What we Ate: 5/23- 5/29

For the past three Saturdays, we celebrated graduations. This past Saturday we celebrated my daughter's 8th grade graduation. We ate all the Italian things, I made 12 iced espressos and then we capped it off with cannoli and tiramisu cake. I almost wanted to forget about cooking for the rest of the week, but I didn't because the thing is I love to cook and I love to eat and I love to eat food that I cooked. 

On Sunday, we made our way to Little Long Mountain. It's about an hour away driving south, but kind of a hidden gem. A trail to the top of a mountain with a view not often found in the Uwharries. We started late and wound up with almost ten miles round trip. My desire for cooking in the kitchen wasn't high because it was so hot. Summer has arrived in North Carolina, folks. Which means so has swamp ass and pervasive dampness in a house without AC. (Oh yes, we live in the south without central air. We're totally badass and mental. Absolutely mental).  Before we made it home, we popped into the local grocery and grabbed some hot dogs and veggie dogs. I made some hash browns and put out the box of mixed greens. That was dinner done. 

On Monday we made Harrisa Chicken Thighs with Shallots. We also made a tofu version. Both were served on top of rice and with a side of green beans. Then because I keep seeing the recipe for a Lambrusco Spritz, and finally got my grubby hands on a bottle, I made one to wash it all down. I love when recipes ask you to try different kinds of something to see which one you like. Meanwhile I live in a place where I had to travel to three different stores to even find one kind of Lambrusco. So we do our best. It's probably not as good as it could be, but it was refreshing and lively and made me think I was someplace else even if only for a little bit. 

There was a small amount of white wine lingering in a bottle in the back of the fridge. It was undrinkable, but still useful for cooking. So on Tuesday, I decided it was time for risotto. Note to self: this will probably be the last summer day I stand stirring risotto at the stove. It's not even that it requires that much stirring. It's just that it's hot and I made it after doing a dance workout which means I was even hotter than I usually am. No matter though. We survived and ate risotto with broccoli and spinach sautéed in olive oil and garlic. There was also some salami from the pork store I had found stashed away unopened in the middle of the chip bucket. Then I took out the frozen chicken ragu and the adults in the house threw that on top of their risotto too. We ate well. 

Wednesday was hot. Like the first day I had to change my clothes mid-day because I was sweaty just because I was living. A frozen steak and a whole head of cauliflower have been staring me down since last week. And then I saw a recipe for a watermelon margarita. Suddenly it all came together. Tacos and Margs. To help it all come together, I used the recipe for Chili-Beer-Lime-Cauliflower Tacos in Thug Kitchen. I used the exact same flavorings for the steak. For the toppings, I found whatever was in the fridge or on the counter. Tomatoes, Avocado, yogurt with lime. I made a little slaw with carrots and radishes. The Margs turned out to be virgin because it was just me and Nuala drinking them. And I really don't need tequila at 5pm. Even in a margarita. On a Wednesday. 

It's Thursday and school is winding down which means Nuala doesn't have to sit in front of her computer all day and since my mom has been suffering bad bouts of vertigo and hasn't been able to make her usual Wednesday or Thursday visits to us, we decided to go see her. For lunch we quickly whipped up pasta and broccoli with garlic and red pepper flakes. Always a classic. For dinner, once we returned home we made this salad pizza with arugula and white beans. It's one of my favorite pizzas to make at home now. It's so light and delicious. I also made a good old red sauce pizza with salami for the lad. We may or may not have watched the Friends reunion while eating it and I may or may not still be wondering why Justin Bieber was on it dressed in the Sputnik costume. 

Friday may have found us unintentionally eating every meal in the form of a recipe from Ali Slagle of The New York Times. It started with breakfast. The other day I had this horrific realization that my daughter didn't know what cinnamon toast was. Maybe horrific is too strong a word. It was just one of those moments when I realized something that was a staple of my childhood was not a staple in my daughter's childhood and I wished it had been. In all fairness, and happiness, I was much more sick as a kid than Nuala has been. And, when I was sick, that's when my mom would make cinnamon toast. Slagle did a whole series of stories on Instagram trying different methods for making cinnamon toast. I have to say, I was impressed. My mom just used to pop it in the toaster, slather on butter, then haphazardly scatter sugar and cinnamon all over it. Some days it was so sugary, while on other days I'd choke to death on cinnamon. I can't believe I followed a recipe for this, but I did and it was delicious. Probably the best cinnamon toast I have ever had. Here's the recipe.

Our day progressed with a series of walks in between annoyingly timed obligations that didn't allow us to do anything epic or super fun, but still we made do. For lunch, it was leftover pizza- Slagle's salad pizza that will make its way into our regular rotation again soon. 

Then dinner was kind of up in the air. Nuala was supposed to go to her dad's at 4pm which meant I would probably hold off for dinner until Watts came home, but then it turned to 6pm so I looked at what we had and one of the things we had was an awkward amount of tahini in the back of the fridge. So it was this Tahini Parmesan Pasta Salad to our rescue. It's the kind of pasta dish that I can eat the whole lot of. All by myself standing in the kitchen as I pretend to put the leftovers away. I didn't, but I could have. 

It's Saturday and we're childless. Watts went to work. If it doesn't rain, we talked about taking the tandem out riding to a brewery to sit outside and drink a beer. I'll need to eat before we go, so I'm going to quickly cook up some of the sausages my mom gave me this week from her Costco expedition and sauce up some peppers and onions and pop it all into some rolls that we had in the freezer. We may find something else to eat, but we probably won't. 

Sometimes I think about date nights in the past. How we'd start at one place and suddenly it would be 11pm and we'd be in a bar we never ever would go in if we hadn't already had a few drinks. Now, inevitably, we're much warier. It's not that we wouldn't do it, but it's more like why should we do it. There's an ordinariness to everything that we can't make extraordinary. Spending so much time together has only wanted us to spend more time together, but we don't need to go out to do it. Something I think we knew all along. However, it was Sunday and we were done with our exercising and our house chores and somehow we found ourselves on the tandem at a brewery. Then we were at another brewery. Then we were eating tacos in a restaurant before ending up in another brewery regretting those tacos and letting our bellies rest before we could pedal back home. It wasn't like it used to be, but it was something. And I'll take it.