What We're Eating: 10/10-10/16

The title says "What We're Eating" because I thought I was putting this out on Monday at the latest. I thought I would have time to do that, but then I had this batch of papers that had to be graded but just didn't want to be graded. And then I had emails in response to those graded papers that said certain grades just weren't fair. Which is funny because on every one of the papers that generated an email that said "this isn't fair" I had offered them a chance to revise. A chance to meet with me to go over what they didn't do, but needed to do. Skills that we will be heavily relying on for the second half of the semester. I often don't think students read the assignment explanation and rubric and I really don't think they read the feedback I spend hours writing. Just the little pet peeves of teaching. 

Sunday: I thought we were going to be eating dips tonight. But then Watts went and rode 11 or so hours on Saturday and I knew he'd come home needing something more substantial. So I picked up a steak and made it with a red wine sauce like the one in this recipe. Nuala and I also made a buffalo cauliflower dip, tzatziki and falafel. 

Note: Everything was damn delicious.

Monday: There's so much food in the fridge that if we don't eat leftovers tonight then I don't even know who we are.

Note: We ate the damn leftovers, but I was worried it wasn't enough so I cut up the leftover baguette and stuffed it with cheese and heated up some marinara. I was inspired by this recipe, but in no way followed it. 

Tuesday: Hopefully, we'll have rid the fridge of its contents. I've got my eye on this chicken recipe. It's a new recipe and I'm wondering whether or not it has "good chicken rotation" potential. 

Note: I wound up going with lemon chicken so we'll never know. At least not yet. 

Wednesday: I haven't made risotto in a while. I usually freestyle this, but sometimes I follow a recipe. I learned how to make risotto from Michael Chiarello and Giada helped me perfect it.

Note: The risotto, as usual, was delicious. I made another steak, some herby white beans and garlicky green beans. 

Thursday: I've got ideas that involve stuffed peppers or gnocchi or maybe both. 

Note: I did none of the above, but I did make this creamy spinach chickpea pasta with rigatoni even though it suggests a more spaghetti like pasta shape. 

Friday: It's still so early in the week and the weekend is so far away. I also usually spend Friday trying to procrastinate work, so I'll have a better idea for all this soon.

Note: I finished all the grading last night so I didn't need to procrastinate at all. Still, I'm making a lasagna which we may or may not eat tonight. It's a date night because it's just grownups at home tonight and so we've already started brainstorming places to eat outside in Greensboro besides our house. We'll see....

The lasagna recipe is from my head, but I do always read the box to follow their layering advice. I never remember which goes when. I don't think it really matters except for the noodles, but I like to have some semblance of order. Never mind the jar of marinara I opened when I needed more sauce not remembering the already open jar in the fridge. So now I have two almost full open jars of marinara staring moonily at each other on the top shelf. I'll probably have to make another lasagna now. 

Saturday: We may very well eat lasagna. If not, then maybe cook up some brats for another Oktoberfesty dinner because there's one more pack in the freezer. How many bratwursts did I think we needed to eat. That one cool day in October tricked me into thinking I needed to do my best to start hibernating.