We had our usual road trip dinner on the way up to Boston tonight. Frank Pepe’s pizza, in the car, in the dark.
I took a picture but it came out black. The pizza was excellent, as always.
Monthly Archives: September 2013
A dinner conundrum
I don’t usually do a mid-day, non-what-we-had-for-dinner post, but I think this situation warrants it. We have a dinner conundrum.
As you might know, Rose is quite passionate about gymnastics. This week, she was invited to move to a more rigorous training schedule. It’s wonderful news because she’s really been wanting a promotion, and she works so hard, and is so in love with the sport. But it totally messes with things, dinner-wise.
Twice a week she’ll be finishing gymnastics at 7:30pm (we’re angling to change it to 7:00, but still). After which we’ll have to drive home, find parking (at a more challenging time than the previous 6:00pm), have dinner, shower, pajamas, teeth, read(?), and get Rose in bed. All of this needs to be completed by 8:30pm.
Oh shit.
I was already worried about how the new addition would impact our family dinners, but this is a whole new can of challenge. Also, Shane has physical therapy until 7:15pm, three times per week, for the foreseeable future. Having him get dinner ready isn’t an option either.
What we really need is staff. We can’t afford staff, so I guess the next best thing would be a plan. A good plan.
I am not, in general, a planner-aheader but that might need to change. What I’ve decided to try is creating a weekly dinner menu, ahead of time. Next week is our first week on the new schedule.
So far I have this:
Monday – Make-ahead meal & CSA veggies
Tuesday – Chicken & CSA veggies
Wednesday – Coffee shop – call ahead so we don’t have to wait?
Thursday – Something (new?) that can be prepped ahead of time (CSA pickup night) & CSA veggies
Friday – Steak & CSA veggies
I hope you’ll check back to see how it all pans out. I figure if we can make this work, we can handle having another kid around. Hopefully.
As always, suggestions are welcome!
All it takes
See the photo on the left up there? Those three ingredients, are all it takes to make the delicious sauce on the right. Well, those three ingredients, 45 minutes, and the option of salt & pepper. What I’m talking about here is Marcella Hazan’s famous sauce.
I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but if you haven’t tried this sauce already, you really should. It’s going to blow your mind with it’s effortlessness.
You simply take the three ingredients pictured above left, bung them in a pot, simmer for 45 minutes—with the occasional stir and smoosh—and you’re done. And it’s delicious.
I made a double batch tonight, one for tonight, one for the future (I’m in dinner-nesting mode).
We had ours over spinach ravioli, but it works well over any pasta, or in lasagne. Or, if you’re pregnant, in a bowl with a spoon.
Lazy Wednesday
It’s Lazy Wednesday. We did the usual, Espresso 77 (grilled cheese, strawberry lemonade, brownies). Dinner was excellent, I can’t say the same for my photos.
Squash soup
It was so fall-ish today! With a nip in the air, and a drawer full of CSA squash, how could I make anything but soup for dinner?
The soup was butternut and acorn with fennel (recipe below). I served it with crusty Ciabatta, Frommager D’Affinios, and a side of Weekday Chicken, cooked with butter in a sauté pan, instead of in the grilling pan.
A dinner like tonight’s breaks down nicely around here: Shane eats everything, except sometimes the cheese (and then has a few bowls of Cheerios an hour later). Rose eats the chicken and maybe a little bit of cheese, but no soup or bread. I eat the soup, the bread and the cheese. It’s kind of a beautiful thing, really.
• Butternut Squash Soup with Fennel •
3 – 4 lbs. butternut or acorn squash, or a combination of the two
olive oil
salt & pepper
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 large fennel bulb, chopped
3 cups water plus 1 tablespoon Vegetable Better Than Bouillon (or 3 cups of vegetable or chicken broth)
scant 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon*
creme fraiche or heavy cream to garnish (optional)
Note: This recipe is prep-as-you-go, meaning, there’s no need to chop and measure anything in advance, unless you really want to.
Heat oven to 350 and line a baking tray with foil. Halve your squash lengthwise and scoop out the seeds and associated gunk. Lay each squash piece, cut side up on the baking tray. Put a little olive oil in the hole where the seeds used to be and then use your fingers to oil the whole cut surface of the squash. Season the squash generously with salt and pepper, flip and lay cut side down, on the baking tray. Bake until soft when pricked with a knife, about 30-40 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.**
In a large saucepan or dutch oven, melt the butter over medium-low heat. When the butter is melted add the chopped onion and stir to coat with butter, reduce heat to low. While the onion is cooking, trim the leafy parts off of your fennel bulb, quarter it, cut out the core and roughly chop it. Add fennel to the onion, stir to combine and let it cook. While that’s happening, scoop the flesh out from the skin of the roasted squash. (Be sure not to let the onion and fennel brown, check and stir occasionally while scooping.) I like to use a spoon and my hands to separate the flesh from skin. It will take a bit of work in certain areas but should be mostly easy to do. By the time you’ve removed all of the flesh, the onion should be nice and soft, and the fennel starting to soften.
Add the squash to the onion and fennel, and mash and stir a bit with a wooden spoon. Cook for about a minute. Add the water and Better Than Bouillon (or broth) and bring to a boil. Reduce heat so that the soup is simmering and cover, leaving the lid a little bit ajar. Cook for 30-45 minutes until the fennel pieces are soft and translucent.
