Recipe Roundup 6/2016

It's been a while since a 'recipe roundup,' and we've had several delicious dinners (and lunches) lately that I want to brag about, oops, I mean share.

Recipes are listed left to right, top to bottom.

Curry Chickpea Salad - We kicked off summer with this versatile recipe during a picnic dinner date at the park. The chickpeas taste just as good in pitas as they do over greens.

Spiced Pork Chops with Mashed Potatoes - This is a repeat Blue Apron recipe that happened to fit well with the contents of our CSA box last week: sweet potatoes, chard and snap peas. As more of a "one-pot wonder" type of cook myself, Blue Apron recipes can sometimes seem a bit fancy. Sometimes the little bit of extra effort and dirtied cooking vessels are worth it, sometimes not. All of the recipes here are definitely worth it.

Turkey Meatballs with Parsley Pesto (similar meatball recipe) - Another recipe featuring a CSA ingredient: parsley (and no small amount of it either!) The pesto recipe was from the newsletter that comes in our box every week and made enough to cover an entire box of pasta. The turkey meatballs were good too, and had some extra veggies thrown as well.

Nepalese Chicken Tarkari - Another Blue Apron repeat recipe featuring spinach from the CSA box.

General Tso's Chicken - Yet another Blue Apron recipe featuring CSA ingredients: snap peas and green onions. One of the best things about making these recipes again, aside from the fact that they are delicious, is that they can easily be doubled and the leftovers taken into work for lunch the next day. While none of my co-workers actually asked me if this was take-out, I like to think I could have easily convinced them that it was.  

In addition to the ingredients above, our CSA has featured a lot of lettuce and other leafy greens. Salads are a no brainer, but does anyone have other ideas? We've made summer rolls, and added lettuce to stir fries, but we get a huge bag of it every week and it's definitely a challenge to keep up.

Thanks for reading!

New Recipes: April

Keizo and I tried a record breaking number of new recipes in April. While he did most of the cooking, I like to think I pulled my weight with the meal planning and grocery-list making. It seemed to take most of Keizo's nearly three month visit for him to really grasp the concept of planning ahead and buying ingredients for multiple meals at one time. As much as I generally enjoy grocery shopping, it's not something I want to do everyday!

Waiting more than month between trying a recipe and writing it up here has both its pros and cons. In general, it gets harder to remember the details of each one, whether or not the recipe was followed exactly, which substitutions I would make next time etc; but on the other hand, it also gets easier to pick out the winners. 

Spring Pasta with Asparagus and Cherry Tomatoes - Not exactly a winner, but I am sure I will be eating some variation on this theme (pasta + vegetables) several more times over the summer.

"Pizza Chicken" - Given the amount of gooey cheese in the photo, it shouldn't be a surprise that this recipe falls into the "make again" category. Running the oven in the summer is less than ideal though, so it may have to wait until fall.

Cheddar Beer Fondue - Although I was initially concerned we would set off the fire alarm, this ended up being a really fun meal. It was fun to make, fun to eat, and inspired several conversations about future uses for our "new" $8 fondue set. Our dipping items consisted of bread, sausage and roasted vegetables and I had a hard time choosing a favorite. One word of caution, the recipe is labeled as "date night," but contains a whopping 16 servings of cheese. I think next time I will halve it with the hope that we'll be able to get up from our chairs a bit more quickly afterwards.

Eggplant & Chickpea Curry - This is another "make again" recipe with lots of vegetables and chickpeas to give it some more staying power. Not nearly as entertaining as fondue, but definitely worth trying :-)

Bim Bim Bap - Somewhere under all those toppings is some rice and marinated ground turkey(?) I went a bit overboard with the garnishes trying to use up old produce and add on new farmer's market finds (see the pickled yellow beets in the middle? Delicious!) and drowned out the flavors of original recipe. I see more rice bowls in the future though, since the different components can be assembled ahead of time and combined later for a quick meal. Also, they're an excellent base for delectable pickled things from No. 1 Sons.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms - I had high hopes for this recipe based on the photos and several roasted vegetable sandwiches with portobello mushrooms and goat cheese enjoyed over the years. The results weren't quite what I was hoping for, nor was the dish particularly satisfying as Keizo and I both had double servings.

