Thursday

last night I made a few things:

starter:  Haricot Vert from Smitten Kitchen.  It was ok, but I think I really crave the more seared style, with garlic and lemon juice and just some toasted almonds or sesame seeds on top

main:  Oil-poached salmon and spicy crab rigatoni , loosely based on Bittman's "recipe" here.  The salmon was wild caught but frozen, from the Grocery Outlet.  If I did it again I'd either use a higher-quality, thicker fish, or make more of a sauce to go over the top. As is, it just tasted like nothing, with oil and lemon.

However, the pasta was fantastic, and fast.  I'm calling it spicy, but it really just had a wonderful complicated flavor where you could taste the chilis but not feel the heat. This is what I remember doing:

Serves 6 ( 1 C finished serving size)

1. take the oil that the salmon poached in (with the 3 cloves of rough-chopped garlic and thyme still in it) 
2. Start pasta boiling in salted water until 1 min before al dente
3.  6 chopped Romas or a can of San Marzanos (I actually used a mix of both).  Cook until tomatoes start to slump and smell good
4. Add 1/2 C white wine and a few pinches of cayenne pepper, and some salt
5. add 14 oz frozen crab meat (I think any seafood would actually work here, scallops or clam or whatever).   
6. Cook until the liquid from the tomatoes, wine and crab meat has reduced by half
7. when pasta is 80% cooked, scoop it into tomato sauce, add 2 T butter, and let it finish cooking until the rest of the liquid is absorbed
8. Finish with lemon, pepper and fresh basil

Serve it to your husband and his twitching nose.  He will ask what he did to deserve such bounty.

Sunday

breakfast was some cornmeal pancakes with full fixings - sliced bananas, yogurt, maple syrup, diced green apples, raisins.  Recipe made enough for two breakfasts.  Very good - everyone ate everything.

lunch was Smitten Kitchen's Homesick Texan Carnitas, which I have made before with success.  I tried to adapt them for the slow cooker, with maybe mixed results.  They weren't quite crispy by lunch time, although the pork was good quality and already falling apart.  Next time I try the slow cooker I'll reduce the water to almost nothing.  Parker just picked at her food, but I thought they turned out well.   The guacamole Robert made was especially good.  I finished them on the stovetop after lunch, so by today they should be better.

dinner was ginger fried rice, which is always a winner in my house.  I love the way the egg yolk soaks into the rice to make a sauce.

Thursday

Starter: Kohlrabi sliced thin and tossed with red wine vinegar, olive oil, and salt.  Parker thought it was really good this time, and ate quite a bit.  She's such a brave eater, to keep trying things she didn't like last time.  Eventually she likes most things (at least once, no guarantees on next time)

Entree: Combined tomato-rice soup  with basil garnish and tuna melts.  I should have just split these up as the melts had to in the toaster oven to firm up the bottoms.  However, it was delicious nonetheless and I like dunking one in the other.  Parker at all the soup and all the melt, and went back for more.  She'll eat anything with fish in it.  Robert doesn't like tuna melts, but I made a stir fry for him earlier in the week so I think we're even.  Plus he was grumpy and not very hungry from being sick, so I enjoyed it enough for the both of us.

Dessert:  Peach Blueberry tart.  The tart crust came out floury and underdone, and the fruit was just kind of blah.    Maybe I'll try the Cooks Illustrated fraisage method  for a more pie-like crust next time. Not sure what I did wrong, but I'm not a baker-type as much. Or give up on dessert-making and leave it to professionals, of which Portland has no shortage.

Weds Night

Dinner was seitan fajitas with the seitan from Whole Foods.  It was an excellent product.  I used cumin instead of cinnamon and only sauteed everything for just a few minutes on high heat, since the seitan is already cooked and dries out fast.  I served them with a little sour cream and they were very good.  Parker thought the  "pork" was really good and tried to pick apart the fajita with her hands to get at it. Robert had seconds, and  I made "mmm mmm"sounds  This seitan had all sorts of things in it - algae and lentils and nutritional yeast and liquid smoke - and it may be one of the few things they just make better at the store, like french fries or pickles.  I'm going to try the famous Seitan O'Greatness soon, so we'll see.

Dessert was a mug of hot chocolate and sliced white peaches on the patio, watching the sunset reflected in the building across the way.

Tuesday Night

Starter was Harissa Chickpeas with Spinach - actually used canned white kidney beans instead. Beans didn't hold together very well but flavor was very good anyway.  Parker liked beans, not the "green leaves".

Main Course was Zucchini Rice Gratin.  If I did it again I would use a smaller cooking dish than my cast iron skillet, and use 2x the tomatoes.  Came out a bit dry and under-salted this time, but the overall flavor was very good.  Parker didn't like, Robert thought it was ok, zucchini notwithstanding.

