Two weeks of family meal, all in one post. We’re in the home stretch now!

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Tuesday: this is the first day the molten beet cake went on the menu because there’s lots of leftover chocolate and mango sorbet from the fennel funnel cake at family meal. There’s also rice noodles with sesame seeds, mushrooms and zucchini and eggs and in the back, hiding, there’s a plate of it without eggs, because we have an intern who can’t eat eggs.

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Wednesday: for some reason that none of us can remember, we all decided that this was Taco Day! So there’s the taco kit from the store, with refried beans and cheese, and tempeh instead of ground beef. And, of course, salad. The key thing to know about this family meal is that my intern got the salt and the sugar mixed up and wound up giving us all sweet salsa. Which wasn’t that bad. What do I care, anyways? It’s Taco Day!

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Thursday: this is tofu skin and chickpeas and tofu all mixed together, a salad, vegan maple butter and habanero, gluten-free corn muffins. These were made by my intern, Madeline, and they were so spicy that William, my dishwasher, took one bite and then bolted to the basement to guzzle a bottle of water and cry. Thanks, Madeline!

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“No problem!”

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Friday: the usual broccoli and mushroom hearts with fried tofu on the side.

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Saturday: a smoothie with banana and leftover mano – maybe? Something like that is in that cambro bin. Then there’s white bean and fried tofu with zucchini and maybe with a mushroom cream sauce in the foreground.

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Diana receives birthday cupcakes.

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Tuesday: Diana, my other waiter, gets her birthday family meal. I think she just turned 21 or something ridiculous like that. She loves Thai food, so I got her a Thai feast, but more importantly she only likes mint chocolate and I got her a bunch of mint chocolate cupcakes. There she is in the first picture, blowing out her candles. Danielle is the presenter of the celebratory cupcakes.

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Wednesday: fried eggs, miso rice soup and salad (of course). What a comedown.

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Thursday: grits and mushroom hearts and a salad with fried eggs on the side.

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Friday: I have a prep person coming in days right now to assist Danielle and he brought in cranberry cake (on the left) and then there were fried tofu sticks with roasted vegetables. It all tasted better than it looked.

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Saturday: a waiter who thought she was going to replace Kristen, but then decided that the job wasn’t a good fit for her, gets this spectacular, bright red family meal. She’s gluten free so it’s a gluten free Italian feast. Tomato and noodles and tempeh in the big pan, then fried eggplant with balsamic and parmesan salad, garlic toast and gluten free banana cake and cupcakes for dessert.

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Getting off number with the week we did the Brooklyn Brewery event and now the week of American Thanksgiving really makes me itch. I liked family meals when they decreased by fives and now they’re all off. Instead of 60 – 55 we’ve got 61 – 57. It’s just not the same.

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Tuesday: mini falafel balls, red pepper, tofu and mushroom heart stir fry and clumpy rice noodles in the back right hand side dressed with scallions and sesame seeds.

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Wednesday: salad with a very good zucchini and tofu curry.

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Thursday: is Thanksgiving and Dirt Candy was closed. I stayed home alone and ate cold, leftover Chinese take-out and drank a giant beer. Also, ice cream. And read two books (which is something I never get to do anymore).

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Friday: salad (again! Michelle Obama would be very proud!) with a giant noodle, broccoli and tofu stir fry.

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Saturday: chickpea and deep fried tofu curry full of lovely and spicy yuba skin.

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Tomorrow, wine. And next week, fun. But today on this blog, family meal. I’ve got two weeks of them to catch up with.

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Tuesday: salad (as per usual) with toasted almonds and then a corn and broccoli stock smoked tofu thing. Not quite a curry, not quite a stir fry. It was sort of gloopy and weird.

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Wednesday: massive amounts of roasted vegetables. Which were delicious, but there were an awful lot of them. And fried tofu lurking in the background. Also, yes, that is a salad.

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Thursday: our intern Tyler did his final project for us and it was family meal. Fried polenta with a salad, and then a smoked tofu, mushroom and zucchini ragout as a sauce for the friend polenta. I think he passed, but that was mostly because there was a salad. Consistency is king.

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Friday: is that a salad I spy there? Salad with chickpeas and red onions, and it’s one of Danielle’s best salads to date. There was also a tahini dressing, which may have been what put it over the top. Then a spicy mushroom heart and egg soup. This is a very dark photo of a very nice meal.

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Saturday: grits and corn and mushroom hearts fried up and mixed together. And instead of a salad, a letter. It didn’t taste as good.

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Only four family meals this week because last Thursday we were closed to do an event at Brooklyn Brewery.

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Tuesday: spinach, corn and red pepper salad and a chickpea salad.

