Last week’s post sounded so dire, so full of angst, that several of you dear readers checked in to see if I was okay. You’re all really nice! I’m okay. This week was the same, plus lots of vomiting, which is to say it was worse. The kids got some sort of stomach flu on Wednesday and it persisted, with a rotating cast of exciting symptoms, through the weekend. We watched a lot of TV and barely left the house, so by this morning, we were all miserably unhappy. We got out and went to a park for an unschooler meetup and helped a very small amount in assembling bags of supplies for people who are homeless. There’s a sensational playground 20 yards from where the supplies were being assembled, but Henry and George were aghast at the thought of venturing over to the playground without me. Blaaarrrggh. So I sat grumpily on a bench and watched them climb, and a lovely little girl, another unschooler, sat down next to me and said “I know I only just met you, but I just had to tell you I’m getting a dog on Wednesday!” She was so earnest and full of enthusiasm that she really made me feel better. The rest of the day was pretty great, in fact. We went to the library and nothing bad happened, we went on a walk and collected pretty leaves and acorns in a little basket, we made salt dough ornaments, and no one threw up! Plus, Andy’s mom came over to watch the kids and I got to surprise Andy with an impromptu date night. It was so nice to be out of the house with just Andy that I could have cried. I got to sit across the table from him and look at his face while he talked, and no one interrupted us. And after dinner we walked together and it was dark and warm and peaceful outside. And then we ran errands, because we had to, but even that felt glorious and easy and fun. I know there will be so much to miss about not having very small children, but there’s a lot to look forward to too. Here’s what we ate this week.

Pumpkin Waffles, Hash Browns, Sausages. No, I’m not going to put applesauce on my waffles, Simply Recipes. I’m a goddamned American. I put powdered sugar on my waffles. We ate this exact dinner a couple weeks ago, but I again had leftover pumpkin after making muffins (can’t stop, won’t stop) and I didn’t want to expend the brain power required to come up with something else to do with 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree, so waffles it was! I’m happy to have another excuse to mention these hash browns to you, though. They’re from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter and they, along with those pitch-perfect chocolate chip pumpkin muffins, would be reason enough to buy the book. I’ll make them both for as long as I live. Also there’s a recipe at the end called Skippy’s Apricot Cake that includes a can of apricot nectar that I am dying to try. Stay tuned. Back to the hash browns though- I’ll give you the bare bones of the recipe because you’ve really got to try them. Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a skillet over medium heat. Peel and shred a pound of russet potatoes and spread them out in the skillet. Let it cook, untouched, until deeply golden brown, about 10 minutes, then add 1/3 cup heavy cream and season with salt and pepper, flip (it’s ok if it breaks) and let it get golden brown on the other side. Run, don’t walk. Buy the things, make this thing.

I was thinking that this would be the first week in the last three-ish months that I didn’t make muffins, but then I remembered I did, so the muffin streak continues. I made the apple muffins again to bring to an unschoolers meetup in Pflugerville, and they were loved by all. They are humble and easy and perfect. The meetup was awesome- one of the kids had hooked up his laptop to the projection screen in a home theater room and was playing Minecraft. Henry sat, in rapt attention, in a leather recliner and watched this kid play for two hours, until I was finally able to convince him to come eat lunch. Henry and George fell asleep on the long drive home, and whenever that happens I think of Bill Nighy’s line in Love Actually when he messes up and says (with my apologies), “oh, fuck wank bugger shitting arse head and hole.” Any nap, of any duration, starting anytime but especially late in the afternoon, from either kid, means we’ll all be up until 11. They simply cannot fall asleep before that. Still- does that mean we should be housebound in the afternoon to avoid the risk of an accidental car-nap? I refuse.

Vegan Crispy Stir-Fried Tofu with Broccoli. It hurts me to damage my powdered-sugar-loving-American cred by sharing this vegan tofu dish with you. But it is dipped in a vodka-spiked batter and deep fried, so it’s as unhealthy as tofu has ever been. It’s shatteringly crisp out of the fryer but gets soft and limp really quickly after tossing it in the sauce. Still good! Last week we drove to parkour and Henry fell asleep on the way. I woke him up when we got there, but he said he just wanted to relax because he was so tired. Poor kid. So this week was our first time there since the embarrassment of having another mom fetch me while I was nursing George because Henry was grabbing kids. I wanted to make jerky and pack Henry full of it before class, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet, so instead I stopped at Sonic and bought him a hamburger. Desperate times and all that. I think it worked though- he was in a way better mood and much more patient with the other kids.

