leaves for anyone who doesn't speak Gardener), one of my parsleys has finally, finally decided to show its first true parsley-style leaf to the world. I hope this is the start of something wonderful...!!!
Also the moribund coleus seems to have perked up. I stuck a 40w bulb in the mini-greenhouse for heat, plus I sprayed everything with kelp. Maybe it's actually working! Maybe I'll have all the lovely green things I have dreamed of all winter someday soon after all...
<3 J
(did you notice Naomi Rivka put a sticker on my head?)
This Week in Suppers!
Tuesday: The long-awaited CHICKEN STIR-FRY... frozen stir-fry veg, but the real secret was frying the chicken in two batches in the wok before adding the veg. OK, that sounds so elementary, but I always add it in one batch. Then there's too much moisture from all that chicken in the bottom of the wok and the chicken steams/boils rather than fries. If you do it in TWO batches, there's enough room for each portion of chicken to skitter happily around the pan. Then take the chicken out entirely, fry up the veggies (again, don't let too much water accumulate from the veggies - steam is your enemy!), then re-add the chicken, add the sauce, and then the cornstarch slurry to make it slippery and nice... oooh, yum!
Wednesday: I had an awful headache in the morning and made Ted stay home from work to watch the kiddies. As a result, he had the horrible hectic child-blithering day I was supposed to have, so to be nice, I was feeling better by 4-ish and whipped up a respectable supper - PC CASARECCE (short twisty pasta) WITH TOMATO SAUCE. Okay, it sounds pretty drab, but I assure you, it was a very lovely sauce with fresh onions, garlic, mushrooms & red peppers, fried, then some red wine.
Thursday: Tonight is when I outdid myself and pulled together some delightful PULL-enta (get it?)... yes, I boiled up some polenta before heading out to our library program this morning, and it set up nicely while we were out so I made my layered polenta thingy for supper, with broccoli and mushroom sauce (see picture at left). Soup on the side was a brave first attempt: GOOD FOOD BOX WHITE SOUP, with various "white" elements including onion, roasted garlic, roasted parsnip, potatoes and white kidney beans. It was yummy - yay!All in all, a decent supper week, but now I'm starting to panic because I'm falling WAaaay behind on the laundry and Purim / Pesach are coming. Elisheva needs a costume for tomorrow and everybody else has until motzaei Shabbos to decide what they're going to be. Still a vague, unformed "sock monkey" concept for Gavriel Zev, but no clue for Naomi Rivka. And I know if I leave it too long, she's going to decide on her own that she wants to dress up as Dora... heaven help us. I mean, she does look a lot like Dora, and might even consent to a haircut if I tell her it would make her look more like Dora, but still. I hate HATE hate all licensed characters. Even though hate is a word I generally save for evil dictatorships.
Just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Very interesting and apropos of my previous post about people who take on a "challenge" for one year. Because she makes it SO clear throughout the book that although it is about a one-year local-food challenge, that challenge is a natural and logical extension of her family's increasingly conscientious eating patterns. It was a refreshing change from the phony-food-challenge genre and really thought-provoking. Not sure yet how I can incorporate these insights into MY particular family's life - we can't exactly start raising and slaughtering our own turkeys - but it is (ahem) truly food for thought.
And in other food-related news... we have...
...PARSLEY!!!May not look like much, but after a month of waving its cotyledons in the wind (cotyledons are seed leaves for anyone who doesn't speak Gardener), one of my parsleys has finally, finally decided to show its first true parsley-style leaf to the world. I hope this is the start of something wonderful...!!!
Also the moribund coleus seems to have perked up. I stuck a 40w bulb in the mini-greenhouse for heat, plus I sprayed everything with kelp. Maybe it's actually working! Maybe I'll have all the lovely green things I have dreamed of all winter someday soon after all...
<3 J
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