Category: Dinner

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We divvied up the Thanksgiving dishes

We divvied up the Thanksgiving dishes pretty well this year. I made the turkey and cornbread-sausage stuffing and mango fluff. Kevin made the mashed potatoes and Caesar salad. Kev and I made the artichoke dip. Kavi, Kev, and I made the eggplant parmesan (somewhat random last-minute addition that Kavi learned how to make in her culinary class, delicious). Kavi made the crescent rolls. Nara brought the green bean casserole and Daniel brought the pumpkin custard pie. I forgot to put out the cranberry jelly, but it’ll be around for sandwiches tomorrow.

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Chipotle & Pepper Corn Bread-Sausage Stuffing

I’m hosting an indeterminate number of people for Thanksgiving in two days, haven’t planned the menu or prepped at all, and I am totally chill about it. This is either maturity or complete mental exhaustion. 🙂 I will definitely be making my sausage-cornbread-chipotle stuffing, because I invented it and I love it. Photos from 2017, so Kavi is probably about 10?

Chipotle & Pepper Corn Bread-Sausage Stuffing

(30 minutes (plus 30 minutes for making the cornbread), serves 8.)
      • 4 c. cornbread, crumbled (best if made with chopped green chilies and whole corn (frozen works fine, thaw and drain); I just use two boxes of Jiffy for the cornbread)
      • 1 large onion, chopped
      • a little oil for frying
      • 2 lbs. mild Italian sausage (turkey sausage also works, less rich)
      • 1 c. white wine
      • 3 large bell peppers (red, orange, yellow), chopped
      • 1 can chipotles, chopped (buy canned chipotles and use the sauce they’re in — if you want it less spicy, reduce how much sauce you put in)
      • 1 t. salt
      • a few grinds black pepper
      • 1 c. chicken broth
    1. Make cornbread according to box directions.
    2. Sauté (on medium-high) the onions in the oil until golden.
    3. Add the sausage and sauté until cooked through and browned. De-glaze pan with wine.
    4. Add the bell pepper and sauté until soft.
    5. Add the chipotles in sauce, salt and pepper and stir well.
    6. Break up and stir in cornbread.
    7. Stir in broth.
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Trying to hang on to that lazy summer vibe

Stopped at Carnivore Oak Park on Sunday because I didn’t know what I wanted for dinner. PIcked up a few pounds of pork shoulder (which they kindly cubed for me) — I’ll make a curry with that later today. But that takes a few hours of simmering — on Sunday, I wanted something fast, so turned to the grill. Two delectable crab cakes & just-picked corn from Carnivore joined some underripe peaches (so good brushed with a bit of oil and grilled!) and purple bell peppers from my garden. The bell peppers sadly turned an unappetizing grey on the grill, so they are not pictured, but they did taste good. 🙂 I might stick to using them raw in the future, though! Crab cakes grilled in a few minutes and then were served on a bed of spinach, graced with remoulade and some peppery young nasturtium leaves and flower from the garden. And then when I got the Hugo award news later in the day, I chopped up another peach and added it to some Ben & Jerry’s caramel ice cream, which was DELICIOUS straight out of the container… Nice to have a little more time right now for summertime cooking. Two weeks ’til the semester starts. Trying to hang on to that lazy summer vibe for as long as I can…
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Sadly, I can’t share the food with you!

I mostly had a grounding-myself day today — spent some time straightening the basement studio (lots more to do, alas), finished some jewelry pieces (I like the new rectangle-in-rectangle style!). Also made a nice pasta salad for dinner, with a white-balsamic, garlic, basil, and thyme dressing, with salami, fresh mozzarella, and grilled peppers and red onion (including one orange pepper from our garden). Plus some roasted potatoes with rosemary and garlic. Sadly, I can’t share the food with you! But the jewelry will be down at Berwyn Sprout by the end of the week, unless someone claims it here first.
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Crab cake on Costco Thai Chili Mango chopped salad

It’s been a long, hard week, and you want something delicious and fancy, but also reasonably healthy, and also you don’t want to spend a lot of money, and also you want it to be fast. If you happen to have a bag of Costco Thai Chili Mango chopped salad kit on hand, this is what you do:

1) Go to Carnivore Oak Park and ask them for one of their luscious crab cakes ($9).

2) Come home and heat a little oil in a pan. While that’s heating, pull out the Costco salad and empty the greens, dried mango, nutty bits, and about half of the chili-mango dressing into a big bowl. Taste — if you want more dressing, you can add it, but about half was right for me.

3) Take crab cake and sear on one side for a few minutes, then sear on the other side for a few minutes. If you really want, you can try to brown the edge a tiny bit too, but that’s hard to do without it falling apart, and it’s really not necessary.

4) Place crab cake on salad. If you have some fresh tomato, slice it and add it to the place. If you have fresh ripe mango, even better, but that can be hard to come by in Chicago in the winter.

Enjoy your little feast. (If you are feeding two, just make two crab cakes — the salad will likely be enough for two. Although it comes in a two-pack, so if you really want, you can make two bags of salad…)

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Chicken curry and chili leeks

Didn’t sleep well last night, which is very frustrating, because while I made it through teaching okay, I’ve just been dragging since 3 p.m., too tired to do anything. But lying on the couch not doing things (and playing Polytopia while watching re-runs of New Girl with Kavi) eventually just makes me feel depressed. Gah.

I finally managed to eat some dinner, which helped, and Kevin made me tea, which helped, and then I came up and lay in bed instead of on the couch, and looked for a dumb but pretty movie to watch, and settled on Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love, which is kind of perfect because what sounds really nice right now is jetting off to a foreign country, ideally a warm one.

She’s just made it to India, and I’m rested enough to pause and post a few photos off my phone from the last few weeks, clearing it out a little, which is sort of like being productive.

This is a mix of basmati and Sri Lankan red rice, served with chicken curry and chili leeks.