the quotidian (11.15.21)

November 15, 2021

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
everyday; ordinary; commonplace

Sedentary stabbing.

Korean meatballs no one liked.

Carrot smiles.

Soup base.

Got a good spice combo for mulled cider? Hit me up.

Fact: there is no such thing as a good sweet cherry pie. Prove me wrong.

Colby.

The Milkmister.

Mmmm, pie!

The one-trip girl: lazy or smart?

Little kid(s), big mess.

“If you know, you know,” as my younger daughter says.

Friday night, my son’s fiancé made supper: the tater tot casserole she grew up with…

…and we introduced her to Napoleon Dynamite.

This same time, years previous: my new kitchen: the refrigerator, Shakespeare behind bars, enough, for now, gravity, lessons from a shopping trip, the wiggles, why I’m glad we don’t have guns in the house, chicken salad.

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9 Comments

    • Hannah

      November 17, 2021 at 7:42 pm Reply

      Greetings, my grandmother was astounded to hear that another wanting to indulge in her best kept lazy-night secret. “Scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel…[T]hough it is great with a vegetable and blueberry muffin.” – her words.

      Truthfully, there isn’t much to it. Brown ground beef with onion if you’d like (my mom occasionally added celery and carrots). Add this mixture to a 9×13 pan. In a separate bowl, mix together 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup and shredded cheese. Spread this onto the meat mixture. When you’re done, top it with tater tots. Neither my mom nor my grandmother could recall a cooking time or temperature. I imagine whatever the tater tot directions suggest since everything is precooked. Enjoy!

  • Jen F

    November 16, 2021 at 6:26 am Reply

    JJ, my most recent batch of mulling spices came from Williams-Sonoma. My mom bought them there on clearance & split them with me. Every time I use them, I marvel at the quality. Congrats on the upcoming wedding!

  • KC

    November 15, 2021 at 11:13 am Reply

    Sweet cherries with (largely unsweetened, not marzipan) almond paste are good…

    (but I still like sour cherry pie better. Maybe sweet cherry and rhubarb would be good, a la strawberry, which I also think is too-sweet and anemic in pie?)

    I still haven’t met a mulling spice I haven’t liked, *and* to boot I haven’t ever measured spice:cider ratios (although 3-4 cloves per stick of cinnamon is my default, with how many sticks of cinnamon varying by stock pot size, plus orange/satsuma/whatever-citrus-is-around slices – until we met someone with citrus allergies, at which point the slices stopped) so I’m useless on that question. (star anise! cardamom! so tasty, but also I am lazy and cinnamon and cloves can do the job by themselves) My two rules, though: NO GROUD SPICES to make the last sips of cider gritty, and also keep tasting it and take the spices out when it’s done.

    Good luck!

  • Candi R

    November 15, 2021 at 10:55 am Reply

    For your cider have you thought of wassail? The Biltmore estate has a delicious preblended wassail mix but I think the price is steep considering the simple ingredients. Maybe this recipe could be of assistancehttps://www.thespruceeats.com/wassail-drink-mix-480875

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