Add the cinnamon, if using, then blend with an immersion blender or food processor (I recommend the immersion blender because you don’t need to remove and return the soup to the pot, and you can do it all at once), until nice and smooth. If you like your soup a bit thinner, add an additional cup of water plus one teaspoon of bouillon (or an additional cup of broth). Season with salt and pepper. Keep warm, covered, over a very low flame until ready to serve. Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche or a swirl of heavy cream, if desired.
*We have some really strong, good-quality cinnamon at the moment, I used just 1/8 of a teaspoon for the tiniest hint of spice. You may need to use slightly more depending on your cinnamon. You just want the slightest whiff, your soup shouldn’t taste like Christmas.
**When I’m working from home, I prepare the squash during the day. If I’m working on-site in an office, I do it the night before and just leave the squash out on the counter until I’m ready to make the soup.
Turkey burgers & salad
Tonight was simple turkey burgers (for them), and roasted eggplant, cherry tomato and fresh goat cheese over greens. I loved the salad, but was a bit full from eating half a jar of pickles before dinner (that’s right), and couldn’t enjoy it like I should have.
We’ve been working on giving Rose a bit more responsibility, now that she’s going to be a sibling. We have some catching up to do, after having her do pretty much no work at all, when we thought she was going to be an only child forever.
She’s been setting and clearing the table, and does a decent job (see below). What should we task her with next? Laundry? Moving the car?
Sea scallop risotto
We had the most delicious sea scallop risotto tonight. It was a simplified version of a recipe from Biba Caggiano’s Trattoria Cooking. Shane and I both thought it was fantastic.
Rose was not a fan. She tried it and said “I don’t like risotto and I don’t like scallops,” with a perfect Italian accent on the “risotto” and a perfect New England accent on the “scallops.”
Shane and I had a good chuckle, and then reminded her that she knows where the fridge is. She had cheddar cheese and salad.
This is a 45 minute dish, an hour if you’re multi-tasking and/or also making a salad.
• Sea Scallop Risotto •
modified from Biba Caggiano’s Trattoria Cooking
For the Risotto
6 cups water mixed with 2 tablespoons Vegetable Better Than Bouillon
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1 small onion, chopped
2 cups Arborio rice
1 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley
salt and pepper to taste
For the Scallops
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 lb. sea scallops, rinsed and chopped into roughly 1/2″ pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup dry white wine
salt to taste
Begin the risotto. Combine water and bouillon in a pot, and bring to a boil, then lower heat to keep it at a slow simmer. Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a large saucepan or dutch oven. When the butter foams, add the onion and sauté over medium heat until soft and translucent, about 3-4 minutes. Add the rice and stir to coat well with the butter and onion, cook for one minute. Add 1 cup of wine and cook until the wine is almost completely absorbed. Ladle enough broth into the saucepan to just cover the rice, stir and cook over medium-low heat. Continue to cook the rice until the broth is mostly absorbed, then add more broth, a little at a time, stirring occasionally so the rice doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
Meanwhile, prepare the scallops. Melt the butter and olive oil over high heat. Add the scallops and cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes. Add the garlic, stir, and then add the 1/2 cup of wine. Simmer until the sauce is reduced to about half and the scallops are cooked through. Season with salt and remove from heat.
The risotto is finished once all of the broth has been incorporated gradually, and the rice is al dente and has a creamy consistency. At this point, add the scallops with their pan juices, the parsley, and the remaining tablespoon of butter, and cook for a minute or two. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.
Shrimp scampi and a dodged bullet
I didn’t post yesterday because dinner was a very late, incredibly glum, takeout meal. Our cat Buttercup was at the Animal Medical Center again, for a suspected intestinal blockage.
She was exhibiting all of the same symptoms as the last time she ate something she shouldn’t have. Emergency surgery wasn’t a feasible option this time around, and it was with heavy hearts that we delivered her to the capable and kind folks at the AMC, for the second time this year.
I woke up this morning feeling dismal and heartbroken. And then my friend Britta reminded me about the power of positive thinking.
As I was meditating on how I would like things to turn out, I got a call from the vet. Buttercup was going to be fine! She had some kind of bad GI upset but they couldn’t find an intestinal blockage.
Our trip back to the AMC was a joyful one. I embarrassed Rose with my tears as they gave little Butters back to us.
The icing on the cake was when her treatment cost fell within the limits of her kitty cat insurance policy, with money to spare for follow-ups.
Upon arrival home Rose made both cats a nice dish of cat treats garnished with catnip. And I made Shrimp Scampi Over Grilled Bread.
Bullet dodged. Happy family. Go positive thinking!
Happy retirement Pete!
Tonight we celebrated my uncle Peter’s retirement at Trattoria L’incontro in Astoria. A grand time was had by all and we were all very proud of, and happy for Pete. Hopefully he can stay retired this time.
Lazy Wednesday
Lazy Wednesday! Post-gymnastics dinner at Espresso 77 (delicious grilled cheese), followed by self-serve fro-yo at Rainbowberry.
Man do I love me some poppin boba over raspberry-pomegranate yogurt. Rose takes the kitchen sink approach.