Venison Milanesa and Kale, Green Apple, and Lentil Salad. Ok, fine. I’m a pinko commie bastard. The powdered sugar waffles were just a ruse. There’s no way to not look like a hipster when you’re eating a combination of kale, apples, and lentils. I really like this salad though. It keeps well and is crisp and bright and filling. It went beautifully with this milanesa, made from venison backstrap that was sourced from a deer my father-in-law shot. I didn’t know how to cook the stuff so I searched food52 for backstrap and one lone recipe came up. That’s a scary feeling- there’s some crazy shit on food52. I won’t link to it, but I did recently read a recipe there for a peanut butter and banana sandwich that also included miracle whip and lettuce. All on one sandwich! But my fear was short-lived because this is an Abbie recipe! Saints be praised! It was delicious. I didn’t have time to make the bechamel she recommended so I just spritzed lemon juice on the stuff and it was swell.

This dinner was the tipping point of our week, where everything started to go to hell. Henry came in to the dining room and took one look at the kale salad on his plate and burst into tears. He was horrified at the sight of it and left the room screaming. This was really uncharacteristic of Henry- he’ll try anything usually. He eventually calmed himself down, and even came back and sort of apologized and said he would try it after all. He took a couple bites of everything and then decided that he had been right in the first place and he really didn’t want to eat anything. Later that night, Henry threw up all the things. All over the bed, of course, because that’s where these things happen. George was already asleep on one side of the bed though, and he’s not the sort of kid that you can jostle about and he’ll stay asleep- he’s instantly awake and full of rage- so instead of risking it, I rolled the thrown-up on bedclothes up into a tight roll and left it in the center of the bed, and spread another quilt over Henry’s side. I actually slept with my head resting on the throw-up blanket roll that night because I am a disgusting human being.

Hummus. The kids were both sick all day, so we mostly just laid in various places doing nothing. I didn’t have time to peel the chickpeas for this hummus but I did add an egregious amount of tahini, which really makes a huge difference in how delicious the final product turns out.

Falafel, Yogurt with Cucumbers, Tahini Sauce, Hummus. The kids were on the BRAT diet for this dinner, because problems abounded, but Andy and I were still feeling fine, so I made falafel. If you are a juvenile sort don’t click on the link for this recipe. You’ll see. Actually, no one should click on the link for this recipe because it sucks. Through no fault of my own (NB: it could have been my fault, but I don’t know what I did wrong- I thought I followed the recipe exactly), the falafel balls completely disintegrated when I placed them gently into the exact temperature oil the recipe called for. Such a mess. I ended up pan-frying the rest and then baking the browned patties on a sheet pan for 15 minutes to make them edible. They were pretty good that way, but I won’t make this recipe again. We can do better, can’t we?

Orange and Date Salad. This brings us to Friday! Which is good news for two reasons, no three! A weekend means less active childcare for me, the kids seemed to be on the mend, and we were having our dear friends Molly and Dustin over for Molly’s birthday dinner. We had this gorgeous salad which has one thousand ingredients, several of them weird (orange blossom water, fennel seeds, cinnamon, radishes), but, as it turns out, they taste delicious together.

Roasted Red Onions with Walnut Salsa. Plus this salad, which is even better. The onions needed an extra 20 minutes in the oven beyond what the recipe called for to get deeply soft and roasty with a few crisp edges. Then you make a simple walnut salsa with red chile (I used fresno) and vinegar, and layer everything with arugula, parsley, and dollops of goat cheese. Fun fact- anytime you mention goat cheese around my mom she screws up her face and says that she finds it “too game-y.” Helen and I thought this was ridiculous- goat cheese is delicious! Mom probably just hadn’t had a good one. So Helen bought a beautiful, sweet, creamy one and didn’t tell Mom what it was. One bite and mom screwed up her face and asked if it was goat cheese. So, okay! Mom, make this salad and replace the goat cheese with feta- you’ll love it!

Pumpkins Stuffed with Everything Good. And then the main course, which was the best thing on the table. Molly loves pumpkin, and when I was thinking about what to make for her dinner I remembered reading about Ruth Reichl’s swiss pumpkin, which I think is sort of like fondue and bread baked in a pumpkin. I wrote in to the food52 hotline to see if anyone had made it and was pointed to the linked recipe, by Dorie Greenspan, instead. It’s super easy- you cube stale bread and toss it with shredded gruyere, crisp bacon, and herbs. You pack that into a carved pie pumpkin and fill the cavity up with cream(!) and the whole thing bakes for two hours. It comes out burnished and tender, the filling like a deliciously rich stuffing which goes beautifully with the soft roasted pumpkin flesh.

