Month: March 2023

daily recap · what we ate

Day 1114: Sandwiches, Sandwiches

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I didn’t feel great today after my migraine but I rallied and went to the Maryland Archives in Annapolis. The plan had been for me and my grant partner to go and make a day of it and get lunch and visit the Paca gardens but it was windy, rainy and chilly. So I went by myself (the quicker option because I didn’t have to drive an extra 20 minutes to pick her up) which wasn’t as fun. The traffic was awful when I left so I had to drive this unhinged way avoiding both tunnels and going on a lot of surface streets.

Luckily the archivists had pulled what we wanted so I spent a couple hours photographing each page of some old cookbooks and other recipe files they had.

I stopped at Graul’s, a local chain of fancier supermarkets, and got a roast beef and Swiss sandwich for me and macaroni salad and coleslaw for dinner.

I ate some of the sandwich before I left but it was so dry! I didn’t find the mustard packet until I got home. Anyway, coming home was a lot faster since at least the 95 tunnel was cleared. Someone did tailgate me. Like I’m driving a 19 year old car with a Joy of Cooking bumper sticker, go around me!

I made some horseradish mayo and slathered it on the sandwich and finished it. Much better!

Matt put up a corned beef while I was gone so we could have sandwiches for dinner and not have to go around in circles about it.

He also picked up our Easter candy! I’m excited, it’s a long family tradition to get candy from this same place every holiday and on Easter they have chocolate eggs in flavors they only have at Easter. Like “sherbet” which is chocolate and vanilla swirl. Can’t wait until Easter.

I laid in a dark room for a while then I went to check on the meat at dinner time and it wasn’t ready. Luckily it was done like an hour later because I was not in the mood to find an alternative.

I think the worst thing about this part of the pandemic (besides people pretending it’s over) is that life is back to normal enough we have to do things in public which takes up time but we aren’t doing things that made our lives easier like eating in restaurants. It was almost easier just to be home all the time and make all the meals. Now everything requires so much planning.

daily recap · what we ate

Day 1113: Chicken Chow Mein

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Today was busy creatively speaking.

I made some cyanotype using flowers I pressed last month. My goal is do it on a weaving so I did a mini sample weaving and some on paper.

For lunch we had ham sandwiches. Then I made a decoupage panel. I did a lot of decoupage years ago and have been saving magazine pages for a long time. It was nice to actually create something with them! I did it on a wooden board. Years ago I used to decoupage wooden boxes, frames and mirrors so it made sense to use a board.

I’m taking a weaving class in June and they asked us to bring “mood” boards so my plan is bring this and maybe make more?

For dinner we got takeout and I had my childhood fave chicken chow mein. Not as good as my childhood spot but not bad!

Then I got a migraine. Blah. Someone is burning something in the neighborhood and I think burning is a trigger now.

daily recap · what we ate

Day 1112: HAM

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Today was mostly prepping for projects I’ll actually complete another day and figuring out logistics.

For lunch Matt got Peruvian food near work and I had a leftover sausage and the few potatoes that were left. I added an egg so it was more like hash. Or so I told myself.

Dinner was just slices of spiral sliced ham (yay, Easter sales), steamed broccoli and the rest of the potato salad I made on Sunday. I think we just didn’t eat much of it Sunday because we had other salads leftover that we ate. I didn’t feel like I made that much but this is the third dinner we’ve had it with. Today was the last day I’d feel comfortable eating it anyway but it did make for a very easy dinner. Ugly! But easy and tasty.

Now we have a ton of ham leftover to play with. I might try and sneak it into a recipe in the book to help get through it.

daily recap · what we ate

Day 1111: Weisswurst

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Got a lot of work done on the book today!

Made myself some refrigerated sundried tomato ravioli and pesto for lunch with some spinach tossed in. Matt was at work and went to fast casual pita place.

For dinner I made roasted potatoes again and roasted zucchini. When I went to heat up the sausage and sauerkraut, I realized the sausages looked off. I think they got stuck back in the fridge and froze and defrosted? Everything else was in the oven so Matt stopped practicing the piano and ran to Lidl to get more sausage. I heated them up with some sauerkraut and red onion. I’m so glad we have a Lidl less than 10 minutes away! We don’t have a lot of supermarket options, normally I drive to the suburbs to shop.

daily recap · what we ate

Day 1110: Battered Oysters

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Picked up my library reserve this morning and hit up two grocery stores before the rain hit.

I didn’t have high hopes since it was Monday but Aldi had a lot of meat with good expiration dates. They were out of a lot of staples (sour cream, butter) but I didn’t need much of that. I got a ham for Easter and I might not need to do another big shop before then. Maybe just a stop for produce next week.

For lunch I got a take and bake pizza at Aldi. They aren’t bad and a good cheap (about $6) lunch option. We just didn’t really have anything here to eat that wouldn’t involve me actually having to make something. I think I’m good with pizza for a while!

For dinner I made battered oysters (recipe for the new book) and had more of the potato salad. They weren’t bad but not my favorite way to make oysters. I’m modernizing old recipes and most were just dip them in flour or breadcrumbs and this was something different. But I’m not writing the book for me! I think other people will like this method more. I like more crunch.

My orchid is really blooming!

I started reading The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell. It’s basically a murder mystery knock off of the Great British Bake off set in New England and I thought it sounded cute and light. There is a red flag—one of the bakers refers to the perfect chewy pie crust. Who wants a chewy pie crust? It makes me wonder if the author doesn’t know about food and is just trying to capitalize off a popular show. So far the descriptions are identical to GBBO which also seems a little lazy. I guess I’ll see if it gets better. Before this book I had a string of about four I didn’t like so I want to read something!

daily recap · what we ate

Day 1109: Soft Crabs

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Matt used the last bit of buttermilk for pancakes this morning. He had carefully measured some out when he made the catfish last week. We’ve been on real pancake kick.