Creamy Chicken Quinoa Casserole - This was one of Keizo's picks, and while creamy and comforting, it was also rather bland. It improved with some hot sauce, but is not one I am likely to make again.

Miso Broth Bowl with Soba - This meal was inspired by the cherry blossoms and our visit to Hana, a small Japanese grocery store located on U Street. I was impressed by their selection, and will definitely be making a return trip when I run out of my favorite Japanese pantry items like miso and okonomiyaki sauce. Now that the weather is warming up, I don't know if I would make this again anytime soon, but it was really tasty.

Mexican Stuffed Sweet Potato Skins - Wrapping up on a high note, these loaded potato skins were tasty and really filling. The chipotle peppers packed some heat, and we were also able to enjoy some of the leftover filling with tortilla chips.

Nine new recipes in a month was quite a lot; the past few weeks I have been relying on some old standbys and trying to use up some things from the freezer. Today, I made gazpacho for the first time, so there will be at least one new recipe in the May round up. When I write it up, however, is bit less certain.

Thank you for reading!

New Recipes: January

Even though I am already looking forward to spring, I can't quite believe that February is here already! January was busy in a good way with more outings with friends, some time and effort spent organizing my apartment, and stepping up my running routine for my first 10K in March. So far, signing up for that race has done exactly what I'd hoped - helped focus my workouts and, to a lesser extent, my eating habits (isn't the whole point of exercising more so you can eat more?) Here are the new recipes I tried this month:

Tuscan Tuna Mac Casserole

A fancy twist on mac-n-cheese with crusty panko topping, this was a warm and tasty dish. I substituted the almond milk I had on hand for the dairy milk called for in the recipe, which resulted in a thinner sauce. I think dairy milk would help make this dish a bit more filling. The recipe says it serves eight, but it was closer to 4-5 dinner sized servings for me. I also think a nice, melty cheese like cheddar or mozarella would be a nice substitute for the fontina. Writing about it makes me want to make this again...right now! 

Cilantro Lime Crock-pot Chicken (similar recipe)

A few weeks ago, before the arrival of my cousin's baby, I joined my aunt and cousins to help assemble six different crock-pot freezer meals. I was lucky enough to bring home 1/2 recipes of all of them, and I put this one to use right away! The best parts were the delicious aroma and the convenience, and a 1/2 recipe was plenty for several, single person meals. Despite using what seemed like a ton of cilantro and lime juice during assembly, I think this recipe would be improved by reserving some of the cilantro until the end of the cooking time and by adding more lime juice.

Butternut Squash Soup (similar recipe)

This might be the winning recipe from this month. Like most people, I spent the first ten or so days of January cutting back on sweets and trying to eat more vegetables, but by mid-month I wasn't following any kind of plan anymore. I chose this soup to help me reset.

Butternut squash can be kind of a pain to prepare with all of the peeling and chopping, but in this instance it was part of the reset process. It was nice to be back in the kitchen, preparing something I knew was good for me, and even better to be rewarded with a soup that continued to improve as I ate the leftovers.

Lemon Thyme Chicken

This recipe is another example of where I felt really good about the "making" part of it. After traveling for work Monday - Tuesday, and eating out on Wednesday, I buckled down after work on Thursday. I ran errands on my way home, knocked out two miles on the treadmill, put the chicken in the oven and finished my strength training while it baked (if only everyday were this productive!) This recipe came together really easily, the chicken was not overcooked, and while flavorful, I have plans to use the leftovers in a several different dishes - over pasta, chopped on a salad, in a soup etc.

I also did some baking this month - carrot cake and coffee cake - but neither recipe impressed me enough to be included here. Both came out drier than I prefer, probably from over baking. After having to add baking time to most recipes, I've concluded that my oven runs a little cool. I've started to compensate by adding a few degrees when I preheat, but it will probably take a few more tries to get it just right.

New Recipes: May

I am right on target for May with four new recipes this month!  And even better, no duds like in April.

First up were Lentil "Meatballs" with Lemony Pesto.  The recipe is slightly more involved than the ones I usually choose for myself, and in preparing the meal I made a pretty big mess.  The end result was totally worth it though, and I bet I can make it in a more streamlined way next time around.