Fresh Ginger Cake. We finished the meal with this lovely cake, which has 1/4 pound of fresh, finely chopped ginger in it. It’s not too much. The spice level is perfect and the little bits of ginger have a pleasant chew to them. The cake is that wonderful sturdy sort that unmolds beautifully, and which you can flip onto your hand and then onto a cake plate without fear that it will fall to pieces. We ate it with mounds of whipped cream and it was the perfect end to a delicious meal until George threw his cake up all over my pants. So much for ginger’s anti-nausea properties!

Eggs and Hash Browns. And tea. We were home all day and the kids were sick and miserable and Andy and I were just miserable. The kids were back on a diet of bananas and toast, and by the time dinner rolled around I had no ideas or stamina so I made more hash browns plus some scrambled eggs for Andy.

Croissants a la Plancha. I had purchased the kids each a croissant at the farmers’ market. Henry insisted that he really did want his, but just not right now, so it sat on the counter all day getting stale. There’s a genius recipe for stale croissants though, which renders them even better than the fresh ones, so we all had bits of griddled croissant with honey butter for breakfast the next morning.

Okonomiyaki. By Sunday night, the kids still weren’t eating real meals, but I figured they could just eat white rice and Andy and I could eat these cabbage and onion pancakes. Except I screwed up the rice- it came out undercooked and oversalted, so no one ate it. The okonomiyaki is a great, easy, filling vegetarian dinner though- try it the next time you have cabbage and don’t know what to do with it. After dinner Henry ate one milk dud from his Halloween bucket and threw up on the rug. Are you sick of hearing about vomit? Me too, you guys, me too.

Salty Oat Cookies. I wanted to end on a high note so I sound like less of a miserable asshole, and these cookies certainly qualify. I’m making these for a friend’s party next weekend, but wanted to give them a test run first- they’re glorious. It’s not just an oatmeal cookie with salt on top- they have a shattering, light and crispy melt-in-your-mouth quality that I think comes from a dough made mostly out of butter. I omitted the white chocolate chips listed in this recipe because I don’t care for the stuff, and cooked that way they are just exactly what I was hoping for.

And now it’s Monday night and we’ve officially gone a full day since someone in our house has thrown up. The kids ate real meals today, we turned off the television, and we all basically got along and even enjoyed each other. These are not small things. Tomorrow we’ll go back to parkour, this time armed with 2 pounds of homemade venison jerky so I don’t have to resort to fast food hamburgers, and we’re gonna try to keep this tenuous peace going.  See you next week!

Before I start a new project I have almost total confidence that it will go well. This goes for big, life-spanning projects like choosing to homeschool our children down to small silly projects like sewing a black witch’s skirt without a pattern. This is a foolish sort of quality to have in some ways, but it also affords me the courage to tackle projects that other people might decide would be too difficult (though that often turns out to be the case). In the case of the skirt, I pictured it perfectly in my head but found myself, two hours later, in an unwearable monstrosity, having wasted several yards of thick black cloth. Lately, with homeschooling, I feel like I’m surrounded by tatters of black fabric with no clear idea about how to make it look like the shape I’d envisioned. I read this stupid article, on Business Insider of all places, about 9 things parents of successful kids have in common. And I know it’s stupid (how do they define success? is it purely financial? based solely on earning a college degree?) and poorly written too, but I felt down about not having more of the traits they listed. The first trait on the list is teaching your kids social skills so they can cooperate and be helpful with peers. We talk about manners all the time, but my kids could not accurately be described as cooperative or helpful. Is this because they’re 4 and 2 and boys that age aren’t really ready to be these things? Is it because that’s just who they are? Or is it because they haven’t attended nursery school and had the chance to practice cooperating with peers every day for 8 hours, and at home I give them a choice and freedom and flexibility in nearly everything that we do? Does doing it my way mean that they’ll never have the great social skills this article says they’ll need to be successful? And does it matter if they don’t? I’m plagued by a million questions and a level of self-doubt that I’m honestly unaccustomed to. Scholastically, I have no worries at all. Thanks to their papa’s good genes, Henry already has a better understanding of math than I do. With no formal lessons of any kind Henry is adding, subtracting, and multiplying. He learned how to add zeros when multiplying big numbers and in the car this week he said out of nowhere “one million times one thousand equals one billion” and then earlier today, “one thousand hundredths of a second equals 10 seconds.” I just blinked at him and said- is that right? I honestly didn’t know. And he said “yes, because one hundred hundredths of a second equals one second.” And so. I have no resolution to my worries to write here. I am worried that keeping the kids out of school is doing them a disservice in some ways. I think it’s absolutely the right path in other ways- I’ve read too much Holt and Gray and Gatto and Llewellyn to have much faith in the system of compulsory education that tells kids exactly what, when, and how they’ll learn- but I wish I could give them the best parts of everything. Does that make me sound selfish? Now I can worry about that too. Bah! Let’s just talk about food now- it’s so much easier. 

