I’ve clearly lost steam on blogging. The last post that I published was written more than a month ago, even though I just published it. I’d like to keep posting the monthly photo roundups, if nothing else. I’m still taking pictures, at least, so even if I don’t finish this project here, hopefully I’ll have kept with the dinner photos for the year.

Anyway, March was a month of travel. I was still home more than I was gone, but not by much. And, as you’ve likely noticed, I missed three days of photos. Blame it on being on the road.

3/1 Borscht, from the freezer
3/2 Pasta carbonara and roasted brussels sprouts
3/3 Cooking from Mozza with a friend (it was all good, but the chopped salad is incredible)
3/4 Hamburgers with homemade ciabatta rolls, grilled jalapeno poppers, and Kettle chips
3/5 Chicken wings with five spice and Sichuan peppercorns and all of the chopped salad leftover pieces made into a new salad
3/6 Mac and cheese with lacinato kale, Beecher’s Flagship, and breadcrumbs from extra ciabatta rolls
3/7 Green bean casserole (I’ve confessed my love for this before. This time, casserole as dinner, not as a side dish. Brilliant.)
3/8 To Portland for a work event, made totally worth it by dinner at Gruener in Portland (even if we didn’t get to sit at the bar for the best burger in the entire world).
3/9 A Friday off, hanging out in Portland with Ryan. Doesn’t get a whole lot better, particularly when topped off with Apizza Scholls for dinner.
3/10 A leisurely Saturday trip home, with many stops along the way. Since we’d only made it as far as Shelton when it was time for dinner, we went to Xinh’s.
3/11 Tomatillo cheese grits with Hatch chiles from the freezer (a take-off on a recipe from the Homesick Texan Cookbook, one of the best cookbooks I got last year), flank steak, guacamole, and pickled red onions.
3/12-13 Back to Portland, this time for a conference, with typically bad conference food. Forgot to take pictures.
3/14 Lasagna I’d had the foresight to assemble on Sunday made for a very welcome dinner after a harrowing drive home. I’ve never seen that much rain, and I-5 was terrifying.
3/15 Fried rice with squid and kimchi
3/16 Popcorn and pear hard cider after a very long day at work and a late return home. Totally balanced meal, right?
3/17 My parents and sister were over for the night, so I made pizzas (failed to get a picture) and my mom made a cherry pie. Cherries in March are reason enough to have a huge freezer.
3/18 Grilled elk steak and fried okra (my sister went to an Indian grocery store for the first time and bought two pounds of okra, but didn’t know what to do with it, so brought it to my house. Not as good as summer okra, but it was still a fun treat.)
3/19 Leftover Mozza ragu from the freezer with farfalle and sauteed mushrooms, with a shaved brussels sprouts salad and Mosquito Fleet Meritage
3/20 Caesar salad – heavy on the anchovies – with garlic toast
3/21 Borlotti bean and roasted vegetable soup from the freezer, with fresh kale. This was surprisingly better from the freezer than it was the first time around. Cheese toast on the side.
3/22 A solo long weekend trip to California to visit my aunt and uncle. We went out to Carmel for the weekend, and happy hour on the patio turned into dinner. Perfect.
3/23 “Green slime” noodles (far better than pink slime – just steamed chard, pureed with a little water and mixed with flour to make noodles), with solar-cooked ragu. Delicious, and a second night of eating on the patio. I love this time of year.
3/24 Whole wheat focaccia with caramelized onions and gorgonzola, and salad with greens from my aunt’s garden and avocado from their tree. Why don’t I live in California, again?
3/25 A final happy-hour-turned-dinner on the patio after a fabulous day. I love this kind of vacation.
3/26 Ryan picked me up from the airport shuttle and we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner. My phone battery died, so no photo.
3/27 Chili from the freezer (still working on eating down the freezer – we did a good job in March!)  with all the fixings and beer on the side
3/28 Grilled cheese with a side of sauteed spinach. With no weekend at home to prep dinners for the week, we don’t eat as well. If it means a long weekend in California, I’m willing to trade once in a while!
3/29 Whole wheat pasta with garbanzo beans, dried tomatoes, parsley, preserved lemon, breadcrumbs, walnuts, and goat cheese. Not bad for scraping the bottom of the fridge, but not one I’d rush to make again.
3/30 In Seattle for a good friend’s 30th birthday party. I ate lots of cheese. Too much cheese.
3/31 Roast chicken with slices of bread as the roasting rack and side dish, and salad with walnuts, goat cheese, and quince paste vinaigrette, and a bottle of Syncline rose. My sister was over and called it the best dinner she’d ever had at our house. I’m not sure I’d go quite that far, but it was pretty amazing, if I do say so myself.