I couldn't find  basil at the grocery store (I swear, everyone is making pesto every week...there is never any there when I shop,) and I didn't want to prune my own tiny plant down to a stalk, so I substituted more parsley and greens in the pesto.  Otherwise I followed the recipe pretty closely.

Next, I took care of an excess of squishy bananas the best way I know how: combining them with generous amounts of butter, sugar and chocolate to make Double Chocolate Banana Muffins.  The result was much closer to a cupcake without frosting and made excellent mid-morning snacks as long as they lasted.  With this recipe, I feel I have restored my baking credibility after last month's miss with the peanut butter banana cookies--phew!

I don't remember quite how I came across this recipe on the internet, but it sounded too good not to try: White Pizza Quinoa Casserole.  The ingredient list was full of things I like, but don't always have on hand which was the perfect excuse to make a trip to Trader Joe's and spend a little too much money.

Overall, a good recipe but I felt like there was a little something missing.  Maybe it's been a bit too warm to really enjoy a cheesy baked casserole, or maybe it needs a little extra flavor from some meat, like pancetta?  With the weather getting warmer, a remake of this recipe will have to wait until fall, but I think it's worth a shot.

The fourth new recipe this month was Crunchy Mandarin Salad with Miso Chicken.  I have made various renditions of this before, but this was my first attempt with this particular recipe (found on a loose sheet of paper with handwritten notes at my aunt's house) and adding chicken.

The salad was a winner, and the chicken marinade smelled wonderful.  I highly recommend toasting the almonds and ramen noodles that get sprinkled on the salad for a bit of extra flavor.  I also made the dressing in a jar, and dressed each serving as I ate them throughout the week.  The next time I make the chicken, I will let it sit a bit longer than the recommended two hours, and maybe by then I will have learned how to not overcook chicken.  I am so afraid of it being pink in the middle that most of my chicken dishes turn out a bit dry.

It doesn't look like it in the photo, but I promise there are leafy salad ingredients under all of the toppings!

I will be very impressed with myself I can keep up a new recipe per week through the summer.  My desire to cook tends to wane when it gets warm, and my diet shifts to lots of salads and frozen treats.  Technically, a new kind of homemade popsicle every week would count, right?

New Recipes: April

Perhaps I was making up for lost time and only two new recipes in March--I tried six new recipes in April!  The recipes are split evenly with three in the sweets/baking category and three in the dinner category.

Sweets:

1) Chocolate Almond Bread from an old Family Circle.

This was a fun weekend project that turned out beautifully.  The next time I make it I will knead it for less time (the recipe said 10 minutes!) consider replacing the almond paste/chocolate middle with Nutella to save a step, and skip dusting the loaves with sugar before baking.  After sharing some with my housemate and co-worker, I ate the rest of the slices for my breakfasts with a smear of peanut butter and strawberries on top.


2) Lemon Pound Cake with Lemon Poppy Seed Buttercream from Joy the Baker

I am usually pretty adamant that dessert isn't really dessert without chocolate, but when I was doing my meal planning this past week, this cake was the only recipe that caught my eye and I wanted to make.  The gorgeous spring weather may have had something to do with it and had me dreaming of tank tops, shorts and lemonades on the porch.

While my first slice didn't quite live up to my expectations, my second, third, fourth (and so on) pieces have been quite delicious.  I frequently find that with recipes that I am excited to make, the first bites somehow fall short, but the next day I am pleasantly surprised by my creation.  Does this ever happen to anyone else?


3) Peanut Butter Banana Cookies from All New Low Carb Recipes Cookbook

No photos, no rave review.  I should probably know better than to expect delicious cookies from a low-carb cookbook.  Perhaps most frustratingly, the portions were such that I could eat four no problem and while there was no sugar, each cookie clocked in at 100 calories.  Not quite as "healthy" as they tasted.

Dinners:

1) Shrimp & Grits

The impetus for this meal came from a package of grits that has been sitting in my pantry since one of my housemates moved out almost a year ago (Hi Christina!)  While technically past the expiration date, I still wanted to try and make something with them--and even when I halved the amount of butter and cheese called for in the recipe--I was a huge fan!  I added some extra veggies in the form of zucchini and tomatoes to make it a more complete meal, and was really excited for the leftovers at lunch the next day.  An easy recipe with a simple ingredient list, yet different enough from what I usually make.