Easiest Alfredo with Broccoli. I was going to write that food pictures on my blog with a black background would be a little clue as to how much I had my shit together on any given day. If I had dinner made by 6:30 (when Andy gets home from work) then I had enough sunlight left to take a picture on the kitchen hutch. When I didn’t, as in this dinner, which we didn’t eat until after 7 because I had no idea what to make and backed myself into a corner that only pasta could solve, I had to take the picture on our dining room table, lit by a halogen floor lamp. But now that DST has ended and the sun is setting at a miserable 5:43, black table-background is gonna be the new normal. Let’s choose to think of it as a symbolic representation of the days getting shorter. The pasta is easy and delicious. If you have cream, butter, and parmesan in the house you can make it, and it cooks in less time than it takes to boil the pasta.

We spent the afternoon at a lovely farm for an unschooler meetup, swimming naked in a kiddie pool (not me), bumping past cows and guinea hens on a hayride, and learning how to play passive-aggressively on a see-saw (it’s possible!). We ate our lunch outside, next to the loading/unloading zone for the hayride. I had brought all the leftovers from Helen’s party for lunch: cheeses, crackers, fruit, crudites, yogurt, and an almost-empty package of Double Stuf Oreos. When a group of kids got off the hay wagon after their ride and saw the package of cookies, they swarmed and asked politely and with big smiles if they could have an Oreo. I was happy to share, lest I eat them all myself, and gave one out to each kid who asked for one. The parent of one of these kids walked by a few minutes later and said, “Well, that’s her first Oreo!” I felt like such an ass. The mom was really nice about it, but still. I’m the trashy lady that brings sacks of poison sugar-disks to children who normally enjoy one crisp pear for dessert. To her credit, the little girl in question took one small nibble of the Oreo and then abandoned it, so hopefully the damage was minimal.

Little Spaghetti Frittatas. I have spent a large portion of my life looking down on frittatas as quiche’s inferior, crustless cousin. Why would you ever opt to have one when you could pile all the same stuff into a flaky pie crust? But then I read about how Tamar Adler uses leftover pasta in her frittatas and vowed to give it a try. I did, and didn’t love it. Not Tamar’s fault. I think I overcooked it in my lust for a crispy noodle-bottom. I didn’t want to try again, though- I’d rather just eat leftover noodles. Then my friend Amanda brought little muffin-sized frittatas to a playdate, which she had made by mixing leftover tuna noodle casserole with beaten egg, sausage, and greens. They were delicious! And I loved the little size! I mixed our leftover broccoli alfredo with beaten eggs, a splash of milk, crumbled aged cheddar, and a huge handful of chopped parsley. Whisking the parsley into the beaten eggs in a metal bowl made me feel like Giada De Laurentiis, which is to say, it felt good. I baked the frittatas in a 350 oven for about 10 minutes, then broiled them to get a little color on top. I thought they were wonderful! And they’re perfect to refrigerate and reheat a few at a time for breakfast or a snack. Cleaning the pan was a nightmare though. And I had greased it with so much olive oil! Worth it, though. NB: I went looking for a link to Tamar Adler’s recipe for pasta frittata, because she writes so beautifully and it would’ve inspired you to frittat-ize your leftovers, which would be delicious because you wouldn’t overcook it like I did, and found only this video which is short and silly and doesn’t have the information I wanted but did succeed in riling me up because she leaves her refrigerator doors open the whole time. Close the damn door!

Ground Beef Tostadas. We had plans to crash our friend Amanda’s neighborhood Halloween party, to which you were supposed to bring a snack to share. George slept in after a late night and I didn’t have time to make a snack and also shower, but that’s an easy choice for me- snack wins every time. I made banana mini muffins and had to shove the pan in the trunk of our car so they could cool down on the drive. It was a fun party- there was a cookie decorating station with all the fanciest Halloween sprinkles. I was secretly so pleased when Henry and George didn’t eat more than a few bites of their cookies because it meant I would get them. Also they had that punch made with orange sherbet that George also didn’t finish so I got some of that too. Now that I type this it seems a little sad that I didn’t just get myself some of the snacks I wanted and instead scavaged the stuff my kids discarded. I think it was because we were already imposters who don’t live in that neighborhood crashing the party and I didn’t also want to be the mom who helped herself to a heaping plate of all the kid snacks. Maybe this is a self-esteem issue and after a few years of hard work I’ll be able to drink big frothy cups of sherbet punch without worrying about who might be judging me for it.