Today was my weaving guild meeting so I went to that. It’s about 45 minute drive and the meetings are about 2-2 1/2 hrs so it’s a big chunk of the afternoon. Before I left I made a huge batch of potato salad to make dinner tonight and tomorrow easier.

I was so hungry when I left at 4:40 I texted Matt and he had grilled cheese and apple slices waiting for both of us. Pancakes are so tricky! We’re always stuffed after but then suddenly faint with hunger when it’s too late for lunch but too early for dinner.

Yesterday I picked up some raw seafood with our lunch for recipe development for the new book.

It’s early for live soft crabs but somehow they had them! I made them for a late dinner with the potato salad and leftover broccoli salad and coleslaw from yesterday.

It’s a really fun recipe! I can’t wait to share it.

We watched Daisy Jones and cast on a new knitting pattern. I don’t really buy Daisy and Billy at all. They seem so flat. The show lacks urgency in general but it’s really obvious with those two. I do wonder about the theory that they did have an affair and are lying about it to everyone. I love everyone else though. This interview with Sebastian Chacon (Warren) is amazing.

Gorgeous weather today but didn’t get to enjoy it much! Tomorrow it’s supposed to be a little rainy again so I might just go to the store and hope to have a sunnier day later in the week with no errands to run.

daily recap · what we ate

Day 1108: Sushi! Cupcakes!

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Today’s our anniversary and we were hoping to take a day trip but it’s really rainy.

We went to a local-ish place we’ve bought steamed crabs from before and got some seafood platters for lunch. I had fried oysters, shrimp macaroni salad and coleslaw and Matt had a broiled seafood platter, broccoli salad and shrimp macaroni salad. We also picked up some cupcakes which were really good! I had a Neapolitan one with strawberry icing, vanilla cake and chocolate filling.

For dinner we got sushi from the same place we got lunch last week. We’d never tried their fancier rolls. One of mine was heart shaped!

All in all a quiet day! I did get some fresh seafood at the market for tomorrow and Monday so I have that to look forward to!

daily recap · what we ate

Day 1107: Pizza, again

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For lunch I had the rest of the tuna and some minestrone soup. Matt had the leftover pork in a sandwich with pickles.

I’ve been re-watching Yellowjackets ahead of the premiere of season 2. I forgot how funny it was. I still find the casting of Juliette Lewis a little jarring. I know she’s only about 5-8 years older than some of the other actresses but visually she looks a lot older. I wish they had her be a young coach or teacher instead.

Got some work done, watched a class and planned some new projects.

Leftover pizza for dinner. We still have more left somehow.

Worked on my inkle!

daily recap · what we ate

Day 1106: Potato Wedges!

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For lunch we made tuna sandwiches—basic tuna, mayo, dill relish, goddess dressing, pepper and had a few Cheetos.

For dinner I made roasted potatoes. I have really perfected the roasted potato wedge over the last year. The trick is season it a lot and then roast for 30 minutes at like 400°, toss then cook like another 20 minutes. Way longer than you’d think but it turns out so good! Crispy crispy but soft inside. I used a lot of smoked paprika so they look dark but they aren’t over cooked at all.

We also had leftover sautéd cabbage and I cooked a seasoned pork loin I had froze last month. Super easy dinner but tasty!

One of my weaving groups had a virtual class with Tien Chiu, a fairly famous weaver, about painted warps. I was hoping it was more about how to paint them but it was mostly color theory. Still interesting to see all her final projects!

I snacked on some popcorn during that. My favorite combo for last couple years has been air popped popcorn + butter + Trader Joe’s Elote Seasoning + Epicurean Specialty Truffle Parmesan & Black Pepper seasoning from Costco + a tiny smidge of super fine Himalayan salt.

We also had some Mrs. Miller’s Peanut Butter Marshmallow Spread we bought on vacation back in September on a (Aldi) Graham cracker. I don’t know why we were so hungry today! We ate normal meals!

After all that mental debate, I didn’t go to the store—the day ended gorgeous but there was a crazy storm most of the day. Lots of thunder and lightening. Not going out in that for no good reason! Honestly we had food for today, leftover pizza for tomorrow? We know we are getting take out for our anniversary Saturday so I might try to make it until Monday. Fish market Sunday?!

what we ate

Day 1105: Pizza

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Another day up early with Dottie! She hears my husband leave and then cries a little, we get up, she sniffs around and then falls back asleep. I cannot fall asleep so easily!

Luckily she is cute!

We keep going around in circles about what do for our anniversary on Saturday. We had hoped it would be nice weather so we could go out of town for the day but it’s like a 90% chance of rain. So maybe some takeout and baked goods? I can’t wait until it is consistently nice out again. Sunday is supposed to be warm and sunny but my monthly weaving guild meeting is Sunday afternoon so that ties up the day too much to do a day trip.

Today I had a catfish sandwich for lunch and got some reading done. Added an item to my Etsy shop.

I was going to make dinner but Matt had a rough day at work so we got pizza instead. We haven’t gotten pizza in ages! We go to this place that makes “Baltimore style” pizza that’s sort of a individual pan pizza. We got a few different ones (we thought they were on sale for $10 each according to their website but then they weren’t?) so we’d have leftovers. The slices are tiny.

Really nothing exciting today! I did make a mug cozy out of our knitting book (Matt started his) and broke out the swift to wind some skeins of yarn for the next projects.

I’m trying to figure out if I need to do a grocery shop if we are going to do take out over the weekend. I need to do some recipe dev work for the new book but I don’t have the info I need to shop or come up with recipes yet. I don’t want to do a little shop and then have to go to the store again early next week. I honestly don’t like grocery shopping!