2) Chicken & Sausage Gumbo from All New Low Carb Recipes Cookbook

 I wrote about this recipe earlier in the month.  And yes, those are more grits in the background.


3) Chicken & Tofu Scramble with Peas & Carrots from Homestyle Japanese Cooking

I picked up two slim paperback Japanese food cookbooks when I was teaching in Japan, and in the six or so years that I've had them have made only about two recipes from them.  With this recipe, the total climbs to around three!

As tofu is often considered a meat substitute, it may seem a bit odd to see it paired with chicken.  In Japan I found several instances where tofu was used as "meat-extender" if you will, adding some bulk but retaining the meaty flavor of the dish.  This scramble also featured the classic Japanese cooking combo of soy sauce, sugar, and sake.  I didn't have any sake, but some white wine worked in a pinch.

***

Without a doubt, some good eats this month!  I would make everything again, with the exception of the peanut butter cookies.  If I had to pick just one winner from each category I would choose the Chocolate Almond Bread and the Shrimp & Grits.

Stubborn

As I write this, I am wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up and have a mug of hot cocoa next to me. By mid-late April I would much rather be outside in a sundress, but clearly Mother Nature has other plans this year.  After reaching over 80*F last Sunday, this week it was near freezing for two of my morning commutes!  Finally, yesterday morning I dared to leave the house without gloves, feeling strongly that they shouldn't be a necessity in April.  Unfortunately, this conviction was not enough to keep my hands warm as the high was a paltry 57*F.

One way that I keep warm is by getting active in the kitchen.  I cooked twice this week, and both dishes had a little kick to them that made the house smell good and generated some heat in my tummy.

Meal 1--Chicken & Sausage Gumbo from All New Low Carb Recipes.  I found this book at my aunt's house, and was intrigued by the numerous dessert options in the back.  I surprised myself by choosing to make my first recipe from the front of the book instead.

The recipe came together easily, and I was pleasantly surprised by the flavor, since most of the ingredients were pretty basic.  I also sabotaged the "low-carb" nature of the recipe by serving it with a scoop of grits.

Meal 2--Spicy Chickpea Samosas with Raita from Cooking Light.  I first made this recipe in November 2013, but it doesn't appear to have made it onto the blog.  I know when I first made it because just like my mother, I am now putting the date and a letter grade on all of the recipes I make in my binder full of magazine cutouts.  Another way I recently discovered I am exactly like my mom?  Spending an inordinate amount of time comparing the color combinations of multi-pack tissue boxes to best "match" my decor.

Anyway...samosas!  I think the recipe is intended to make appetizers for a small group of people, but both times mine have turned into generously sized triangular pockets, two of which make a decent meal.  One benefit to going the appetizer route is the samosas will all be consumed while the outsides are still crispy.  This is not one of those meals that makes even better leftovers.

The ingredient list is a bit lengthy, but a good portion of the list are spices or other pantry staples.  The process is also pretty straight forward--chop, saute, season and fold.

My fillo dough had been chillin' in the freezer (pun intended) since the first round of this recipe last fall, so it was drier than usual and a little tricky to work with.  But coating them with melted butter and popping them in the oven at 400* for 10 minutes certainly helped cover up any flaws.

While the samosas baked, I prepared the raita.  Last time I remembered having a lot leftover, so this time I only used a 1/2 cup of yogurt, rather than the 3/4 called for in the recipe.

Served with a side of roasted brussel sprouts.

A nice veggie-rich dinner meant more room for Cadburry Mini-Eggs afterwards.  Even if the weather isn't cooperating as nicely as I want it to, it's still spring!

Week of Eats-Jan 12

I've got nothing in terms of a catchy title and introduction today.  I must have left my creativity in the kitchen this week.

I think this is the third time I have made Green Tuna Enchiladas, and they came out even better than the first two times due to the fact that I replaced the half & half called for in the recipe with about 1/2 cup of plain greek yogurt.  I liked this recipe before because it is really easy to put together with ingredients I usually have on hand, and like it even better now that I have made the sauce even creamier and more delicious!

My large salad from lunch last weekend had quite the variety of ingredients including spinach, shredded cabbage, cheddar cheese, avocado, crumbled veggie burger and pickles!  I took salad for lunch most days this week; they had the same base of spinach and cabbage, but were topped with more traditional toppings like carrots, cucumber, feta and balsamic dressing.