Dinner was delicious. I’m sure I don’t need to sell you on the merits of a crispy corn tortilla topped with taco meat.

Chickpea, Kale, and Sausage Soup, Five-Fold Challah. More of that magic bread. I didn’t give it the 24 hour rest in the refrigerator this time either, and I don’t know if I’ll ever have enough willpower or foresight to make the recipe as written because it’s so great even without that step. I’m definitely the kind of person who would fail that marshmallow test they give to little kids to see if they are successful sorts who can recognize the benefits of delayed gratification. Or I would be if they used something less disgusting than marshmallows. Much like my outdated opinion on frittatas < quiche, I had the same opinion on chunky soups being way worse than creamy ones. I never make a chunky soup. But I had kale, sausage, an open quart jar of tomato puree, and some leftover chickpeas and needed something we could eat with bread and this soup looked like the perfect solution. I had the warm bread on the table, the soup ready to ladle, and candles lit before Andy’s six-thirty arrival. We waited 10 minutes and I hadn’t heard from Andy, not even a text message! I felt myself getting angry. Then I remembered it was Thursday, which meant he was at biweekly post-work Toastmasters’ meeting and felt dumb for forgetting and glad that I didn’t have to be mad or worried that he was late. Anyway- the soup. I loved it! Henry sopped up all the broth with the soft challah, and George didn’t touch it because he hadn’t napped and was ready for bed. It made a ton so I’ve got leftovers in the freezer to reheat another day.

Sweet Potato Black Bean Bowl. I’m forever trying to pass off the combination of black beans and sweet potatoes as dinner, but Henry, George, and Andy remain skeptical. For this go around, I thought it would be helpful if everyone had a little ownership in the dish, so I put all the components on the table so they could assemble their bowl with exactly what they wanted. For Andy that meant everything but sweet potato, for Henry it meant beans and sour cream, for George it meant nothing, again, because he was screaming so loudly after no nap and an exciting day that I had to leave the table, nurse him to sleep, and then return to the table to finish my dinner which was delicious with all of the components. We ate it with tortilla chips to take the healthiness-level down a notch.

This was a day of massive flooding in Austin which I am very grateful to say was exciting (and not scary) from where we sit, a comfortable distance from nearby Williamson Creek. We sat by the open windows and watched the water raging in little rivers between the driveway and the street and along the length of our backyard. When the rain finally let up late that morning we walked around and explored the transformed landscape. Our neighbors lost a giant branch on a front yard tree, but it didn’t hit anything. Our metal stock tank was halfway full which meant we got close to a foot of rain during the storm. We walked down to the creek and talked to all the other people who had gathered there to witness the spectacle- it was brown and churning, almost as high as the level of the bridge that stretches over it, and wide enough to cover the fences of the backyards that line its banks. Texas doesn’t do anything by halves- we’re all in on the drought until it’s time for a storm with 10 or so inches of rain.

Molasses Crinkle Cookie Sandwiches with Apple Cider Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting. This is my attempt at a Bobby Flay-style recipe title. I had apple cider mulling on the stove during Helen’s party last week. When I walked back to it at the end of the party I was delighted to find that it had reduced to a slippery pool of caramel, which tasted tart and spicy from the dried orange and sweet warm cinnamon, anise, and allspice berries that had infused it. Henry had already asked to make molasses crinkles (his favorite cookie), so we decided to make a cream cheese frosting, mix in the apple cider caramel, and use it to make the best autumn cookie sandwiches of all time. I’m aware that typing that last sentence puts me in the running for the most privileged asshole on the planet. Who has a favorite autumn cookie sandwich? Me. I do.

This is in the running for my favorite photo of all time. And oh, I am so happy to get to experience trick-or-treating again! I love the whole thing- the early nervousness about walking up to the door. Waiting to see if someone will answer, and the excitement when someone does. George was all in from the jump- he straight up walked into the houses of the first couple of doors we knocked on. Henry was on a mission- he rushed to be the front kid at every door and he somehow ended up with almost half a pound more than everyone else, in spite of them all going to all the same houses. Yes, we weighed the candy. I love getting to see who lives in the houses we walk by all the time. I think it’s lovely and weird that Halloween is the only time all year that we knock on our neighbors’ doors. And also the candy. It’s all gold, really.

