cook: weekend meals for weekday repasts

I think I'm finally developing a routine since school has started, and habits are everything to me. When I get emotional, Patrick will ask me if I have been running or swimming because sometimes I get into a dark place of inertia. In these beginning weeks of school, I'm slowly developing stamina to working out 4 days a week and hopefully increasing to 5 days a week of exercising--and it's so okay to take a day off, but just a day. Clay has taken the backseat since summer. Tomorrow I'll be at open studio in the afternoon, where I'll make 3 plates (hopefully) and then roll out enough slabs to do a bit of ceramics after school before leaving for the trail or the gym. Cooking just isn't or can't be a creative outlet Monday through Friday. So thank goodness for Cecilia who's been feeding me Asian noodle bowls, Vietnamese and Laotian, this week. She had given me a bowl of rice noodles and meatballs redolent with garlic, ginger and fish sauce. I have to eat vegetables with every meal, and so I sliced yellow crookneck squash and a Fresno pepper. And then remembered too that I wanted a pop of green--scallions, of course.   

 

The noodles were cold, and Cecilia suggested that I simmer the meatballs in chicken broth and then add the hot broth to heat the noodles. I also simmered the summer squash with the meatballs in the homemade bone and veggie broth.

However, I didn't pour off the broth as Cecilia suggested and instead let the noodles steep in it and get a bit soupy or the dish take on the characteristics of a stew. Thai basil, Italian basil, and cilantro as well as Hoisin and Sriracha sauce embellished a fine supper on a weeknight.

On this sunny Saturday morning, I made fish salad. Oof, I added too much salt to the dressing of mayo, Dijon mustard, and pickle relish, and so I chopped even more celery, red onion, and parsley to extend it.

 

I canceled Thistle delivery for the week to use up all the spring greens, arugula and iceberg lettuce in my fridge. 

I only had one can of wild tuna packed in olive oil, but found a can of boneless, skinless sardines also packed in olive oil--hence, fish salad. And so I'm all set for protein for this week's seafood salads. Tomorrow, I'll hard boil eggs and poach shrimp to supplement the surimi in the fridge. 

At clay open studio today, I managed to start 3 plates (whose rims I refined at home afterwards), glaze a butter dish (which had some crawling and I’ll need to touch up next week) and noticed 2 planters (whose rims I need to sand). Two and a half hours is just not enough time to finish green ware. Unfortunately, the fall Saturday morning class is already waitlisted. My plan for the very last summer clay studio next Saturday is to get this week's projects on the bisque and glaze shelves and roll out slabs to hand build in the weeks before the fall ceramics session. Tonight after ceramics, my Weber got a workout, and golly do I love the scent of charcoal burning and being outside. Cooking dinner was still a hot and sweaty affair, but I grilled hamburgers for dinner and then Anaheim peppers for tomorrow’s chile rellenos casserole.    

Unfortunately I grilled the peppers too long, and they're beyond charred or rather too limp for stuffing. Tomorrow instead of frying, I'll bake a chile relleno casserole. After dinner, instead of popping an apple blossom into the oven to eat with vanilla ice cream, I ate a banana for dessert and then cut strawberries for dessert and this week's fruit snacks:)

 

                 

This afternoon I impulsively went to look for a crystal as a handle for a pot that Meral made and which I glazed. However, the psychic center was closed, and so I called the number and Madame Rosinka told me she would come by in a half hour.

And so I walked down the street to Rockaway Beach, a part of Pacifica that I had never explored. The restaurants and hotels feel so throwback. But I liked it. Totally a metaphysical and wellness, hippy dippy vibe.

 

And while most of the Bay Area was sweltering in the high 90s, it was a cool, misty 70 degrees on the San Mateo coast.

 

I was too intimidated to look at the crystals in the metaphysical shop and decided I was not ready either for a tarot reading from Madame Rosinka, nor a session with Christina, her daughter who is a medium. Maybe like this poster suggests, my future is unwritten.

Once home, I layered enchilada sauce at the bottom of two casserole dishes, then added layers of roasted Anaheim chilies, beef chorizo and ground beef sautéed with onion and garlic, more diced green chiles, shredded pepper jack in that order. And then I separated the yolk from the whites of 4 eggs and whipped the whites after which I folded in the yolks to have some volume. Atop the eggs, more cheese and enchilada sauce.

 

Once the chile rellenos casseroles were done, I sauteed onion and garlic in pork lard into which I threw two cans of black beans and bone broth. In another pot, I put rinsed long grain and basmati rice to which I added a packet of achiote and culantro, a bit of onion and garlic powders, a little cumin, and more bone broth.

 

I thought I was going to fry two leftover white corn tortillas, but got lazy though I did slice a jalapeno pepper and chopped cilantro to toss into the red rice which I fluffed.

  

OMG, my Mexican meal was so delicious.

I never did get around to hard boiling eggs and poaching shrimp although I did cook up a Thistle pad Thai to bring for lunch tomorrow. I may end up cooking on a week night tacos from leftover steak or the carnitas I thawed. I'm wondering if this spell of not cooking during the week will last months though gosh knows my fridge is full of leftovers still to tide us over until the weekend.