This spicy peanut chicken was the new recipe from the week that worked out (the Italian Pizza Bake hardly deserves a mention).  I threw all of the ingredients in the crock pot before I left for work, skipping the step that mentioned pre-searing the chicken, since that goes against my whole crock pot philosophy and "wake up as late as possible and still get to work on time" habit.  The cooking time may have been a little long as the chicken was bit dry, and I think next time I will add more peanut butter, but these are some leftovers I am looking forward to finishing!  I served the chicken with couscous and garlicky sauteed spinach and zucchini and felt like I was eating a dish from a magazine spread.

In addition to the other winners pictured here, I also made some really beautiful eggs for breakfast one morning.  What a great way to start the day, feeling accomplished before even leaving the house!  It's the little things in life...

Kitchen tip: reheat pizza in a fry pan to retain a crispy crust.

...and speaking of little things, the department I work in has a practice of enticing people to meetings by providing lunch.  And while there may be no such thing as a free lunch--the recipients do have spend at least an hour of their time listening to someone drone on about their project/vision--there is such thing as a free dinner if you happen to respond quickly enough to the e-mail announcing there are leftovers behind the front desk.  This week there happened to be a ton of leftovers from two separate catered meetings, so I got to come home with two pieces of pizza and leftover pasta salad.  Check out the neat-o pasta shapes; I have dubbed it mohawk macaroni.

Shortcuts

I've been complaining about a lack of time a lot recently.  Clearly I have some time since I manage to put these posts together...but meals with minimum effort are the name of the game as the semester draws to an end.

Simple shortcuts of late include sauce from a jar: 

The jar says nothing about how spicy it is!  I was expecting mild, but it's more like HOT!  I also think that my spice tolerance has diminished living on the East Coast (lame excuse, since my diet hasn't changed that much, but even my "medium" salsa is tasting pretty fiery these days.)

Sauce from a jar, plus frozen vegetables from a bag and some chicken, served over brown rice.  The curry came together so quickly since nearly all of it was from a package that the rice seemed to take forever.

I ate this bowl as is, but when I finished off the leftovers I added a large dollop of plain yogurt to cool it down a bit.

*****

My oldest and favorite kitchen shortcut is a box of brownie mix.  My mom started leaving the brownie making to me when I was in 3rd or 4th grade; which looking back was the start of my on-going relationship with the kitchen.  The beginning of my on-going love affair with food is harder to pin-point, since I am fairly certain it began mere seconds after my birth.

Anyway, I was in a baking mood last Sunday and Duncan Hines did not disappoint!  Minimal effort with maximum results...

...especially when topped with some tiramisu flavored ice cream.  No matter how crunched for time I feel, there's always time for dessert.

Last Supper

Keizo's last night in town we decided to stay in and cook together.  We didn't head to the store until about 5, and then I made him do Insanity with me, so I don't think we started cooking until well after 7. 

The menu was pasta with vodka cream sauce, roasted broccoli and garlic toast.  The cream sauce sounds fancy, but I got the recipe off the back of a bag of store brand frozen tortellini and added a ton of extra vegetables.  

Ready to eat!

The sauce was yummy, although next time I don't think I will add all of the liquid called for in the recipe.  All of the extra vegetables meant that I had leftovers too!

bistro 204

Inspired by our multi-course meal on New Year's Eve, Keizo and I decided it would be fun to make our own multi-course dinner at home.

The menu was as follows: a toasted baguette with olive oil for dipping; spinach and prosciutto salad; roasted corn and bacon soup; "Cheesetastic" pasta; Lemon-Dijon chicken; and chocolate parfait for dessert.








In all, I think it took about an hour and a half to put everything together, not including marinating the chicken or dessert, which was concocted in about 2 minutes from ice cream, mini cookies and chocolate syrup.

For me, the highlights were the salad and chicken skewers.  As far as Japanese bread goes, the baguette was delicious.  The soup was tasty, and of course my dessert cup was practically licked clean.  I was excited about the pasta, but I didn't feel like it lived up to its cheesetastic name.  It might be better with a different cheese than the one we used.

I've never really cooked courses before, and it was fun to work on my presentation skills.  There were a lot of dishes to clean up afterward!