Sheet Pan Nachos. We spent all Halloween day at my sister and brother-in-law’s house for a little movie-watching, tarot-reading party. I ate piles of delicious snacks the whole time I was there- crock pot queso, chocolate cake, popcorn, cookies, candy, chips, everything. So I was more than prepared to skip dinner. But then we were all still up at nine o’clock and it turned out everyone was hungry. Sheet pan nachos to the rescue! These were inspired by Last Night’s Dinner’s post of some truly epic looking nachos earlier in the week. That was her alfredo up at the top of this post too. I think no one does comfort food better than LND, so whenever the weather turns cold, or ahem, not boiling hot, her recipes are the ones I think of first.

And that’s the week, y’all.  We’ve been through a lot haven’t we? Biblical floods, hopes and fears about raising our children well, sheet pan nachos. I hope next week brings more nachos and less of the other stuff. Until then!

This morning was cool and cloudless and green after four days and eight inches of rain. The kids and I went outside and walked around the neighborhood. There’s a neat old man who lives a few doors down and has a flock of chickens that he lets out of his backyard every evening around dusk and they peck at the bugs in the yards surrounding their own. One of them is a black-and-white spotted variety, and she looks just like our old chicken, Noodles, who was the smartest of our chickens by a wide margin and who was beheaded when a hawk picked her up by the face and tried to fly off with her. (A macabre chicken tale to get you in the mood for Halloween!) Anyway, the neat chicken guy was outside and he asked me if I wanted his chickens because he’s got to get rid of them to build a workshop. I said no. I said we didn’t have a coop anymore anyway. NCG (neat chicken guy) said he’d give me his coop and all the chicken stuff, and that they’re laying well too. I said I’d think about it and I sort of am. In the pro column: lots of eggs fresh from our own backyard! In the con column: literally everything else. Feeding the chickens, even if we got the bottom-of-the-barrel grain instead of the organic stuff we bought the last go-around, costs way way more than the $5 a week I spend on eggs now. They produce more eggs than we can eat until they don’t produce anything but still need to be fed or run through with an ax or something. They destroy every living thing in the yard- they eat all the greenery and also catch and eat the butterflies and other pollinators I’ve worked hard to attract. And last time Andy did all the work feeding, cleaning, and collecting eggs from the coop and so if I sign on for more chickens it will be with the understanding that it’s my turn to do all the things. That’s a lot of cons. But, I really like the one pro. Also I guess I could add the pro of being able to say that I’ve got chickens in my backyard again. I think it makes you cooler. Tell me what to do. Should I do the clearly right thing? Or throw caution to the wind and spend too much money and ruin our backyard? I honestly don’t know.

Thai-Style Squash with Masses of Herbs. My squash only had one mass of herbs because, though they’ve said it couldn’t be done, I managed to kill all the mint in my garden. And it was in three different places so I had to be diversely negligent to make that happen. When you change it from ‘masses’ to ‘mass’ it sounds like a cancerous growth on the squash, so I’d encourage you to use a plurality of herbs. That is an incorrect use of the word plurality. Also, we had a roasted kale thing with ginger and soy sauce with this ungodly quantity of rice, but it was still in the oven and I needed to get the food on the table before the kids revolted so it didn’t make the picture. I could be lying about that to make you judge me less but (in this case at least) I’m not. I must have spent the week in a fog because somehow I planned and cooked two (two!) thai-style squash entrees and didn’t notice until I was putting this post together. That’s a really weird thing to do. I just loved the sound of winter squash with peanuts and lime and herbs, more love than one dinner per week could contain it seems. This version and the one you’ll see on our Friday dinner were both just about exactly what I hoped for. I think this one eked out a win though.

Take Out. This was the day we hosted an unschoolers meet-up at our house, which was a blast, truly, but a messy one. I am not a tidy person. I never sweep or dust or clean windows or any of those things unless a party is happening, and then I’ll do one or several of them. Except dusting, because who except the delightful children in the All-of-a-Kind Family has time for that? After the last unschoolers had gone home I turned on the TV for the kids and cleaned for three hours. It was as if the house had been picked up and shaken like a snow globe, so that all the little odds and ends from each room had been swirled around the house and dropped softly into new places. My favorite discovery was that some little mouth had taken a single wee bite out of the top of each of the last six banana muffins. What a satisfying endeavor that must have been! Anyway, I was definitely not interested in cooking dinner. Andy picked up Tarka (Clay Pit’s fast-food cousin), which meant that the kids ate a second dinner-in-a-row of mostly white rice. I had vegetable pakoras and samosa chaat and fell asleep quickly thereafter in a clean house.

