Anatomy of Making Dinner Happen
A peek into our real life kitchen
Hi. This isn’t to replace my usual Thursday posts—your four recipes and shopping list are almost ready to go and I hope you love the recipes as much as I do. I don’t know what this is, maybe a bonus post? I was thinking about a post that Julia Turshen wrote on her excellent Substack at the beginning of April where she showed what she actually ate for dinner that week. I loved it, and generally I think people’s real lives are more interesting than the flattering light they usually cast on themselves (me included, although I really try to be real). So with that in mind, I thought I would share what we actually ate for dinner last week, since sometimes it’s aspirational and sometimes it’s, you know, hot dogs.
I got back late Monday night from a weekend in California and while Scott and the kids had a blast while I was gone, they ate a lot of take-out and not a lot of vegetables. I wanted to make something healthy and rebalancing. Our nanny and I had talked about making this Brazilian chicken stew after she brought it for lunch one day and my middle one devoured it, so Tuesday was the day. I wound up basically watching her make it while taking lots of notes and pictures (recipe coming Thursday). It was great—both bright from tomatoes and peppers and earthy from smoked paprika and cumin. The big kids loved it (the littlest ate bread and butter and one ‘no thank you bite’ of chicken) and I was happy to have the leftovers for lunch for the next couple of days. Scott had to work late and ate in the city and probably wouldn’t have been that excited about this, but overall it was a win.
On Wednesday, Scott had to work late again, my oldest went to a friend’s house for dinner, the weather was perfect, and I was going out to dinner, so my girls got hot dogs and corn. They were happy, and if I’m being honest, I was tired and this worked.
Thursday we had a parent orientation at the middle school at 6:30, so I made dinner before I left. I had no plan, but around 4pm opened the refrigrator and started pulling out all the little bits of lots of things. I recently got a rice cooker, so I threw some rice in there and pushed the button. While I was helping with homework and answering endless rounds of “mama, mama, mama,” I whirred together my usual peanut sauce, but subbed in tahini, since we had lots of tahini and not that much peanut butter. The only thing we had a lot of was tofu, so I sliced up a block and half of it and roasted it on a sheet tray and then set everything (a little corn, some pickled carrots, the end of a head of cabbage, some wilty herbs) out in little bowls and let everyone make their own rice bowl. Again, recipe coming Thursday.
On Friday, Scott and I were going out, and again my oldest was at a sleepover, so the girls, plus my middle’s bff, got some grocery store chicken fingers and sliced veggies and breadsticks. Low lift, happy kids.
Saturday my kids had their school carnival and I knew they were going to be overstimiulated and running on cotton candy and ice cream, so I planned a real dinner that I was sure everyone would eat. I had picked up some steak earlier in the week, I had a bunch of herbs and half a box of arugula in my fridge and my oldest needed something to do for an hour before screen time, so we put together a quick, bright green blender sauce. In my restaurant days, it was the pastry department’s responsibility to make the staff meal salad each day. Sometimes there was leftover dressing in the walk-in, but often we blended up our own, throwing in a mix of herbs, vinegar, something creamy like mayo or buttermilk, and oil. It was a good lesson in tasting for balance and that’s what we did here. It’s so good, and could make a rotisserie chicken and some roasted veggies feel elevated and intentional. I also threw together a quick green veggie saute and it felt springy and all the kids (my three, plus our neighbor) all mostly took seconds without prodding. Again recipe coming Thursday.
Now we’re up to Sunday, right? It was a busy day with so many activities—tennis, climbing, soccer, a birthday party, reorganizing our basement. I headed into the kitchen around 5:45pm with no plan and needed something easy and fast that did not require a trip to the grocery store. In that circumstance, my brain almost always goes to pasta. This time, given what was in the fridge, I was feeling carbonara. So fast, so few dishes, always a hit (recipe also coming on Thursday).
On Monday, we were going to lean into Cinco de Mayo and make sopes, but I decided at the last minute to join some high school friends for dinner (I don’t usually go out this much, it’s been a busy week), so I pivoted. Those sopes are on tap for tonight (I made the beans yesterday while I was just hanging out with a house full of kids, so I feel ahead of the game) and remember a few weeks ago when we made chicken and biscuits? Well we only ate half, so I threw the other half in the freezer. Lucky me, because I only had to pop it in the oven and 45 minutes later, dinner was ready to go. Also, for what it’s worth, my littlest is not into this dinner and ate a bowl of Cheerios instead.
I don’t know if this is helpful or it just feels long and boring. If you’ve read to all the way down here, I guess it was useful? Dunno, let me know what you think!