MPM--June Buggin'

Holy Moses! I cannot believe this. I thought May was busy. Then I looked at June.

In the "didn't think that would happen" category: I took my son to swim team tryouts because his friend was going. I know my son gets skittish about any form of sports competition so I didn't expect much other than a no-stakes first tryout experience. When he jumped in the pool, the water was so cold, "it pulled all the air out of my body!" he said later, and he promptly forgot how to swim and dog-paddled instead to keep his head out of the water to gasp in some air. But after the initial shock, he settled in and made the preteam. I didn't know there was such a thing, so meal planning becomes extra-crucial now, with three 6pm practices, hosting a Silpada party, and all the other end-of-year craziness.

But we had a great Memorial Day weekend in the mountains, with lots of pizza dip and mac and cheese for the hardworking teenaged nieces and nephews, and lake time and pool time when we got home and all kinds of fun coming up. So let's see the plans, shall we?

Monday: "gourmet" hot dogs (part of the Omaha Steaks haul), corn and black bean salsa, potato croquettes (also Omaha Steaks)

Tuesday: DAF potstickers and stir-fry

Wednesday: CSA box comes today, so lots of veggies, plus steaks on the grill

Thursday: Korean beef, rice, veggies (on an Asian kick this week!)

Friday: Too much going on. Soccer--prom--swim team--at least I know someone else will be making something. Could be pizza after soccer, might be barbeque after prom pictures. We'll get something. Phew.

In the craziness that was last week, I didn't try too many new recipes, but one was the Indian green beans. I thought they were great.

I revisited an old friend, the Giada Orzo recipe I love. I forgot to keep stirring the orzo so it was almost a molded salad by default! But the vinaigrette helped break things up. I loved it again, but wow, does it taste salty to me now. I cut the salt in the dressing by half and still was puckering up. I've retrained my taste buds better than I thought.

In a stroke of luck, I decided to try these Nutella cupcakes from Food52. It seemed like a great idea. I had every ingredient in my house already (including, by some miracle, almost the exact amount of Nutella called for, and thank goodness for something else to work down all the self-rising flour in my house. (Where is it all coming from? Have I lost all ability to read labels correctly in the store?) Plus I loved that it was like a microbatch, with only 12 cupcakes resulting. Next time, I won't wait until after midnight to start. And I'll use cream instead of corn syrup in the ganache (though with the heat here, the corn syrup was probably a good plan). All those things aside: OH my freakin' HECK, these were amazing. All twelve were demolished promptly. They were very dense but as my husband said, without the overwhelm that can come from Nutella from the jar. (Not that we aren't all quite familiar with that.) These are a definite go-to cupcake for me forever more, amen. They come out of the oven with a nice crackly top, and the tip about "if one collapses, just fill it with ganache"? Genius. Nom nom nom.

I hope all the US readers had a wonderful and reflective, even for a few minutes, Memorial Day. For more menus, try anyone over at I'm an Organizing Junkie!