Recipe Share – The Reluctant Grownup

Since I’m home all day, I have been sort of loosely planning the week’s meals but also free-wheeling it a little bit. I keep the pantry and freezer stocked with staples and I’ve taken to buying my most-used spices in giant industrial sizes, so I could probably make about forty different recipes without purchasing anything special. That combined with the mental exhaustion of existing in pandemic times (anybody else just TIRED all the time) means that I haven’t been putting anything here about the foods I’m making. But I am making some GOOD FOODS and I owe it to all of you to point you in the direction of the recipes, so we’ll just do a big ol’ recipe collection here. And for those for whom this is not your jam, there are also some pix at the bottom of my twelve year old boy’s birthday (TWELVE!!)

Scalloped potatoes. I got some assistance from my sous chef, the Prof, who peeled and thinly sliced a billion potatoes. I also made this more au gratin by mixing in cheese into the creamy sauce, but LAWD HAVE MAHCY these were tasty. We had them with Martha Stewart’s perfect roast chicken, which was indeed perfect (also perfect? they required the same temperature so I could put them both in the oven together). I cut up some carrots and thinly sliced some Brussels sprouts and boiled them (separately) for a minute or two each in broth, then threw them in with the chicken to roast in chicken fat for the last few minutes.

One night we had tuna patties and lovely plated salads using lettuce we grow in pots on the porch. The children balked at all of it but they’re dumb, it was delicious. I did add a bit more spice to the tuna patties than the recipe calls for – garlic powder and onion powder at least, plus a dash of whatever was around – and for the “torn white bread” I pulsed some old stale garlic naan bread in a handheld food processor. Oh man, that took it over the edge, as did shaving a little Parm on top. I have a Greek neighbor who buys fancy cheese in bulk and gives me some, and I have these delightful hard little wedges of Parm that I’ve been shaving over top of everything.

Lettuce harvest – plus basil, oregano, and one hardy little tomato

These Mongolian ground beef noodles were stunning. We’ll be having leftovers of those tomorrow night. I didn’t take a pic of this one so you’re spared.

The instant pot bolognese from Damn Delicious was, indeed, damn delicious. I froze half, so we got to eat it twice!

I may have shared this baked Swedish meatballs recipe before, but I’m going to share it again because YUM. I’m making these tonight.

We’ve been doing burgers on the grill quite a bit – the Prof likes grilling – and I’ve had him grill up some slices of sweet potato and chunks of zucchini out there. Highly recommend – the sweet potato takes about 10 minutes per side and the zucchini (which I cut in half and then each half in quarters) took 3 minutes per side. I kept them in the fridge and ate them up all week – reheated with a little rice or quinoa and some Parmesan cheese, nom.

This chicken and sweet corn soup is to die for.

This broccoli bolognese looks like it wouldn’t be that amazing based on the ingredients, but dear lord it was good stuff. I think the secret is that the broccoli has to be chopped really small, and the sausage broken up like ground beef. That makes it more like a white bolognese sauce and less like pasta with chunks of sausage and broccoli – if that makes sense.

We’ve also have the usual – enchiladas, chicken salad, pot pie, pork chops and potatoes, red beans and rice. And we have either frozen or delivered pizza at LEAST once a week, because I am not a machine over here. Mama needs a rest once in a while.

Speaking of Mama . . . awkward segue ahoy . . . I have been a Mama now for twelve years! (And one day!) For his birthday party, I got a few of his little school friends to download Netflix Party on their chrome browser, and I had the Prof pick up some pizzas and drop one off at each house (just three – at $8 each, it was not outrageous, and everyone lives within a block or two). They had pizzas and watched a movie and chatted through the whole thing. I peeped their chats on occasion and it was pretty cute – everybody was named ___boi (jackyboi, big boi paul, etc.) and they told gross jokes and occasionally wrote “dammmmmnnnn” which made me giggle – how naughty! A dirty word! But I stayed out of his room for the most part, and he had a great time. He’s missing his friends but for the most part, the kids are all right.