Food Notes, Week 19.23

I have some new salad goals.

Our annual spring-and-summer extracurricular extravaganza has begun. Between the five of us, there are at least two activities going on every day after school. Soccer, football, and music lessons dominate the kids’ schedules, on top of my almost-daily workout schedule and symphony rehearsals that are ramping up to this weekend’s final performance. My husband’s band also has a big show this weekend and he is busy getting ready for that.

It’s a lot to juggle—and it has affected how I approach meal prep. I am making more meals in advance, trying to cook in larger batches because the kids are incessantly ravenous, and often starting recipes in the mornings with detailed instructions for Jason to finish them later in the day when I’m gone.

Still, I don’t let that compromise taste. We’ve had great meals, which are, in a way, consolation for rushing around in such a state of chaos. Without a good meal to look forward to, I would lose all motivation to do anything!

I’ve been thinking about salad lately. I love salad, but I usually make the exact same chopped vegetable salad with feta and vinaigrette and something crunchy (nuts or seeds). My mom once pointed out to me that, if you ask a dinner party host what you can bring, they’ll almost always say “salad” and that’s because no one actually likes making salad, nor has sufficient fresh ingredients to pull one off at the last minute; and yet, a well-done salad changes a meal completely. I had a conscious thought, while flipping through a new cookbook, that I want to lean into salad a bit more in the coming months.

Sugar Snap & Asparagus Salad with Preserved Lemon Cream, Grilled Sausages

This salad was as much work as making a main, but I balanced it out by serving with grilled sausages, which are essentially no work. The lemon cream was an interesting touch—a blend of sour cream and goat cheese with chopped preserved lemon that got smeared on the plate beneath the salad and seemed very restaurant-like! I served the meal with baguette slices.

Red Wine Beef Stew with Parsnips & Carrots, Mashed Potatoes

My favourite beef stew recipe, this is a rich Italian-style braise that uses lots of red wine and stock and simmers in the oven for two hours. It’s got a lot more flavour than Irish-type stews and I like it served over mashed potatoes. (I learned a trick from Food52 about mashed potatoes: Always used an acidic dairy ingredient, like sour cream or buttermilk, to mash the potatoes, instead of relying on heavy cream and butter. It will lighten them up considerably.)

Pizza with Cheddar, Caramelized Onion & Egg

I have been trying some recipes from Jenny Rosenstrach’s cookbook, The Weekday Vegetarians, and she’s a big pizza fan. This is one of the recipes, and it was delicious, except I kept thinking it tasted like breakfast! The family had lots of comments. My husband was dubious, saying, “I’ve never heard of pizza with eggs.” My youngest son took leftovers to school the next day and said his friend thought there were oranges on his pizza.

Spicy, Tangy, Smoky Pinto Bean Bowls

Another recipe from The Weekday Vegetarians, this one was superb. I’d soaked and cooked the pinto beans a few days ahead to save on time, and the final recipe came together in 10 minutes. The smoky flavour comes from smoked paprika, but I added some pureed chipotles in adobo sauce for added depth. Served over rice with avocados, pickled red onions, cheese, and fresh pico de gallo.

One-Pan Crispy Spaghetti and Chicken

This was so delicious that I put a huge star beside the recipe in Ottolenghi’s Shelf Love cookbook (and chastised myself for taking a year to make it). Technically, Jason made it, but I’d laid out the recipe and chopped a bunch of ingredients before leaving for the gym. I came home to a divine aroma and spaghetti that was infused in chicken juices and tomato sauce. The chicken itself is finished under the broiler with a parsley-panko-garlic crust and, ahh, my mouth is watering just remembering it. Kids loved it.

Cabin Meals

We spent last weekend at my parents’ off-grid cabin in the bush, so I mostly reheated stuff I’d prepped in advance.

Farro Salad with Grapes, Feta, Arugula, and Crispy Tofu

I like grain salads, but this one did not live up to Rosenstrach’s hype in her blurb. It was OK, but I think I’d leave out the grapes next time and add more herbs and vinaigrette. I did find some spicy pistachios at the grocery store and they were quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever eaten; I tried not to finish off the bag before adding them to this salad, but it was hard.

Sausages, Pan-Fried Potatoes, Roasted Broccoli

I parboiled the baby potatoes and pre-roasted the broccoli at home, so reheating over the fire was an easy and enjoyable process. I caught the kids spraying the fire with bug repellent, rejoicing in the flare-up, so who knows how much toluene we ingested—but it tasted good.

Extra: Triple-Level Brownies

A great recipe from a church community cookbook that I got many years ago, these brownies are now my family’s favourite. They have an oatmeal layer, a fudgy chocolate-nut layer, and an icing layer. I made a huge pan of them to take to the cabin, and they all disappeared within a day.

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