Cochinita Pibil, Black Beans, Guacamole. This day had all the things. Stunning highs (this dinner), shameful lows (you’ll see), and a drab visit to the dentist too. George had a dentist appointment at 11:15, so at precisely the moment I had planned to get in the car he decided he had to poop, which is an ordeal I won’t go into, but it took time to get through it. I got the kids in the car and pushed the garage door button and it went up about two feet and stopped. I tried it 14 more times to make sure, and it didn’t work any of them, so I had to figure out how to open it manually. For anyone who has done this, you know that it is as easy as pulling a cord and then lifting up, which is to say, very easy. But I pulled the cord over and over and nothing happened. This isn’t the shameful low, if you’re wondering. This is just to help you feel the general tone of the day. I eventually got the garage door open and we left and were late to the dentist and it was all ok in the end. After the dentist, we swung by my friend Abbie’s house (she of the food52 taco party fame from last week’s post) and she gave me ALL HER LEFTOVERS because she was going out of town, which if it were any other person’s leftovers wouldn’t be exciting, but because they were ABBIE LEFTOVERS it was all-caps-level-exciting. I got the rest of her cochinita pibil (my favorite!), her gorgeous pickled onions, tortillas, and the most fabulous Cracker Jill (I need to find a recipe for this- it was like cracker jack except a little spicy from sriracha and a lot more delicious from bacon lardons) and Spicy Pimento Cheese leftover from the talented Mrs. Wheelbarrow. The kids and I killed half the bag of cracker jill before we got home. Then we had to go to parkour class, but right before we were about to leave George fell asleep on me. I woke him up and told him that we had to go and he could sleep in the car on the way to class but it was too late- he was inconsolable and screamed, really screamed, the whole drive until finally passing out as I turned into the parking lot. He slept through Henry’s class, and then woke up and wanted milk when Henry was done, so we all headed over to the active play room, and I nursed George in the windowless snack room while Henry played on the equipment in the main room. Henry would come in every few minutes to check in with me. The room smelled strongly of some sort of febreeze-y scent and Henry said “It smells fresh in here. Like air cake.” I liked it! He ran back out to play and a few minutes later a kindly lady holding a little baby came up to me and said “Is the boy in the blue shirt your son?” I nodded, fearfully. “He’s grabbing other kids…” she trailed off as I unlatched George and tried to (gracefully?) slip my boob back into my shirt so I could go out and fetch Henry. “I can tell he’s really excited to be here,” she added diplomatically. I was really embarrassed. Turns out Henry was hangry. I only had pretzel rods with me so he ate 5 of them and then we tried the play room again. Constant vigilance this time and the rest of the afternoon went ok. I’m gonna do better on the snacks this week, and just nurse George in the big open room because who cares. It was so nice, so really and truly wonderful, to get to just reheat the cochinita pibil in a pan and be done with dinner.

Beer-Battered Fish, French Fries, Onion Rings, Homemade Mayo & Tartar Sauce. George has been sleeping badly, which means I have been too, but in spite of that, he woke up in a great mood. I still had my eyes closed when he said, “Let’s do something else. Let’s throw a baseball up in the air.” I like that the baseball somehow ended up on the table at dinner that night. I’d been craving fish and chips for a while, and I had two tiny russet potatoes in the pantry and fish and a single beer in the fridge, but I didn’t have enough oil to fry all the things I wanted to fry. So we walked around the block to the Mexican grocery store near our house to pick up some more. We can’t go there without getting paletas and every time (every time!) the kids pick out the worst flavors. George got a baby blue bubble-gum flavored one that had two shiny gumballs shoved into the undercarriage of the thing. Henry got something yellow and tubular with the label “rompope” on it, which means nothing to me. It was an icy vanilla nightmare. Why yellow? I don’t know. But the kids ate them on the walk back to the house as the wind picked up and blew leaves off the trees in swirls around us. I had tons of leftover batter after frying the fish and used it to batter onion rings, which Henry went wild for. The fries were thrillingly good. The fish was ok.