Any bets on whether I’ll actually post about April? We’re more than halfway through the month and I’ve been taking pictures every day, but there’s that whole sitting-down-and-writing thing…

Chicken Noodle Soup with Homemade Noodles
For the chicken and broth
1 whole chicken (including neck if it’s in the bag of goodies)
2 tbsp sea salt
2 bay leaves
1 onion, quartered
2 medium carrots, cut into three inch lengths
2 stalks celery, cut into three inch lengths

Place the chicken, salt, bay leaves, celery, carrots, and onion in a large pot and cover the chicken by an inch with cold water, then put on the stove over medium low heat and simmer for three to four hours. Don’t let it boil. After the chicken has finished simmering, remove it from the pot and set aside to allow it to cool enough to remove the meat, then remove the meat from the bones and skin and cut or tear it into bite-sized pieces. Strain the chicken broth and taste for seasoning, then return it to a simmer.

For the noodles
2 eggs
200 grams flour
2 tsp sea salt

After putting the chicken on to simmer, make the noodles. Combine the egg, flour, and salt. I like to use a food processor and pulse the dough until it resembles small peas.(Although our doughs are slightly different, Tea has a good tutorial with pictures of what the dough should look like. She also has helpful pictures of how to make the dough by hand or with a stand mixer.) If your dough is too dry, add water a few drops at a time, just until the dough resembles small peas, but be careful, as wet dough is a nightmare to work with. When your dough is ready, wrap it in plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for at least an hour.

Vegetables, and to serve
3 medium carrots, quartered and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
3 stalks celery, halved and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 medium white onion, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil or butter
1/4 cup chopped parsley, or to taste
salt and pepper to taste

While the pasta dough rests and the chicken simmers, saute carrots, celery and onion in oil over medium heat for about seven minutes, or until tender but not mushy. Set aside.

When the chicken is done, bring a pot of water to boil and roll out the noodles (see link to good tutorial, above, or this post). Once the chicken has been removed from the bones, cook the noodles. Add the sauteed vegetables, chicken, and parsley to the simmering broth, then drain the noodles and stir them into the soup. Serve immediately, with more parsley if desired.

Make ahead: I’ll often make the soup, save for rolling out and cooking the noodles, over the weekend and then just throw together the noodles and heat up the soup on a weeknight. If you assemble it but leave out the parsley and noodles, it holds well for a few days, and also freezes well. When you’re ready to eat, warm the broth/veggies/chicken mixture up, stir in the parsley, cook the noodles separately then stir into the soup and eat.

Thai-style chicken noodle soup
For the chicken and broth
1 whole chicken
2 tbsp sea salt
2-3 inch piece of galangal, sliced into 1/2 inch slices, or 1/3 cup dried slices of galangal (or ginger, if you can’t find galangal, but it will be different)
5-6 kaffir lime leaves
2-3 stalks lemongrass, cut into 3 inch lengths
2-3 birds eye chiles
stems from one bunch of cilantro
2 large shallots, halved

Place chicken, salt, galangal, lime leaves, lemongrass, chiles, cilantro stems, and shallots in a large pot and cover the chicken by an inch with cold water, then put on the stove over medium low heat and simmer for three to four hours. Don’t let it boil. After the chicken has finished simmering, remove it from the pot and set aside to allow it to cool enough to remove the meat, then remove the meat from the bones and skin and cut or tear it into bite-sized pieces. Strain the chicken broth and taste for seasoning, then return it to a simmer.

To finish the soup
1/2-3/4 lb cremini mushrooms, quartered
1 small can sliced bamboo shoots, drained and rinsed
1 can baby corn, drained and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 can coconut milk
1/2 package wide rice noodles, cooked and drained

When you have removed the chicken from the bones and skin and strained the broth, add the mushrooms, bamboo shoots, baby corn and coconut milk to the chicken broth and return the soup to a simmer. Cook for five to ten minutes or until the mushrooms are tender, then stir in the chicken. Put the rice noodles in the bottom of your serving bowls, ladle the soup over the noodles, and serve immediately.