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Wednesday: fried tofu, grilled smoked tofu with grilled onions, sauteed spinach, bread and barbecue sauce.

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Friday: potentially the most disgusting family meal we have ever had, made of leftovers from the event the night before. This rivals the pickled lime meal from a while back. Hot spinach dip with micro-amaranth, which was neither good hot nor good in this large of a quantity, and then hot white lentils with micro-kohlrabi.

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Saturday: roasted vegetables with salad and fried polenta.

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Tuesday: smoked tofu and red pepper stir fry with noodles.

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Wednesday: salad and fried vegetables and a big pot of human blood tomato sauce. You know, for dipping the fried vegetables.

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Thursday: today’s family meal is given a soft focus effect for some reason. To make it look younger? More glamorous? There’s smoothie, a bowl of nanaimo bar trimmed edges, salad and a giant pan of mushrooms.

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Friday: salad with carrots and smoked tofu, and then one of my former interns, Ann, brought by a very tasty quinoa salad. It’s double-barreled salad day.

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Saturday: Kristen’s last day at Dirt Candy and this is her By Request Family Meal. Corn bread (up front), gluten free macaroni pie, peanut brittle, a mixture of kales, maple butter, and the best chocolate cake in the world.

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Tuesday: that white bowl contains noodles, and the pan is…well, none of us are 100% sure what’s in the pan. I slacked on getting these up and so this is from a couple of weeks ago. The best Danielle and I can tell it’s mushroom hearts, peas, red peppers and…cheese?

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Wednesday: fried eggs and grits with chipotle in them. Grits are becoming our new fried eggs. It’s like we’re a bunch of Southern sharecroppers circa 1932, living entirely on grits and eggs.

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Thursday: noodles and curry containing all the usual suspects: mushroom hearts (from the celery salad), broccolini (from the tofu) and grilled tofu (also from the tofu).

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Friday: grits, salad and a great big red bowl of tempeh bolognese.

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Saturday: Roopa’s cake for Dirt Candy’s second birthday, fried tofu and arugula salad.

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The pictures of this week’s family meals suffer from some technical issues, but surely you can see through the exposure problems and the blurry focus to see the fried mushroom hearts and eggs underneath.

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Tuesday: it looks bad, but it’s not actually so bad. This is noodle cake with smoked tofu and egg white omelette and a really kind of nice Asian-y mushroom stirfry.

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Wednesday: chipotle grits with grilled tofu with mushroom hearts and chipotle and a side of chipotle and some grated cheese.

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Thursday: kind of a tempeh bolognese.

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Friday: eggs with nothing in them, tomato sauce, and a very nice roasted vegetable medley.

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Saturday: roasted vegetables and fried polenta cakes, which have become Danielle’s specialty.

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Catching up on a lot of family meals because I’ve been as neglectful towards this blog as a drunk babysitter is towards her charges the week before prom.

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Tuesday: vegetarian chicharron (you know, fried pork skins, but from vegetables, not pigs), dried mangoes, plantain chips and Jesus’s current favorite family meal fad: mushroom heart, broccoli, smoked tofu and chickpea stir fry. Also there are noodles.

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A bonus family meal this week!

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Monday: bonus family meal! Jesus made this for Danielle and I out of leftover tortillas, eggs and a bunch of surplus vegetables.

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Tuesday: grits, chickpea and broccolini salad in the way back and in the front a salad with almonds.

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Wednesday: trying to use up the extra haricot verts that we have left, this is a haricot verts stir fry, fried eggs (making a resurgence) and in the back some wild rice that was sent to me as a sample and is now feeding my peeps.

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Thursday: a salad and a tomato and mushroom heart stew. But family meals are just biding their time today because on Friday…

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Friday: Danielle’s birthday! William brought the juice, Diana bought gluten-free cupcakes, Kristen picked up chips and salsa and guacamole and Jesus brought in Mexican candy. But he also cooked.

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I’ve known Jesus for six years and this is the first time as long as I’ve known him that he’s made Mexican food. Here’s his rice and enchiladas – and they were actually really good.

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The birthday girl eating Mexican candy.

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Saturday: don’t get too excited for us, because on Saturday it was right back to this. Spicy vegetable stew. Goodbye, birthday fiesta. Goodbye.

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No Thursday family meal this week because we were busy drowning at the Let us Eat Local event.

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Tuesday: haricot verts, mushroom hearts and tomato stew.

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Wednesday: rice (on the far left), haricot verts with coconut sauce, and two kinds of fried tofu on the far right (smoked and regular).

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Friday: grilled vegetable sandwiches, some with cheese and some without and some on gluten free bread and some not. We please everybody.

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Saturday: cucumber and vinegar and onion salad with two bowls of smoked tofu with squash and sugar snap pea stir fried noodles.

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