Five-Fold Challah. Oh my heart! This bread is everything I’ve ever wanted. The recipe is beautifully simple, but does require that you hang around the house for several hours because you’ve got to do an eight-sided fold on it and flip it over every half hour for 2 1/2 hours. Then the recipe says to let the dough rest in the fridge for a day, which is sage advice and which I completely ignored. I skipped right to the braiding step, let the two loaves rise until puffy, and then baked. The taste is incredible, the texture is light and airy and perfect. You’re probably going to see this bread a lot more in future posts.

Broccoli, Lemon, and Parmesan Soup. I waxed poetic about this soup a couple weeks ago, and had wanted to eat it ever since. I only had one bunch of broccoli though, which isn’t enough. But I didn’t want to halve the recipe either because that wouldn’t have fed all of us plus provided leftovers for Andy to take for lunch the next day. So I just watered it way down and the results were, as you might expect, watery. We ate one and a half loaves of the challah with our sad thin soup, so I’d call the dinner a success.

All the Half-and-Half You Have. On Friday we had breakfast tacos at Casa Alde in Buda, which are the best tacos in the known universe. Listen to this- their migas taco has queso in it. Every time I talk about this place I share that fact, but I think it is the surest way to convey to someone who hasn’t been that it is legit. Also, homemade flour tortillas. Also, all the half-and-half in tiny cups you can drink! This picture has nothing to do with stuff I cooked this week, but I liked the tiny plastic cup tower so here you go!

Spaghetti Squash Pad Thai. Thai squash dinner #2! The flavors are great, the texture was mushy. I think I overcooked the squash, because the squash noodles in the linked picture look distinct and mine were soggy and homogeneous. Still, not a bad way to eat a heap of vegetables for dinner.

Gluten-Free Double Chocolate Cookies. These are this week’s version of baked ziti, in that I have nothing interesting to say about them. They’re good cookies. They’re gluten free (cup4cup instead of wheat flour, again). They’re soft on the inside and crackly on the outside. Make em as written or toss literally anything into the batter. I’ve made a version with tiny marshmallows and cornflakes and another (last week) with chopped up pralines. All good uses of your time, I can assure you.

For my birthday last month, my sister threw me a craft party with all manner of tasty snacks. We’ve been having these craft parties on a semi-regular basis, and have come to view them as the best possible use of child-free party time. You get to bring whatever craft you want to work on for yourself and eat and talk to friends while you do it. We all loved it so much we decided to celebrate Helen’s birthday the same way, so here is my spin on craft party-snacks!

An All-the-Things Board. Here’s how you make this: you buy everything you can and heap all of it in piles on one small board. Has anyone ever put yogurt raisins on the same platter as maple honey ham and a variety of pitted olives? Probably not. But that didn’t stop anyone from eating the damn thing in all its eclectic glory. First item to disappear from the board? No points for guessing, it was obviously the ham.

Caramelized Onion Dip, Crudite. I made half the recipe for this dip and it was plenty. No way was I going to chop up five pounds of onions for a dip. Everyone loved it!

Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Spicy Pimento Cheese with Candied Chiles. I froze this log of pimento cheese I got from Abbie so I could defrost it and serve it at the party. The recipe is a genius mayonnaise-less spin on the classic dip, with the stunning addition of home-canned candied chiles, which are sweet and spicy and addictive. The recipe’s not online so you’ll have to buy the book! Do it, do it now. I also froze and then defrosted and served the rest of that bag of cracker jill. Did you know you can freeze popped popcorn? You can! It’s science!

Oreo Truffles. Second only to a regular package of Oreos. Not really, these win hands-down. So swallow your foodie pride and head over to the website of the fine folks of the Kraft Foods Corporation. They’ll instruct you to pulverize a package of Oreos, then use your fingers to mix the mountain of crumbs with softened cream cheese, roll it into balls, and dip em in melted chocolate. They taste like chocolate-y Oreo cheesecake balls! Except more Oreo-y, which is to say, even better. I also put a bowl of double-stufs on the table because I’m an adult and I can.

Christy’s Cheesecake. No party is complete without a Christy. She’ll show up early to help ease you through your frantic last-minute preparations with a gorgeously decorated, perfectly smooth and creamy cheesecake in tow. Then she’ll entertain your babies for you and also go ahead and sew your kid a winter coat instead of doing her own craft because she does all these things! A true domestic superhero. Also, she washes your dishes before she leaves. So yes. Superhero.

A happy birthday party for Helen, leftover Oreos for me, the chance to be a better parent at parkour this week, and the excitement of getting a flock of chickens or else the thrill of not getting a flock of chickens. Lots of good things, you guys. See you next week ❤