Make ahead: I’ll often prepare the soup, save for the rice noodles, a day or two ahead and just reheat it and cook the noodles before serving.

Another month down. Does it feel like this year is flying by already, or is it just me? The past week has brought both downpours and sunshine; here’s hoping March is the month we leave behind winter for real. February was another good eating month, with fewer nights at home than in January, but still plenty of cooking:

2/1 Chicken noodle soup (Interestingly, I’ve never written about this here. I should fix that, as it’s delicious.)
2/2 I intended to make huevos rancheros, but by the time I got home from work that plan had turned into nachos and black beans with lots of toppings (avocado, cilantro, cotija, pickled onions, chorizo, the best hot sauce ever)
2/3 Excellent dinner with good friends. Brussels sprouts that I keep forgetting to ask for the recipe for, bones, polenta, braised beef and more. Plenty of wine and the kind of evening that makes me realize just how lucky we are to have friends like these.
2/4 A big salad to atone for the previous night’s indulgence. Arugula, avocado, three kinds of grapefruit, and pecans. I think I could eat this every day.
2/5 Char siu, sticky rice, and stir fried bok choy
2/6 The best chili I’ve ever made, topped with Fritos (the shame…), chopped onion, sour cream, pickled jalapenos and white cheddar. Lots of fresh spices from World Spice (NM chili powder, coriander, oregano, cinnamon) plus some molasses made the difference.
2/7 Penne with pesto from the freezer and toasted pecans
2/8 Roasted cauliflower pasta with anchovies, breadcrumbs, garlic, red pepper, parsley, lemon, and parmesan
2/9 Dinner at Delancey
2/10 A vegetarian variation on my favorite stir fry with bok choy, kale, shitakes, and rice noodles
2/11 Disastrous pizza night. Turns out stretching dough and then freezing it is a pretty bad idea, unless brittle and chalky are words you associate with good food.
2/12 Tostadas with ground elk, olives, guacamole, sour cream, pickled onions, salsa verde and cotija
2/13 Tom kha gai with rice noodles. I really need to write about this one sometime.
2/14 Biscuits and sausage gravy
2/15 Italian sausage, kale, and roasted root vegetable soup with provolone toast
2/16 Purple hashbrowns, eggs, and toast
2/17 Dinner out at our favorite Mexican restaurant
2/18 Pizza night again, to redeem the previous week’s failure, including an excellent brie and honey pizza that was Ryan’s idea (I married him for his ideas, mostly)
2/19 Fish tacos
2/20 Bi bim bap (in the stone bowls that only get one or two uses a year, but are still totally worth having) with kimchi, bean sprouts, kale, mushrooms, flank steak and an egg. I fully intend to make this once more before winter ends.
2/21 Bowties with mushrooms, garlic and parsley
2/22 Roasted Brussels sprouts and cauliflower on tepary beans, topped with an egg
2/23 Celery root puree topped with sauteed kale, Italian sausage, parmesan, croutons, and an egg. Cleaning out the fridge is occasionally very delicious.
2/24 In Big Sky, MT, with the family for the weekend, but still doing the cooking (I can’t help it). Steaks, overcooked asparagus, and sauteed mushrooms.
2/25 Oyster chowder with a large jar of Washington oysters from Costco
2/26 Teaching my mom and Patsy how to make fresh pasta and Marcella Hazan butter tomato sauce, plus great garlic parmesan rolls my brother made. Sometimes it’s fun to have everyone in the kitchen at once.
2/27 Take out gyros from an old college favorite, picked up on the way back from the airport. Still good, but not the best gyros ever.
2/28 My favorite stir fry with rice noodles
2/29 Caesar salad and garlic bread

We’ve had some good Dark Days meals in the weeks since I stopped keeping up with blogging, but nothing earth shaking (though I will say that the combination of Kurtwood Farms Dinah’s Cheese and homemade quince paste on fresh baked cibatta makes for a truly stellar airplane lunch); after a long day at work, I’d much rather curl up with a cookbook than with my laptop when there’s nothing so exciting that it absolutely must be shared. I’ll probably keep going on the project, but only write updates occasionally. So, here’s what we’ve done for Dark Days the past few weeks:

Week 13: The aforementioned travel lunch – a sandwich that will definitely be making a repeat appearance since we still have a little bit of quince paste left. This one would have been great with some prosciutto or arugula, but that would have made it less Dark Days eligible. Kurtwood Farms Dinah’s Cheese (via Beecher’s), homemade quince paste (quince from Willowrose Bay Orchard last fall), homemade cibatta with Fairhaven flour; exceptions: sugar in the quince paste, yeast and salt in the bread

Week 14: Sort-of-carbonara with Salumi pancetta, Mountain View eggs, Beecher’s parmesan, and fresh pasta from DeLaurenti (exceptions: salt and pepper); and my favorite stir fry with ground pork from Heritage Meats via Full Circle, baby bok choy from Full Circle (and actually baby this time around, unlike the usual size I see for “baby” bok choy!), garlic from Filaree, and onions from Andersen by way of Full Circle. Exceptions: fish and oyster sauces, rice noodles.

Week 15: My husband’s genius idea to just have green bean casserole for dinner (I can’t help it – I love this stuff, especially once I started making it almost entirely from scratch, and not having anything else with it was a brilliant idea – nothing to distract from the deliciousness). The last of the frozen green beans from my in-laws’ garden, onions from Andersen via Full Circle, garlic from Filaree, flour from Fairhaven, milk from Twin Brook, mushrooms from Champs; exceptions: salt, pepper, French’s fried onions (yes, I know how awful they are. No, I don’t really care, because they are delicious. We eat pretty well 95% of the time; I’m hanging on to a few bad habits.)

Week 16: This morning I threw together a shepherd’s pie to clean out the vegetable drawer, and to leave dinner for Ryan as I’ll be gone to a conference most of the week. I’m not particularly fond of shepherd’s pie, so this is a great one to leave behind when I’m gone, as it’s one of Ryan’s favorites.  Elk, lamb from Evergreen Students for Sustainable Ag via Full Circle, parsnips and celery root from Full Circle, red potatoes from somewhere in Washington via Full Circle (can’t remember which farm they came from, as they’ve been rolling around in my cupboard for a while now), rosemary and thyme from the backyard, garlic from Filaree, onions from Andersen via Full Circle; exceptions: Worcestershire sauce, carrots and celery, salt and pepper

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, but I do like the idea of starting a new (small) project with each new year. I haven’t finished all of them (see The Cookbook Project), but a month and a half into the year, I’m doing pretty well with this year’s project: taking quick snapshots of dinner every night. I thought it would be fun to share a quick run down of a month of dinners, both keeping it real (we eat well, but from my usual posts here, you’d think we never ate crackers for dinner, or had disastrous dinners), and as a way to share some of the ideas that never make it to full blog posts.

I started keeping a dinner log the day we got married, thinking I’d keep track of dinners for a few months before petering out, but nearly four years in, I’m still doing it, and it’s become a great way to track our lives without journaling (I tried journaling when I was about 13, but ended up burning it in one of my mom’s stainless steel bowls. I’m nothing if not dramatic), and taking photos has been a great way to help me catch up when I fail to write every day.

Without further ado, here’s January’s dinner list, in case you’re looking for some ideas:

1/1 Pan-fried elk steaks, roasted carrots and parsnips, mashed potatoes, NW Vine Project Pinot Noir
1/2 Black beans with carnitas and hatch peppers, pickled red onion, cotija, and avocado
1/3 Romaine salad with blue cheese dressing, prosciutto crumbles, and pecans
1/4 Soup with broth from the freezer (made from Peking-style roasted duck carcass), bok choy, baby corn, shitakes, and ramen
1/5 Horrible tomato soup from the freezer (it was good the first time – not sure what the freezer did to it) and grilled cheese
1/6 Spaghetti and meatballs and homemade cibatta, Dusted Valley Stained Tooth Syrah
1/7 Thai-style grilled pork skewers with sticky rice and stir-fried bok choy and shitakes
1/8 A Dark Days dinner: Pan-fried elk steak
1/9 Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole (don’t judge. Or do. I still use the French’s fried onions, but the rest is made from scratch. I love green bean casserole.)
1/10 Shepherd’s pie, a leftovers special from the freezer (leftover elk stew, roasted parsnips and mashed potatoes) with kale salad on the side
1/11 Squash, white bean, sausage and arugula soup
1/12 Chicken tostadas with avocado, cilantro, olives, pickled red onions, salsa verde and sour cream (I’m guessing this will make a fairly frequent appearance – it’s Ryan’s favorite dinner, bar none)
1/13 Marcella Hazan tomato onion sauce, Italian sausage, and arugula on angel hair pasta, with toasted cibatta to soak up every last drop of the sauce, and Gramercy Pinot Noir
1/14-21 Nicaragua; Ryan made dinner the night I got home, but I failed to get a picture. Pasta with roasted tomatoes from the freezer and Stevens Winery syrah.
1/22 Spicy chicken lime soup with avocados
1/23 Pad thai with chicken
1/24 Shrimp and toast
1/25 Borscht from the freezer
1/26 Stir-fried bok choy and mushrooms with ground pork
1/27 Minestrone and cibatta, both from the freezer
1/28 Green chile elk cheeseburgers
1/29 General Tso’s chicken (our favorite/only takeout place closed last fall, so I had to figure out how to make this at home. The linked recipe is a keeper.)
1/30 Roasted chicken, kale salad, mashed celery root and potatoes, Milbrandt Malbec
1/31 Home late after a going away party for a colleague; Ritz crackers for dinner