Cheese course was a gorgonzola "dulce igor" from the Whole Foods cheese sample basket (weird cheeses!  $1-$2!) served with a green olive loaf of bread from Lovejoy bakers.  Cheese was very sharp - totally woke me up after a carb-heavy dinner.  Everything I've had from Lovejoy bakers has been fantastic, and this was no different.

Dessert was a butter-crust rhubarb pie that I traded with one of Anna's friends for some meatballs.  Rhubarb was sharp and tart, just how I like it.  I think it might have been too much for Parker, though.  She didn't finish (more for me!)

Monday

I left dinner on the stove for my family on Monday - Slow-cooked lentils with chicken sausage.  Always a favorite, especially with some goat cheese and lemon, served in some lettuce leaves for crunch.

Dessert was Trader Joe's ice cream with caramel sauce and blueberries.

And me?  I went to a meatball party!  That's right, my sister organized a giant meatball party - 5 girls, two bottles of white, and 8-9 cookie sheets full of meat balls.  Anna and I did a pork/beef combo, but there was an all-pork version and a turkey version too.  While they cooked, we ate rhubarb pie and drank wine in the last of the daylight in the back yard.  So much fun.  The jokes were at times unprintable.

Tuesday

Dinner was Chilaquile from the Moosewood low fat cookbook.  I had some cooked chard that needed to be used up, along with the end of a bag of tortilla chips.  I love this dish - it's vegetarian and very satisfying, plus I can make it with stuff I almost always have around. 

Monday Night

Dinner was a French-style barley vegetable soup, simmered for hours with a dense garlicy sausage from Olympic provisions, like an Andouillettes.  You take the sausage out and serve it separately, with mustard and crusty bread.  I also served grilled corn on the cob, adult-style with cayenne pepper.  It was very filling, but MyFittnessPal says only ~400 calories?

I love this recipe because the soup is good, but even better the second day when I drain off the broth, add some parsley, cucumbers, tomatoes and yogurt and have a filling, delicious salad for lunch.   

Sunday

Lunch was the main event yesterday, with bacon corn hash as a giant brunch.  Look at us, we're so Portland now.  I also added some tops from kohlrabi, sauteed in the bacon-flavored olive oil left over in the pan, with garlic and salt.  Two out of three of us really liked it (I'll let you guess who the dissenting opinion was).

Dinner was Chicken Piccata for Robert - his favorite.  For a more intense sauce flavor, I skip the chicken broth and do all wine and lemon juice, and really let it reduce before I add the butter and serve.  Side dish was sauteed bok choy   with toasted cashews.  It was good.  I had popcorn an apple, and wine - my normal Sunday night dinner.

Saturday

Salad:  Kohlrabi, which I hadn't had before so the guy at the farmer's market gave me some for free to try!   We prepared it just as he suggested, sliced thing with salt, red wine vinegar and good olive oil drizzled on top.  It was fantastic.  Parker said it was too sour, but maybe she'll like it more the next time.  They say it takes 7 exposures for a kid to like something.

Entree:  Jim Lahey's cookie sheet pizza from My Bread.  Parker had pepperoni/mozzarella, I had bell peppers, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and mozzarella, and Robert had caramelized onions and anchovies.
Three Notes:

1. Should switch baking pans half way through so each gets crispy on the bottom
2. The onion and anchovy pizza shouldn't have tomato sauce as a base - just olive oil
3. This is a simple recipe and would be great for a party, but for three people I think I'll use the skillet recipe - much better crust with zero oil.
4. Never let a 5 year old oil the pan unless you like your smoke detector going off.  Those pizzas were swimming in it.

Cheese/Dessert:  Cherry Compote over Goat Cheese, with like half the goat cheese called for in the recipe.  I used goat cheese because I usually don't keep ice cream in the house.  This would be great for a dinner party, because you can put the goat cheese in the serving bowls and make the compote ahead of time and keep it warm on the stove.  Very yum.  Even Parker, who doesn't normally like cherries at all, said "oh, you used the good cherries this time"

Last Night's Dinner

Salad:  Duck a l'Orange salad from French Women Don't Get Fat, by Mirelle Guiliano.  Made with leftover roast chicken from the farmer's market.  Basically salad with vinegar soaked onions, lettuce, blanched green beans, orange slices and cold poultry tossed with olive oil.  It didn't come together well and was pretty bland, but I did like the orange slices with the poultry.  Have to try again with a stronger dressing, maybe?

 Entree: Roasted tomato garlic bruschetta toasts with anchovies as ganish.  Very, very yum

Cheese: Stilton.  Fantastic - Robert didn't believe it was a) from Trader Joe's and b) really a Stilton rather than his beloved French Blue

Dessert:  Cherries and dark chocolate for us, oatmeal muffin for Parker