Purple hashbrowns, sunnyside up eggs, and not local Dave’s Killer Bread was as local as dinner got this week. We’re still working on cleaning out the freezer, and this bread had been languishing in the back of the freezer for…well, a while. The potatoes came from Full Circle, and the eggs from Mountain View Farm. Not the world’s most exciting dinner, but it will have to do.

A dry (and briefly sunny) day made grilling dinner on a week night more appealing than it has been in recent weeks, and since we’re still making a concerted effort to eat down the freezer this month and the single largest space hog in the freezer right now is ground elk, it only made sense to grill burgers. We’re making good progress on the freezer, so much so that there’s an entirely empty shelf now! The last time that happened was before this elk found its way into our freezer more than a year ago, and it’s been a good exercise to utilize what we have in there before buying new stuff (which I realize should be obvious, but I have a bad habit of buying more food when we already have more than enough at the house).

These were pretty straightforward burgers, topped with roasted green chiles and some Beechers’ cheese, with roasted potatoes on the side. Not enough to fool us into thinking summer is just around the corner, but nice to have a taste of summer in January. I’m particularly proud of the buns, made from the starter I’ve had going for a month or so now, and the perfect combination of crispy and soft.

Sources for this week’s dinner:
Peppers from Tonnemaker Hill Farm, Royal City, WA, by way of the freezer
Cheese from Beechers, Seattle, WA
Elk burger from the freezer
Potatoes from our garden, by way of our basement cold storage
Garlic from Filaree Garlic Farm, Okanogan, WA
Flour from Fairhaven Mill, Bellingham, WA
Exceptions: olive oil, salt, pepper, yeast

I try to buy a couple pounds of shrimp every spring during the very short season they’re available, and though they’re not cheap, they’re absolutely worth it. We don’t eat much shrimp anymore, so these are a treat. After peeling the shrimp, I made a broth with the shells, some white wine, and some garlic. I simmered that for about 25 minutes, then strained it and quickly poached the shrimp in it. It was a light dinner, but a delicious one!

Sources:
Shrimp from Hood Canal, purchased at Patti’s Seafood, Skokomish, WA, then lost in the freezer for months
Idilico Albarino from Full Pull Wines
Garlic from Filaree Garlic Farm, Okanogan, WA
Flour from Fairhaven Mill, Bellingham, WA
Exceptions: olive oil, salt and yeast

Sources for this week’s dinner:
Celery root, kale, carrots, and celery from Full Circle Farm, Carnation, WA
Onions from Andersen Organics, Othello, WA, by way of Full Circle box
Potatoes from our garden
Tomatoes grown at Tonnemaker Hill Farm, Royal City, WA, and canned
Green beans from my in-laws’ garden up the street (by way of the freezer)
Garlic from Filaree Garlic Farm, Okanogan, WA
Slow roasted tomatoes from our garden, by way of the freezer
Sage from our garden
Vegetable stock made primarily from Full Circle vegetable trimmings
Flour from Fairhaven Mill, Bellingham, WA
Cheese from Beechers, Seattle, WA
Exceptions: Rancho Gordo borlotti beans, olive oil, salt, pepper, parmesan rind and prosciutto end; yeast and salt in bread